Funny how sometimes you sincerely think you know a subject inside and out, and it turns out you are kind of a noob.
To me, this painful and humbling realization happened at the age of 32 and involved my pussy.
I thought I already knew pussies, being a modern time feminist, clitoris enthusiast, and well versed in human biology. I’ve been educating people on the fertility and pleasure for quite a long time now. I vividly remember that one time I left a guy’s place at 3 in the morning because when asked why he didn’t go down on or gave me clitoral stimulation during intercourse, he finally admitted that he was kinda disgusted by vulvas and never gave oral sex, ever.
I told him that nobody had the right to make me feel bad about my body and that it was out of the question that I slept next to him now that I knew how he felt about the most intimate and delicate part of my body.
Kinda badass, right? A vulva’s advocate in all of her raging glory, going back home in the middle of the night because she cares more about her convictions than her sleep.
I’m still low-key proud of what I did.
I had oblivious to the fact that I wasn’t showing myself the love and respect I was demanding from my partners. I was seldom touching my pussy and never looking at her. I paid someone to remove body-hair, used an expensive first-class vibrator to give myself orgasms, and a gynecologist was charged with her general health. It never occurred to me that I was trying to have this wild and satisfying sex life and to avoid my vulva at the same time.
But why? was I burdened with some rare and ugly malformation? Nope, all good. I was just carrying the body shame and pussy shame society pushed on me and not asking questions. I was educated on the general subject but still unwilling to look at myself out of fear that what I would discover might fit the pop culture narrative I picked up on the way.
You know, that pussies are gross, smelly, and overall shameful. That hair should be removed and the scent kept under careful control. You are not making someone’s a compliment by calling them a cunt, right?
You rarely see a vulva drawn on city walls or schoolboy’s desks. Apparently, it is not graffiti-appropriate.
In fact, the clitoris’s inner structure of the clitoris is still widely forgotten in the school’s biology textbook, when it is mentioned at all.
And then I read this :
Knowing where the clitoris is, it’s information.
Emily Nagoski – Come as you are
Knowing where your clitoris is, it’s power.
And I was like, “ho okay, yeah… I … I get it. Okay”
Obviously, I knew where my clit was by touch, with years of pressing a vibrator against it, but the last time I had a look was ages ago already, and it was glaring. I needed to see the lay of the land as it was today.
So I looked. Guess what? It was a normal, cute vulva. I touched the skin, explored the folds, nothing weird happened.
And I think I didn’t realize before how it was weighing on me. Making a choice to see and love that part of me I was afraid of made it easier for me to love every other part of me: my body, my personality, my sense of humor, my failures, my journey.
I find this story interesting because most of the time, the most challenging part of a self-love journey is just the same: you build up the courage to look at a part of you you’ve been avoiding, and you realize that it was not so bad all along.
The consequences were plenty and bountiful. It made it easier for me to get love and attention from my partners (and especially to get oral sex, the very thing I was advocating. No embarrassment whatsoever). It allowed me to slow down, ditch the vibrator from time to time and explore a slower, more gentle, embodied way to pleasure myself. It made me confident and radiant and so, so connected with my inner energy and life force.
Finally, it allowed me to start dating women because the very thing I was avoiding in myself, I was also avoiding in others.
It was a whole new horizon for me to explore, and at the time, it really felt like a wall had been broken down.
What I really hope you’ll get from my journey is this: if you protect yourself from parts of you that you find scary, you might lose access to your power too.
So maybe take a look. And If you feel ready to get support on your journey, I would be delighted to help you get back your power and wholeness.
