As I spoke to a friend the other day, sharing my story I realized, from her response, it was time to share mine. When I was quite young I remember touching myself and loving it. I did it quite often, I didn’t think anything of it, it felt wonderful, so I did it as often as I liked. Then one day it changed, my mother had told me to not touch myself as I’d be less sensitive when I got older. As a child and an obedient child, not knowing any better, I did what I was told. I stopped touching myself. But that did not stop me from having pleasure.
I realized very soon after that, as soon as I’d pee or pooped there was high sensation “down there”, it tingled and it felt good. So, I’d go to my room afterward, lay on my belly and squeeze and release my pelvic floor muscles until my body was all sweaty and I’d have a pleasure pour through my body. As an adult I see this as I kageled my way to climax! I thought “look mom, no hands”! This was my new way to pleasure myself. I even remember passing my brothers doorway once and he was doing the same thing…not knowing there was anything “wrong” or “shameful” about it, I said “hey, I do that too”! He leapt up full of shame and told me to get out. In my early 20’s I started therapy for s*xual abuse. Self pleasuring and climax came up in one of our sessions and she recommended for me to buy a vibrator. I’d never thought about that, I don’t even think I knew what one was. But I took a friend and we went off to a s*x shop. The person showed me all kinds of things, it was fascinating and I LOVED IT! I chose a long, slinder, medium sized and purple vibrator! I realized I loved being in that shop, wheres my girlfriend was all embarrassed.
When I was in my early 30’s one of my friends introduced me to a Hitachi, a girls best friend really! Well, I have to say, I LOVED IT, and my friend saw that and she gave it to me as she never used that one any more…she had a huge assortment of toys. I gratefully took it home and it was my solo pleasure friend for many many years…a few decades actually! They aren't made the same these days, but man I keep trying to find one that is like the original…it was heaven! I learned with this beautiful tool not to put it right on my clit, but to put fabric…my favorite was jean material. So I'd put on some jeans and have my fun! And it kept my clit nice and safe from being desensitized too! A win win!
As I got older and especially once I was self employed, working in my own home I’d self pleasure 3-4-5+ times a day. I’d get happy, I'd want to celebrate and I’d be sad, I’d want to boost my mood. Even when I was an even keel mood, I’d want to then too, and so I did! It became part of my life. And it made me remember when I was back in therapy and I was recommended this book, these women talked about how they would masturbate 1-5 times a day daily. I thought “what? Really? Why? That takes so much time! How did they get anything else done? Why?” Well, I now know why…it feels good. And I had the same question posed to me the other day, “how do you have the time for that”? Well, first of all, how do we not all make the time for this? And really, even being an energetic, it takes minutes sometimes, other times hours…it just depends on mood and time!
When I hit my early 30’s I went to my first Tantra class and she told us our homework was to go home and self pleasure, with our hands, in different positions, use different strokes and really, I was not happy about it, but as a good student I knew I would. So one night, I set up the space, music, candle light, incense, and I started to touch myself all over, I found new ways of touching myself, different positions I’d never even thought to be in, my body heated up beautifully and it was so sensual and hot…and just at the point of climax, my hand froze up again. I was disappointed, frustrated and well, a little angry I couldn't finish. I lay there feeling my body tingling, happy that I’d gotten that far though and felt so much, and wondered why I didn’t try this more often, even if I couldn’t get off. I made it my intention to do this more often. As that was a lovely evening of the most pleasure I’d ever given myself before. And my vibrator stayed in it's box, until it was over anyway!
I wouldn’t say I did that kind of long session of self pleasuring often, even it if was my intention, as it brought up so much frustration to not be able to finish with my own hands. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t, and why my hand would do that. It took years to see it was my programming my mother had put into me not to touch myself.
I had a lot of shame around not being able to climax with my hands…I chose my partners carefully, (well, except one), ones that I felt would be compassionate and caring about it, as I felt broken and I felt like a fraud teaching what I did and not being able to do what so many other women could so easily. I always felt this sense of “why would a man want to be with me when they could be with someone who worked right”. I knew it also had to do with all the trauma I'd been through, I just didn’t know how deep it was in me.
One day in my 40’s, a woman’s s*xual prime, I had been invited to a s*x conference, so I went. I found myself buying vibrators and all kinds of things for inside the vagina, which I never used, as I had 2 experiences that had them inside me that I just didn’t like. I didn’t understand what I was doing. But I was in the middle of a deep healing journey with a medicine that was supporting me to heal from trauma. The next day I heard “tomorrow, do it tomorrow”. Me talking back “I don’t want to do it tomorrow…I don’t want to do it at all”. “This is for you”.
