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| Photo: Bryan Brenneman |
Read this article on elephantjournal.com
I got fucked open by the Universe recently. And not in a
hippy-dippy, namaste, all-you-need-is-love sorta way. I mean in a total possession,
out-of-control, freak-out sorta way. And since filling you in on the details
would probably involve a good five hours of chain smoking and tequila shots,
let’s just cut to the chase and say, it wasn’t very pretty—or rather, it wasn’t
very ladylike.
There’s a reason why American conservative and religious
leaders are doing their very best to crack down on sexuality. It threatens a
system built on predictability, logic and the survival of a moral code based on
patriarchal rule. We are seeing more and more the push for abstinence-only
education,
new bills are being passed limiting talk of ‘gateway sex’ in theclassroom and abortion rights and easy access to contraception are under fire.
Then you have social conditioning parading around as ‘normal
behavior’ adding another layer of obscurity to our already warped sense of
sexuality (much of it tied up in the arenas of romance, commitment and
relationships). This can be seen in books such as
The Rules (a woman’s guide to capturing the heart of Mr. Right),
classes taught by professional ‘Pick-Up Artists’ and Hollywood films hammering
home the message that once you find ‘The One’ then all your fairy tale wishes
will come true.
Finally, if you get through the labyrinth of political and
social nonsense sitting on top your sex, you have to then contend with your own
booby traps and deadbolts:
I’m too tired for sex
I don’t deserve sex
My vibrator/pornography gets the job done without the hassle
I’m straight/gay/married, etc, so I could never have sex
with that person.
I’m too fat/ugly/old for sex
If I have sex now, I’ll be giving away the milk before
he/she buys the cow
I’ve been hurt by sex in the past
So yeah, it’s pretty obvious why opening one’s sex is one of
the most stigmatized and misunderstood of human journeys.
Sex.
Is.
Fuckin’.
Scary.
Period.
OK, a little more context. I went to a meditation retreat a
few weeks ago and one of the things that came up for me was a huge amount of
sexual trauma in my body. I had some floating memories of where this came from,
but the history mattered less than the knots of terror that had embedded
themselves in my genitals and were now passing through my system. The result
looked a lot like a scene from The
Exorcist. Screaming, shaking and crying rushed out of me as my pride (which
had calcified on top of my trauma) began to burn away. Through the rusty faucet
of my now flowing sex, a rotting cesspool of unexpressed anger took me over so
powerfully, I thought I was going to die.
Obviously, I did not die (literally), but afterwards I felt
as if I had been flayed alive. Every sound and touch was like pots banging in
my ear or mites biting my skin. I had no more filter for how I was experiencing
life. With no filter, my self-expression was direct, concentrated and
immediate. This expression didn’t have time to collect a residue that would
eventually fester and stink of shame (which would, of course, later end up in
the basement of my soul with the other unsavory bits).
And then…something miraculous happened.
In the midst of my rawness, my lover came to me…and I could feel my pussy for the first
time. I mean, on a profoundly deep
level. All these years of thinking I knew what good sex was (I mean, I’ve been
climaxing with a stash of porn since I was eleven, thank you very much), I had never
dreamed of feeling something like this.
It’s a little hard to put into words, but just set aside your woo-woo prejudice
for one moment and stay with me.
Whereas before I was simply feeling my own body, I was now
feeling my own body through the tip of his cock, which he was feeling
(obviously). And I could feel him feeling his cock and feeling me with his cock. So it’s as if there was a circuit of connection—from
me, to his cock, to his mind, back to his cock, and to me again—that added a
whole new dimension of sensation to the experience. I wasn’t only in my orgasm,
I was also in his orgasm, which then melded and becomes the shared orgasm. It’s as if one plus one
did not equal two, but infinity.
Now I’m not saying every moment was bliss and rainbows and
magical Candyland. For me, sex encompasses a lot more than the linear trajectory we typically ascribe to it (a
kiss leads to above the waist action which leads to oral which finally leads to
the grand slam intercourse and ejaculation). I mean, is it sex if, as he’s
entering me, my body contracts into an accordion of fear, with the infantile
mewing of “No, no, no” escaping my lips? Or is it sex when a man is reduced to
tears of repentance the moment my velvet pussy lips slip around his cock? Or is
it sex if I spend the whole night floating my hand over the warm fur of his
chest in a state of wonder? For me: yes.
