You're not broken just because this year has been difficult. When we have nothing to look forward to we end up feeling stagnated in our bodies as well as our minds. Therefore, nothing surprises me less about 2020 than the “I lost my orgasm/desire” statements I’ve been hearing these past few months. These are indeed listless times.
Here’s where your typical sex educator will tell you to “grab that vibrator!” - but you know what? That's sometimes hard to do when you're feeling busy, overwhelmed or lost. And that’s also more than okay.
Orgasms are an exploration of life and death, hence the French "le petit mort," in reference to the "the brief loss or weakening of consciousness" post-orgasm. Life, like orgasm, is a bath of the unseen and uncontrollable. It’s a release to the unknown, a necessary process of moving through shame and guilt or fear of judgement. Therefore, exploring the inability to orgasm (whether the root be emotional or physical) typically presents as manifestations of fear of death, fear of life, or a creative block. How much does this sound like 2020?
We're born of a creative process and our main purpose is to continue to perpetuate creative processes until our life force is no more. A curiosity and interest in that life force is necessary for the physical manifestation of life (orgasm!) So what can we do to find this life force, especially during challenging and mundane times? The answer lies in the mundane…
It’s no surprise that the most powerful and moving experiences of human artistry and poetry begin with the wonder of the shadows cast by leaves on a tree or the way a cat sleeps in the sun. Our social software tells us these things have nothing to do with orgasm, but this is where I invite you to suspend that belief.
Slow down and feel the mundane experiences that this year has offered you. Where is the experience you’re overlooking? How does it make you feel to be there? Were you considering that experience to be negative? What happens when you take the fear of living or dying out of that experience? What does it feel like on your skin? What does it feel like in your pelvic bowl?
Remembering that it’s okay to be present with all parts of our day can help to reignite us. Perhaps there’s pain. Where in that pain have you felt happiness, even the smallest ounce? Find the beauty in all of it. Feel it in your body.
Why do we seek to heighten our sexual experiences in the first place? Typically we’re looking for intimacy and connection, or we think something is “wrong” with us/our relationships/our bodies, and those things need “fixing.” But I’m here to remind you that it’s exactly in the moment you release those needs that you’ll find the route back to your life force, which will inevitably end up in a little death… and from there we start all over again.
New podcast episodes!
this week:
“The Art of A.R.T. (Areola Restoratative Tattooing)” with Lucy Thompson
In this 30 minute pod mini episode I talked to Lucy Thompson about the art of A.R.T (Areola Restorative Tattooing). Lucy runs a special tattoo clinic dedicated to the 3D restoration of lost nipples, and the censorship her business endures as a result.In this 30 minute pod mini episode I talked to Lucy Thompson about the art of A.R.T (Areola Restorative Tattooing). Lucy runs a special tattoo clinic dedicated to the 3D restoration of lost nipples, and the censorship her business endures as a result.
what you may have missed:
"Women's Bodies & Allopathy: The Effects of Industrialized Birth” with Isabella Malbin
The western medical model pathologizes birth. What does it look like to navigate a system without this view of women's bodies as "broken"? How do holistic medicine practitioners find themselves playing into this belief system? Find out in this chat with birth worker Isabella Malbin.