A big ugly spotlight has been trained on misogyny and sexual mores in the US over the past two ugly, gods-forsaken years. Maybe the one good thing to come out of all this is the number of women who have said, “Okay, enough. I’m done taking it. I have held so much peace my bladder is about to rupture. I’m through being treated like an object with no right to object.”
And we spoke up.
And it churned up so much pain and anger. There for a while, every damn day someone we never imagined – and often someone we totally could – was being called out for some degree of inappropriate behavior. And painful as it was, it was, and continues to be, a good thing.
I remember the first time a man made me feel . . . not right. It was my social studies teacher, way back in Jr. High. He encouraged me to read some books for extra credit – and then had me do oral book reports so he could sit across from me, stare at my tits, lick his disgusting lips and occasionally drool onto his double chin.
Fortunately for him, it never occurred to me to protest. I was just a girl, he was An Authority Figure, and I was not well-liked by the administration. It would not have gone well for me.
To this day I distrust people who think they have that kind of authority.
As we rally to take back our power and reclaim our sovereignty over our bodies, it’s important to consider a few points about sexual integrity. I am in no way trying to rain on anybody’s parade here, and gods no not trying to blame any victims. We make the choices we make often by seeing them through the lens of our wounds. We seek approval. We honestly have a need to assert our own controls. We want to be free to express our love, our lust, our desire, our sensual pleasure . . . and we deeply wish to rebel against the harsh reality that right now, it’s frequently unsafe to do any of that.
But beyond even that, there is the fact that we are sexual beings. The only way to create another human life is to have sex with somebody who has the puzzle pieces your biology did not supply. We owe our lives to sex. It conjures the ultimate crucible. It is the holy of holies.
And yet, we treat it so casually. Think about it – this is an enormous energy exchange with another person; little bits of them are left with you, little bits of you are left with them, and sometimes we carry those bits around for years. Especially the bad bits, the bits that make us feel ashamed, unloved, unworthy, used, and even more lonely than we were before. Sex, which should leave us feeling connected and in touch with the forces of life itself, can leave us empty if we don’t take it seriously. This is powerful stuff we’re playing with.
Even abstinence is better than bad sex.
Much better. In fact, it’s so much better that we really need to normalize and support it. At the very least we all need to be much, much choosier about who we share those primal and elementally powerful energies with. Just because we can have sex pretty much whenever we want to doesn’t mean we should. Truth is, most of us have way more bad sex than good sex throughout our lives. On the other hand, saying no should not be high-risk behavior.
In the world we live in, women’s bodies are not honored, and many of us internalize that. We think we’re less-than, unimportant, undeserving and worthless. Too many people simply don’t think past the “commodity” part. Women have been property for so long that it’s damn near impossible sometimes to remember that we’re not. We must replace this crap idea with better ones, that include equality, value, and worth. The images that we’re bombarded with that contribute to the commodity aspect of women – the sales pitches, the despair inducing “you’ll never look this good unless you buy this stuff” ad campaigns, the whole virgin/mother/whore tangle – we have to call out the misogyny in those images and ideas, and let it be known we’re onto them.
A lot of women believe they have a vested interest in supporting the Patriarchy. They have profited by being part of it and will do anything, including voting against their own interests as women, in order to preserve it. This is based in fear. The more we normalize the idea of women as equals, women as directors of their own courses, women who can stand on their own and be powerful without being dependent on men for assistance and approval, the more progress we will make toward bringing those sisters over to the cause of freedom. They have chosen a side that is not on the ascent. Patriarchy is declining all over the world, and it will inevitably do so here. We’re far along the right track, and we need to keep our eyes on the prize in order to bring it fully into being.
Bringing it deeply home, it is extremely important to choose partners carefully, and honorably.
Sex isn’t a good self-medication strategy, and unless you are with someone who really sees and honors you, it isn’t a cure for loneliness. Sex that empowers is based on equality and partnership, honoring the God/dess within each other and being honest, reverent, vulnerable, and real. It’s rare, but it does exist, and if you truly want it you can have it. You just have to become extremely picky about who you choose as a partner. A casual encounter can have this kind of depth if the right people are in the same place at the right time, and it can be life-changing in the best ways. But usually, it’s built on trust, care, mutual attraction and affection, and that takes time and gumption.
If you are in a relationship now where you are honored and cared for and loved, where you feel safe and valued, where you have total confidence that you can say “no” whenever you need to and suffer no consequences, treasure it. If you are searching for a relationship like that, keep the faith – and be picky. Choose you first. Take the time to build a relationship with you, from within, and two magical things will happen. One, you’ll attract way more appropriate and enlightened potential partners, and two, you won’t feel so lonely that you go for somebody wrong for you because it’s better than being alone.
Don’t take any crap. From anybody. Expect to be valued.
Stick to your truth and settle for nothing less, because you are an expression of Divine Perfection and you deserve to be adored. The only way we are going to heal our sovereignty is to choose our highest well-being every time.