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Laid is not your typical sexual education book. It's raw, honest, steamy, scary, inspiring and exciting stories from young people across North America ages 18-25 on their experiences with sex as a teenager. The book is separated into five chapters based on five common young adult sexual scenarios: hookups, positive experiences, physical consequences, date rape and abstinence. No two stories are alike but in each chapter you will find the following components:
The Chapter Introductions
I have read every story of each chapter – and the ones that were not included – more times than I could possibly count! So I have a good idea of what you're about to get in to and some of the things you should keep in mind before you do. The intros will help brief you on the content while giving you an inside look at how the chapters were created and inspired.
The Stories
There are anywhere from seven to nine different submissions included in each chapter. Some people chose to share their monumental sexual experience through story, poetry or letters. Despite the medium, I was very stringent that everyone's delivery remained consistent. This is exactly what I told each author before they wrote their stories: write as though you are talking to your best friend. Your piece should show and NOT tell. Include as much detail as possible and avoid lecturing at all costs! Give each component of the story equal attention: set the scene for the reader, give an in-depth description of the sexual encounter and illustrate how that experience shaped you after the fact. Show us who you are, describe to us how you felt but please trust us (the reader) to draw our own conclusions. You will notice that the stories tend to end slightly abrupt without a “what I learned” conclusion, this was done purposely.
Got Questions?
Remember sex ed in school when you had the most inappropriate questions that you would never dare ask in fear of coming across as a nosey weirdo? I found while reading people's stories, I had a lot of questions like that. To be honest, I had never heard of HPV, I wasn't clear on what exactly date rape was and I sure as heck didn't know much about the G-spot until I read certain submissions. So I thought okay, if I don't know this stuff chances some readers won't either . The Q&A section is a place where those stupid/ bold/ crude/ insensitive/ nosey and incredibly valuable questions get answered! Unless stated otherwise, the responses are written by me. In addition contributors of the book, anonymous donors and experts took a crack at shedding light on some of the grey areas you may run in to while reading each chapter.
Check Point: The Reader Activities
This book is 100% about you. Every single story was written so you could learn from it but I know better than to assume that listening and absorbing is all the sexual education you're going to need. The best lessons come from self-discoveries. The activities are a place for you to relate each chapter's information to yourself and your own experiences. Check points are at the end of each chapter so you can draw conclusions while it's still fresh in your mind. These are extremely important so if I come to your house and see Laid on your coffee table with the Check Point pages left blank… you better start running.
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So, that is Laid in a nutshell. There are going to be many interpretations on this book but to me it is as straight forward as can be. Here are some more things that I think you should know before you begin:
The Goal
The purpose of this book is to arm you with the information, hindsight and confidence to pursue an amazing sex life. What that amazing sex life entails is up to you. Sexuality is an extremely personal aspect of every individual's life. There is no one-size-fits-all format. As long as you adopt a sexual mindset that: makes you happy, keeps you healthy and does not impinge on the health or happiness of your chosen partners – its right. We truly live in an easy access culture, which as I'm sure you've learned is a blessing and a curse. The text messaging, downloading, googling, mp3 generation has access to privacy, independence and personal identity a lot sooner which means that we should be savvy on adult behavior a lot sooner as well. Personally, I don't think it matters how old you are. I want you to read this book and in the end, feel like a proud-confident sexual being. I want you to hear each story out then form an enhanced understanding of the experiences you want, and want to avoid.
The Inspiration
At around the age of fourteen, I became very curious about sex. I wanted to know everything and I snatched any medium at my fingertips that could answer my questions without arousing any suspicion from anyone I knew. Sadly, online porn is more accessible and private than credible sources. I now consider this to be a huge reason why I threw myself into a sexually unsatisfying lifestyle. Young adults need to be taught about pornographic content the same way they are warned about wrestling in the WWE – it's not real.
There were also other reasons why I became a pleaser: my understanding of my own sexual anatomy was grossly underdeveloped; I learned early that sex was the easiest way to approach a guy; I found it very hard to say stop; even harder to express what I actually wanted and finally at least with hookups no one could break up with me since the guys never seemed to want to be my boyfriend anyway.
By the age of 18 I felt trapped by my own sexuality. It was a lot of emotional pain and I didn't find that I was experiencing the physical gain to make it justifiable.
I lacked truth, more accurately, I lacked enticing truth. The numbers, facts, and “sex should wait for love” school curriculum did not fit in with what I understood as my friends, role models or my own reality.
By nineteen, I began to realize how phony that reality truly was. Friends were getting abortions; some had children; others finally admitted to the lack of physical pleasure in their sexual experiences. Stories of STIs were creeping out of the woodwork, and testimonies of emotional emptiness trailed behind broken sexual relations. It seemed everyone was getting tired of lying.
After being exposed to so much honesty, I became as sexually curious as I had been at 14 but this time I knew where to look for the real answers. I feverously sought out facts, numbers, and my peers' stories because they now held relevance. I avoided the media and its orgasmic tales, I read up on female sexual anatomy but I felt there was more I needed to learn. I had gotten so much information from my small circle that I decided to branch out and see what others around North America had experienced.
In what seemed like an overnight whim, I launched a website called Save Your Cherry (www.saveyourcherry.com), a small, poorly designed site that shared my own experiences and encouraged others to write in and tell theirs. It initially broke my mother's heart, but it went on to help hundreds of thousands of curious and perhaps a little fed-up young people like myself. Based on the site's success, I decided to try and turn the collection into a book. I obsessively recruited writers using youth networking services like Myspace, Facebook and Urbis. There is no way to calculate just how many hours I spent telling others about a book that needed their voice.
Laid is a labor of my love and a testament to the power of peer mediation. At times it is shocking, tear-jerking, and beautiful, but most importantly it is always honest.
The Question
Reader, if your sexuality was a canvas and every partner you've ever had, painted something on it – what would it look like? I s yours crowded? Is it a masterpiece? Or is it straight graffiti?
Right now I'm going to ask you to turn to page one so that you can begin to analyze and learn from canvases that belong to about 40 different young people who have chosen to share their experiences with sex in an easy access culture. |
