Let me give you a hint…

If you are feeling repulsed by the question above – and a majority of women reading this will be repulsed or made uncomfortable – then, you are somewhat (or totally) cut off from your sexy.

Which is interesting.

Because, as women, we have so many magnificent parts to ourselves. We are hard-working, tender, caring, compassionate, inspiring, spiritual, helpful, selfless, strong.

And I bet if I asked you: “How hard-working are you now?” or “How loving are you now?” or “How helpful are you now?”…it would not be so disturbing, right? You would not be repulsed or made uncomfortable by those questions.

But sexy? Sensual? Turned on? Erotically charged? Well, those words can be very controversial.

And yet, here is what is true: When a woman is connected to her erotic power, she is most at home and most in service – to herself, her body, her spirit, and the world.

 

Audre Lorde put it best in her essay, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power. She writes, “On the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a sign of female inferiority; on the other hand, women have been made to suffer and to feel both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence. It is a short step from there to the false belief that only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong. But that strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context of male models of power.”

In other words, the patriarchal world culture is more or less a machine designed to push us off our sensual erotic game.

And how does it accomplish this? By distracting us with constant stress, competing commitments, endless caretaking, overtaxing and underpaying jobs. Leaving us depleted on every level – too emotionally, spiritually, and financially drained to remember who we truly are.

But in all of our doing for others, the part of ourselves that is the first to get trampled and trounced is our sexy.

Which is hugely problematic. Because the one ingredient required to nourish and recharge the human woman who is responsible for handling all of life’s challenges? You guessed it…the erotic.

 

Your inner compass needs pleasure to fire up. And pleasure is the last thing we tend to think about inside this culture. It never makes it on to our to-do list, or if it does, it’s at the bottom.

Don’t get me wrong – being a woman in this world requires courage.

There is courage the world understands and acknowledges – the courage to make a bold statement, to apply for a new job, to help a friend in need, to move to a new place, to work hard.

But then, there is the deeper kind of courage. The kind that requires a woman to turn and face parts of herself that have never been claimed or owned for generations upon generations.

 

To reclaim places and passages within herself that have been lost and buried for centuries of her lineage. To connect with her core sensual brilliance. Her ravishing light. Her turned-on radiance. Her life force. Her fire. Her unbridled wildness.

This journey of self-reclamation requires the greatest risk. It requires becoming fluent in the language of your sensual erotic connection. Whether you are 18 or 108, you have your own erotic language that wants to be learned and lived. And that can be as uncomfortable as trying to teach yourself a foreign language.

But it is a worthy pursuit.

Why? Well, when the sensual replaces fear, your whole identity shifts. The erotic replaces self-judgment and your axis realigns.

Instead of losing yourself to the drain/stress/overwhelm of life, you are connected to your power. And a sense of meaning and purpose are restored to every breath you take.

So, today – just as an experiment – I want you to take pleasure from the silky feeling of your own flesh, rather than ignoring it. Be delighted by the way your hips rock when you walk. Enjoy the earthy fragrance of your sweat, rather than covering it up.

Notice each choice that is yours to make, and choose pleasure. Choose your as-is rightness.

 

This is the first step to reclaiming a kind of power called freedom that has always lived within you.

Love always,