Why You Have to Fuck Your Way Out of Shame
The only way out is through — one orgasm at a time
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Like many women, I’ve struggled a lot to overcome shame in the bedroom. There’s an insidious message we receive throughout our lives — a message that tells us again and again that a woman’s sexuality is dirty and that sexual pleasure is bad.
Even though I was a very sexual child who indulged in quite a lot of masturbation, I always felt guilty about what I was doing. My mother really didn’t know what to do with me and her embarrassment over my behavior made me feel even more shame about my sexuality.
As a teenager, I had the opposite goal of my peers — not to explore my sexuality, but to hide it, and hopefully, one day, shut it down completely. I’d been to so many Christian private schools by then, my poor little clitoris felt like a dirty slut — and not in a good way.
These feelings of shame were agonizing for me when I had such a high sex drive. I literally could not stop masturbating on a sometimes daily basis, no matter how ashamed I felt.
When I was done, I’d feel so relieved and would almost laugh at myself. What was wrong with me? I felt fine, all of a sudden. Why did I think I needed orgasms so badly? I could just teach myself to stop masturbating and then finally I wouldn’t feel so damn guilty and disgusting all the time.
I’d be a good person. Pure, like I was supposed to be. Right?
Of course, it never worked out that way. Afterglow only carries you so far before you get the itch again.
Once I became sexually active, I felt slightly less shameful — after all, it was okay to have an orgasm with another person, right? But dammit, I could not stop masturbating! What the fuck?
Then there was the porn that my partners sometimes brought into the bedroom, or the sexy magazines, or erotic literature. (Okay, that last one was on me.)
It was all so gloriously, decadently, orgasmically rhapsodic. Sometimes, I could climax just from watching a porn film, with my partner barely smoothing his hand over my breast. And having these sexual aids involved from time to time could make me come so fucking hard. Again and again and again.
And then…shit, the guilt would come back. Afterglow became so fucking self-righteous.
I’m so thankful that I have such a strong sex drive because ultimately, I credit that with saving me from the lunacy of our cultural programming around sex. I loved sex and needed to have it and after the age of 30, I did my best to shut out all the noise about how dirty my sexuality was. In the beginning, I wasn’t very successful, but as with anything else, practice has helped.
It took me being on my own to really face the brainwashing I had been operating under. It started with masturbation — it was going to have to end there, as well. I didn’t even realize I was carrying that shame within me until I was in my 40s and found myself spontaneously crying almost every time I gave myself an orgasm.
I remembered all the times I had felt so dirty and so shameful in those moments just after an orgasm. It came bubbling out of my body like a pot boiling over.
That is enough, I decided. No more of this.
And from that moment on, I promised myself I would gift myself with as much pleasure as I wanted, no matter what.
Working from home over the past year gave me all the freedom that I wanted and I let my high sex drive just roll. Depending on where I was in my cycle, I’d sometimes have to take a break every hour or two to satisfy my cravings.
Did I question the need to have 7 or 8 orgasms in a day? Did I chide myself for using my lunch break for masturbation? Did I discourage myself from stopping work for half an hour to write a smutty scene in my novel or a dirty poem?
Fuck no. I just did it.
The more I let my sex drive dictate my schedule and activities, the more I felt healed. No, I’m not going to tell you that my income simultaneously exploded. I wish.
But what matters is that I started to feel like myself again. Like the self I haven’t known in a very long time. Like that audacious little girl who would put her hand down her pants while lying on the grass in the backyard, looking up at the sky because the clouds turned her on so much.
I had started to read work about healing through sexuality (including Ena Dahl’s stunning writing) and I became even more convinced that orgasms really do heal the soul — and the world.
So I kept writing my smutty stories whenever I wanted.
I took naked photos of myself — not just sexy ones, but downright sleazy ones, too. Legs open, ass in the air, fingers inside me kind of sleazy.
And the very few times I watched porn (it’s not really my thing), if I found a video in which a woman seemed to be having a genuinely good time, I would just go for it. I’d watch the shit out of that video and let myself come and come and come.
I no longer think about how I’d manage my desire around a new lover. Fuck that. I’m not gonna “manage” anything. I don’t want to debate about the right time to become intimate. I don’t want to pace myself or worry about being too upfront about my desire.
No, we’re gonna go to bed and fuck all night, and all the next day if we want to, and the night after, and the day after and…
We’re gonna keep going until my hip bones widen from my legs being pressed opened so many times. We’re gonna keep going until I can barely walk from being pounded for so long. We’re gonna keep going until the topography inside my body rearranges itself into the perfect outline of my partner’s dick. We’re gonna keep going until my nipples are chapped and red and as big as raspberries.
There’s not going to be any afterguilt, either. Because I’ve already pulled that out of myself, by its roots. No, when I’m warm, and malleable, and drunk with ecstasy, we’re gonna do it again, because the slide back into each other will be so easy, so instinctive, so necessary.
Despite what we were taught, the truth is, we are animals. We love sex. We want it and need it.
Having it is what is putting me back together again.
Never again will I want for less. Never again will I believe in rationing out this kind of pleasure. Or, heaven forbid, denying it.
No, I will grab it wherever I can get it and I will grind on it as hard as I can until I come and come and come again.
© Yael Wolfe 2020
