Complaining is easy; choosing the erotic is an act of defiance
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’ve been finding it incredibly difficult to be creative and to show up lately. Taking care of myself seems harder than ever. Then again, I’ve never been very good at taking care of me, so maybe that’s not the best measure.
That said, I’m finding so much inspiration and hope in people doing incredible things. From artists to documentary filmmakers to writers and beyond, I feel so connected to the swell of love that we are seeing in the face of so much hate.
The truth is that when we are exhausted and overwhelmed, stressed and unsure, it can be so so difficult to tap into our erotic energy. So I want to roll around in some thoughts around choosing eroticism and prioritizing it – for our health, for our joy, and for the relationships that we’re in.
The other day, Esther Perel wrote, “Complaining of sexual boredom is easy and conventional. Nurturing eroticism in the home is an act of open defiance.”
This struck a deep chord with me because I hear from so many people how much pain they’re in over low desire, lack of sexual interest, mismatched libidos, or shame around sexual fantasies.
We all know that relationships take work – whether it’s a friendship, a business partnership, or a romantic connection. But, so does sex.
Culturally, we’ve been taught that sex should be effortless and frequent, especially if we’re in love.
I call bullshit.
To cultivate erotic energy in our lives takes practice. It takes nurturing. It takes prioritizing the things that help us tap into our erotic selves. In other words, it takes work.
Once the new relationship energy and happy brain chemicals begin to wane, once life begins to find some patterns and rhythms, once kids and pets and jobs and friends and obligations start filling our schedules, once we’re single and left with our own body and no one to blame, it takes deliberate commitment to prioritize and follow through on things that create erotic energy.
So why is it an act of defiance to nurture your erotic self?
Because it’s easier to get bored. It’s easier to complain and make excuses for why we can’t find time or why our partners don’t get us as hot and bothered as they used to. It’s easier to be distracted by social media and television and activities that fill the time rather than fill our hearts and souls.
And, most importantly, when the world is in so much chaos, it’s a win for the haters and the dividers to keep us so distracted and busy that we lose our connection to ourselves and to each other.
Somehow, we collectively got this idea that sex is: easy, all about the genitals, all about the orgasms, all about performance, an indicator of relationship health, a way to prove our worth…
But, what if nurturing our erotic selves, CHOOSING to create time and space for the erotic, meant something as simple as connection and pleasure?
What if our sexual needs could be met through skin contact, dancing, massage, eye gazing, mutual masturbation, writing sexy stories, reading sexy stories, playful wrestling, and an endless cornucopia of other delicious, hot experiences?
It would mean rejecting the patriarchal, misogynistic, heterocentric, puritanical stories about what sex actually was. That would be such an incredible act of defiance.
To choose you,
to choose your body,
to choose your pleasure on terms that were defined by no one but you,
to choose connection with your partner(s),
to let go of the noise and the rules and worrying about what’s “normal”
and instead be totally present with your needs, your desires, and perhaps the pleasure of another?
I’m no different than you when it comes to this struggle.
Some days I’m exhausted. Sometimes it’s easier to fart around on Facebook and scroll through Twitter and chat about meaningless things and fall asleep while my partner is eyeball deep in reddit.
There are times I can go days without having a sexy thought or fantasy.
But I’ve learned to check in with myself and to notice that I haven’t touched myself or flirted with my sweetheart in a few days. I’ve learned to pay attention to how long it’s been and to then intentionally choose to take erotic action.
Whether it’s watching porn (there’s a fabulous resource down below!), or sending LadyCheeky.com links to Alex, or writing a little erotic story, or putting on my sexiest lace bodysuit with the snap crotch, or pulling out a sex toy and leaving it on the bed as a reminder…
I cultivate the energy and I give myself permission to play in that uncertain space, to see if I respond, and almost certainly, every time, once something sexy begins, I’m all in and feeling amazing about it.