Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [113]
At the top of the list, many of us start out paralyzed by shame and embarrassment, even after we figure out that we don’t want to be embarrassed by sex. Shame, and the beliefs we were taught that our bodies, our desires, and sex are dirty and wrong, make it very hard to develop healthy sexual self-esteem. Many of us spent our adolescences consumed with guilt for our sexual desires, our fantasies, and our masturbation, long before we managed to pull anything off with another human. When we did connect with others, many of us spent those encounters obsessing about our performance, often so busy worrying if we were doing it wrong that we forgot to notice how good it felt.
When our desires and fantasies stretch further than a monogamous marriage with a member of the opposite sex, we suffer additional attacks on our self-acceptance—to some, we are sex-crazed perverts, deserving objects of scorn to others and, all too often, ourselves. According to some people, even God hates us. It’s hard to feel good about an expansive sexuality when you feel so bad about yourself that you just want to hide.
BODY IMAGE
None of us look sexy enough. The advertising and fashion industries see fit to line their coffers by making us all feel bad about our bodies so that we will buy more clothes, makeup, cosmetic surgery, or whatever in a desperate attempt to feel okay about how we look to others. The perfume industry floods us with images designed to convince us that we smell bad (and if we smell worse than these highly synthesized scents, we must smell very bad indeed). Even those lucky souls who are young and thin and cute suffer from constant worry about how they look: why else do you think they throng to gyms and aerobic classes?
The more people you want to share sex with, the more people you are going to have to expose your naked body to, so there you are. To enjoy a free sexuality, you need to come to terms with the body you are living in, unless you want to wait till you lose twenty pounds, which could take forever, or until you look younger—don’t hold your breath. Do remember: your sexiness is about how you feel, not how you look.
EXERCISE Buy Something Sexy
Go to a store, any store—a discount clothing store, a thrift store, a lingerie store, a sex toy store—and buy yourself something sexy. Something that feels sexy to your body today. Sensual is a good place to start—anything from silk to soft new flannel or really fine cotton. Loose-fitting or tight, it doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as you feel good in it. What colors are sexy to you? Rich deep shades, delicate hues? What expresses your inner slut? Close your eyes and feel your way through the racks. Leather and velvet are divine to the touch, so invite the touch you dream of. Even some denims are startlingly sensual, so try buying your jeans by feel. Let go of what anything is supposed to be, and let your skin choose what it wants. Go home and parade around in it.
AGE AND DISABILITY
It is foolish and rude to assume that people with physical disabilities don’t enjoy sex. Differently abled people may indeed engage in differently organized forms of sexuality, but that doesn’t mean no sex at all. People with spinal cord injuries who have lost all sensation below the neck report orgasms: there is a lesson here for all of us about how sensitive our ears and lips can actually get.
Sex for a person with physical disabilities is not that different from any other form of sex. Focus on what you can do, what you can feel, what feels good, and how to go about experiencing the most intense feelings that this particular body can feel. Learn about your body just as any other person does. What supports you in moving or reaching? How can you deal with any medical appliances? What safety precautions must you keep in mind?
Most important of all, what do you like? People who have lost physical abilities in accidents may spend a long time rediscovering what this new body can do and feel—finding what feels good is the joyful part of the journey. People disabled from birth