The Birds and the Bees (warning: they sting)

I wanna talk about sex.

Growing up, my parents told me that sex was serious. That it was something that happens when two people love each other and that it was a physical expression of that love. When I turned 18, sex was that 'next step' that I was supposed to take after dating my boyfriend for 5 months. Now I'm 20, and sex is nothing more than a transaction.

I don't want to be romantically macabre and say that courtship as it once was is dead, but considering what I've had to work with in the past couple of months, it kinda seems like it.

Call me old-fashioned, but I don't want to skip straight to the hole-in-one (pun definitely intended). I want to enjoy the put-putting of mini golf instead.

I want the rush of splendid dizziness at the first kiss. I want a sweaty palm intertwining nervously with mine. I want the shameless flirting, the innocent touches. I don't want the 1:40am booty call. Or the ghosting after a rejected advance. I don't want my body to be coveted but not cherished when I (finally) decide to share it.

Casual sex is fine; I honestly have nothing against it. It's just not for me at this point in my life and I think it's unfair that I'm immediately written off when I'm not down for it. I don't blame anybody or any boy for that matter, and I'm not throwing up a middle finger to society or men or even sex.

I just want people to think about this: Is sex really all that matters anymore?