I once told the story of my genitals to a room of 24 people...

I once shared the story of my vulva with a room of 24 people — three different times, as they came around in groups of eight.

While I was naked… on a massage table… with them standing around me.

A somatic sex educator was there to support me as I shared my story — my truth.

Every person there was in training for sexological bodywork, so they knew to make eye contact… to ask where their gaze should be… to look at my vulva only if invited.

There was safety in this. And yet… it was still raw.

It was vulnerable.

It was emotionally charged.

My heart beat fast during the first round of sharing. My voice shook a bit. My palms were sweaty. I pendulum-swung between wanting eye contact and inviting them to look at the body — and the vulva — I had spent years shaming.

I was more ready for this than any other time in my life. I had spent YEARS releasing shame in the body.

I never would’ve thought I would do something like this – yet here I was.

The story shifted slightly each time, as more truth wanted to be revealed…

As the language...which started in my mind...landed deeper in my body, and the story unfolded from my yoni.

Almost as if my throat became the vessel for the yoni to speak through, the connection between the two becoming a fluent channel for truth to move through.

The story began at the very beginning of my relationship with my vulva.

I shared about the curiosity and pleasure that arose in exploration from my earliest years with this part of my body…

When I was very young, simply rubbing my vulva on stuffies, noticing how it felt tingly, warm, pleasurable. There wasn’t any inherent wrongness yet…but somehow I still knew it had to be hidden. 

As if the purity subconscious had already hooked its talon into me. 

And then the shame that followed as I became a little older, realizing that for whatever reason… This body part was off-limits to feel good. Something to be hidden.

I spoke on the mixed feelings and sensations that happened during the non-consensual sexual experiences with an imbalanced power dynamic – some would call this sexual abuse– that happened when I was under 5 years old with a teenage boy family member. 

Yet, I maintained a regulated state in sharing as my yoni had come to full completion in the healing process with this event. 

I even went as far as calling it “non-consensual sexual experiences with an imbalanced power dynamic”... a term I still use to this day to discuss this as I no longer identify with it being “abuse”. 

I explained that the reason it no longer felt like abuse was because neither person knew consent with their own bodies. Yes, the boy knew it was wrong. And, no the boy didn’t have ANY outlets to express sexual desire. All sexual desire was wrong. So, of course, this was just as bad a “sin” as any other. He did not, and could not, know the psychological implications of his actions. 

I spoke that when I’d slowed down years prior to connect to this trauma in my body…it didn’t feel malicious. He didn’t want to hurt me. He wanted to connect. He wanted to follow curiosity. 

Two things could be true at once:

Yes, it was traumatic and confusing for me. No, he didn’t intend to traumatize me. 

I continued to share about the playful moments of my own erotic innocence. 

I spoke giddily on the rush of playing “house” with another little girl my age in the neighborhood over a handful of summers whereby we’d dry hump stuffies, rub bodies on each other, innocently exploring with bodies through play. 

I laughed as I recalled how we made our barbies “have sex” because it was fun and playful…and of course we knew that's how babies were created.

Both of us had been exposed to Eros, to sexual experiences, and sexual knowledge earlier than some of our peers. We knew and yet didn’t know. We tried to discover through pleasure, through play, through curiosity. 

I shared when exploration started to feel shameful, embarrassing, and wrong. 

The moment when, even though it was somewhat wrong in my younger years, there was still some innocence. 

The shift when I became a teenager, when I became “responsible”, when I knew “right from wrong in the eyes of the Lord”.

I shared on the full shut down of anything filled with Eros in my teenage years as my religion deemed it "impurity". 

I talked on the guilt/shame cycle of masturbation, fearing I was failing God, failing my “future husband”, and yet still being unable to curb the insatiable desire to explore myself. The fire of desire radiated through me, I was hypersexual yet entirely stuck in shame. 

I spoke on the experimental nature of making out and going to 2nd base with a good Christian boy in Bible college…only to feel shame and fear that if our relationship didn’t last, that we went too far. A moment that held so much romance and light, yet led to so much shame. 

