Woman on Fire (27 page)

You want to explore. Your sexual fantasies don't need to be original; someone has already thought of just about anything you might ever think of. You can take a scenario and put any type of
person into it or you can start with someone you find hot and build a fantasy around them. It's about letting yourself play! Sexy daydreaming!

Playing storytelling games with a partner is particularly fun. Tell a story. One person starts it, then the other adds to it, and so on. It's a great way to share your erotic thoughts and find out more of theirs. Do what works for you in order to inspire, motivate, and expose yourself to sexual energies and images so you can figure out what you like and what you don't!

Once you have a sense of what moves you toward desire, take action! Knowing is one step, doing is the next. It doesn't mean you have to live out a whole fantasy, but you might masturbate to it, write about it, or share it with a lover. As you do, you activate more of your own desire and sexual energy. The more you activate your energy, the more vitality, aliveness, juiciness, and vibrancy you feel. This is why it's important—not because you need to live in a fantasy world; rather, as you connect to what makes you feel sexy, desirable, sexual, and desirous, you light your sexual energy up like the flame it is.

When your flame is lit, you choose how you direct the light. You might use it to spark a sexual liaison. You might take it into your art studio, dance piece, kitchen, writing, or whatever creative project it might fuel. You might just express yourself with more passion and enjoy life a bit more. Sexual energy is creative energy. It's all sourced from the same well. Keep that well
fed.

Element 6:
PERMISSION

GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO BE EROTICALLY AUTHENTIC

In order to be sexually free, you've got to give yourself permission. Permission to be who you are. Permission to love. Permission to show up fully, to stop hiding the unseemly parts. Permission to explore sexually. Permission to like what you like, even if other people won't like it or might judge it. Permission to claim your own desires and to go for them. Permission to be and become who you really are. The act of self-permission opens up your sexual potential more than just about anything else. It is a self-loving act. Once a woman gives herself permission, the proverbial chastity belts come off and her sexuality can feel like it is fully hers.

One of the biggest things I do in my work with women is give them permission to explore their sexuality, to have desires that are outside of typical cultural norms and to embrace their whole, authentic sexual selves. And that gives them permission to give permission to themselves. We all learn to hold back from others and from ourselves for self-protection, fear of what might or might not happen, not wanting to be “too much,” not wanting to be disappointed, fear of not being able to do it or of being inadequate, feeling guilt or shame about likes or wants, or deep feelings of unworthiness. Sometimes the quickest way through some of these mental blocks is just to say “Why not?” and to go for it. Because none of these blocks are good reasons not to. They are fear- and shame-based.

If you've been told your whole life you didn't have permission—that the real decisions for what you were allowed to do or be sexually lay somewhere else (with the church, your family, your future mythical husband, your girlfriend, your father, your mother)—it's really hard to give yourself permission to do something out of bounds. What it requires is claiming your own agency over your decisions and getting clear about your own boundaries. It means exploring your limits and your “yeses.” It means having the freedom and safety to explore and discover what is really authentic—that is, true—for you.

I have regular conversations with women in which they tell me all that they deeply and truly want sexually and how frustrated, sad, or angry they are that they are not getting it. Sometimes I'm the first person they've revealed these thoughts and desires to in full, and the act of speaking them and feeling heard is a first step to their own sexual freedom.

You will never know what you really like if you don't explore it. There is a vast terrain of sexuality, but if we take on the ubiquitous
mainstream cultural idea about it, we just see it as penis-in-vagina, monogamous heterosexual sex. This narrative is so limiting and so boring it's astounding it has gotten so much play for so long. I'm not saying that monogamous heterosexual intercourse is wrong; just that it leaves out a whole array of erotic activity, identity, and expression that are part of feeling sexually whole—and many of us want more. Most of us don't see the fullness of our desires and experiences represented in the media, and that limits our ideas of what we can have and who we can be.

You can create your own narrative. You have an erotic orientation that is yours and just yours that is waiting to be discovered. To discover it, you have to go toward it, you have to have experiences, you have to allow yourself to think about sex differently and to be open to new ideas. Give yourself permission to approach sex in new ways, ways that are right for you.

When Rain, a forty-nine-year-old counselor from Virginia, came to work with me with her husband, she knew what she wanted and she wasn't getting it. She was at her wits' end, having been in a nearly sexless marriage for eighteen years. She had acquired a whole drawer of sexy lingerie, had bought toys, and had even done plastic surgeries in an attempt to make herself more desirable. Nothing had seemed to work. She had poured energy into the relationship so she could have the sex life she desired. She was a sexual being and was determined not to waste another month or year in a marriage where sex was dead, and yet she really wanted to be with her partner, so they came to me to work on their sexual life as a couple.

I felt for her and understood her anger and sadness at feeling rejected for so long. I also felt for her husband, whose sexuality was so
stuck, he just couldn't meet Rain in her place of desire. I sensed he had felt emasculated by her anger and that he was at a loss for what to do. He wanted to please her and to be a good lover, and he knew he was letting her down.

Both of them needed permission in so many ways: they needed permission to talk openly about this situation; he needed permission to be vulnerable about his erectile difficulties and to talk about how that shut him down in sex; she needed permission to want what she wanted and to make decisions that were in line with her desire. He avoided sex because he felt so bad about it and felt he couldn't “perform.” He needed to see that sex could look many ways and that his erectile issues didn't need to be a show-stopper as they had been for years. She was the initiator and she was run-down from the repetitive rejections she had experienced while trying to advance her marital sex life. Because she had had “till death do us part” ingrained in her as a value system, she had stayed for years and years, unfulfilled. Additionally, both Rain and her partner were HIV positive, and so exploring with other partners felt tricky after being monogamous with each other for so long.

