“We want a lady in the streets, but a freak in the bed.”

I couldn’t tell you how many times I rapped those lines along with Ludacris on the song “Yeah” by Usher. 

It was a huge hit in the 2000s, and I, like so many others, danced and sang along in the club, at home, in our cars and wherever this hit was played.

And the sad reality is, I actually believed those lyrics – that as a woman, I needed to be a lady in the streets and a freak in the bed.

But what did that even mean – and why did I feel it was a truth I needed to live up to?

I am sure you have heard the same saying or even something similar that suggested that women must be innocent and “pure”. But they are also expected to be experts in bed to please their partners.

Or perhaps you have heard men being encouraged to sow their wild oats and settle down later with a woman who is “untainted”.

And women?

Well, that is a different story altogether.

Because a woman who also does the same faces a very different reception as well as labels.

She is fast.

She is a whore.

She is damaged.

She is used.

She is bad.

The list goes on.

But who are men supposed to sow their wild oats with?

Somewhere along the way, we have collectively accepted that sex is something that is done to women and not with them.

The dissonance of men gaining “value” through sex and women losing theirs through the same is wild as well as damaging.

It is why I would dance away to lyrics that encouraged me to be a freak in bed and a lady on the streets.

It is the same dissonance that shames women who explore their desires, and the women who work in the sex industry.

What these narratives have produced are women who fawn to please sexual partners without a thought for their own pleasure.

I have sat through many conversations where women have described their vaginas as the “good” one. The kind that keeps a man coming back.

Ask these same women if they enjoyed sex and hear them describe the act like a chore they had to complete in their relationships.

Because how does the woman who is expected to remain chaste know what her pleasure looks and feels like?

So she fakes it!

Goodness knows I have faked it too – many times.

She lies about the number of men she has been with  – because she knows her value will be measured by it.

She stays quiet and hopes the whole ordeal ends quickly.

Sex becomes a task.

If any of this sounds familiar, you may have absorbed these narratives too.

You believe that your value is tied to how many men you share your body with. As if men are contaminants that devalue women.

You believe that you are to be consumed for the pleasure of your partner while neglecting your own. Because all you ever heard was how to save yourself for someone else.

And in order not to be shamed and labelled as a bad girl –  you have had to become small and pliant outside the bedroom – unassuming, innocent – inconsequential.

However, in the bedroom, you were expected to be “freakish” to please your partner. And even that supposed “freakishness” needed to happen within the bounds of belonging to one man.

But your body is not a ledger.

It is not a record of who has touched you and what value they took from you.

Your body is yours.

And sex is not something that happens to you.

You are allowed to take part in and enjoy it.

To tell your partner what you enjoy as well as what you don’t.

It is not your duty to fawn by faking pleasure.

And most importantly, your pleasure is yours – to give to yourself or tell a partner how to get you there.

So, get to know your body.

Tonight, learn how your body feels under your own hands when you are in bed. Don’t rush – let your touch linger and allow yourself to feel and notice what feels sensual to you.

And if that feels too much, then start small – your hand on your stomach, neck or chest. Notice how it feels to be touched by someone who wants nothing from you. 

Simply bring your body into awareness.

If you have been carrying someone else’s narratives about your body, sex, and your pleasure – reply and tell me the line you were handed.

There is no shame in naming it.

Name it and put it down.