Sexual energy
My loves,
It's time we talk about sexual energy.
When I say sexual energy, I don't mean sex. I don't even mean energy related to the act of having sex.
I mean the energy related to arousal, to sensuality, to being in a pleasurable state, to having desires, to being connected to your wild self, to activating aggression in an intentional way, to experiencing softness and sweetness in your body, to just generally feeling excited by anything that turns you on (in any sense of the phrase).
(I'm going to speak about sexual energy within a woman specifically, because that is what I know, but this is certainly not isolated to women, and is a worthy discussion for anyone.)
I'm talking about this today, because I've been noticing how dangerous and explosive sexual energy can be (or seem) in some environments.
For instance...
- women getting mad at their female friends for grabbing the attention of their boyfriend
- the story that men are "not able to control themselves," and therefore women have to be very careful and conscious
- women getting criticized, or victim blamed, for wearing something too sexy, dancing too sexy, using their sexiness to get something, etc
- women getting objectified for wearing something sexy, dancing sexy, generally just being a woman
- etc
I'm in Colorado visiting my sister this week, and the other day we were at an outdoor restaurant/bar. These young girls walked onto the patio in short black dresses, some of them in heels. It was a very casual bar, and in the middle of the day, so - no doubt - they stood out.
Next to our table was a group of 50-60 year old men.
As the moment carried on, I watched these men stare, gawk, criticize, whisper to each other, approach the women, and then actively hit on them.
The mother of one of the girls said, "watch out! it's her 21st birthday!" while giggling and making light of the situation.
21.
TWENTY ONE.
Look, I get it. These young girls purposely dressed up cute to get attention. And they got it. Seems about right.
But the way I see it, is these girls are just learning to use the tiniest bit of their sexual energy, and within seconds of walking into a casual bar, they are being objectified and judged by men over twice their age.
When I talk about this stuff, I'm very present to the responsibility of a woman.
How it IS in part a woman's job to understand the effect she is going to have on men (and get real about that truth), and then to learn how to work with that.
True.
And, I understand that these women - and many of us, all the time - WANT attention. We want to be valued for our looks. We want to be praised for our bodies.
True.
But here's the thing, if a woman's only option to NOT putting herself in the target of MEN, requires her to MUTE her sexual energy, we have a problem.
And if a woman's desire to be acknowledged, admired, and adored (just like any human's) requires her to therefore take on constant harassment and boundary invasions (let alone much worse things), we have a PROBLEM.
Sexual energy, comes at a cost, if we are not careful.
And that cost is just flat out, NOT OKAY.
It is NOT OKAY.
And you don't have to live within these GOOD GIRL rules. In fact, the world NEEDS us to stop living into these standards, if things are ever going to shift.
(Now, I'm not writing this to men, but men - PLEASE DO YOUR WORK too.)
---
Imagine a time, where you can be fully connected to your turn on, your desire to be adored, your pleasure, your feminine softness, the way your hips move, and how freakin amazingly beautiful you are...and NOT feel overwhelmed or confused about the eyes on you, the boundary invasions, and the unwanted attention.
Imagine feeling SO clear within yourself about what's okay and what's not, that unwanted energy doesn't pierce your space. And your system knows how to handle it if it does.
Imagine feeling SO vibrant and open and sexy, without feeling pressured to do something or be a certain way, or having to get all tangled in how to say no once you've already said yes to once piece of the experience.
Look, I'm not a sexuality expert. In fact, part of why I'm sharing these things is because they are a piece of what I'm experiencing, and healing within myself.
But I do know, that sexuality is not to be feared.
And this doesn't mean just go wild and have sex all the time and who cares what any body says - because the truth is - that DOES welcome unwanted energy. And probably isn't a truthful awakening of energy.
But it does mean, we can retrain our systems to have WHOLENESS and TRUST around sexuality.
We can retrain our systems to feel FULL, and CLEAR on our boundaries.
We can retrain our systems to feel ALIVE and TURNED ON about life, without putting ourselves in harm's way.
And this requires a little bit of work.
A little bit of nervous system healing.
A little bit of rewiring the narratives and patterns in our systems that tell us how the world is, and therefore how we must be.
A little bit of training resilience in our bodies to truly have capacity for big big pleasure and joy and taking up space.
AND ALSO for managing possible outcomes of that, without abandoning ourselves, losing our footing on consent, or feeling used.
This is a nervous system game.
And I'm here for it.
Breaking Up With Your Inner Good Girl is about just this.
This round, I'm adding a module about sexual energy specifically, and explore how to work with it in a healthy, safe way.
We start September 16.
I hope you'll join.
Xoxo
Jessie
PS - Click THIS LINK before September 1 to save MONEY!!