Chapter 6 Review: Savor Your Sexuality

Fair Warning: This blog posting is extremely explicit and sexual in nature, due to the subject of this week's chapter, Savor Your Sexuality. In addition, it is extremely personal, but in an effort to really truly grow I am making myself vulnerable. I have often found saying the things out loud that I can barely admit to myself changes my perspective altogether and I grow tremendously. It has also been my experience that when I take that chance I am often rewarded in hearing that other women feel the same pain and fear and appreciate my candor. I hope that this is what will transpire here. On a second note, you'll probably wonder if I'm ever going to get to the point of this chapter or is this some self serving diatribe on premarital sex in an attempt to somehow justify my inability to savor my sexuality as an adult. Well, yes and kinda. Yes, I do eventually get to the point (after a very long time). And no, it is sincerely in hope of seeing a lot of virtual heads bobbing up and down in affirmation that you too struggle to savor your sexuality, but I don't spend a lot of time on the actual chapter. If you want to talk specifics of the chapter let's get together and chat. Now that I think of it (the warning was written after the posting), perhaps this story would have been much more appropriate for one-on-one girl talk and the chapter review more beneficial for the public-ness of a blog, but as you'll learn in this post, I'm not a well person and rarely act appropriately. With that said, I lovingly and fearfully share this with you.

I started having sex when I was 12. Not even a mature-for-her-age 12, just a scared, pressured and confused, little girl 12. Within a couple of days of my first kiss I had my first sexual experience. I didn't understand why I did it. I don't even think I made the decision. I just kind of looked up and it had happened. I continued to have sex with almost every boy who showed me the least bit of interest until I was 22. That includes boys I had just met, boyfriends of friends, party acquaintances, the popular boy (which he kept secret), adult high school coaches, pretty much any man that would want to hold me and value me. I had a nice taught body that was curved in all the right places, it seductively moved the way I wanted it to, and it attracted a lot of attention. Of course, these interactions never resulted in what I was so desperately searching for... a place to fit, arms to hold me tenderly and lovingly, to be cherished and taken care of, to feel worthy and valuable to someone. I even thought I enjoyed it. I would tell my friends so. Apparently it was the best thing since sliced bread. But I never once had an orgasm or could remember feeling anything other than fear of the consequences once it was over.

What I didn't realize is that each of those instances a little part of me would stay with him, and a little piece of him would stay with me. How romantic that sounds? Connected for life through such a sacred physical act. Bullshit. The part of me that stayed with him was my dignity and self-love. My security and self-preservation. My passion and self-worth. The part of him that stayed with me was the disgust, the disinterest, the selfishness of having sex without love. So now I have layers upon layers of disgust at the price of self-significance. Every time I enter my married bed that disgust lies down between my husband and I. It shadows our most intimate moments. Moments that should be shared passionately and deeply, but instead they taunt me and whisper that I'm trash---garbage that should be used and discarded.

I started having sex when I was 12 and I didn't stop until I was married. I stopped when I got married. Not the physical act, of course, I pretended to have deep sexual and emotional experiences with my husband. You could have heard my dramatic and seemingly joyful orgasmic pleas for "more, more, more" a mile away---little did I realize or my husband know that I was desperately begging for more. More intimacy. More love. More me. I wanted me back. I gave up me before I even got to know her. I have no idea what my sexuality looks like because I sold it long before it developed. So what does that make me as a married woman? A child really... 12 years old... still lost and confused and pressured to be what I think I'm supposed to be.

Today my nice taught body has been replaced with flab and fat. My curves exist in all the wrong places, my seduction act looks more like "run before he sees me", and unfortunately, it stills attracts a lot of attention... just not the kind you want to hear. And of course, my interactions with my husband still never result in what I am so desperately searching for (although he tries desperately)... a place to fit, arms to hold me tenderly and lovingly, to be cherished and taken care of, to feel worthy and valuable to someone. This isn't to say I have a terrible, sex crazed, use-her-and-lose her kind of husband--- in fact, he is everything to the contrary--- he is loving, and forgiving, and understanding. He tries so hard, only to see sadness in my eyes. The problem is this... he can't make me "fit" or be "tender" or "cherish" me or give me "worth" if I don't accept myself in those ways. He can only love the woman I am, not the woman I wish I were.

I was most struck by one of the blurbs in Nicole Johnson's margin. It listed all the "things we do to avoid sex." Anyway, back to the margin list... which I read thinking, "Wow, none of this is me. I must be doing something right." Then I saw the fifth item on the list --- Eat too much. I read it so fast, it almost didn't' sink in. And then I went back. And read it again. And again. And again. Then I cried. Please don't misunderstand me... I don't avoid sex. In fact, I am the opposite. I am far more sexual than my husband. Not because I want to have sex, no that would be too perfect. I have sex a lot because I am desperately searching for something. I figure it's got to be in there somewhere, right? Perhaps if I just keep having sex in crazy positions or high heels and thongs, eventually my sexuality will show up. I'm learning that it's not how it works.

It really was an epiphany... the words sunk in like a boulder in a shallow puddle. I have made myself so undesirable, even to me, so that I would know for certain that if I am loved it will be for who I am and not for what I look like or what I can give sexually. It makes me sick to my stomach... so sick I want to down a chocolate cake in one sitting. It makes me sad that I've lost years and layers of who I really am to my own self hatred. I cannot look in the mirror and see one single thing I like. Not one single thing. I am disgusted literally from my head to my toes with what stares back at me. It didn't used to be that way. When I was 12 I was excited with the way my body was changing and how it looked. Unfortunately, I didn't have the emotional wellness to protect it, to grow it, to love it.

So where does this body go from here? It's kind of too late to change the past and the future is inevitably tainted by my underdeveloped sexuality. Where does one start when you're 34 and have the emotional sexuality of a 12 year old? I suppose 34 years old is as good a place as any to start... it must be better 35, right? This chapter has encouraged me to get back to that little girl. Make an attempt to grow her a little more, learn what I love about her, and then send her off to make adult decisions now that she is finally an adult. Now that she finally fits, and is cherished, and it is safe to be sexual. I think savoring is for the experts, it's something that is acquired, something that has been studied over a period of time, something that can be appreciated for its depth. For now I will start to explore my sexuality... to learn about it and to gradually take it back so that it can be fully and lovingly gifted to the one and only man who should have ever known it.