Sex is the most volatile arena for exploring who you are in
the world and what you are running away from will typically arise in
sex—quickly and in obvious contrast to everything you think you are. Facing
this kind of ego death is a viable reason to keep sex tucked away in the back
drawer of our psyches. But the reward for allowing all of myself to arise and to be witnessed and loved by someone
else in that vulnerable state was nothing short of total liberation.
And I realized: to the extent that I could set aside my
‘script for good sex’ and allow myself to be
penetrated with no judgment on what arose, I could actually
experience God
in connection with another
human being. Which is what I think we are most hungry for on this planet
(case in point: I had a recent OM, a.k.a.
Orgasmic Meditation, with a friend of
mine, who was grateful to stroke a woman who has spent time cultivating her
orgasm because for him it was like ‘physical nourishment’).
Society teaches us that power lies in being the unrelenting
penetrator. Go in hard, no holds barred and don’t come back until you’ve got
the prize. It’s goal-oriented, it’s hard and fast and relies on brute force. We
feel like we are in control of it all and get an ego boost when we shoot a
giant wad after just one good thrust from our monstrous cocks, be that in
boardroom or in the bedroom. It’s a brand of pseudo-masculinity that’s sort of
like bad Chinese food—it fills you up in the moment, but leaves you hungry and
undernourished over time.
Yet to admit that underneath all the bravado, we are dying
to be penetrated is to come face to face with every taboo we have around sex
and relating, especially for men. Look at the snarky remarks made whenever
anyone mentions anal sex. Or the brutal jokes told in reference to gay men. In
fact, the phrase ‘To be fucked over’ implies that you were a dumbass who put
out and got nothing in return (which also ties into the often transactional
nature of sex—make sure you get yours before they get theirs, lest you be
‘fucked over’). And who in society gets ‘fucked over’ all the time? Why
pussies, of course.
Unfortunately, this negative view of being fucked (and the
notion that the one being penetrated is somehow ‘weak’) is keeping us from the
intimacy and connection we so desperately crave. Let me tell you from
experience: it takes a lot of courage
to be fully fucked open, to surrender to the Spirit within and to let all of
her out in the presence of another. It is not weakness to be fucked open, but a
place of power. And within that power, you will find innocence.
As for penetrating: this is actually the most surrendered
position of all, for the penetrator must be willing to hold total presence and
ride the waves of whatever arises. And it’s not physical strength that matters
most, but the strength of commitment to stay 100% connected that creates the
space for the penetrated to open and release.
In time (and to make things really interesting), there comes a point when the roles of
penetrator and penetrated switch between partners from moment to moment—regardless
of who has what member in what orifice. Many a skilled courtesan has deeply
penetrated a man while his cock was inside of her.
And in the final stage of pure grace, the roles fall away completely
and the Universe takes over. You become the penetrated and the penetrator. The
fucker and the fucked. Kali and Shiva. Adam and Eve (and Lilith and the Apple
and the Snake).
Get it? Of course you don’t. I don’t even get it. It’s a felt experience, not a rational one. In
fact, I feel like I have had only a taste of the sheer potential available in
the realm of my sex. Will I ever have this kind of experience again? Who knows.
The path now is to simply keep feeling my way rather than trying to chase an ideal.
But my intuition says if I continue to play like this, there are many doors
that will open into ballrooms and caverns I never thought possible. I started
my OM practice over two years ago and what was
once an opening the size of a pinhole is now a quarter-sized aperture of
orgasmic expression. It feels like the journey (with its feathers, stingers and
silky, warm wetness) is just beginning.
Courageous Ones
By Candice Holdorf
(written May 2009)
It’s the Courageous
Ones
Who dare to tread My
salty shores
Who spread their
fingers
In My deceptive seas
(with hidden octopus
and pink jellyfish)
But when My tempests
rage
And oceans wage war
Against their virgin
skin
(Which rebels in
welted bliss)
They think of it as a
baptism
And bow their heads in
honor
For who but a holy
fool
Would offer sacraments
To My shrine…
And spend his whole
life
Suffering for the
religion
Of My Love?
