The media culture I have grown up with, being 21, has been a plague on not only the self confidence I have had as prepubescent girl, but continued to spread its plague through adolescence and into my young adult years. We are, as women, bombarded with pictures of glamorized models, beautiful icons, and songs that tell us to be “popping” things about way before we should be. Sex is shown to be something of a game, rather than a serious risk – it never came across to me as something to think deeply about, just something you did. It is no wonder so many women struggle desperately to gain a sense of self love and confidence when we are taught to believe we should be everything but what we truly are, and taught that it’s gained through courses of action like sex, when it is not. We lose our true selves this way.

When I was 13 or so, I watched the sexy music videos. I changed my hair and clothes to those of my favorite past icons – Britney, before the bald stages of her life and sexy promiscuous, and go-getting girls like Jen from Dawson’s Creek. By the time I was 16, I’d convinced myself that blow-jobs were the “thing”, and I was excited when word got around that I was so great at them. I fed into it more and more, as status and idolization from peers became more apparent. I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing; giving myself up – yeah, that was it. When I was questioned by my mother, I gave the typical response, “Everyone else is doing it.” So I thought. It’s funny how we find out later that more of our peers than we think are actually not doing it, rather calling us sluts behind our back. My self confidence and respect I thought I had was based on a firm foundation of fake ass lies, thank you media, you got me.

Yet even after I came to realize how the media was sick and twisted, and sent messages about sex, beauty, and love that were full of fallacy and propaganda, I still let it rule me. I drank. I had lots of very risky sex with multiple partners of both genders. I tried useless fad diets because I felt fat and disgusting. I picked friends who led me into situations I didn’t need to be, and pretended I was confident , happy, and content with my choices even though I was clearly not. I even backed my behaviors with celebrities examples, as if that made it okay. I let the media control my thoughts about topics like sex and drinking – I never developed as a person based on my own individuality. I missed the greater part of my self-discovering years, wasting it to become a person I didn’t know, which led to some very difficult catching up to this day.

Sex is one of the most glamorized topics of choice for the media, and the easiest one that can destroy us if we aren’t careful of our interpretation of it. It can take the confidence of a young girl into the palm of its hands, as it did mine, and crush it without hesitation – before we realize what the hell we are getting into and the impact it makes – it’s already done.