I think the biggest barrier that I faced was my Catholic upbringing and the solid, firm, conservative sexual identity of my mother. Most of the messages that I had were instilled while I was still young: Sex was ‘shameful,' ‘bad,' ‘degrading,' outside of a monogamous marriage. I needed to release those messages in order to move forward as a sexually empowered woman. I needed to give myself permission to be honest about my sexual desire in a way that wasn't shameful, degrading, or wrong. I want to change. I want to be better than I am. I want to be more than I am. I deserve to have more than I have. I've limited myself because of the way I was raised and the trauma I've experienced.

Rain wanted more sex; however, most women have had the experience of being the sexual gatekeepers—that is, to determine when there is sex and when there is no sex in a relationship. Women often create the limits and pace around sexual activity. It can be a lot of pressure to be that gatekeeper. In couples there is usually one person who initiates sex. If it's not you, then you risk being perpetually passive—responding to what comes or what is offered rather than going for what you want. Very different approaches. Often the one who waits is unhappy because she is not going for what she really desires. Women often need permission to ask, approach, and go for it because we've been socialized to be “good girls” who wait to be asked. And if you initiate and are rejected repeatedly, as Rain was, that can impede your willingness or ability to keep initiating. It feels deflating.

Many women have also had some experience of their sexuality or sex being “taken” by someone else against their will. Someone took it without your permission. They claimed the agency. You were rendered powerless.

This kind of sexual experience and conditioning adds to the difficulties many women have in speaking up for themselves sexually about what they want or don't want. If you've actually been judged for your sexual expression or if you have been shamed for being sexual, it can be hard to give yourself permission to like what you like, particularly if it's outside of the mainstream norms we are taught we “should” want. For every woman to step into her own sexual power, she must discover her “yes” and her “no” and exercise both with full agency in herself and her sexuality. Give yourself permission to stop trying to please others, claim your authentic response, and use your power.

Many women have spent a lot of time following other people's desires—most likely the desires of men and the ones the culture tells you to follow. Now it's time to follow your own. It is essential that you give yourself permission to first explore new things and to have new experiences, and then as you find your big “yeses” and your clear “nos,” you can stand in them with confidence. This gives you permission to want what you really want and to set limits around what you don't. That is powerful.

People who know their boundaries and who can clearly state their “yes” and their “no” are more trustworthy. If I ask you to go see a movie with me, I only want you to go if it's going to be fun for you. I don't want you to go because you feel obligated or because you can't say “No, I'm not into that kind of film” or “I'm not up for it tonight.” If I know you can assess and express your boundaries, I'm going to be able to trust that you will take care of yourself and leave me to take care of me. You won't do something you really don't want to do. Then we can both feel more at ease and more in our own place of strength and personal power. This is even more important sexually because we are more vulnerable and emotionally invested in sex than we are in a movie.

If you are not used to saying no or you haven't really explored your sexual limits and expansion, then the exploration is the path to your own authenticity. If you take the time and spend energy to figure out what your likes, your kinks, your dislikes, and your “maybes” are, then you can be clear in yourself and with others. One rule that is promoted at Cuddle Parties, devised by Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski, that can be a helpful guideline is that a “maybe” is not a “yes.” Maybes are places where people become muddled, have a hard time being clear, and often end up regretting later. Try this: when you are in a place of “maybe,” it remains a “no” until or if it becomes an actual wholehearted “yes.” “Yes” can only be a true “yes,” an
authentic “yes.” Start relegating “maybes” to “no” and see how different it feels to be that clear. It cuts out a lot of confusion.

Erotic authenticity means that in all of your sexual experiences and erotic endeavors you are engaged only in what is clearly aligned and desirable for you. You are not succumbing to outside influence, creating an erotic persona that is not really who you are, or agreeing to things you do not really want out of a desire to please others, fulfill a role, or be what you think you
should
be. You are being and doing what you truly want from your own internal desire. Give yourself permission to identify how you want to explore and with whom and to take it at a pace that feels right for you.

I've spent time in lesbian and bisexual women's communities, queer communities, and other communities of sexual outlaws, with people who express their erotic selves differently and have lots of permission to explore. I have often taught at kinky events where there are workshops and opportunities for nearly any kind of play under the sun within the confines of what is “safe, sane, and consensual.” What I've seen in many of these alternative sexual communities is that because there is such a wide-open playing field, it can be almost overwhelming to newcomers. Sometimes there is a feeling that one has to like everything just because everything is possible. That is not what it's about. It's about figuring out what you really want and not fearing or judging sexual expressions that might be different from your own. What is wonderful about these communities is how people can be exposed to all kinds of play—the menu you are ordering from is so much bigger. There are so many ways to explore and expand erotic terrain. Just showing up at such an event is giving yourself tremendous permission to explore, grow, and learn more about what turns you on and what just doesn't do it for you.

The BDSM motto of “safe, sane, and consensual” allows for honest negotiation and creates a positive context for exploration. All play must be safe and not cause permanent harm to another; it must be sane, which means it should be sober and participants should be clear-headed; and it should be consensual, which means everyone is a big “yes” to the play they are engaging in and that mutual consent is clear. There are safe words that players pre-negotiate so that they can slow things down or stop if the play goes somewhere that they don't like or that is too much. You can always change your mind. You let your partner know by using the safe word that there is something to address without totally interrupting the play or taking yourself out of it. The word/phrase acts as an alert.

Imagine how people's sex lives would change if everyone adopted these ideals. Whether you are engaged in kinky play or more conventional sex, we can all use a safe word to change course or have a check-in, and consent should be clear. Consent is hot. Even if I see someone engaging in sexual or kinky play that I wouldn't be interested in for myself, just knowing that they really like it and are playing in their “yes” zone is sexy.