"I thought I knew everything there was to know about having safe sex. Always carry a condom and never ever get pregnant."
That's how writer and director Daysha Edewi starts out her spoken-word poem. It turns out she had more to learn about safe sex beyond physical precautions.
In the poem titled "What I Wish Someone Told Me About Having Sex" posted by BuzzFeed Yellow, Edewi gives a powerful performance about the effects of having unsafe sex in a different sense, without the emotional protection one might need.
"People love to talk about how to avoid STIs of the physical kind, but nobody likes to talk about the STIs that can destroy your mind," she said. "The ones that can have you tossing and turning at 3 a.m. raking your brain and constantly wondering, ‘Was I not good enough for him?’"
As she closes the video, she talks about the "bastard babies called memories" left behind and how she wishes she and her partner would have used "both mental and physical protection." She also sends an important message to the man who caused her pain.
"I am a person," she said. "I have feelings and emotions that have a right to be protected and just having a vagina and two tits should not make me any less deserving of your time or someone to be disrespected."
While every woman can have whatever type of sex with whomever and can feel however she wants to feel about it, Edewi's words remind us that there's often more to truly "safe" intimacy than simply using physical protection.
Take a bow for a beautiful performance, Daysha.
H/T BuzzFeed
Also on HuffPost:
