I have a right to the love inside myself, I’m thinking of it as “the love in my soul.” I have a right to that. It’s my birthright to access and tap that to make full use of this miraculous resource. I wish to free the water in my love dam! Let it flow!
What I don’t think I have a right to is love from a particular person. Some people are not going to like me at certain times, and others might blow me over with unexpected kindness, generosity or care. I don’t have jurisdiction over how another person shares or withholds love from me.
I think that I’ve heard that people have “a right to love and be loved.” I may have even written that somewhere at some time. I don’t agree at this time. I don’t have the right to be loved by any particular person. When someone loves me it is a beautiful miracle of life. I can’t predict how long such a blessing may last, or how it might fade in and out of my experience over time.
I do have a right to my love, and even a responsibility to myself to uphold the honor of my own love when it seems to be challenged by the judgments of others.
I cherish love and the incredible gift of feeling my heart open along with bliss and glowing wellness, and also to experience the horror and rage that can sometimes fly out of an opening heart. It is passion and truth. It is a big deal.
I can nurture the opportunities to cultivate love with another person when it is offered. And I can defend my right to love myself, even when another person’s actions and reactions evoke thoughts about how that they may have decided that I am not worthy of their love. It does not mean that I am unworthy of love.
I think that everybody is worthy of love. I just don’t think that anybody “deserves” it. The world just doesn’t seem to work like that. Things are desolate at times, and there are times when experience seems to burst with love, drip with love, just love!
Being loved in my experience isn’t reliable as if it were available in a well-stocked and well-maintained vending machine. Some people marry in the hopes that they can stabilize the flow of love, and make it reliable so it seems like it’s always there.
I’m trying to open myself to what I perceive as the very instability of love as it comes from outside of myself. It might be impossible, but I want to give it an honest thought. Because when someone opens my heart, I want to hold them tight. I want to control that resource that seems to be linked to this other person. It does seem so precious. Not everyone can open my heart. The door just seems to open for one person right now. And I want that experience. I want to nurture it on it’s own terms, not from the point of view of expectations.
But I can’t control my access to it or own anybody’s love. I am talking about another human being here with their own dreams and goals. Trying to control another person’s desires is a crime of the soul. Everybody has a right to explore and experience what they want.
In understanding bodies there is often an implicit sense that “the pelvis tells us.” The pelvis tells us when it’s time to pee. The pelvis tells us when we gotta poop. Does the pelvis tell us when we are attracted to someone or an idea? We can tell the pelvis to hold the pee/poop/sex. The menstrual cycle just flows. Many people assume that the pelvis tells us a lot more than it actually might.
Does the pelvis determine identity? Does the pelvis determine gender? Many people assume it does—at least to a large extent. Having a perceived identity that includes the descriptor “female” does have an effect of determining the opportunities one has, or one thinks they have and what others will think is available for them. It also guides how a person might choose to express themselves in life. And some people find that the gender role assigned to them by others, or from the outside doesn’t work for them. Or perhaps those assumptions seem a bit off. It is different for different people.
My body is sexed as female. When I was born people said, “She’s a girl,” and confirmed that “fact” when they changed my diaper or saw me wear girl-appropriate clothing. People seemed to assume that I would eventually marry a man and have “his” children. A power dynamic was assumed for me before I could speak for myself. Many times these assumptions have seemed inappropriate, yet I, myself, also assumed (as soon as I could start assuming) that my life would follow the path laid out by my family/culture.
At some point the outer noise—which I was holding in myself—of what I “should” be doing started to quiet down, and I started to try doing things the way I thought I wanted to. And I tried to survive. The “me” in myself that is real awkwardly tried to emerge into this world. I gave up—with some sadness—the assumptions I had for my life including marriage. I don’t think I need a legal marriage with a male-bodied person to be whole. I am me right now. I’m done with waiting for a me that only exists in a fantasy—this rejects the living person I actually am.
I wrote an article last year called Queering My Sexuality about actively “being a sexual person whose wants and needs are self-defined.” Now I would extend that concept far beyond sexuality.
Queerness, then, is not an identity, but a position or stance. We can use “queer” as a verb instead of a noun. Queer is not someone or something to be treated. Queer is something we can do.
~Kimberly Springer
Queering has to do with taking on one’s identity and stepping away from an inherited lineage of ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, patriarchy, privilege, money focus, misogyny, ageism, sex-shaming, fat-shaming, objectification, coercion, bullying (…) and consciously being a person—even creating a self through chosen actions and expressions—that better reflects values of the heart with caring awareness of other people in community emphasizing inclusion of people (of a different race, body type, or gender presentation for example) helping to expand the understanding of the person reaching out as well as to reverse the effects of the old ways of domination, control and repression.
Queering has to do with getting my needs met. Now I have the freedom to begin to understand my needs—which I have discovered—are different in some ways from the cultural recipe for success (marriage+money). The recipe for my fulfillment needs to be determined by me, otherwise I am just going through the motions of a life that doesn’t feel like mine. This creates a lot of anxiety.
Queering has to do with rejecting some of the things that are often assumed to be true. If I believed that I cannot exist as a whole person without a husband while also living unmarried, then clearly I am limiting my ability for self expression and happiness, and feeling less than this so called “ideal”.
Queering can have something to do with radical self-expression. I think queering can also be quieter, yet as it is better understood within a person it may also yearn for greater expression, visibility and celebration.
Queer community and books, conversations and art have offered me so much support and hope as I have discovered another sense of myself that is different than the old assumptions I learned.
If you were to ask me about my gender, in the right context (queer) I would tell you that my gender is orange. This color inspires me, as discovering myself and my desires also inspire me. And just the way a color is wide open in that it can appear on so many different things, I also feel that the way I might want to present myself and express myself may also prefer to embrace a range of possibilities.
A good friend recently gave me a book, ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield.
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance.
~Steven Pressfield, ‘The War of Art’
It’s a book about the forces that block creative action, and also includes thoughts on the forces of creativity seeking expression. I do recommend the book, and found it helpful. I also found myself needing to adjust pronouns a bit as I read because the voice is largely male-centric even though there are a couple of sections that use ‘she’ and ‘her’. So many “him”s and “he”s distracted me from the message until I started doing my own substitution.
Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction.
This is a quote from the beginning of the book that sets up resistance as an essential problem. The word “root” intrigues. Yet the quote also betrays a phallocentric viewpoint (that also carries throughout the book) by equating ‘erectile dysfunction’ (a male-bodied problem) with poverty and disease.
This problem of resistance the book pries apart and strategizes against is one that I deeply experience. A personal note I recently jotted said, “Resistance seems to be deeply wound with aspirations in my DNA.” I remember learning somewhere that within my living cells at any moment exist the very components that will facilitate rotting upon death. A law of cellular life is that death is enfolded within the life capsule, itself. And I’ve also heard that when someone takes on the joy and fulfillment of love with another person, they are also taking on (whether it is realized it or not) the pain of the love ending (whether through death or moving on). So maybe it shouldn’t surprise me that with dreams and aspirations towards making things better, there is a companion death wish energy that can interfere with good things ever happening or getting accomplished.
A root of unhappiness is this resistance if it is allowed to overshadow what we want to accomplish for the good of our selves and others. This kind of unhappiness might be viewed as a symptom of something being off, similar to the way we might see sniffles or sore throat as symptoms of a physical imbalance. Unhappiness could be seen as a symptom of a spiritual imbalance. Perhaps unexpressed dreams and aspirations are compromising our emotional wellness in some cases of sadness.
One of the sections in the book I was drawn towards is called ‘How to be Miserable.’ A few months ago I wrote a personal note in my calendar that said, “Time to be uncomfortable.” And just a couple of days ago a friend described that he imagines the most horrific demise for himself before he gets on his bicycle because he feels that it will give him emotional presence if something happens to him on the road—he’s already prepared by imagining the worst.
And it’s so hard to move forward towards accomplishing good things when resistance has enthralled thinking. One solution: prepare to be miserable.
The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable.
This is invaluable for an artist.
…
The artist committing their* self to a calling has volunteered for hell, whether they* know it or not. They* will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.
* Pronouns neutralized by me.
There is an idea in our culture that being comfortable is the best thing, when physical comfort in the absence of living truthfully can be really depressing or suffocating. I was taught to be comfortable. And at some point I’ve identified that perhaps that is not really the best thing. Having some comfort for ones self can be great, to be sure. But when comfort is chosen and this comfort hides consciousness enhancing revelations, or world transforming ideas, and prevents meaningful action, then “comfort” becomes a manifestation of resistance and prevents people from making awe-inspiring and healing contributions to help our world.
So perhaps it is good to identify a root of potential unhappiness, and to strategize in an effort to create something helpful for people and the planet. It is not so easy because resistance is good at hiding itself, but stakes are high. It is worthwhile to consider this subject and to put into action what makes sense for what you want to do. And do it.
Live the life you think about that would make the world the better place.
There is a big effort in recent articles to see potential positive effects in our culture because of revelations about teenage males allegedly sexually assaulting a teenage female at the end of last summer in Steubenville, OH. I read these articles with hope. I like to think that something good can come from anything. Maybe we can all have an awareness and change rape culture.
And I want to say that the sexual assault was not helpful or positive. It was ruthlessly harmful. A teen female went to party, probably anticipating a fun time with friends. She should have had the freedom to make her own choices with friends supporting her, and respecting her. It’s what I think.
Instead, according to at least one account she was drugged with a “date rape” intoxicant, probably passed to her by a “friend.” Her unconscious body was apparently carried from party to party and repeatedly sexually assaulted by more than one person and urinated on according to media sources including the New York Times.
There was nothing helpful or positive about this heinous evening of events. There is nothing good about sexual assault of a teen female being reportedly witnessed at more than one party, as well as worldwide through twitter and instagram.
I wonder how she is doing, and I hope that she can get the support that she needs. I would like to hear about her experience from her and offer support. I would like to hear from other female and male witnesses and offer support to try to help heal all who were harmed by this event. Every person who is now more afraid because of this story needs supportive friends, and possibly councilors or other trusted help. This includes those of us affected by learning and following this story.
This story is horrible. I’m sorry that people have had to experience this. It hurts us when someone is violated. It hurts.
The story has particularly affected me probably because I grew up from the ages of 7 to part of 17 in a small town in eastern Ohio about 25 miles north of Steubenville. I resisted watching the video of the teen male joking about the assault for at least a day, but finally watched it.
When I heard the accent of the speaker in the video, it brought some part of me rushing back. I knew boys who spoke like that. The jovial presentation of despicable words is an education. It reminds me and brings home the idea that people involved in horrible things don’t believe themselves to be horrible. He appears to think he is fine, but what he is enjoying saying is so beyond sick. I believe he needs help, he appears to be a very dangerous person who does not recognize that he has been involved in or at least seen something wrong: a crime that happened over several hours and hurt people. It hurt the teen female who was sexually assaulted. It hurt witnesses by seeing someone assaulted like that, perhaps cultivating fears that they could be next. It hurt family members and friends. And countless others learning of these events who are perhaps triggered into the pain of their own experiences of violence, or who fear for themselves or their friends and children.
This story affected me: I woke up last Saturday morning remembering a dream that I’ve had countless times.
My apartment had been trespassed. A door that I had locked was somehow opened without any evidence of violence. Someone had come in, not to steal things—I’m not sure why they were there. But they were in my house. They came in, perhaps to have a good time. Sometimes in this dream there is evidence of drinking: empty bottles. Or sometimes pizza boxes… There have been occurrences of the dream when I am there and can spy on the people in my house, not too closely, but I can hear parts of what is happening or see shadows or outlines. But usually I am in a place that is now empty with an open or unlocked door.
Remembering the dream with the Steubenville story still fresh in my mind forged a connection in my awareness. I was seeing something new about myself and my own fears bustling beneath the surface of a mental constitution that likes to remind me that “I’m okay.”
In other words, I was completely stirred up by the recent unfolding of released materials and protests around a Steubenville, Ohio gang rape. It seemed to jog something free. I made a connection. Could this dream be related to sexual violence? It definitely seems related to feeling insecure in my house, and even my body!
I believe myself to be triggered by this story, and particularly by the video of an 18 year old male joking about the violent events of the evening with buddies including a reference to the (still unconscious) victim nearby. It is truly sickening.
And so I am somewhat disgusted that I have been personally helped by knowing this story. The fact that it brought so much up for me (and I was ready to see what came) leaves me feeling humble. How do I accept this gift?
I saw myself as a teenage girl, and remembered a lot.
What I saw was that rather than learning about being a sexual person, or how to be a sexual person, or be sexual, what I was actually learning was how to be raped. It sounds harsh, but that’s what I think. The story I was learning wasn’t about me. It was about what men wanted to do to me, and threatened to do to me. If I liked him, I wouldn’t fight back.
