Why I wear my hickey with pride

I honestly don’t know why I remember this, but my first exposure to a hickey was the 1996 Disney Channel movie “Wish Upon a Star,” starring, most notably, Katherine Heigl.

Like any other pop culture representation of a hickey, this one was intensely negative.

After the main character, played by Heigl, receives a hickey from her boyfriend, her sister uses it as blackmail.

It’s no secret that pop culture has very strict rules about sex. It’s why we giggle knowingly at Bree Van de Kamp in “Desperate Housewives” when she attempts to refuse her husband’s offer of oral sex.

“I’m a Republican,” she says.

Recently, I spent a morning digging through my closet looking for enough scarves and high-necked sweaters to feasibly make it through a week of class.

The weather may have gotten colder, but the real motivation behind my change of wardrobe was a little more sensitive.

Like Heigl’s character, I had a hickey. It’s not a terribly uncommon occurrence, for me or for any college student. But this time the judgmental looks and comments made me think.

Why do we apologize for meeting a basic, human, even animalistic, need for sexual expression?

Maybe the term “animalistic” has a negative connotation. If it does, let me be clearer.
Human beings are animals. Animals are sexual. In fact, to a degree, all life is sexual in some basic capacity.

It is probably the most factual of all facts that you and I exist primarily because of literally trillions upon trillions of compounded iterations of the sexual act.

My hickey, and indeed any hickey, is just a physical manifestation of this most human of activities.

So here it is, my hickey manifesto.

I believe:

1. A fundamental aspect of humanity is sexuality. Sexual health is just as important as mental and physical health.

2. Our sexual similarities and differences, along with intimacy itself, should be celebrated openly, not relegated to the bedroom or wherever else your escapades may take you.

3. The decision to participate or abstain from sexual activity to any degree is personal, and respect for it is necessary in civilized society. As such, terms like whore, slut, prude and others undermine our ability to function as a community.

4. As a responsible and safe sexual partner, I refuse to apologize for my sexual experiences. Far from making me a slut, I consider a hickey to be not only a mark of affection, but also a badge of humanity.

Sometimes sex is awesome. And sometimes sex sucks. But in both cases, I can’t think of anything more truly human, and I could never be ashamed of that.

So let’s reclaim the hickey. Next time I have one, I’ll be framing it with a lovely low-cut V-neck tee.

Next time I’m lucky enough to get lucky, I plan on displaying the evidence loud and proud.

Join me.

My name is Drake Reed, and I have hickey pride.

­— drlreed@indiana.edu