by Natasha | Mar 26, 2022 | Intimacy, Posts |
For most of my 44 years, I thought sex and grief existed separate from the rest of life — behind closed doors and in hushed conversations. I now realize that in separating them, I missed the opportunity for the most beautiful intimacy I could have ever imagined.
Over the past 3 years, me and my children have experienced 3 tragic losses and at first, I had little ability to navigate them through what felt like unimaginable pain. Untimely, tragic deaths of children wasn’t something I’d dealt with beyond a clinical understanding in Counseling training, and I oscillated between fear that I would also lose my children, and gratitude for a deepening connection to them through our grief. Looking back on this time I can’t help but notice the parallels with my experiences in the intimacy of loss, and the intimacy of pleasure. There have been moments during this time where I felt I was experiencing the deepest intimacy of my life — Intimacy that is available when I move beyond my own fears and insecurities — and stay present in the seemingly insignificant details of the moment.
Seeing my 17 year old son hold the hand of his 16 year old sister as she cried in fear for the life of her friend. Hearing him teach her to breathe in the way he had learned to calm himself down when he had lost his friend the year before, and directing his other sisters to put a wet cloth on her forehead. I watched this scene in front of me, noticing the tv still on and half eaten food on the desk of the hotel room we were staying in. We’d come to celebrate my youngest’s birthday and all of that changed in a moment with one text message.
Fast forward a year and I’m standing in my friends’ doorway, holding her crying in my arms after losing her son. I feel her shoulder blades under my fingers, smell the shampoo in her hair, see his jacket on the hook behind her and his shoes casually sitting on the door mat under her collapsing legs — as if he’d just casually kicked them off and walked upstairs.
Interwoven with tragedy and grief is the unmistakable normalcy of everyday life.
After eating a bowl of homemade soup together in my dining room, surrounded by folded clothes and children’s books, we move to my bedroom. The woman, who’s come to me for orgasm coaching, lies down naked on my bed and I watch the color rising up her chest as her pleasure builds. Sitting on my chair I notice her seemingly oscillate between the push and pull of control and surrender — not knowing exactly how things will turn out if she just lets go. Increasing the sound of my steady breath to support her, we breathe together and she lets go; tears and laughter follow as her flush lessens and tears flow. “I’m not broken” she says. After she leaves, my children come home and we eat dinner at the same table.
Arriving at a hotel jacuzzi suite for a weekend of pleasure with my lover to discover my bleeding has come early. He takes off his red plaid shirt for me to bleed on — as if it’s the most normal thing to do in the world — and the rest of the weekend is spent naked, in pleasure, eating good food, discussing life and refolding the red shirt under me to find new squares to catch the blood.
Interwoven with pleasure and sex is the unmistakable normalcy of everyday life.
In January, we once again experienced the untimely loss of a close friends’ mother and, while supporting her through it, I couldn’t help but feel once again, this deep sense of intimacy. Intimacy in being alongside a person you love while they grieve. Intimacy in sharing stories about her life and legacy and the intimacy of asking myself what my own legacy will be. Intimacy in my daughter recognizing that her friend doesn’t “just want to talk about losing her mom, she also wants to talk about clothes and movies.”
Interwoven with tragedy and grief, pleasure and sex is the unmistakable normalcy of everyday life……….
* This is my experience only and I recognize that grief and loss are different for everyone. I’m not suggesting my experience should be anyone else’s
by Natasha | Mar 2, 2022 | Body Image, Posts |
Imagine you had a partner who wouldn’t look at you, acknowledge you, say nice things to you or touch you – except in demanding or forceful ways. What if your partner asked you to do painful things to yourself to look presentable to them? What if they never took the time to ask you how you felt or what you wanted?
When they demanded something of you, do you think you’d feel open to giving it, or even letting your guard down enough to allow it? Would you feel safe? Cared for? Relaxed? Loved? Cherished? Would you want to have sex with them?
Now imagine this partner is your genitals. Your vulva, your penis. How do you treat this part of your body on a daily basis? Can you imagine your genitals as a being of their own? Do you acknowledge them as having needs? Do you recognize their need to feel safe in order to enjoy themselves? Their need to relax in order to soften….. or harden….. or feel pleasure? Have you spent enough time with them to know what they like or what feels good for them? Do you demand results from them without even knowing what feels good for them? Do you go directly to their clit or dick without exploring the rest of them, when you wish partners would spend time with the rest of you and your body before doing that?