I laughed while talking about the popping of my own cherry while masturbating and watching True Blood on HBO in my dorm in Bible College…it wasn’t “porn” after all. 

I remember the shame I felt. Oh no, my future husband will know. I remembered immediately saying I would lie and say I popped my cherry in gymnastics when I split the beam. I knew other girls who had. 

I shared briefly about the spiritual awakening freeing me from the religion I’d based my identity around…

And my insatiable desire to explore anything that had been off limits before. 

I spoke about the enchantment of meeting a man I chose to be the to have my sexual debut with (what society calls “losing my virginity”). The gratitude that I had the awareness at this point to realize I wasn’t losing anything, but rather gaining an experience I’d longed for secretly under the veil of religious shame. 

The life altering moment that happened as he paused, his face between legs, his breath on my vulva, his gaze meeting my eyes as he said “if a man ever says he won’t do this, you pull your pants up, slap him across his face and walk your pretty ass out that door”. 

The realization in that moment that sex wasn’t “for the man” but rather for me as well. 

The numerous orgasms and pleasure he gave me before he entered me, the slowness and gentleness he provided, and the orgasms that unfolded as we lost ourselves in each other. 

The mind-blowing moment of “THIS is what I’ve been waiting for” and it was even better after yearning, waiting, and choosing the right man.

I spoke about the times I dissociated during sex because I was on too many drugs in my early 20's.

The weird dissonance that happens when you consent to something with the mind without ever checking with the body. 

I shared the mystical, spiritual, and erotic experiences that have happened with my husband (who I’d be with for 9 years at this point) — times that we found sacred union in psychedelics with sex.

The ways he treated my body as if it was something precious, something treasured, and something to tend to delicately. 

The moment years in our relationship when I realized that even my pleasure, even my orgasms, were sometimes performative....

How subconscious programming that had been placed on me ran so deep, I didn’t know what was for me and what was for him. 

He wasn’t demanding anything…yet I was engrained with cultural and religious programming. 

I "believed" that pleasure was for the woman as well. I “knew” that this was true. I’d even had moments of experiencing full ecstatic bliss. 

Yet, the regular, non ecstatic sex…the sex that couples have…I had no idea what was mine and what was his. 

I spoke on the power I reclaimed when I took a celibacy journey to discover what pleasure was for me and what was for him. 

I shared on the endless dance of intimacy blocks we have had when I was committed to a man who was 11 years older…and worked the night shift. The number of times I wanted him to prioritize my pleasure, yet I didn’t even do that. 

The Erotic awakenings that happened when finding Priestess Temple Arts, Somatic Sex Education and finally reclaiming pleasure FOR ME. 

The wonder of realizing that I wasn’t craving for my man to give me pleasure, but rather, I wanted to be fucked open by God. 

The shift when I found that orgasmic wasn’t a sneeze in the genitals, but had the potential to become an entire state of awareness with waves of intensity. 

The magic of discovering energy orgasms. 

I shared how much our love-making in our marriage changed when I stopped placing my pleasure as his responsibility. 

How it unfolded into something beautiful, curious, thrilling, and exciting again. 

I spoke on the magic of discovering Tantric practices together and the potency of intimacy that we discovered through it. How we began to redefine intimacy, sex, and pleasure together.

The ebbs and flows of our sex life as we navigated grief and had different outlets to healing. 

While the story shifted a bit as I shared to the different groups, it became easier each time. The truth nestled in a little deeper.

The permission to take up space opened a little more. 

I’m sure I’ve left out details in this blog post — details those 24 people got to hear directly.

It was thrilling to share then, just as it’s thrilling to share now.

What moved me most was how many people resonated with different aspects of the story. One conversation in particular stayed with me...someone who had also experienced non-consensual s*xual experiences and was searching for language after no longer identifying as a victim.

It was empowering for all of us. Rare. Potent.

The shame I released in that room was beyond anything I thought possible.

Because not only had I released the shame through my body – over the course of years of self healing – I had been witnessed in it.

Never underestimate the power of being witnessed.

Never underestimate the power of your story.