Q+A with Renowned Indie Musician: Mitski
Topic: Sex, Consent, Body
Q: How did you feel about "the sex talk" when you first had it? How do you feel about it now?
A: I've never had it!
Q: Try to define intimacy.
A: Feeling safe to show your desires to another person, and knowing the other person or people feel that too.
Q: There are currently many social movements to promote consent and safe sex, including "No Means No" and "Yes Means Yes", especially across college campuses. How do you think ensuring consensual sex in young people can be properly executed?
A: It's hard, because you'd think that consent would be a no-brainer - I simply wouldn't want to have sex with someone who doesn't feel like having sex with me. But perhaps the real problem lies in the fact that so much of non-consensual sex has to do with power, and not to do with sex. So maybe it would be productive to have more discussions about power, about how our society as well as our individual upbringings might make us believe that we have a right to another person's body, or that we can force our feelings of power or powerlessness on another person, and so many more things that can be at the root of rape, or unsafe sex, or any sex without consent.
Q: What would you tell your past self about love, sex, individuality and body positivity?
A: Like Jasmine in Aladdin said, "I am not a prize to be won!" I think for most of the sex I had in my teen years, I was completely checked out of the equation, and it wasn't actually about what I wanted or how I felt. Which is stupid. I would tell myself that my body is connected to my heart and soul and brain, which seems obvious now, but wasn't to me at the time.
Q: What's your take on the trend of people coloring their body hair?
A: I don't have an opinion on it, I haven't really thought about it until just now.
Q: Describe your biggest fear or insecurity regarding sex.
A: It seems antithetical to divulge that to the public, no?
Q: What is your experience with birth control, STD's or sexual health in general?
A: I have a hormonal disorder, and I physically need the birth control pill regardless of whether I'm having sex with anyone. But because there was so much negative connotation around the pill (at least when and where I was growing up), I refused to take it, and that fucked up my body in some irreparable ways. That's years and years of my body being fucked up, that I will never get back, because I was worried about what it meant to other people for me to take the pill.