Truthful Tuesday - You are already liberated

I just watched some episodes of Netflix’s “Sex and Love around the World”.

Thank you Ms Amanpour, for reminding me of my purpose in this world and in this life. 

Here is the sad truth. Us, “women of the West”, make a very small percentage of the world’s total female population, who are “allowed” to enjoy some level of sexual freedom and the right to our pleasure and to choose for ourselves.

In most other cultures, women still have hardly any rights. Men can have lovers and multiple wives. Men can cheat. Men can force themselves on their spouses whenever they feel like sex. Men can rape young girls based on fabricated religious righteousness. Men can divorce without even telling their wives. If a woman commits “adultery” in some cultures, she might be killed worse case scenario or end up divorced without discussion and unable to see her children, as “best case” scenario. 

Couples don’t talk about sex. In many of the cultures portrayed, Japan, muslim countries, African countries, there is absolutely no form of sexual education. Women and men are matched and married off without much knowledge of what sex is really supposed to be about. Sexless marriage is a norm. Mind you, I believe this is also the case in the “West”. 

Meanwhile - pornography, sex dolls, robotic technologies for artificial satisfaction are having a renaissance. Gang rapes and murder are frequent. Cultures that are radically different in how they view sexuality, are facing incredible challenges of violence, rape and shaming in their trying to merge. 

Yes. As a human race, we are totally fucked up sexually.

And there is a thread through a lot of it actually. That even though we enjoy relative freedom, we, Westerners, might have had some fingers in the pie of all this fucked-up-ness. 

The Japanese genre of “sungha”, is a delicate erotic artform (calligraphy) from the 17th century that was often given as a wedding gift to the daughters of the samurai on their wedding night. This era was known for its sexual liberation - until Japan opened its gates to the Western world… and this kind of erotic liberalism was doomed inappropriate and was banished, until it disappeared or went totally underground.

In India, intimacy is often governed by family, tradition and religion, and in many areas of the country, marrying “for love” might end up killing you. In a culture where Tantra and the Kama Sutra have a tradition that goes back thousands of years, during the 200 years of British occupation, most of it was eradicated or became forgotten. 

In Africa, when the slave traders came, they came with the Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. People had to convert to Christianity just to save their lives. It brought total disconnection from their own cultural roots and gave confusing, contradictory messages about sex and relationships. 

I know nothing about arranged marriages, or choices made based on religious beliefs. It is, to say the least, a slippery ground to try and come to any sort of conclusion about any of it. 

But I do see this: 

Yes there are shifts happening. Women are moving into the workplaces and starting to earn their own money. They are marrying later in general, even in countries where child marriages are common. They are becoming braver in choosing the partners they want. Activists and brave warriors are everywhere, speaking their truth, revealing the shadow and shaking the trees of cultural "morals" and norms. 

But is there a real shift happening in terms of how we think about our own pleasure? In many cultures still, the man’s pleasure is absolute priority. In many cultures still, the idea of pleasing your woman raises an eyebrow.

What shocked me most was this: 

in ALL of the countries Miss Amanpour was visiting, the questions “Do you think about your own happiness?” OR “Do you think your pleasure and happiness are important?” was met with silence and stunned eyes, sometimes, even, terror. It was like the women, whether in Japan, Africa or Beirut, or in a minority community in a European city, never considered that such a question might even be conceived of, let alone asked.

“That is a dangerous question” one of the translators warned her. “I think you should not ask this question.”

And while I see that the women in our societies enjoy possibilities most women in the rest of the world would never even dream of, we seem to share this strange disconnection from our “right” to pleasure and / or happiness.

Only, for us, the “oppressor” is often within. 

I don’t deserve… I can’t… It’s not possible for me… I’m not good enough… I’m not slim enough… not young enough… not whatever enough enough enough, NEVER enough.

Women of the West, hear me! 

I am here to tell you that YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. YOU MATTER. YOU ARE MAKING PROGRESS AND MOVING FORWARD, INWARD. YOUR BODY IS FUCKING PERFECT. YOUR SHADOW IS BEAUTIFUL, POWERFUL, AND REVEALING.

YOU ARE. ALREADY. LIBERATED. 

And I might not be able to stop or fight any of the issues mentioned above, but I KNOW I can help you with this. From Shadow to Shine.

Here I am. 

I am 42. 

I have fat on my belly.

I have cellulite. 

I DO NOT wake up multi-orgasmic every day. 

I feel envy, and jealousy, and yes, I get depressed, and just wanna give up sometimes. I just wanna give it all the fuck up. It’s hard. It’s tough. It’s challenging. To be a woman these days. OR A MAN for that matter. A human being. A sexual. Being. 

But I am FREE! I taught myself to LOVE my body. I am beyond grateful for my right to feel, to choose, to keep finding out who I am! 

I DO NOT STAND FOR BULLSHIT.

And I can tell you this: if I have helped only one person to wake up to their own inner beauty, to realise their worth, their right to pleasure, it is all worth it. 

I claim my right to be “beautiful and fucked up, in the most glorious ways” (thank you Fia Forsström) and so can you! 

HO FUCKIN’ HO.

Japanese Shunto

Images from the Kama Sutra