Why I Teach and Talk about Sexuality
A friend recently suggested I tell my story about why I think talking about sexuality is so import, so here goes. I really don’t have any problem talking about this in small groups, but to put it out here to a wider audience is pushing an edge of visibility for me.
As with many people, when I was a teenager and young adult, sex was a taboo topic and a topic of great shame for those who engaged. Especially women. So my internal desire to experience and explore sex was something I kept pretty private.
When I was in my twenties, I had a lot of fun with my partners, but there was always a backlash of guilt or shame for having engaged my desires which were not ok with society as a whole.
When I married in my early 30s, I shut down my exploration to be monogamous with my husband. I went on this way for 20 years before I finally opened the door on that hidden part of myself again.
When I opened that door, it was like a wonderland. My whole life lit up in a new way. I regained so much of my internal power, joy, and badassery.
So here’s the thing:
Shame
It stopped me as it stops so many of us. Shame I took on because of the life I THOUGHT I was supposed to live.
Looking back, I actually always had very little shame about sex and sexuality, but I took on playing the part.
Yes, I had sex. Yes, I liked having sex. Yes, I had multiple partners.
I didn’t understand how much shame people have around sex until I started talking about it so openly myself. I remember a conversation with a friend about sex and she said she could never say some of the things I so openly said especially regarding conversations with her husband about their sex lives.
What?!!
Why not say those things?!!
For me my door opened again when I joined a women’s community where they talked real talk about sensuality, sexuality, and what it’s really like to be a fully embodied woman in this world. I remember reading about women’s experiences around sex, what worked for them, what didn’t, about polyamory relationships and about just exploring what is pleasurable.
And something in me just went YES!!!! I need that in my life!
That long closed door flew open. I started exploring pleasure again. I started exploring what lights me up. I started exploring sex and pleasure within my long term very stagnant relationship.
Unfortunately he was unable and unwilling to meet me where I needed to be met and I was completely depleted from meeting him where he needed to be met for so many years.
NOTE: Please don’t give your power away like I did. It’s a long journey of reclamation.
NOTE: Also, know that this reclamation was all about me. Not about what someone could or couldn’t give me.
So there I was at 50 finally coming back to myself and my true nature. I have no shame around sex and sexuality anymore. I have no shame around following my pleasure. I have no shame about my turn on and the many ways I can be turned on. I have no shame over the many facets of myself anymore.
So I talk about sex and sexuality because I have seen so many who have deep shame around these topics and I really want to normalize it. I want everyone to be able to talk as easily about sex as they do about yoga.
Because I see people who don’t know themselves and their own deep desires. I see people who shut away their true selves behind deeply locked doors labeled as shame. I see people who don’t know what really turns them on or what brings them pleasure. I see people who can’t talk to their partners about what really turns them on and what turns them off. I see people who have zero body love and therefor judge themselves harshly. I see people who have deep shame about what turns them on. I see people who think no one will ever understand them or be able to meet them in the places they long for and they judge themselves for that.
There is so much pain in this world tied to sex and sexuality.
I deeply desire to alleviate some of that pain if I can.
That is why I teach and talk about sexuality.
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