The Impact of Media on The Way We Love

There’s a strange silence that lives in the aftermath of awakening. It’s the moment you realize the world has been teaching you who to love, how to love, and when to feel shame. Most of us don’t remember when our beliefs, love languages, or attachment styles were formed, only that one day, they were already inside us. For me, that realization came through the simple, trembling act of a kiss.

I had sex with my boarding school roommate for two years without kissing her. So when she finally asked to kiss me, I said yes. But the second our lips touched, I felt conflicted. Hesitant. Confused. Worst of all… disgusted.

Not with her, but with myself. Though I liked it, I convinced myself it was wrong, that I should’ve saved my first kiss for a “husband.” Even though my lips had already explored almost every part of her, my nervous system went into overdrive. My body recoiled as if intimacy itself were an abomination. I remember thinking, why can’t we just have sex without kissing? It felt too intimate. Too real. Too wrong.

Those thoughts didn’t appear out of thin air. They were planted, repeatedly through everything I’d watched, heard, or absorbed. 

Every show where the girl next door fell for the bad boy.

Every coming of age story where romance was only valid if it ended in his arms. From Girl Meets World to Boy Meets World, The same tired ol' narrative: love, to be worthy, must look a certain way.

That is how powerful the media is.

It shapes us before we can name ourselves. It teaches us which stories deserve tenderness and which are only worthy of spectacle. 

Growing up, every love story I saw centered on a man and a woman. Their kisses were framed by music, and beautifully celebrated. But when two women touched, it was either a sin or a scene made for someone else’s pleasure. It felt more like entertainment than intimacy. 

So of course the first time a woman touched me tenderly, I subconsciously recoiled like… “Sis, what are you doing?” 

The first time I saw two women kiss on screen, they weren’t in love. They were a headline. Their affection was treated like a scandal, one you didn't see coming. Almost like their desire was a plot twist. I didn’t realize it then, but those images burrowed into me. They taught me that love like mine is vulgar, invalid or made for a certain website that rhymes with corn.

So when I finally found it: real, tender, messy, I couldn’t let myself receive it.

That’s a tragedy of representation done wrong.

Now, I’ve spent years unlearning the shame that was never mine to begin with.

The Collective Impact

When your body learns to defend itself before it learns to receive love, certain acts feel rebellious. The queer body, especially the sapphic body, often carries generations of fight or flight energy. Even when we’re safe, we brace.

What exactly are we bracing for?

It’s not only personal, it’s collective. The media doesn’t just tell individuals who to be, it tells societies which lives are worthy of protection. And so, when we’re portrayed, it’s often through extremes like: the over sexualized seductress, the tragic martyr, the activist on the front lines. Rarely the thinker. Rarely the artist. Rarely the lover of beauty, or philosophy.

As a result, many of us grow up mistaking gentleness for weakness. We’re told that to be queer is to protest, loudly, endlessly, with ferocity. As vital as protest is, it can also become our only language.

When your nervous system lives in a constant state of defense, of fighting for your right to exist, you can slowly forget what you’re fighting for.

We fight for love. For the right to experience it freely, without fear, without being reduced to a trope or a threat. Yet somewhere between the chants and hashtags, love itself can get lost in translation.

Non-queer people who don’t live inside our culture often see only the resistance, never the reason for it. They associate queerness with chaos, not care; with disorder, not devotion. In a world obsessed with control, that image makes them retreat instead of reach.

But our existence is not a disruption of peace, it is an expansion of it.

Pink Sappho to the rescue

That is why Pink Sappho was born.

To create a world where sapphics can be seen in Philosophical dimensions: Intellectual, emotional, spiritual, sensual. A world where education, wellness, and authentic connection are the pillars of liberation.

Pink Sappho isn’t just about visibility; it’s about visibility with reverence. We are reclaiming softness as strength. We are teaching that intimacy isn’t shameful. We’re rewriting the narrative that told us we had to choose between being loved and being ourselves.

We are thinkers. Artists. Lovers. We are gentle, sensual, and grounded. The media may have distorted our reflection, but we are here to correct the lens.

Because when you control the narrative, you control the nervous system. You decide whether a young girl’s first kiss feels like a sin or a song.

So we tell new stories. Ones where queer love is not an act of defiance but an act of nature.

Our Tender Revolution

Every time I revisit that memory from boarding school, I no longer feel disgust. I feel compassion, for the version of myself who didn’t know any better, and for the world that didn’t yet have the language to tell me I was normal.

We are all, in some way, learning to love ourselves out loud.

The work begins with rewriting the scripts we inherited and replacing them with ones we choose. That’s what Pink Sappho stands for: the power to educate, heal, and to connect through authenticity.

So stay ready.

Viva la revolucíon! but tenderly.