What kind of partner are you, for you?
by Natasha | Jan 24, 2022 | For couples, Posts, Sex and mothering, Sexual liberation |
When I was first exploring my sexuality, I didn’t resonate with using the terms masculine and feminine to describe myself — especially not when they applied to sex. I resonated with the idea of these energies co-existing, but not how having both of them could help me have a balanced sex life. Now, ten years later on this journey, I resonate much more with these terms and understand why that balance can be so helpful in sex and intimacy. At times in my explorations, I’ve swayed heavy to one side or the other, and thankfully this pendulum swing has been helpful in opening up a longing in me for the side that was missing.
I’ve always identified strongly with certain aspects of traditional femininity. I became a mother to a big family at a young age and the role of nurturing my children and husband felt at that time, like my highest purpose in life. Motherhood allowed me to tap into the soft, nurturing parts of myself that longed for connection and intimacy — through tending to the needs of others. Caring for my family became my attempt at meeting those needs in myself and yet, I often felt like something was missing. Without embodying my masculine side, I found it difficult to ask for what I wanted and needed or make decisions for myself that conflicted with my ability to care for others. My femininity lacked self-care that may have helped me feel nurtured or beautiful or comfortable in my body, and was solely focused on the needs of others. I stuffed my own needs down as deep as I could to protect this. As my children got older and built their own relationships and interests, parenting no longer met my need for intimacy, and the deep longings I felt bubbled to the surface. Slowly, I pulled them out one by one and learned that I liked to feel my body move through dance and to wear dresses and to feel pretty — for myself — and that femininity wasn’t only about caring for the needs of others.
Around this same time I discovered my pleasure in a more embodied way and the nurturing part of me that used to have sex for my husbands pleasure, started wanting pleasure for myself. It took awhile to learn how to do this, but eventually I no longer cared if he connected with me before we had sex as I’d long since been asking for. I learned that I could have sex solely for pleasure — as he had seemingly done for years and years — and that sometimes that was exactly what I needed. I learned to own my right to orgasm by making sure that, with the help of my hands, I always orgasmed in sex. I initiated sex, turned on the lights and took the pillow off of my face that I’d used for years to hide in shame. I didn’t have to feel shame to live in pleasure. It was my BIRTHRIGHT. I was doing what men have done for centuries and took ownership of my own pleasure. I’d believed my husband’s pleasure to be a given and that it was necessary for me to provide that for him during the 17 years we were together. Until I found my masculine, I couldn’t imagine believing my pleasure could be a given or necessary too.
High on this masculine energy I rode my right to pleasure as hard a cock. (see, just writing about my masculine gets me in that mode!) When my marriage ended, I continued seeking my right to pleasure in a masculine way — rarely asking for the nurturing or connection I also needed, or even discerning adequately who I was experiencing pleasure with. There are moments I remember in sexual situations where I felt almost out of body, wondering why I divorced my husband just to be back in the same situation of disconnected sex I’d wanted out of. I could orgasm just fine, but the longing for connection and intimacy and being seen, was still there.
Listening to my feminine, I started practicing discernment and realized that deep intimacy and pleasure (beyond just a basic “get me off” orgasm) happened when I felt relaxed and safe. Just “taking” my orgasm wasn’t enough anymore and I still longed for the more I craved in my marriage. I wanted pleasure yes, but also connection, softness, surrender. To have this, I had to learn to trust and to receive — both very feminine qualities. I realized it was much easier to long for these things than to actually make myself open to them, but I committed to practice. Using breath, presence and masculine confidence, I learned to soften my body like a jelly fish or sea sponge — able to absorb and feel the subtlest nuances of pleasure. Slowly I opened my legs, arms, hands and heart to myself, my partner and the universe. Allowing the feminine in me to receive and soften meant I could allow my partner to pleasure me for as long as I needed. When I felt insecure, the masculine in me was helpful as the strong voice in my ear reminding me, as it’s reminded men for centuries, that “this is my right!” Finally, the two parts were working together.
