Desire can bring up a variety of feelings, stories, questions. Desire is complex. There can be a lot of pressure for desire to look a certain way depending on your history, presentation, identities, social networks and how you move through the world. The word ‘desire’ even makes me feel that it must have to do with sex, but if I go deeper I realize that actually being in touch with what I want is prevalent to every aspect of my life. I’m not sure that sexual desire can be completely separate.
A few years ago I enrolled in a course called ‘Power in Pleasure’, facilitated by a wonderful Canadian coach named, Dawn Serra (https://www.dawnserra.com/). I have a couple of very distinct memories from that course. The first was a powerful speech that we were assigned to listen to by Audre Lorde entitled Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power, which I have linked. Lorde reminded me that I have been deceived about the definition of what is erotic. Pleasure can be found in so many ways and only some of them are sexual. By putting the erotic in a box marked ‘sex’, I am limiting myself enormously and tamping down my power. As a result, one of the first experiences I had that I was able to label as erotic was painting a mural on my living room wall. The amount of pleasure I got out of first painting on the wall, second creating something beautiful and third the visceral feeling of the goopy, wet paint sliding through the paintbrush along the glistening wall…oh my.
Historically, I have felt quite a bit of frustration when confronted with desire. It feels out of reach, perhaps not for me. At times I have felt that other people’s needs and wants should come before my own. Another story that I grappled with is that being in pleasure will lead to being out of control and I might lose whatever perceived grip I have on ensuring my world goes round. Expanding my understanding of the erotic and pleasure helped me to disperse the feeling of scarcity I had and oriented me towards the pleasure I was already experiencing.
Desire can be scary. What if we finally figure out what we desire and then we can’t have it? Or that old trope that we get it, but it quickly slips from our grasp? Sometimes it can feel easier to put desires out of our minds, reassure ourselves that they are for people who are more ‘well-off’, healthier, etc. than us. This way of thinking is always there for you. It can be a warm blanket that you occasionally set aside if the weather is right. These patterns of thinking have served us well, been our comfort food. There’s no need to banish them. What if we invited them to spend a day in the closet?
I desire to continue exploring, understanding and inspiring others to visit desire in all its forms. Whether it’s for a moment, a couple of hours, or any length of time. What is your pleasure today?
Heal Into Your Desires 