I believe that one of the most important things you can do to claim your sexual power is to learn what it means to come home to your sexual self. I have seen the variety of ways that people abandon themselves sexually and I talked about this in my call this week, “Coming Home to the Sexual Self… When You Didn’t Know You Left.”
One of the most common ways that people abandon their sexual selves is in thinking they are too broken, too kinky, too weird, too vanilla, too whatever to have a good sexual life. People who do this are in a state of judging themselves and comparing themselves to others. They have insecurity about whether or not their sexual desires are “normal”, because they are using the examples of other people and their perceived sexual normalcy as a landmark for how they themselves should be. And if you are judging yourself and comparing yourself to others, then you are also judging them. And if you are in a place of judgment and comparison you have definitely left the building.
There is no “normal” when it comes to sexuality. Normality is a farce. It’s a damaging way of approaching sexuality that has been used for eons in order to control others. “That’s not normal” is the battle cry of sexual oppressors who have sought to undermine the legitimacy of almost every imaginable form of sexual self-expression. If you are repressing some part of yourself out of the fear that you are not normal, ask yourself: what do I stand to gain by continuing to buy into a bullshit standard of “sexual normalcy” that’s both oppressive and unhelpful?
If you are telling yourself you are “too” something, anything, then you are in a place of leaving yourself, trying hard not to be that thing you know deep down you really are, which is another layer of your leaving. You are turning your back on your own desire and needs and fantasies and you are not allowing yourself to explore what feels right to you.
Sometimes people just need more sexual education about the things they are fantasizing about or desiring so that they can understand it better and know how to explore it. It’s not that they are wrong for being interested.If you explore a kinkier side of sex for example, without knowing the rules for safety and consent, you could harm yourself or others. There is a learning curve and “50 Shades of Grey” is not a handbook for how to do it well.
Part of being able to embrace the parts of your sexual self that you are struggling to accept is to have confidence in your knowledge and ability to learn new skills. When you get educated, you build confidence; when you build confidence, your shame dissipates. And of course, meeting other people who share your proclivities, interests and kinks will go a long way to lessen the shame you feel – but as long as you stay stuck and in the closet to yourself, you are shutting down those opportunities right from the start.
There are more than seven billion people on this planet, which means, as one of my mentors once said, that we should really be talking about the seven billion+ different sexual orientations that exist. Repeat to yourself: there is no normal. And in this world of sexual variety, I invite you to come home to the authenticity of your own desire.