Turn me on, shut me down.

I didn't know I could enjoy sex until I was 25. Wasn't allowed to. I had never been given permission to consider it. Sex before that moment was something I had to do, was supposed to do. It was the currency I spent to be safe. I learned this new bit by reading an Anais Nin book - women enjoying sex. Wanting sex. Delta of Venus, Little Birds I didn't even know these titles were double entendres.

The image told of by Nin of women fucking women did something to me. Something fucking my husband didn't do. (Honestly I don't even remember a single intercourse with him).

From then on out the idea of the golden brown sugar honey glazed skin of my best friend’s inner thighs worked some kind of crazy magic on me and would make me, force me to orgasm.

Against my will. 

Pull here to inflate life vest.

jezzus fuck. 

I never had before. What? True story.

Erotica unlocked an opportunity for me to begin to understand my own pleasure. I learned I was allowed to enjoy sex.

Even though I'd had a few boyfriends before I got married, I was still a good girl. A punk rock, beer drinking, swearing, drug taking, fucking good girl. 

Fucking was a consequence of wanting to feel the electric shock of someone's hand on my skin. I didn't know or care about sex. Sex was just something menboysguys took from me. It was currency paid to not get beaten up. There was no intellectual understanding of fucking beyond that. I did not know how to think of pleasure as something I was in charge of, or could give. I didn’t have the language to ask for what I wanted, and all I wanted was to stop what was happening. The electricity of hands on skin took my breath. Took my language away. I realize this is a blatant contradiction. I wanted the electricity of making-out, but not the mess of sex, but sex unfortunately was the price to pay for the making-out I actually enjoyed.

Before I was 25 I didn't have permission to think about girls. My thoughts didn't even go so far as sex. Not sex with boys. Not sex with girls. Sex was something that happened to me. Sex was a duty. I was supposed to have sex. Sex seemed so brutish and one sided. I didn't know how to ask if I wanted it and didn't have the power to overcome my fears to ask.

When I was 25 I started to imagine girl sounds. Seeing boobs augmented in my inner visions of the magical place I retreat to while being fucked - I'd never even seen a woman’s crotch before then, my imagination couldn't go very far.

And then
one time
that woman
the woman who fueled my fantasy
the woman who made the sex with my husband interesting
the woman with the golden brown sugar honey glazed thighs
kissed me
on the neck - in a bar
and whispered
"lets get out of here"
shocked flushed electrified
I felt validated
in that moment my knees smooshed.

I think the shock may have read on my face as if the kiss were unwelcome - she back pedaled later, and I knew she would have to, she was in the military. She could get kicked out for that kind of thing. And I was crushed. I ran away. I left her friendship so that I wouldn't be tortured by her ever again. - I've seen her once since those days, the days of seeing her every day all day - I was still as much in love with her as I ever had been.

Back then. Actually before then. Eager to feel. Anything. I pierced myself. When I was a kid it was my ears, then my nose, then naval, then my nipples, (that brings us up to speed on our time line, then my tongue, then my nose some more, my nipples again, my naval again, then my labret before I got brave enough to pierce what I understood would flip the switch to feeling something. I did my homework, I’d been doing it for years, I’d met the masters, I’d met the laypeople I met their gurus I knew what the possibilities were, it took almost 10 years for the idea to settle in enough for me to be comfortable with doing something as selfish and savage as piercing my clitoral hood.To flip the switch.

Doing so put me in charge of my currency. It turned the tables. Entirely. Piercing myself gave me a filter to screen out the aggregate who couldn’t hack a woman in charge of her own vagina. Back then only freaks had piercings – now you can get this procedure done at the mall. Back then you had to know people who were lifestyle freaks to make the connections to get the invites to meet the people who would pierce you in magical ritual settings. Wresting control of my business took shape as an elaborate ceremony.

My vagina was released from the hands of men and handed to me. Mine.

This isn’t where I was planning on *this* going, but here we are.

Or I could say, here we are again. Feeling. Back to feeling. I’m trying to pay attention to feeling – these latest entries have been in response to feelings. Maybe if I respond to them I can recognize them for what they are and give them attention. Rather than squashing the ones I don’t want and bemoaning the ones I don’t think I have. If I pay attention, maybe they’re all there and I’m just not seeing them.

I flipped the switch 15 years ago. After Ben divorced me for being gay in my head. Have I ever told you that? I thought… I was stupid enough to think that I could share my fantasies and desires with my husband. Fool I was. I loved that guy. He was beautiful. He looked like Elvis. His voice was like honey. I’d have walked coals for him. Even if our sex life wasn’t entirely  memorable (it was along time ago) I sacrificed for him. I made life altering physical modifications for him. This might be a slight digression – together we decided our personal philosophies wouldn’t gel as parents, if we were to ever have kids it would tear us apart. We determined to not have children so that we could rejoice in our relationship together unhindered. I had surgery to be sterilized to guarantee that would never happen. I tell people something else, but this is the truth. I sacrificed the possibility of having kids for the sake of our enduring lasting loving forever until death do us part relationship. And then he divorced me for thinking about women during sex. Really. I could have died. I think I did a little actually.

I vowed to myself as his vows to me unraveled, I vowed to never allow another human to hurt my heart like that ever again. Ever. The walls went up, thick and high. My heart buried in the basement of a fortress.

As Ben released me, set me free against my will. I began to push. Live out front as much as possible. Push. Drink. Push. Drugs. Push being assertive with my vag that can feel something. Push. Myself to “succeed” push. Feel. Push. Don’t feel. Push. Girls. Push. Men. Push. Play. Play. Hard. Push. Fast. Push. Dance. Push. Loud. And then I fell from the sky. It changed me. It made me immortal. Impervious. And it just made me push harder. Then my dad died and I pushed harder. Then my grandfather and I pushed harder. My other grandfather and I pushed even harder to feel something other than loss. Loss. and hurt and anger and heart break and betrayal.I pushed myself away from people.

I called Ben. Please tell me something that will hold me back. Please. He told me he was marrying a woman who was out as bisexual. I knew her. We were friends. I said to him “You know she’s queer right?” He wanted to care for her. Why not care for me? I’d have dropped my life and flown him to me if he’d have come. But he wouldn’t. He had his reasons.

I shut down. and restarted my life as an entirely different woman. The woman you all know. Q.