If you are uncomfortable thinking about women in their turn on, you might want to stop reading...you also might want to read and think about why you are uncomfortable with women talking about their bodies, turn on, etc. Or this might be me projecting my discomfort talking about my turn on...
So yesterday, I went into that far right corner of my closet. The one with the box. The box my best friend knows about and has been told its location to evacuate if anything happened to me so my parents would not have to open this box and see things like lube, condoms (i admit i am uncomfortable typing these words), the Kama Sutra, Anne Hoppers pocket guide to sex, erotica, massage oil, a beautiful peacock feather, temporary tattoos, bedazzling jewels, a vibrator that looks like a tube of lipstick gifted to me by my co-workers when i left to backpack through Asia.
The thing is- I'm guessing a lot of us have these boxes. And it made me wonder. As a single woman, living in my own apartment, why did I still have this box? Why were these books not out on the bookshelves, mixed in between Pema Chodron and David Sedaris, heart, humor, orgasm. LIFE.
Why were these tattoos unused? Shoved away in a box is not super convenient.
And sadly, why is this box so dusty? Because I shoved this part of my life into the far right corner of my closet, that is why. Because it wasn't mixed into my life. It was relegated to the back, a dark part as if there is some shame in my bodies natural desires to be held, touched, to feel that fire, to experience orgasm, climax, sensation. To feel attraction, connection, communion, sensuality and to do something about it. Sex is so many things, there are so many shades of it, so many elements to explore just like LIFE. So why was I so comfortable exploring the world Solo but not my sex?
And then I realize as I type this- this isn't true. I've done a lot of deep powerful work to heal my relationships with my body, my womanhood, my feminine, with men, with my sensual and sexual nature. I just haven't talked about. I kept that part of my journey in the far right corner of my closet. Hidden away waiting to be embraced, opened, explored, brought out into the light to feel loved and adored in a larger context until I felt safe enough to do so. And that is it. I am safe now.
So while all those items are on their way to goodwill (you're welcome Seattle) that part of me is here. Embraced. Welcomed. Profoundly proud, and knowing that this part of me is something I need, and let's be honest, something the world needs. We need a world where women are reclaiming healthy turn-on, sacred sex, primal truth..all of this lights up the world, all of this creates more communion with ourselves, our earth, each other. I have been afraid of this part of me because of the power of it, the depth of it, the nuances of it (and the 5000 years of killing, shaming women for their turn on, and the unconscious shaming so many of us grew up with certainly had something to do it with my fear...that is another post). For now I know my wisdom and my power is in my body, and my turn on is a part of that. So I proudly take this SACRED NATURAL part of me with me out in the world, to help guide me, to light me up, to share that light with the world.
AND if you are uncomfortable with this I get it...I am too at times. But there is nothing to be uncomfortable about our bodies. It is the shaming of our culture which creates this uncomfortableness. And I am going through it, because I am no longer willing to miss out and I want to help others move through it too. NO more hiding. No more shame. No more fear.