The default notion that a female wants sex unless she fights back sufficiently (whatever amount that is), apparently allows people to think it’s okay to assault drunk/drugged people—people who can’t fight back. How sick is that?
People need to be educated, and educate themselves about consent (resource: Driver’s Ed for the Sexual Superhighway). Teens need to know where to learn about healthy sexuality. I recommend Scarleteen as a great web resource about sex for teens.
I feel like I’m educating my inner teenager about healthy, consensual sexuality now. I am currently working to create safety for myself to explore sexual pleasure that I can actively participate in, rather than it being something that just happens to me “because men can’t help it.”
And to make the world a better place I want to see people learn more as soon as possible so we do not continue to perpetuate abuse in our own sex lives.
A couple of years ago, when the topic of gender came up in conversation with my friend, A.J. Durand, the first place I went to in my mind was to the thoughts of my uterus, ovaries, vulva and vagina and that I was a woman because how could I really be different from my biology?
Don’t “I” emanate from my biology? At the time, I was also reading Wild Feminine. The author, Tami Lynn Kent has a loosely biological determining philosophy that guides her notion of wild femininity. In the book she allows for different expressions for femininity, and simultaneously shares a mostly ideal narrative (in our popular culture) for what that means. The book tells an abuse-free story for healing (hard for me to identify with that, as I consider our culture to be quite abusive). This book had me thinking about birthing my spiritual self and life expression through my uterus. It’s not a bad book, even helpful when it comes to female bodies and normalizing vaginal massage (which I think is good). It also holds a model for a healthy life that seems to say that a woman is happiest when she is in her place in the natural order of things as determined by her biology or feminine spirituality—to be determined by the woman, herself.
When the question came up: “Do you think you are a woman?” Or similar question…
I thought and said, “Of course.” Feeling that my identity was determined by my crotch.
Energetically—the root chakra, which is in the pelvis, is thought to house our sense of home and security. And I have found it to be true that to focus on the pelvis in yoga is super-helpful for increasing feelings of being safe and comfortable in the body.
What if some of what we learn about our pelvises teach us to not trust ourselves, and therefore to feel unsafe in ourselves?
In his lectures to young communists in Germany during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, psychologist Wilhelm Reich theorized that the suppression of sexuality was essential to an authoritarian government. Without the imposition of antisexual morality, he believed, people would be free from shame and would trust their own sense of right and wrong.
~Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy, ‘The Ethical Slut’
This second quote from the toilet training PDF helped me to make a connection to why what I’m wanting to talk about is so slippery.
Many of us assume that it’s normal to be either male with masculine traits, or female with feminine traits, and we also very often will correct one another, or talk about it/laugh about it when we see something that fails to fit what we think of as the right behavior for how we identify the person we are seeing based on physical attributes.
These slights can seem so small and usual for many of us and we just go through life hardly noticing, and basically accepting these standards as reasonable for men and women, as well as doing our best to conform to these standards ourselves. Many people also feel that they are performing aspects of their identified gender that aren’t really them, but help meet expectations. Some of it is forced.
This tendency of seeing people, discerning a “gender” and then expecting divergent behavior based on a read of “male” or “female” particularly damages people who identify as trans or those who feel that the expectations of their perceived gender do not agree with how they want to be (or are) in the world.
One place this shows up is around bathrooms. I know I’ve received a funny look when leaving a men’s bathroom before. Why should someone else care if I just relieved my bladder in there? I had to pee.
Why do we police basic bodily functions?
I was thinking about segregation in American history, and how there was a time when people of color were expected to use different bathrooms than white people. Now we are in a time when it is common that women are expected to use different bathrooms than men. This separation confirms many times a day for many of us that there is a recognized difference and reasonable separation and even class difference between women and men. It is one of the ways that difference is maintained that seems to legitimate a power differential between men and women.
And it all stems from our pelvises! And imagined sex organs! …since we rarely see what people have “down there.”
What if the differences of our sex organs really represent more about what we might need to do to pleasure and play, rather than dictating who goes where and can do what? What if these commonly held beliefs about what men and women can and should do are really false, and have more to do with maintaining power structures based on class differences, rather than having much to do with determinations from nature?
A great thing: gender neutral bathrooms. One step towards accepting people as they are (needing to pee), and welcoming expected and unexpected gender expressions…
Gender neutral bathrooms at Saturn Cafe in Berkeley, California where everybody can pee!