“I can just turn off my phone for me time. I don’t have to do this drug, I don’t do drugs”. I was still in resistance to how this medicine was helping me, I was taught not to do drugs and I knew it was helping me, but yet again, another thing I had to de-program from me. As I never knew one could take the same thing people used as drugs and use them for healing. Even though I’d done my research, I’d called MAPS, I got the science behind it and knew it wasn’t a drug, I was still in resistance. “This is for you” this voice said. Frustrated… “fine, I will do it”!
Once I committed to doing it my body relaxed and I was guided to my bedroom, I got out all my s*x toys and washed them, I was lining them up on a clean towel and I thought “what am I doing? I don’t used these things”. And I kept going. There was no answer, I just knew I was to do it.
I opened ceremony, I felt I was already on it before the ceremony was ended and then I took the medicine once I was fully in the space. The chanting, toning, calling in, everything took 45 minutes to an hour. I always felt I was already on it…and I’d not even taken it until the ceremony part was done, as I wanted the medicine to fully get why I was here, what I was doing this for, so it could support me to heal. I took it and I went in and drew myself a bath. Now I won't tell you all the in’s and out’s of this night, which lasted for hours. I will say I didn’t leave my bed for hours, and I self pleasured my whole body in a way that I’d never experienced, I used all of those toys, all of my orifice’s were happily used. And my body opened up to my hands touching it. I started to climax, over and over and over again. I held my finger up above my clit by 1/4 to 1 inch and my body climaxed every few seconds for hours. I didn’t even need to touch myself. I had to take breaks as it was so tiring to have so much pleasure raging through my body so much. Touch with my fingers, no touch, my body just kept going. By the end of the night I realized my body was making up for all they years it didn’t or couldn’t climax.
All these years, 24 years after a friend who had asked me “what does a orgasm feel like to you”. I told her and she said “that isn’t an orgasm, I used to think that was, but it isn’t”. That was the moment I felt broken. As before that I had no idea my body was “supposed to do or feel anything”. But that had been all deleted in one night. I ran into that woman after this experience, told her about it and she apologized deeply for what she had said to me as it was her beliefs about her body. And she asked me to help her heal. The next morning after this very energetic and pleasure filled night I woke up fearful that it was only the medicine and I'd go back to “normal”. I grabbed my coconut oil, I touched my body and gradually went down between my legs and within minutes 5 climaxes. “I’m not broken, I am healed, I work, fuck I work and I work beautifully”, squealed and hugged myself, tears of joy streamed down my face… “I don’t have to be scared any longer of being with men, I work now”. These are the words that kept ringing in my ears. I OMed (Orgasmic Meditation) that week and my OM partner was blown away, he went over time saying “I am waiting for your body to stop climaxing”, my response “she isn't going to stop until you do”. I laughed with such much celebration in my voice as it was true. I'd never experienced anything like this.
I went on a date that weekend and I sat on his knee and this explosion of sensation with through my body. He said “that was the most vulnerable experience I'd ever had in my life”.
It was in that one night I realized that was climax, and not orgasm. Climax is in the genitals, orgasm can be in the whole body, it can be from eating delicious food, it can be touching something soft and the body responding to it. Orgasm doesn’t have to be s*xual and the word climax was brought into my vocabulary then. And one can stimulate the other, but they are 2 different things. My life changed that night, it was like a magic button had been pressed and I'd been freed. I almost quit teaching s*xuality after that as I realized “this” was the reason I came into this work, as I wanted to heal. But then I realized I had so much more to teach and so much more space to teach it in within myself. My self pleasuring practice is still very much alive. My body stayed at that heightened place for a very long time…every time it felt like something to deeply celebrate. Since then I did a 40 day self pleasuring challenge, with my hands, it turned out to be a year long challenge. I loved it, I learned a lot more about my body. I realize now I can climax or not, I just know I love pleasure, if it is pleasurable I like it and want it. It is nice to have my mind freed from any kind of goal. And I will say after this happened I thought “this is what I had so much shame about, not having this”? Yes it is. As it is a big deal when you don't have it, but when you do have it, it is just part of your life.
I didn’t know HOW interesting mine was to others until I started telling people about it. And honestly I left some parts out, but this is the gist! I laughed when my friend called me a s*xual blueprint…as I am not that, it is my lowest of the blue prints for me, I am a highly s*xual energetic/shapeshifter/sensual!
What is your relationship to self pleasuring? Was it ok to do it in your home growing up? What were you taught about doing or not doing it? How often to you self pleasure? Do you do it when you are only in a certain mood?