Looking back I feel that as a traditional, non sexually embodied woman — so far swung on the pendulum in that way — it was necessary for me to swing as far as I could the other way and find my masculine. I needed to own my right to pleasure and exercise it as my own, so that I could come back and own my right to embody my full femininity too. In order to surrender to pleasure, love and allow myself to be fully seen, I needed to know I deserve that. It’s my right as a human being. Regardless of gender or sexual orientation, I believe these two energies exist in all of us, as does the potential to actualize them. To know if your pendulum is swung too far in one way, you can simply ask yourself “what else am I longing for in my sexual and intimate life?” Your answer, is an invitation to explore what’s missing.
by Natasha | Jul 4, 2021 | Posts, Vulnerability |
These past couple of years, I’ve become very acquainted with the gifts and limitations of my wounds and how to tell the difference between the two. Helping or loving anyone from a wounded place can result in support that is either unhelpful or damaging. As parents, healers, ministers, helpers, therapists or support persons we don’t need to be unwounded to help others — we just need to have an intimate and honest relationship with our wounds so that it’s clear to everyone involved, who we are trying to “help.” I compare this to getting to know a lover. Seeking to know them inside and out — their strengths, depths, triggers and potential go-to behaviours when they (or I) just. want. to. stop. the. bleeding.
While I learned about all of this through counselling classes and other trainings I’ve done, the greatest teacher for me has been through my intimate relationships. Nothing matters to me as much as my children, partner, family and friends do, and yet — no other area of my life touches my wounds as much as they do. Because of this, I’ve learned to recognize the dysregulation in my body when my wounds have opened, to slow down, pause and be present to what is actually real in the moment.
There are 2 memories that stand out as for me as vivid reminders of what my wounded vs. unwounded help looks and feels like. In one — I’m standing at my eldest sons door, trying to help him grieve and find a reason to keep going after losing his friend from suicide. He keeps saying “don’t yell at me” and I can’t understand why he’s saying this when I’m not raising my voice at all. Only later do I realize that what he was feeling, was that my support (while good intentioned) was from a desperate place of fear that I’m going to lose him too, rather than from a place of present listening to him and what he actually needed from me.
The second memory happened a year and a half later — I’m holding in my arms a friend and mother who lost her son to suicide only a few days earlier. As she sobs, I feel the bones in her spine under my fingers, smell the shampoo in her hair and see her sons’ shoes on the porch floor under our feet. The difference between the 2 memories of myself is: grasping, desperation vs. generous, loving presence.
Since then, I use these memories as a reminder that when I’m helping anyone, there are 2 choices I can make — like 2 doors to open in my heart.
There are 2 doors in my heart — each with a sign on them that says “helping.” Apart from the signs, the doors look very different.
One is like those old saloon doors that have no handle and swing open without warning or thought to who is on the other side. Beyond the swinging door, the ground drops away immediately so that as soon as I step in — as fast as the door swings open — I fall into a big pit of gooey tar. There is no bottom to the pit and once in it, I have to tread tar to stay up. The tar is sticky and heavy and I have to not only tread fast enough to stay up, but also to keep it from hardening around me. Glancing around the tar pit I notice what I hadn’t noticed before — that the person I was trying to help, is in here treading tar with me. It’s difficult to see them for who they truly are in here — someone hurting and needing support while also fully capable of surviving this pain. All I can see is both of us, desperately trying not to drown in the tar while their eyes plead with mine to save them. This door represents the wounded part of me that when triggered, can’t always tell my wound from another’s in this pit.
The other door in my heart is wooden with a large stain glass window in it and I can tell from the way the colours in the glass sparkle onto my face and chest that there is a lot of light on the other side. This door is made with such obvious care that I can almost imagine whomever made it, hand planing and sanding it until it was smooth to touch. The handle is one that needs to be turned in order to open the door and as I reach down to turn it I’m present to every sensory detail I see and feel. Being so well cared for, this door makes me feel present, loving and generous before I even open it. Turning the handle and gently easing the door forward, I can see the person on the other side standing on the grass with light glowing around them. I notice the deep pain in their eyes, the quiver in their lip and the dysregulation in their chest as they breathe. When I reach out to hug them I smell the faint scent of soap in their hair and feel the bones in their spine with my fingertips. I am as present as humanly possible to what they’re going through and, while I can absolutely feel their pain and imagine with every vein in my body how it feels, I never once see it as my own or as my responsibility to fix. I am simply there for them, in whatever way they need, on their journey of healing.
