Performativity As Protection
...thoughts about grief & about sex
I’ve been moving through a shit ton of grief this summer.
The kind of grief that I so badly want to avoid, so much so that since the beginning of June, I’ve re-watched every season of Bridgerton, including the most recent one that I had just watched. The kind of grief that makes my muscles so tight that I’m constantly sore even though I haven’t worked out, the kind of grief that makes it difficult to write or to keep up with responding to friends.
The kind of grief that makes me cry so much that there have been days where my iPhone can’t even recognize my face for Face ID.
I know that letting myself move through this grief is important…but the thing is, experiencing this messy, all-encompassing grief isn’t great for making it through regular life things. There are times where I have to ask my body to pull it together, where I can’t be present with those emotions or fully show what I’m experiencing.
Like when I’m at work and people ask me how I’m doing, what has immediately gone through my head on most days is some thought about how the person who was probably the most important person in my life during my twenties has just died.
But I instead of saying anything about that, I smile and tell them some minute, cheerful detail of my life. “I’m trying to stay cool in this heat, whew” or “The coffee is finally kicking in” or something else impersonal but lighthearted.
In this way I’m distant – but I’m also surviving.
You might be wondering why I’m sharing about grief and death in a newsletter about sex, but the truth is that this experience of grief has been making me explore aspects of performativity that I didn’t really expect to explore.
By that I mean that what it has made me realize more deeply is just how protective performativity can be.
When I’ve been at work, I can’t let myself experience or show the grief that I’m feeling to the magnitude that I am experiencing it. Not only do I not want to share that type of vulnerable, intimate information with people in that context, I need this job to pay the bulk of my bills and to provide material safety and security. To answer guest’s questions with the reality of my emotions would probably get me fired real quick because well, let’s face it, no one wants to hear about suicide and police investigations from a stranger when they’re sitting down for a nice meal.
Like these moments at work, in the times that I have performed during sex, there has been the sense that I can’t show how I’m actually feeling, that I have to put on some sort of show for whichever man I was with.
For most of my twenties, I moaned even when I did not feel pleasure. I arched my back and put my body into shapes that I thought would be pleasing, shapes that often just made my back hurt. I made eye contact during blow jobs even though I didn’t really like it, and I put up with the pounding of p in v sex, even when there was discomfort and pain and absolutely no orgasm. I channeled actresses and models I had seen in Maroon 5 music videos and The Notebook and in Cosmopolitan, thinking that if I acted like those women, who all seemed to be skinny and sexy and a lot more womanly than I would ever be, then perhaps I would be desired and accepted and loved by the men with whom I was having sex.
It felt too risky to be my full self – and so I hid that self beneath a veneer that I thought would be desirable.
I feel sadness for these selves that had so much unsatisfying and often painful sex. I feel sadness for these selves that were so focused on pleasing their partners that they couldn’t even explore what they wanted. I feel sadness for these selves that were so stuck in shame that it was easier to put on a show than to be in their body. I feel sadness for the selves that had such low self-worth that they felt like they needed to be someone else in order to be someone else that could be loved. I feel sadness for these selves who were so lonely and who so badly yearned to be seen as their authentic selves.
…and alongside all that sadness, I feel so much compassion for these selves. Because even if performing during sex has limited my pleasure and my ability to authentically connect with myself and my partner, it has also been a form of survival for me.
The patriarchy is not kind to those of us who live in bodies perceived as female, and putting up these protections has kept me safe until I have been ready to take the risk of bringing the walls down.
Some questions for me and for you:
In what sexual situations do you notice yourself being more performative? During those moments of performativity, what would help you feel safer (if anything)?
5 Minute Somatic Practice:
Feel free to find a seated shape that feels nourishing. Once you’ve found that shape, you might take a few moments just to notice your body. What are the points of contact between you and the surface beneath you?
If it feels right, you’re welcome to check in with your body, just noting the felt sense of being. What do your feet feel like? Your calves? Your hips? Your genitals? Your shoulders? Your arms? Your neck? Your jaw? The top of your skull?
No need to change anything or to be any different (even if you notice yourself “performing” what you think a good meditator should be) – just take a few moments to notice.
When you’re ready, you might offer compassionate touch to a part of your body. This could be just placing your hand over any part of you – or it might be giving yourself a hug or doing some self-massage. It’s your practice and always your choice.
In practice with you,
Kelsey
What a great point! I feel sorry for all of those selves -- and myself -- as well.