13. The power of sexuality
Do you recall your first experience of your sexuality? Was it like a sparkler igniting inside you? A many-petalled blossom unfurling toward the sun? A slow ride on a languid river, no way to stop the current and not wanting to? Did you feel this in response to someone else or were you by yourself? Did you feel like this sensation belonged to you, that it was precious?
When I name the power of sexuality, I’m talking about an energy residing within us that arises out of our biology and our neurology. We may think about sex as purely physical, but in fact it is an energy that involves our bodies, minds, emotions, and spirit. We may experience sexual feelings when we’re quite young, before we have a name for them. Or we may find our sexuality branded, exploited, or assaulted before we’ve ever had the chance to claim it for our own. As we explored earlier in the chapter about Sovereignty, not everyone agrees that women’s bodies and our sexualities belong to us, and there are many forces arrayed to commandeer them. Sometimes this involves possession or restriction of the body, but in Western society at least, we are also the targets of messages that aim to distort the mind, emotions, and spirit.
In her book, Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life, sex researcher Emily Nagoski categorizes these messages as moral, medical, and media. The…