The pelvis is made of words. So much of how I sit, stand, take care of my body, and hold myself in yoga postures has to do with how I feel about my pelvis. And the words used for my body have so much to do with a relationship I cultivate with myself.
When I was first getting into yoga I generally felt that the sensations from my pelvis seemed blocked. I had no awareness to assist bringing my hips over my shoulders for a headstand. Over years of practicing yoga what I can feel in the pelvis and low back area has increased! Along the way I have needed to release layers of shame and trauma from my pelvis. It’s not just a mental thing. My pelvis now responds more fully in yoga poses, when it used to seem either opaque to my quest to understand, or like it was just holding on for dear life. Wellbeing has increased in my pelvis, and in the rest of me.
Part of a relationship with the pelvis has to do with sexuality.
…centuries of censorship have left us with very little language with which to discuss the joys and occasional worries of sex. The language that we do have often carries implicit judgments: If the only polite way to talk about sexuality is in medical Latin—vulvas and pudendas, penes and testes—are only doctors allowed to talk about sex? Is sex all about disease? Meanwhile, most of the originally English words—cock and cunt, fucking, and, oh yes, slut—have been used as insults to degrade people and their sexuality and often have a hostile or coarse feel to them. Euphemisms—peepees and pussies, jade gates and mighty towers—sound as if we are embarrassed. Maybe we are.
~Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy, ‘The Ethical Slut’
The fact that many of us find the words that describe the pelvis anatomy or activity embarrassing to say/obscene to hear can really block an essential and joyful part of existence. (It can also interfere with our ability to communicate with lovers, legislators, bosses, counselors as well as healthcare, health insurance, and law enforcement professionals when necessary to report problems or abuse.) I think that this is related to my own relatively numb pelvis/low back that I discovered as I developed through my yoga practice. As my awareness of sensations increased and I unpacked some of the emotional pain and fucked-up stories related to my pelvis I began to feel more sensory feedback from my body and to feel more centered and at home in my self. The foundation of the house of my body and psychology is in the pelvis. This work is making a huge difference.
Spinach phallus or “cock” in sushi restaurant. (image rotated 90 degrees)
So now I’m wanting to know and use all of the good pelvis words including “cunt” and “cock” (powerful words I like), and to empower myself with pleasure. It’s good to embrace the fullness of life while alive. And for me a part of this is opening up to my own sexuality, including words I am drawn to on the subject. I don’t think that these words should be private or shameful.
I do think that it’s good to keep some specific things private to retain or cultivate a certain power or potency in instances of relationship. Also there are appropriate (and inappropriate) places to celebrate our sexual selves. I don’t plan to share specific things I might do with someone or myself unless it somehow contributes to a teaching point, and probably that it is safely in the past and hopefully no risk to current relationships.
Thanks for sharing in the pelvic journey with me by reading this, and feel free to let me know what you think by leaving a reply.
I want to dip into the subject of consent and touching in yoga classes.
For many years I experienced yoga styles or lineages from India that are authoritarian in structure. The teachers would physically adjust poses in ways that were sometimes gentle, sometimes forceful, and sometimes really intimate. There was a sense or perhaps it was communicated that the teacher was teaching in line with a guru’s style, and a guru doesn’t ask permission. A pupil or disciple in yoga is taught to surrender to the teaching to gain a benefit of what the supposedly more enlightened person knows.
Legally, according to this article from Yoga Journal online, there is implied consent for touch unless a student makes a specific request not to be touched:
…unless the student expressly tells the yoga teacher not to make physical contact, the yoga teacher generally has the student’s implied consent to touch within socially accepted limits…
~Michael H. Cohen, JD, MBA, The Ethics and Liabilities of Touch
This legal guideline lacks humanity, in the way that legal codes can. It reminds me of that aspect of rape culture thinking that includes believing that a woman wanted sex unless she is really fighting for her life or screaming. I guess what I’m outing about myself is that there were times when I was internally squirming, and telling myself at the same time to go with a physical adjustment because I thought I was supposed to, or I might benefit from the teaching.
This is similar to the way I’ve had sex with partners because I thought I was supposed to or because I was afraid to stop something that seemed to be already in motion. Assuming a woman is there to pleasure men damages women. Assuming a yoga student wants to be touched is potentially damaging, too.
It could be that some readers do not think that this sexual piece relates. But it does for me because it’s only relatively recently that I’ve started to understand there are things I can do to experience ownership of my own body. And for me this is everything. I wasn’t raised in a culture that taught me this, but somehow my instincts have led me into a place where I can start to feel this and to heal, and connect to others who are exploring this, too (Here is an article about my burlesque debut.).
I love the simple beauty and honesty of the above quote by Andrea MacDonald (Her whole post on consent based yoga is so awesome.). This is true. Touch can access vast tracts of information in our bodies. If someone wants it and is prepared with information and support, amazing healing work can be done. If someone is not ready for that/didn’t want it/doesn’t know what is happening then they can be harmfully reliving a trauma triggered by a touch that very likely did not have a harmful intention behind it. It’s happened to me, and to other people I know, too.
(People can also be physically harmed by yoga assists: an important concern, but this is not the aspect of touch that I’m focusing on for this article.)
I’m interested in cultivating an atmosphere in my classes that can support the kind of healing I really believe in. Important aspects of this are the concepts of consent, self-determination and respect.
I offer years of consistent training and practice in yoga (and teaching) in my teaching, and I believe that yoga technique is extremely beneficial for people’s bodies. I also believe that how teachers regard students in classes is extremely important, too.
In my classes I give students the choice to opt out of touch that day, if they would prefer. It’s an honor to me when a yoga student takes this option because there have been times when I wish I had had that choice, or when I was criticized for refusing an adjustment, or I just didn’t feel that I had a choice in the matter. So I’m glad if someone chooses that for them self at any point in class. It gives people more flexibility in choosing what kind of experience they would like to have in class on a given day. They can determine certain aspects for themselves.
Also when I am close to an individual in class (who has not already opted out of being touched), I will usually ask them if it is okay to assist their yoga with my hands to move the body in a certain way to try to help them connect with the pose in a deeper way and build awareness, or to be safer. When someone says “yes” or “yes please(!)” and smiles, I know that I have their permission or consent to proceed. If I see that someone stops breathing when I get close to their yoga mat, then I will probably just try another verbal cue, perhaps a demo with my body, or move on so they can have the space to be more comfortable.
I find it respectful to allow people their space in yoga class to experience themselves in a way that is encouraged rather than coerced. And I know that a lot of people appreciate my hands on them, so I have built-up confidence there, but I don’t want to assume that everybody wants that all of the time.
And I want to share that I have received so much benefit from physical adjustments or assists in yoga, so I do think it is an important tool in teaching when it is used with respect and care for the person receiving the assist.
I also feel that offering the concept of consent and even using the word “consent” in class can be helpful. Right now it seems like the eyes of our culture are opening on this subject, and yoga teachers can help by teaching about it in class. It is a safe place where we are relating closely with other bodies. It is so empowering to discover that you can say no and yes to being touched if someone (like me) didn’t get the chance to learn it growing up. This is a big healing opportunity.
As people start or continue the journey to determine their selves, from taking responsibility for their wellness and safety in yoga class, I believe that this offers a metaphor and vast potential for healing and self-pride beyond the yoga room.
A consensual culture includes people who are giving permission for things to move in a particular direction. I live in a country where many people can vote, so that would seem to nod in the direction of a consent-based culture. Consent requires a level of active participation from all parties in a situation.
A compliant culture includes people who are inclined to agree with others (without knowing self, perhaps) and obey rules, or try to meet standards. Compliance is relatively one-sided. The person or entity with power and agency sets the rules or standards, and every one else complies.
I think there are a lot of people who are compliant with their life energy, rather than consensual. There are what appear to be good reasons for this. You will please others if you do what they want (This might be a myth, or only work to a limited degree, but it’s out there!). I lived in this kind of life energy for a long time! I was so eager to please. I thought that being accepted would save me from suffering because that would mean that I was loved! Another reason to comply is that it might seem to legitimize existence because you can see yourself reflected in the system that others are also seeing themselves against. Also, a kind of success will likely appear more accessible if you go by the rules.
Consent is coming up as an important part of sexuality (recently evidenced by FORCE: upsetting rape culture sneaking ‘consent panties’ into stores), and I think that it might be hard for us to be truly consensual when so many of us are more used to complying with standards and norms which allow us to think less and get a sense that we are doing okay as long as we can convince ourselves or others that we fit a norm.
As far as I can see, consent means everything in sexuality. It’s the difference between actively engaging in a situation, and ignoring ones self and becoming an object by default (or a victim). I didn’t understand anything outside compliance for a long time because I only saw value in pleasing the other person. I don’t think I saw how getting my needs met might improve a situation. I did have partners at times who would attempt to please me or meet my needs (or manipulate me), but I don’t think I was able to be fully present to even appreciate that. Or if I did, it was in an infantile way. I say that because I think a part of maturity should be to have a sense of what you want (even though it might change), and not to always look to the other person to lead the way. I think someone could say, “maybe you’re just submissive,” (read normative femininity concept here) but I don’t think that’s it. I was just trying to be normal, or do what I was “supposed to do.” I was ignorant. I didn’t know how to trust my expression, and was overly sensitive to what the other person was saying and doing. What they were doing was always able to crush me, or my expression. I wasn’t holding my own in the bedroom.
Creating a consensual culture means that we have to wake up to our own sense of agency, and learn to really express ourselves: nobody else can do this for us. I’m now wondering if the lack of consent in bedrooms could be related to a lack of consent in much of the rest of our lives. We tend to be ready to go along with a good advertisement if it convinces us that what is being sold will make us more highly regarded in our communities, or sexier…
Some might say that we need to teach children to be consensual people to help make the world and future a better place for people, and a safer and more respectful place for everybody.
My mind was blown wide open by a recent talk by Heather Corinna, founder of Scarleteen, at Early to Bed in Chicago. The talk was on developmental sexuality for humans, and if you ever have a chance to attend a talk with Heather I recommend doing it! One intellectual tidbit I took from the talk was the importance of teaching children consent by giving them opportunities to consent even from a young age! An example is asking a young child if you may pick them up/hug or kiss them. And the child is allowed to choose. If this is the first time a child has been given that kind of choice then they might say “no” just to try that option! They might want to hug you later!
It made sense to me that teenagers might have difficulty wrapping their minds around the concept of consent if they have never known it in their lives before. Children often have to go to school/church/treat parents in a certain way/obey… They need opportunities to experience the benefits of living consensually, to help them understand why it’s important.
The same is true for adults. Adults might have trouble getting the concept of consent if they’ve gotten along (what seems to be) okay up to now without really dealing with it.
Consider living consensually. Consent is respectful and self-esteem supporting. Consent is against abuse of self or others. If someone is consenting they know what they want and are saying it even if what they want might change later. A consenting situation includes listening to what someone else wants and needs, and respecting that, too.
Yes Means Yes! Visions Of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape, Jaclyn Friedman & Jessica Valenti
This book changed my life.
I recommend it strongly! Go get it! Make time to read it! …if it resonates for you!
A big theme in the book is the importance of enthusiastic consent (agreeing and wanting sex with a big YES!) when it comes to sexy time. And if one person doesn’t want it, then sex doesn’t happen. This means that people actually need to communicate their desires to each other, rather than just assuming everything.
“…imagine a world where women enjoy sex on their own terms and aren’t shamed for it.”
~Yes means Yes!
After reading the book I found myself wondering if I even knew what sex was. After all, I had learned the not-so-eloquent “penis goes into vagina” definition growing up, and I held onto some aspect of this sparse anatomical description for sexual intercourse for a long time.
Now I think that sex can or might include genital contact, but also think that it must be more than that. What about spiritually: What is sex spiritually? What about emotionally: What is sex emotionally? And mentally: What is sex mentally? Physically: What is sex physically? What is sex for two female bodies, or two males? What defines sex between a male and female? Or different intersex bodies? Modified bodies? Or bodies without genitals? Can only certain bodies or couplings have sex? Or can everybody do it? Can you have sex by yourself, or is masturbation different from sex?
“If we say someone is having sex, or doing something sexual, we mean they are acting from their own sexuality, looking to express it in action and/or to try and actively experience or explore a feeling of general or specific sexual desire, curiosity and/or satisfaction.”
This is from a very good online article, from an amazing web site: check it out. I’ll write more later…
We can also talk in the comments section below. Things to consider commenting on:
Have you had to navigate the “penis goes into vagina” definition at any point in your sexual experience including now? Have these words guided your sense of what sex is? Is it a helpful hint? A restrictive definition? Guilt ridden? Pressure causing? Have you had to reject these words? Something else?
Or:
Do you have a helpful definition for sex that goes beyond a clinical and prescriptive description of body parts?
