How I embraced sexual pleasure

Growing up as a young girl in a strict Catholic country, questioning my faith was unacceptable. I always wanted to know more; I was curious about my place of worship every single Sunday at the 12pm mass, but I also wanted to know my purpose on this Earth as a child, I was always surrounded by men expressing their sexuality, and sometimes in ways that were damaging to me personally by making me uncomfortable; however, not much changed as I was growing up. 

One day in the early 2000s, I overheard sexist jokes at the market made by a group of men. I was too young to know that the jokes were sexist at the time, however, I did know they were very inappropriate to me, a young girl and to all women. I remember that moment clearly to this day and how it made the 7-year-old me feel: sick to my stomach. 

Being in a religious family, and growing up in a heavily religious country impacted my sexuality enormously. In addition, maturing in the era of the rise of Instagram and different kinds of impactful social media completely crashed my view of the woman as a sexual being. Therefore, I would like to explain how I healed my sexuality as a young woman. 

Flashbacks from my childhood of men objectifying women made me want to run away from being defined as anything sexual. However, my lack of knowledge and fear of how to express myself made me undecided, running from one societal box to the other; being afraid that society will judge me being in this box and more in the other. I didn’t want to be associated with society’s assumptions. I didn’t want to be categorised. Unfortunately, society judged me in both boxes; ‘’the promiscuous one’’ and ‘’the boring one’’. 

My journey towards sexual liberation 

When I grew into adulthood, I slowly realised that my thinking patterns were destructive not only to others but to me. I didn’t want to live in fear anymore, I didn’t want to hate that body that I was in. I wanted to accept myself as a woman, and therefore, I started questioning and challenging the roles that society has put onto women. What does it mean to be a woman? How can I embrace myself? And most importantly, how do I fix my insecurities?

Facing my insecurities

When it came to those insecurities, I knew they were deep-seated, stemming as far as years back. I was aware I was going to have to work hard in order to change my thought habits. I started with practising self-worth. Meditation, affirmations, and gratitude really helped me establish groundbreaking confidence. Seeing myself as a human being worthy of experience, worthy of my dreams, needs and wants – changed the whole game for me. The feeling I felt when I realised this was freedom. When I freed myself from society’s chains, I felt free and confident to pursue anything I wanted.

When I felt worthy, I stopped feeling guilty for wanting sexual pleasure, for safely enjoying myself with others or even wearing the kind of clothes that I want and not caring what anyone has to say about it. 

This change didn’t happen overnight; it took strong persistence, to always see myself as worthy, as strong and beautiful. Especially in the hardest moments where I felt like I was let down by society. As soon as I established a powerful relationship with myself, I started living life by my own rules and I stressed less about being judged, especially by men. 

When I felt worthy, I stopped feeling guilty for wanting sexual pleasure, for safely enjoying myself with others or even wearing the kind of clothes that I want and not caring what anyone has to say about it. 

I stressed less about strangers looking at my chest on the street, I openly shared my withdrawal from my religion to my family, and I started living life the way I wanted to live it: without letting others’ expectations of me (even strangers) get to me or define me. 

Also, in return, I started seeing different kinds of women in a new light and adored every single one of them and the path they chose. I realised that I have lived my whole life as moulded by others’ wants, opinions, beliefs, misogyny and patriarchy. Eventually, I moulded myself by myself only, on who I want to be, what I want to get out of my life, what I want to look like, and other factors. 

True freedom for me is letting go of the expectations that others have of you, and living life the way you want to live it. I discovered that whatever presuppositions people had of me, was also moulded from their own beliefs, opinions or insecurities. I decided not to take part in anyone’s opinions, and work on my own opinions of myself instead.