Before I help anyone, I take a breath, pause at the entry of these doors and ask myself which one I’m about to go through.
***In loving memory of Thomas Schorr and his loving mama.
by Natasha | Feb 14, 2021 | Body Image, Posts |
Happy Valentines day from my cold ass to yours! I hope that we can all feel love within ourselves to have a day sprinkled with self compassion and grace for the journey we’ve travelled, the mistakes we’ve made, our wobbly parts and all things in between. Happy valentines day to me, to you, to life! (And all the warm naked beach days to come)
by Natasha | Nov 14, 2020 | Posts |
** photo by Justine Lustig
I took the first week in October off so that I could have some time and space alone. After 6 months of quarantine the idea of just staring at my walls — without anyone interrupting me — seemed incredibly enticing! During this time, I decided to print all the blogs I’d ever written and see if maybe collectively I’d find something in them resembling a common theme or story. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but, feeling like I’m at a bit of a crossroads in life, it seemed like a good idea. While printing them off, I came upon a comment from Betty;
Using my honest I’s, or sharing in first person, has been something I’ve learned through Bodysex and is a commitment that Justine and I ask each woman in the circle to make when they share their stories. We don’t want to hear about their mothers, lovers, friends, partners or ex partners’ experiences. We want to know how they feel in “I’ statements.
Carrying Betty’s words with me into the retreat, I was so excited to meet the other women and see what the circle had to teach me. With Covid-19 increasing, I knew this was likely to be the last retreat for several months and I felt “itchy” at times to reach outwards for a man to soothe my feelings of loneliness.
Over the weekend, I sat listening to the other women’s stories and admiring their beautiful and unique vulvas. As one middle aged woman opened her legs and looked at her vulva for the first time in her life, we all huddled around her, offering love, support and reverence as if she was birthing a new relationship with this life giving part of her body. The next day, after she brought herself to pleasure slowly and lovingly beside me, she burst into tears and I held her hand — imagining that she had finally consummated this new found relationship with her self. “For the first time in my life, my body got the permission to do what it needs to do.” There is nothing more beautiful and intimate than the tears that come with pleasure.
The weekend wasn’t all touching moments like these though — we also laughed, masturbated, shared dirty stories and farted — marvelling at the openness and freedom we felt in our bodies when there’s no holding back. I kept grabbing my note book to frantically jot down things the women said:
“I’ve unleashed a masturbating monster.”
“It’s a buffet of flesh. Different boobs and vaginas. Don’t go near the beef curtains at the flesh buffet. They’re laced with ecstasy!”
“I am enough. I can reach drug-like highs of pleasure all by myself. I can feel sensual and sexy and hot and desirable to myself.”
“I have never felt so comfortable in my own skin.”
“I experienced, for the first time, the complete ease that comes from not censoring myself or my body.”
“I feel like I’m home and I’ve never really felt that before.”
“I was able to build to the biggest explosion of an orgasm I have ever experienced! I did really really weird things with my body and I made sooooo much noise. Like a moose/bear fighting with a ballerina, who gave birth to a hyena…if that makes sense. But I felt no shame; I wasn’t embarrassed; no one made fun of me. I was celebrated.”
For myself, I took my time with my pleasure committing with my “honest I’s” to date myself and provide me with what I am really longing for in a partner. To be made love to, to ask for what I need and listen to my response. To love myself generously through touch, words and actions. Laying in the circle with the other women I took my time with my body — bringing it slowly and softly to pleasure with my fingers, never prodding or pushing it to respond in ways it wasn’t ready for.
Looking back on my blogs it’s not hard to see that the connection in all of them is my own honest I’s, which are always changing and evolving. When my life feels rushed and I rush myself through touch and pleasure, I lose sight of what my truths are. Coming back to this honest connection, rather than looking elsewhere for someone to fix it, always gives me the answers. This weekend felt like a renewal of vows to myself — a recommitment to nurturing this relationship, to giving myself the time and space I need as I need it. To continually come back to myself, my truths and my love — no matter who I’m in relationship with. These are my own honest I’s.
Thank you Turtle, Nelly, Hope, Froya, Rose, Cindy, Casey Jones, Peach, Harrietta and Bilquis.
