In Search Of The Big O

Taking On Personal Agency In the Bedroom

I had what might have been an orgasm at 19 years of age–but the experience got interrupted by my roommate who needed her coat from our shared closet. So I’m still a bit uncertain about that.

But the memory of the feeling lingers with me.

Now, 47 years later, I am still trying to get that feeling back.

I wonder how many other women have led lives of service to their husbands without their own satisfaction being in the mix.

Now that I am getting a divorce and am free to pursue my own desires, this particular desire looms large. How to pursue pleasure for myself. How to find my own way to an orgasm.

Harnessing Agency

Here’s what I know for sure: I can not expect someone else to pleasure me if I can’t pleasure myself. I want to be able to take care of my own needs and desires so I can share that knowledge with someone else.

I have agency and I need to use that agency, not delegate.

It’s a long road to travel. For me, the first step is learning and being able to speak the correct words is a powerful beginning.

Of course my mother and I never discussed sex or intimacy or what a relationship involves. In the household I grew up in, nothing relating to sex was ever discussed or mentioned. In my elementary and high school—the same story. I mean we learned about the sperm and the egg and how those two got together and made a baby but there was no mention of exactly how those two got together… that was left to our imagination.

When I finally did learn about getting pregnant, it was clinical–a mechanical deal. No passion. No intimacy. No nitty gritty details.

I pushed back against the rigidity of my family often. I would hug my mother because I knew she hated to be touched. I could feel her body stiffen as I squeezed hard. I would talk about things I knew made her uncomfortable, but she fought back by leaving the room.

I knew she was rigid and that’s why my father divorced her, in my mind. But what child knows the real reason.

As a teenager, I read Fear of Flying by Erika Jong, but that left me somewhat confused.

Doing Things Differently

When I had my own kids, I tried not to be so rigid, but it’s challenging. I tried to talk to my kids about sex but fear that I might have failed.

I couldn’t say vagina, vulva, cnt or pssy… I called it their “lady’s part.’ That was the language I felt comfortable with — Victorian, euphemistic, vague. Language that tiptoed around power.

So for me, learning to be comfortable with the language was the first step. I’m getting there. I’m enjoying the term pssy… not that I like cats… but cats are very particular who they let touch them. They only come out when they feel like it. They play their own game. It seems somehow appropriate.

The Next Wall

But now I have hit another wall… an extremely strong brick wall that is creating a major block.

In order to pleasure myself, I need to be able to touch myself.

And I don’t seem to be able to do that.

All those years of Catholic school… the nuns… the guilt… coming to get me after all these years.

Photo by Matas Katinas on Unsplash

How to overcome these blocks.

It is impossible to attack these blocks on an intellectual level. I know intellectually that it is ridiculous. But that doesn’t change anything.

What I need to change is the embodiment of the practice.

So that is what I am working on now. Moving out of my head and into my body.

If only it was as easy to achieve as it is to type.

It’s a journey. Awakening isn’t for the faint of heart. But I move forward with the belief that it will all be worth it.

The road ahead may be slow, but I’m moving — from guilt to grace, from silence to sensation. And for the first time in a long time, I’m doing it for myself.

Here’s a journal prompt for you to move forward:

What messages did I receive about pleasure and my body growing up — and what do I want to believe now?

Here is the Tarot Card I pulled for this post:

Every time I go to pull a card to post here, I am amazed at how appropriate the card is… I know you are thinking I probably decide for myself what card it should be, but I’m telling you, I pull one randomly from the deck.

And now I got The Empress. See… I told you you wouldn’t believe me. I could hardly believe it myself. But here we are.

Tarot Card - The Empress

In this light, the Empress represents nurturing energy that helps life to flourish. She fosters imagination. What she’s telling us is that if you can imagine it, you can make it happen. If I want an orgasm, I can make it happen. I have agency. What I plant is what blossoms. Who I believe myself to be determines my experience. The message: I have to create powerful inner images.

So NOT to get out of my head and into my body, but to use my imagination to create what I desire.

That is a big message.

And the Empress is a major Arcana card, so not just talking about today, but as an overarching theme here.

Take note. Create what you want in your mind first, then it will come to fruition in the world.