The State of My Sexuality

Let me just say that I have struggled with whether or not to write, let alone publish, this post. I knew going in only two things for sure; one, the anonymity has long been up. My MOM! reads this blog, yo! And, two, blogging, at least for me, is miraculously curing - sometimes even where a cure seems so extraordinarily out of reach that you don't even start writing with the finding of a cure in mind. Obviously, since you're reading this the latter won out. In case you missed the title, Mom, consider yourself warned this is about s-e-x.



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For years I would have told you that sexuality is a combination; an individualized mix of physical and intellectual beauty, topped by the icing that is a strong confidence in both and garnished with sprinkles of charisma, chemistry, sexual energy. I would have told you that while sexuality is physical it is far from being primarily so. Never would I have placed the actual act of sex very high on the list of priorities that make up sexuality. I would have argued that sexuality and sex are independent of one another. Sexuality is to sex as spirituality is to religion, capable of deep interconnectedness, interdependence even, yet stable enough for each to stand on its own. I would have said that for this very reason, despite deep seated body issues that I continue to wrestle, my sexuality in all of its glory was is an integral part of who I am. And then the past two months turned my sexuality on it's head and proved to me otherwise.

As some of you might remember last fall we had a little brush with impending mortality. It's something I never wanted to have to think about again. It was prior to and just after that time that I had experienced infrequent pain during intercourse. (Seriously, Mom if you're not gone yet - Go!) Not every time, not even every other time. And I almost thought that perhaps the pain was cycle related. I tried tracking when it happened in relation to menstruation. (Mom? Mom? Whew! She's gone!) I didn't find a pattern. In following up with the doctor after the tests were performed it was determined that I had had an ovarian cyst, it had ruptured on its own, no intervention was needed. I thought that perhaps this pain was related to the regular monthly cysts that every woman gets. Perhaps. Over the past (approximately) two months however the pain has gotten worse. More frequent. Until now. Now it's every. single. time. It's not a sharp pain. It's not shooting or debilitating but it's distracting. And more than that it's completely and utterly devastating to my identity.

As it turns out? Sex is in fact extremely important to my sexuality.

In the absence of sex - Good. Sex. - Sex during which I am not focused almost entirely on the dull, nagging, quit-poking-me-in-that-bruise type pain, sexuality too slowly slips out the back door. Physically I am in better shape than I have been in over four years. Intellectually I am as healthy and confident as I ever have been before. Yet, maintaining sexuality sans sex is increasingly, disturbingly difficult. I feel like I'm sitting down to dinner without having cooked any food. It's all for show, and over time, over a course of two months that feeling, the feeling of talking the talk without being able to walk the walk, chips away at the confidence that you never knew was so dependent on ... the walk. The confidence that you believed to have made the walk, the sex, possible to begin with starts to disappear and the feeling that is left over is emptiness. Ineffectiveness. Unhappiness. But what is worse than all of this, all of it combined, is the feeling that somehow all of these feelings, all of these thoughts are inherently wrong. Because, after all, shouldn't my confidence be more resilient than this. Shouldn't I be able to look past the sex. Shouldn't I, as a strong, independent, I-can-do-anything-you-do-and-do-it-better female, be able to look beyond the sex? Shouldn't I be above the sex, the physicality?

I cannot. Am not. Inherently wrong or not, the sex? It's important to me. It has taken me two months, but I can finally admit that. Out loud. I'm even becoming more and more proud of it, though not entirely sure of it. I am admitting it. I am yelling it from the blogtop. I am woman. I am proud of all that I possess; physically, intellectually, emotionally. But I am also sexual. And... I. Need. Sex. Hear me roar!