The Gift in the Mud

It’s a wild time in our country for women and people with vulvas. There’s been a shakeup in the last few years with the #metoo movement, #timesup, electing accused (and confirmed) sexual predators to the highest offices in the land, and laws threatening our basic bodily autonomy and healthcare. Phew. It’s A LOT.

These times can leave us feeling very destabilized, disempowered, or downright scared. And as much as it feels like a non-stop shit storm or like we’re going back in time about a century, this shakeup is actually an opportunity.

It’s an opportunity for us to fortify our strength, personal agency, and bodily autonomy from the inside. What happens outside becomes less threatening when there’s an internal foundation of body literacy, boundaries, and pleasure.

Pleasure? Yes, pleasure. When our pathways to pleasure become cultivated and practiced, we naturally assume a low to zero tolerance policy for any advance, touch, or tone that isn’t in alignment with that. Pleasure also strengths our health, wellness, and ability to learn things and cultivate new habits.

Body literacy gives us the confidence and autonomy to make more informed and aligned choices for ourselves. With body literacy, we’re less likely to helplessly hand over our power to someone else, be that a partner, doctor, or boss.

This self-sourcing of true power feels good. Knowing your body also opens up new possibilities for a fuller experience of pleasure. And so the cycle of wellbeing continues.

While this revolution happens from within and its expression is unique to each person, the best way to do this work is in a group field where we can be seen, heard, held, acknowledged, and celebrated for exactly who we are. Shame thrives in isolation, yet it dispels is connection and belonging.

If you’re ready to sacrifice the outdated scripts you received about sex, your body, and power and live fully into what’s most true for you now, then please considering joining me in Radically Re-defining Sex: A six-week online transformative journey for women and people with vulvas.

This course is co-taught by me and the creatrix of The Artemis School (my original sexuality school), Lara Catone. We will lay the foundation and guide you in sexual science, embodiment practice, community connection, and inquiry for you to live into the unique erotic and empowered creature that is YOU.

The cultural moment is calling us forth into creative action. I hope you’ll consider this course as a part of that generative, nourishing, and fortifying creative action for yourself, and in turn, all of your relationships and the culture you create.

The Pleasure Gap

Sex geek time with sex statistics:

Women are four times more likely than men to report that sex has been not at all pleasurable in the last year.

95% of men vs 65% of women report always or often having an orgasm in sex.

This is what’s referred to as the pleasure gap.

Let’s dig a little deeper and find out wtf is going on here, shall we?

Imaging and messaging. The narratives and images we’re given about sex come from the male perspective. It’s generally genital focused, hard, fast, and goal oriented. It’s about getting to the finish line. This is usually not conducive to female pleasure and orgasm, which takes a full-bodied and circuitous path. Do we even know what sexuality looks like from the female perspective? Try to think of images or narratives. Please comment below if you can think of any. If we don’t see true female pleasure in our images (not women taking on or taking part in the male perspective) or hear it in our narratives, how are we to know what to do or what to ask for?

Wtf do we do about it?

Partners: It’s going to take a bold leap into admitting you might not know what you’re doing, but you’re willing to try. GASP, the opposite of what you’re told to be in bed, confident AF. Vulnerability and willingness will beckon forth female pleasure more than fake confidence and pretending like you know what you’re doing. The former will lead to connection, experimentation, and a devotion to the emergent moment which holds the key to non-linear female pleasure. The latter will lead to the same old shit that keeps women reporting that they’re not orgasming or experiencing pleasure in sex. How to stay ‘masculine’ in the process of being vulnerable? Stay present. Stay steady. Be the grounded presence she needs to feel safe. Learn to derive some of your pleasure through her erotic experience.

Women: It’s going to take a bold leap into prioritizing your desires and pleasure during sex. You can ask your partner to slow down, pause, breathe with you, or touch you a certain way. You can let your emotions that are rising to the surface come all the way out, for on the other side of that is the openness that you’re seeking. Let yourself follow sensation, the artistic flow of the intimacy, and forget any notion of what you think sexy is supposed to look or sound like. To quote Mary Oliver, “Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

It’s time for a new statistic. You with me?