February Explorations: Creating a Home Within Our Bodies
....somatic practices, writing prompts, a tarot spread, and more to help us rewrite messages we were given about our bodies and to create a foundation for pleasure to flourish
For us to open ourselves to sexual pleasure, we have to feel safe being in our bodies.
Finding this sense of safety, however, can be incredibly challenging. As poet and activist Sonya Renee Taylor writes about in her book The Body is Not An Apology systems of oppression, such as racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, and fat phobia, can all make it challenging and even deadly to live in our bodies.
We internalize the messages that we receive about our bodies from the world around us. Some of us experience violence directly as a result of the way that other people respond to our identities and what our bodies look like. In turn, our bodies respond to these experiences we go through and store what they learned, all in an attempt to survive.
We might think that we have let go of what our body has experienced, but our bodies often say something different.
Intertwining with various systems of oppression, the experiences we have with our bodies in the context of sex affect the way we feel about and our ability to inhabit our bodies.
Some of us will experience the trauma of sexual violence, which will certainly impact the way we feel about our bodies and our capacity to be sexual.
In addition, I think that simply being socialized as a woman can have profoundly negative impacts on the felt sense of safety and comfort that we have in our bodies — and ultimately on our ability to experience sexual pleasure.
In “Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life”, her book about women’s sexual wellbeing, author and scientist Emily Nagoski says, “The day you were born, the world had a choice about what to teach you about your body. It could have taught you to live with confidence and joy inside your body. It could have taught you that your body and your sexuality are beautiful gifts. But instead, the world taught you to feel critical of and dissatisfied with your sexuality and your body.”
Even if we didn’t grow up in a specifically religious household, most of us who were socialized as women were denied basic information about our anatomy and how our bodies worked. We were given very confusing and stressful messages around what sex was and when it was okay to be having it. We were told that if we wanted to be loved, we had to be sexual, but not too sexual – and only in romantic relationships, preferably marital ones.
We were told that when we were sexual, that we had to make sure that we were pleasing our male partners, that he would have an orgasm – but that all we should want is romance and affection. That we shouldn’t know our own bodies because those parts of our bodies were just as dirty and shameful as our desire for sex. That our bodies were difficult to please, that when we ask for our needs to be met, we would be asking for too much.
We might not always recognize these experiences as a form of trauma, but I absolutely think that the way we raise girls and women to think about their bodies and sexuality can be traumatic.
With all these messages we receive and the very real experiences of violence that we have, of course our bodies struggle to let go when we’re in intimate contexts. Of course it can be difficult to be fully present in the full sensations of our bodies, especially those of our genitals. Arousal can be a sign to our bodies that we’re doing something wrong; letting go can mean exposing ourselves to emotional and physical danger.
If you’re someone who has been socialized as a woman and you struggle to be present during sex or to orgasm, it is absolutely not you. You are not broken. You are not wrong. You are someone who has been surviving in a deeply sex negative and violent culture that has used sexuality and the norms around it to control and oppress people with vaginas.
It might seem insurmountable to work through all this, but what if it could be as simple as learning how to come back to our body? To create a new story for our body, a new way of being where we’re the ones in charge of the narrative? Where we can let go of what we’ve learned about ourselves from others and form a different type relationship with ourselves, one where it’s safe to be embodied?
Last month we explored our fantasies and deeper desires within them. As you explored some of those practices, you might have noticed different emotions coming up for you. It might have been difficult to be present in your body or to let go of any shame or guilt you felt.
This month in thecuriousclit is alllllllll about the body. About taking steps towards unlearning some of the harmful messages we’ve received and about learning to return home to the body, about finding safety and expansiveness there.
It’s the middle of Aquarius season and the beginning of Pisces season, and we’re going to be dreaming for ourselves and for the collective, creating a world where we can feel safer in our bodies, where we can experience the fullness and pleasure that they have to offer us.
This month I’ll be starting to release episodes of my podcast again, and I’ll be sharing another guest work – stay tuned! But to begin, here is a guide with various practices to help support you on this journey.
This guide contains:
an oracle card for the collective
an everyday grounding practice to include in your routine
the anatomy lesson you never got in school but should have
a mindfulness activity to help you navigate your relationship with your vulva
journal prompts
two pre-recorded yoga practices
poetry & fiction writing prompts
a tarot spread
suggestions for essays, poems, and a podcast episode around this month’s theme
While these practices cannot completely cover all of our different experiences, my hope is that these can be an invitation to explore, to unlearn, and to expand our felt sense of safety in our bodies so that when we are having sex by ourselves or with a partner we can more easily let pleasure emerge.
I invite you to take your time in moving through this guide. Feel free to follow the activities in order, jump around, or skip whatever activities you would like!
It’s your body, your practice, and your choices are always welcomed and celebrated in this space.
To see the full guide, continue down below: