Ladies, Own your Pleasure
It’s Valentine’s Day. And, on the biggest marketing holiday of the year, I’ve been wondering about my own sensuality.
This is a topic that’s been on my mind as a women of mid-life. As I flow from my early experimental years to knowing myself more deeply, I really wonder how the topics of female sensuality are misguided, or not discussed at all. If you’re from a repressed culture like mine where these topics are not discussed, how did you learn what feels good and what doesn’t? Where are the pleasure areas on the female anatomy? Where do you like to be touched and what’s off-limits? How do you communicate your needs to your partner?
If you’re lucky, you have a few trusted girlfriends to confide in about your sexual experience. I’ve definitely been involved in many discussions ranging from pure discomfort around the topics of pleasure, and some that are what I call, ladies’ locker-room talk. We can laugh and open up with each other in a light-hearted way. I enjoy talking about this stuff with my ladies as it then doesn’t seem so foreign. Maybe I’m not so alone in my views of my body. Maybe others are experiencing insecurities too about being a woman and growing older. Maybe others have lost their mojo too. Maybe your motor hasn't ever started. No matter what your experience, I’d love to live in a world where these discussions are happening more freely and openly.
Last night I watched Gwyneth Paltrow’s The Goop Lab episode about female pleasure. Shockingly, a huge majority of women don’t know how to identify their own anatomy. Mass media and the pornography industries have created an ideal image of what a woman’s body should look like and how she should behave during sex. I have even heard one of my friends tell me, “I’m afraid he won’t like me because mine is different. There’s more skin down there.” This comment saddened me as it seemed like it may have come from a place of shame. If she didn’t look like other women, then there must be something wrong with her.
Ladies, let me tell you something. Every woman’s body is beautifully different with different colors, sizes, and shapes.
You deserve to feel pleasure. You deserve to move past your hang-ups about what you should look like and start to embrace the beautiful woman that you are. You deserve to release your anxieties and to express in your most authentic sensual self.
In this Goop Lab episode, there are a few experts who guide a group of women to learn to embrace their sensuality, communicate with their partners, and to learn more about their own body. 90-year old sex educator, Betty Dodson guides a group of women to get naked and explore their bodies together. Through this deeply vulnerable experience, the women feel support from other women, and begin to embrace their bodies. They learn about how to pleasure themselves. It’s easy to feel unsatisfied or even have a lack of sensual energy. If you want to feel more pleasure, then you have to be responsible for learning about, and practicing what that means for you. No one else can take that responsibility. You are responsible for your own pleasure.
I’m writing this piece because over the last several years, I’ve let my own sensuality go. I became fearful in the bedroom and my hang-ups seemed even more prominent than ever. I have a wonderfully attentive partner. But, the thing is, it isn’t his job to pleasure me. It’s my job to communicate to him what I like and don’t like. It is my job to allow myself to be vulnerable and express those needs to him. It is my job to allow myself to be open and playful. I’m not sure I need to bare my all with a group of ladies, but I am ready to move past my own blocks to express my most sensual self.
If you’re curious and want to learn more about your body and explore your sensuality, I encourage you to watch The Goop Lab. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Ali Dombek Handel is a leader and life coach from Denver, Colorado. Through her own experience and and practical tools, she guides clients to become the best version of their self.
