Art by Chie Yoshii
Pleasure is taboo in our society today. It is associated with laziness, self-indulgence, selfishness, and being "un-spiritual".
By teaching ourselves to marginalize or ignore pleasure, we find ourselves disconnected from our bodies, from joy, and from our inner guidance system which is designed to lead us toward things that feel good and that we feel good about.
Today I'd like to focus on the most taboo aspect of pleasure and that is sexual pleasure. We can empowering sexual well-being and health in children and youth by teaching and modeling that pleasure is a good thing.
What are the some of the messages girls hear about sexuality?
Art by Alima Newton
· Wait. You’re too young. You’re not married. It’s wrong. It can ruin your life.
· You’re a slut if you do, a prude if you don’t.
· Boys want only one thing. Boys just want to use you.
· If you want to be liked (be cool, etc), you need to service your boyfriend
· Don’t be sexy.
· Do be sexy.
What’s the result?
· Confusion - focused on trying to please others (impossible) as compared to tuning into one’s one wants and needs
· Shame – feeling inferior, embarrassed, even humiliated
· Lack of sexual agency – the ability to choose who, when, and how someone gets close to her
· Lack of assertiveness – to express their desires or their limits
· Lack of self-confidence and self-esteem
What do girls need from parents, mentors and teachers?
Art by Janice Sylvia Brock
· Comprehensive sex education explaining the changes of puberty for boys and girls, menstruation, female reproductive anatomy, sexuality, masturbation, pregnancy, birth, birth control and STD prevention
· Positive messages about self-pleasuring from aged zero forward. That it is normal, healthy and good.
· Acknowledge of body sovereignty
· Encouragement to be assertive – to express their feelings, needs, wants and opinions
· Encouragement to set limits
· Encouragement to tune into her intuition, her inner guidance system, her body wisdom and to her own pleasure
It’s time to empower adolescent and pre-adolescent girls to pay attention to and honor pleasure.
Pleasure is one part of a healthy and functional inner guidance system which also includes instincts, intuition, and emotions - and is informed by our beliefs and values. When we teach and model to our young people to tune into their inner guidance system, we empower them to make healthy choices that they feel good about. We likewise empower them to notice and correct their mistakes which are after all an essential part of learning and growing.
And so, if this has stimulated some ideas or pondering, please respond to these questions, or say whatever you'd enjoy sharing.
What's your relationship with pleasure?
What are the typical messages about pleasure that children in your community receive?
What "pleasure-positive" messages and activities would you enjoy sharing with the young people in your life?
Thank you!
Art by Meaghan Ogilvie
Mentoring Girls Training
Get support for sex-positive parenting and mentoring in the Mentoring Girls Certificate Training or the Non-Certificate Mentoring Girls Training.
Learn to teach girls to take charge of their physical, emotional, social and spiritual well-being - and all of these include sexual well-being.
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P.S. I just found out the May is Masturbation month. Yippee! We’ll be talking more on this, and I am lining up some really awesome guest bloggers. Stay tuned!
Eating. Climbing Trees. Playing Outside. Sinking feet into the mud. Listening to Birds. Singing to flowers.
This is some of what I would like to share.
Mmmmmmm! Yes! Now I want to get out and do that! Perfectly delicious sensory, reverent activities. Thank you, Amanada!
After my divorce, and through much therapy, I have begun at long last (I’m almost 50!) to break free of the disempowering, double standard, shaming, puritanical precepts that I was raised on. It has been an amazing, enlightening, juicy journey to giving myself permission to enjoy my body and sharing with others with the freedom that men have always enjoyed. I’m not quite there, yet, and I have my moments of self-doubt, but I have learned some important things that I wish all teens would embrace. 1. If if feels like a HELL YES, then say yes. 2. If it feels like a NO, then say NO. 3. If it feels like a maybe, then say NO. You can always revisit it later if you want to change your mind. 4. Your mind is YOURS. You can change it at any time, and you don’t owe anyone an explanation, with the exception of serious commitments, like marriage. 5. Serious commitments, like marriage, suck. Don’t make them. Commit to yourself, and the people who want to stay in your life will do it because they want to, not because the state says you are bound to each other. You cannot know who you are going to be in 10 years. Don’t promise that person will do anything. 6. Use protection from disease (condoms.) 7. Use a better form of contraception than condoms. Like an IUD. 8. We choose to change from spirit to physical form to experience the pleasure and pain of life in a physical body. Pain is inevitable. If you are not allowing pleasure, you are missing half the point of being here.. The good half. Be honest. Be Real. Tell your partners the truth. But do what you want. Make it clear that’s what you’re going to do, and do it. Your happiness is your responsibility, and theirs is theirs, not yours. Study tantra. Read Tolle. And there is nothing like a hand-held shower massager on a day when no one else is home. Hug much, cuddle much, kiss much, sing, dance, and have lots of sex with good people who love you. Enjoy this body while you have it. It’s yours. Respect other’s no. It isn’t about you. If they say no to you, it’s because they need to say yes to themselves. It’s ok. Find your yes somewhere else. It’s out there looking for you. Orgasm is nice. Long, slow, languid love is even better. Porn is the frozen burrito of the sex world. You deserve steak. Read books about healthy relationships, love, and sex. Teach yourself the stuff they weren’t allowed to teach you in school. Be a SEX GEEK. Learn your body, so you can teach your lover. Dance naked under the full moon. Refuse to hear anyone who says any of this is bad, or immoral, or shameful. Close your eyes, drop into your heart, and ask your heart: How do YOU feel about it? That is all the answer you need. Be love.