Amber Ruffin, an amazing “Late Night with Seth Meyers” show writer, recently showed the host her safe space. Watch and see why it’s the best place ever.

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One of the more recent creations helping marginalized groups—Native Americans, African-Americans, LGBTQIA—is the “safe space.” Each “space” is considered a place where people can meet and talk in an environment free of judgement and harm.

Sounds innocent, right? Well, a few folks have decides there’s something wrong with a concept meant to help enforce safety.

The problem

Many safe spaces are meant for “certain people” to go to feel safe. Safe space denouncers say these areas are detrimental to critical conversation.

“I think this [safe spaces] is just a way of preventing people from coping with the difficult task of critical thinking,” Varda Meyers Epstein, parenting expert and writer at Kars4Kids, says.

Epstein and other people who don’t like the safe space concept just want everyone to accept that all individuals think differently. Participating in any debate allows people to better handle difficult topics.

“The best alternative to a safe space is to politely engage those we disagree with and if we cannot come to a place of mutual agreement, we should agree to disagree, even on stuff that makes us feel bad,” she adds.

The solution through education

The distortion of the real safe space definition is rampant. Sure, there are most likely some safe spaces that are exclusionary. However, anyone who hopes to further a marginalized group’s cause or increase that group’s safety would not think a truly exclusionary safe space is helpful.

“Safe spaces are dedicated to bringing like-minded people together who have felt some sort of distress,” Sarah Brown, community outreach coordinator from SafeWise, says.

“It’s similar to a club of people who like to do the same things except it’s for people who deal with similar issues. There are a lot of people who go through life feeling like they’ll never have a safe space. Creating one and sharing can be very healing.”

How can we—safe space enthusiasts, if you will—make sure positive safe spaces remain active and inclusive?

The way people change anything—through education.

Brown explains that a safe space can’t just be a group of people who are hanging out. These “safe” people need to get out into the community and educate others about inclusiveness.

“Society will never become more inclusive if we are constantly looking for ways to exclude each other,” she adds.

Through community engagement, like-minded people can help bridge the gap between different groups.

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ColumnLately, it seems like there are too many stories of women being battered, harassed, trolled, stalked and threatened, both online and off. It’s enough to make us feel like there is no such thing as safe space, especially when it comes to expressing and enjoying healthy sexuality.

No matter what your actual exposure to such threats are, these stories have a way of invading our psychic space and making us all feel vulnerable (even as they may make us also feel angry). This can happen even if your life is a veritable advertisement for the idea of “safe space” – maybe you have a great relationship, plenty of stability, and a well-lighted entrance to your front door.

For the purposes of this column, I’m assuming that you’re not currently involved in a domestic violence situation, being stalked, or otherwise facing any of the traumatic situations outlined here.

From Ray Rice beating his fiancee in an elevator and avoiding consequences for months, to the hoax in response to Emma Watson’s speech at the UN, to feminists harassed and stalked by aggressive trolls online, to the Columbia student who is carrying a mattress around campus as a symbol of her sexual assault, to a teen girl’s brutal rape shared on Snapchat, to nude celebrity photo leaks — there is a long and growing list of awful threats to women’s bodies. In the same way that the media’s relentless focus on terrorism can make your heart rate go up when you descend into the subway, awareness of the dangers women face can subtly affect your otherwise healthy sexuality.

The lesson many have absorbed from the recent celebrity photo scandal is that women shouldn’t share naked photos even with their intimate partners — it’s straight-up slut-shaming. Of course, anyone with a brain knows that no woman is responsible for the hacker that stole her photos from the cloud, nor is she responsible for the ex who sold her photos to a magazine. This is the equivalent of telling women not to drink at frat parties, or not to wear tight clothes lest they invite unwanted attention. Rape culture insists that women are responsible for avoiding lecherous glances — not that men are responsible for their actions. This is the “boys will be boys” approach to creating safe space, and it’s utter BS.

Is there any part of you that buys into that? If yes, don’t be ashamed — it’s the basic narrative of Western culture, part and parcel of patriarchy — if you’ve never thought it to be true you’re a rare out-of-the-box radical. I didn’t get it until my twenties, when a few awesome women’s studies classes helped me begin to peel the Madonna-Whore complex off my skin, and kick it out of my bedroom.

Creating a collective safe space for women to embrace healthy sexuality is a work in progress, and there’s much to do before we can rest. But you can take control of the project of creating safe space in your own bedroom right now. I can’t promise to make you feel safe if you have to walk down a darkened street late at night, but I can suggest ways to feel safe and empowered in your body and in relationship to your sexuality. The reason the collective project is so complicated and long in coming is that male gaze is embedded into almost everything we are and everything we do. We’ve got to tease it apart, separate from it, and figure out who we are and what we want – not just that we want to be wanted.

So take a few moments to think about how much you’re affected by the pervasiveness of rape culture and toxic masculinity. Say you have a male partner who is a feminist and great in bed to boot — let’s just assume you’re that lucky. Despite his all around awesomeness, you’re partly reacting to his touch based on what you’ve learned about what it means to be a woman in this world.

Work on claiming your authentic desire by stripping away the layers of cultural dross about what you’re supposed to look and feel like. Of course, all sexuality is a dance between nature and nurture, and our early sexual experiences are imprinted on our brains, entwined with our hormones and sexual response cycle. But it doesn’t have to be rote — you can own the process whenever you’re ready to. It can be better,  safer, healthier and hotter — all at the same time.

This is all very subtle and not necessarily easy to wrap your brain around. Some readers are doing the #30DayOrgasmChallenge to better understand their sexuality and connect to their intimate partners at an ever deeper level. They’re challenging their ability to access ever deeper wells of pleasure. I believe that getting down to the brass tacks of your barest, deepest longings must first be done solo. This is perhaps the safest space of all.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie at ecosalon dot com, and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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