Are you allowed to feel and seek pleasure?
I was sitting in the living room with my bestie and roommate Gaia as she told me about her latest podcast interview for her podcast My Orgasmic Life.
She interviewed a fellow sex therapist, each of them sharing their journey to finding pleasure and making space for it in their lives.
“You know, I don’t think I am comfortable with the word pleasure. I tend to call it desire,” the guest said.
“So you are okay with wanting, which is the desire, but not the having, which is pleasure,” Gaia asked her.
“Yes, I have never thought about it until now, but that is a good way to put it.”
“Interesting. It is like you are window shopping for pleasure but never going in the shop to experience it,” Gaia offered.
The visual of this stuck with me as a perfect analogy for how most of the world moves with sex and pleasure.
The clients I coach who nearly shudder in horror at the idea of exploring what might feel pleasurable.
Those who reach out for a dungeon session and then recoil in fear. Fear of being found out as kinky, fear of being discovered by a partner, fear of having the thing they dream about.
The reasons for pulling back vary person to person. Such as;
“What if it becomes all consuming and I become an insatiable nymphomanic and can’t run my business?”
“I don’t want to be seen as a freak!”
“That is not important. I am on a mission for world domination.”
Those are some of the spoken fears, but underneath the outward protests lie the deeper fears. Ones like;
“I will go to hell and burn forever if I am allowed to feel pleasure.”
“I don’t deserve to feel pleasure.”
“I would not be safe.”
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Granted, there are those who begin to explore pleasure and find it all-consuming. I was one of those. When I first allowed myself to explore my kinky desires, I was an absentee business owner, leaving my manager to handle things while I ran off to attend every kinky party I could find in Southern Ontario. I let my work slide, shirked my responsibilities and ignored pressing problems in my business.
Perhaps if I had a mentor to guide me through the emotional journey of sexual exploration, not just the logistics and physical aspects of kink, I might have been able to keep a more level head about it, but my point is that I didn’t die. No one else died, and I had a hell of a lot of fun along the way.
I can also see, in looking back, that I used sex and kink both for healing my sexual trauma and avoiding it. There were sessions that allowed me to release the trauma from my body and script new outcomes, and there were subtle situations of using sex and orgasm to escape feeling my triggers. To ignore where I was acting from obligation rather than choice. It was complicated, nuanced and layered, which took time and an amazing expert to guide me back again and again to discover what was my choice and what was me slipping into old patterns.
It was easy for me to look for the praise of being sexy and sexual. It was not easy for me to ask for what my body truly desired.
Which started with being able even to identify what my body desired. I had spent so many years feeding off the other person’s desire that I thought it was mine.
Add on the mountain of outside judgment of sex and kink, and it is a wonder any of us get to the place of embracing our sexual desires, let alone experiencing them.
You are not alone if you don’t, can’t or won’t look at pleasure or allow it into your life.
Allow me to be your guide.
Imagine I am holding the door open to the pleasure shop, taking you around patiently, showing you the options.
“How does that one feel in your hands?”
“What do you notice in your body?”
“What one thing would you like to purchase and take home to enjoy?”
“There is no rush, and it is okay if you feel weird, uncomfortable and wildly turned on all at the same time. Yup! Totally normal.”
We have lived in a world that has commodified sex and sexuality. We have even commercialized sexual empowerment, encouraging people to “get their sexy on”. Teaching from stages that sharing photos of themselves in sexually provocative poses means they are claiming their sexual power.
Maybe some are.
And the rest have skipped ahead in the program. They missed the class about reclaiming their body for themselves before showing it off to the world. That quiet time to go within and discover what turns them on, outside of what others find sexy or hot. To let go of needing to respond out of obligation or using sex to avoid the pain and trauma.
I personally feel that we don’t need anyone to tell us when we should flaunt what our mama gave us. Instead, it can feel like a call to do it because it turns us on. This is a deeper sexual empowerment. The kind that doesn’t feed the system but does fuel our souls.
So, the first step in reclaiming your right to pleasure is to discover what IS pleasure for YOU.
Read different erotica and see what makes your body tingle in the fun places. Keep a journal on what turned you on. What was it about that story? Was it the writing, the build-up, the scene, the characters? Get specific and keep a log.
As your journal fills up, you can notice patterns that can be clues to your desires—the ones that are yours alone (though some are fun to share with others).
This is another way to step inside the pleasure shop, explore, and make a list of things you want to buy later.
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These days, I love to help others find more pleasure, more self-love, or simply embrace their kinky selves.
If you feel called to work with me, let’s have a chat.
For time in the Dungeon with me (traditional kink, therapeutic kink, or couples/singles training) – Click Here
Sexual Wellness/Healing Consult – Click Here