As I’m about to get into this I realize that some readers may disagree about how I have categorized this person: Rapist. I’m sure that he also carries out many other nicer-sounding roles for other people, but to me he is the one who clearly crossed a sexual boundary that I had not consented to having broken.
Also, I am not writing this to accuse any individual, and I’m not writing this so readers will feel bad for me.
I am writing this to say it. It needs to come out, and be read, I think. It speaks to the dynamics of the sexual culture I grew up in, and have carried with me in my interactions with men. My story is merely an instance of a much larger dynamic involving many people. You may relate with my story or reject it, but read it and let me know what you think (if you’d like to share something in the comments…).
The meeting happened around a group road trip organized by a friend from yoga. During the fun trip we all did a lot of spiritual things like participating in sweat lodge ceremonies and walking in the woods. We all shared some deep stuff. The guy asked me privately if I had thought about having children. It seemed like a serious question. I was in the latter part of my mid-thirties. I believed that if I was going to have a child that I might have to hurry up! (Notice how I don’t say if I want to, I just state the cultural expectation.)
It all seems kind of stupid looking back on it, but we were inhabiting a mind space that permitted miracles and signs. People could find healing in nature. Maybe I could find the perfect guy there, too!
It seemed that I had met someone my age who was super-interesting, caring, hot and knew all the words to Prince songs (like I do).
It was fun! I had never met a guy who could sing all those songs before! My inner teenager was thrilled.
I now see that the road trip allowed a kind of magical space where we could enjoy each other very simply and easily. Back home things were really different.
We saw each other a few times. I invited him into my apartment. We fooled around. Clothes came off. I said that I would like to use a condom.
He said, “Let’s just see what this feels like.”
And my life changed as he shoved his naked enormous-feeling penis into my vagina. I wasn’t excited or turned on at that point. I was overwhelmed. The imaginary world where boyfriends cared about what I thought and wanted was shattered. And I still wanted to please him, or at least I was going through those motions. I’m really not sure where “I” was at that point. I seemed to be watching the scenario from above, and feel a bit sick when I think about it. When he finally pulled it out of me, and I came back to my body I felt my pelvic floor sag in despair. “I will never be the same again,” I thought to myself. I literally felt as though my body had been ruined, overstretched by that enormous-feeling body part.
I now know that perception not to be true, but I was deeply sad. I had let someone into my life and had made the wrong call.
Some time later—I think it was at least a month—he called and wanted to come over to my place again. I remember saying “no” several times and in several ways.
He said, “I’m coming over.”
I heard this horrible sound come out of me as I said or screamed/squealed at the phone: No! It was sort of an animal shriek.
This time he said, “Okay.”
And that’s it. It was over.
When I think about the alien sound that came out: pure terror, I realize that there was wisdom somewhere inside me. Some part of me knew the truth about how I felt about it, but I had been socialized to be polite and accommodating to men who I saw as potential mates. I would step aside and allow the guy to take charge and guide the flow in a lot of ways. I would power-down to create space for him to power-up.
Yes Means Yes! Visions Of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape by Jaclyn Friedman & Jessica Valenti clarifies the question of consent quite nicely. It is appropriate to go forward with sex only when the people involved enthusiastically want to. And if someone changes their mind in the middle: it stops. The title Yes Means Yes! refers to an uncoerced and joyful yes-saying. I really think that every person should read this book that holds that authentic, consensual sexual pleasure is worth fighting for across genders, within genders, and supportive of a full range of gender and sexual expression.
According to the worldview expressed in this book, I was clearly raped in my own apartment by someone I knew. According to other perspectives I might have been “asking for it” by letting him in. Or perhaps some people would notice that I didn’t appear to fight back sufficiently—so the default would be that I really wanted it. There are endless ways to pick apart my behavior and choices. Some might even call me “lucky” for “getting some.”
But I can tell you that this interaction hurt my relationship with myself, including my confidence, self-trust and my ability to trust others. I see it as an effect of countless actions and expectations on my part, a lot of which were dictated by this culture which is sick when it comes to visions of how people should behave with one another, especially sexually. I don’t claim to have the answer, but I am committed to discovering better ways together with people I am in contact with.
This scenario happened some time before I took my first Female Pelvic Floor Yoga workshop with Leslie Howard. And it was there in the workshop with Leslie that I truly started the process of befriending my pelvis after this trauma. So you might imagine how working with the pelvis in yoga can be a very rich and powerful journey.
Root Wisdom Yoga 