Last week I received an email from a woman who was very upset because she had taken my Confidence Types Quiz and she was shocked that there were questions about sexuality on it. Gasp!
I get that people might not like Facebook asking questions about sexuality or feeling suspicious of them in general around personal information. We all have reason to distrust them.
Her complaint wasn’t about that though. She told me that confidence has “nothing to do with sexuality” and how dare I ask personal questions like that when what we are here to talk about is CONFIDENCE! Remove me!
I laughed out loud.
Confidence has EVERYTHING to do with sexuality.
It’s okay if you are not up for talking about it, but the idea that they are unrelated is hilarious to me.
For many years I have been asking the women I work with what they need most in order to feel sexually empowered. The number one thing they say is confidence!
I hear it over and over…how much confidence would change everything.
I constantly get asked how I define Sexual Empowerment.
I wrote an entire book about how I define it. I have written countless articles about it. I’ve not broken down the confidence connection though.
Let’s look at the Venn diagram of sexual empowerment and confidence.
10 Ways Confidence Flows in Your Sexual Empowerment
1. Feeling great in your body and loving it up is a cornerstone of sexual empowerment. Loving the body you live in is a radical act in a world that does everything it can to make us feel bad about it. Grow your body confidence and you grow your relationship to yourself and your sexuality.
2. Knowing how to pleasure yourself gives you massive confidence. I remember how insecure and frustrated I felt before I figured out the puzzle of my own pleasure. Knowing how to get yourself off and how to direct a partner to get you off—massive confidence builder.
3. Expressing attraction is vulnerable and, you guessed it, requires confidence. It doesn’t mean you will get to make anything happen, but just saying you feel drawn to someone, or that you feel desire for them is hugely powerful. Whether you get it is not the point. Putting your feelings into the world is where most beautiful experiences germinate. Manifest it!
4. Initiating sex. Yep, you guessed right again. Takes some confidence to put your mojo out there and be the leader in sexy escapades with a beloved. I often work with couples in long-term relationships who are fatigued around who will initiate sex, and how many times they feel rejected and how to keep the fire burning. Initiating is critically important to having an active sex life and if no one does it, everything peters out.
5. Asking for what you want sexually is the next level of vulnerable going-for-it. It is so hard for people to ask for the things they really want, knowing that their invitation may be met or it may be rejected. You’ll never know unless you ask. You can’t get what you want unless you make it known you want it. Otherwise you are waiting on the world to give you something and it will not likely ever be exactly what you wish for. Building up the courage to ask for what you want, especially when it is something unlike what you are currently doing, getting or exchanging is serious confidence-muscle-building.
6. Setting boundaries. Just as asking for what you want takes courage and confidence, so does saying “no” or making your limits clear. Many of us are socialized to please others, to give to others, to care-take and pleasure our partners. Saying, “I don’t want this,” or “I am not into this right now,” is powerful and requires a sense of self-possession that allows you to care for yourself with power and clarity. Your “yes” is only as powerful as your “no.”
7. It takes mojo to try new, kinky, out-of-the-ordinary sexual things. Most of us have some fantasies about trying new exciting things sexually at some point in life and if you want to wave your freak flag, you’ve gotta set aside all your fears about what people will think or how you will be judged and just do it anyway. The ones waving those flags are having some of the best fun. Go find some other freaky deakies who want to spice things up and enjoy your play.
8. Get public about your proclivities and go to a sex shop, sex workshop or sexual event. Want to take your sexuality and your confidence to the next level? Get public about it. I don’t mean hiding behind your handle and avatar public, but like, real live, let’s go learn some stuff, get some new toys and offer a public display of interest in sexual thangs kind of public. There is a whole sexual culture waiting for you if you get up the confidence to go be a part of it.
9. Sexual healing, naming injustice, naming shame, and doing your work to free yourself requires a beautiful, if not messy act of confidence and courage. Healing is painful and vulnerable and to decide not to carry a wound that has kept you limited is the biggest gift you can give yourself and your sexuality. Your sexuality is meant to be expansive and free and when you heal what needs healing, you get to have so much more. Have the confidence to heal.
10. Standing for sexual liberation is the ultimate confident sexual act. As more of us speak up about the importance of sexual liberation, sexual pleasure, gender equity, sexual freedom, sex work and other aspects of sexuality, we change our world. We make it better for everyone. Thank goddess so many people are speaking up about the power of sexuality. Be willing to get big and bold with it—this is a movement that is growing. We need confident sexual soldiers who are not staying quiet because they are afraid of their reputation.
No matter who you are there are places to up your confidence and expand how you experience your body, your desire, your pleasure, your liberation and your freedom.
Sexuality is for everyone and feeling empowered sexually means developing a strong sense of self and the confidence to be all of who you are.
Confidence and sexuality are most certainly deeply entwined.
Confidence is powerful and it gives more juice to the juiciest thing we have.
Our sexuality.
Want to build your confidence and look more closely at your confidence assets and currency?
For a super limited time, I am offering my Ultimate Confidence in Sex, Money and Business course for a fraction of what it’s worth because I am retiring this class later this year. Today you can get in on this game-changing class for $97.
It’s for all genders. You will have a whole new take on how confidence operates and what you can leverage to get what you want and wave that flag.