Within 24 hours I shot a bow and arrow and a BB gun and went pole dancing. Things get a little wild when you visit Utah on the biggest Mormon holiday of the year. I hope I’m not going to Mormon Hell! My sister, Vanessa (below), who lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and two adorable children, and I had a lot of fun. The pole dancing gave us plenty to joke about, but too, it inspired some insight.
It’s no news we live in a culture that struggles with gray area and subtlety. Sex is either suppressed for being bad and dirty, or blatantly displayed. Pornography is rampant as a backlash to a culture too busy to make love in the way that sex is best practiced. Ideally, sex involves all the senses and is sacred. I’m not saying you have to be married, but the most memorable sex is generally experienced within a consistent and trusting relationship, between a woman who loves her body and a man who knows what he’s doing and doesn’t do any of it quickly. (Well, that’s the hetero version, but you get what I mean.)
The most wonderful things in life are not rushed. Delicious meals take a while to prepare: sautéed mushrooms and risotto, fresh broccoli from our own garden with butter and garlic, baked kale chips – taking care to be creative benefits us mind/body/soul whether we are making a meal, tending a garden or making love. Sex is not meant to be fast food, but everyone is so tired and busy trying to keep up with the culture we created that prevents us from true intimacy. Most of us are just trying to make it to the next check. But the more we scramble, the emptier lives become.
Which brings me back to pole dancing. I wasn’t sure what to expect. No men allowed; there were women of all shapes and sizes and ethnicities. First, we stood on one end of the room and learned how to walk across the room – to quit slouching and hiding: “the girls” up, barefoot on the demi-pointe and looking straight out (and not down at the ground). It felt like charm school from the 60’s. We strut to our designated shining gold poles that we had carefully cleaned with puffy, yellow rags and Windex before class officially began. Our instructor, Sophia, was middle aged, with full, auburn curls that dangled to her mid back. She had a voluptuous figure, but walked delicately, using her hips and hands strategically. This was all new to me. I had grown up in an era where athletic girls were the most desirable. In the 70’s, we were busy making ourselves out to be more like men. I was more comfortable shooting the bow and arrow than sidling a pole. But Sophia explained that claiming femininity is powerful. Loving our bodies is imperative. Curves – even a little tummy - are more delightful than gaunt, stick-figure models.
But when Sophia proudly explained she once “frisked” the produce counter and left the store with half of her groceries for free, I wondered if she’d gone a little too far. While I appreciated some of her tips, I was getting tangled in double messages. It felt contrived to use my body separate from my mind and heart. Do we really have to be gripping a pole to come to terms with our femininity? There’s a way to be sensual without being objectified. The process lacked play. The fireman spin was so fun I found myself whipping my leg into the turn over and over, touching down and jumping up from the floor to do it again until Sophia cleared her throat and said: “We are NOT children on a playground!” I felt like skipping around the room and starting a game of tag, but I stood there and it dawned on me: I am a little afraid of my sensuality. Maybe spinning was a ruse to avoid intimacy. Maybe I’ve been taught that sensuality is dangerous and wrong. Maybe that programming takes a lifetime to overcome. It’s probably why so many good girls are tigers in the bedroom, freed from the waving finger of the perverted judge – but, they haven’t learned how to integrate it into their lives. It’s so black and white, and it doesn’t have to be.
It’s a delight to be a woman. It doesn’t serve the world to hide or diminish our light. We are all – men and woman alike – reflections of the divine. Pretending to be what we are not throws us off track. Tell the little girls of our culture, it’s not about getting sexier, but becoming more comfortable in our own skin and loving that skin. Unfortunately things get a little twisted because we are all starved for the real thing – for nourishing, satisfying meals, for the caring connection two strangers can feel for one another without touching. We are becoming more detached from ourselves and others, and therefore, when we do come together, it is a sort of clamoring.
We frisk and flirt to win attention because we feel separate from God, but we are never separate from God - or whatever you want to call the Force. Separation is an illusion. We don’t need anything to complete us because it is already inside of us. If we stop running and begin to live our lives with sensuality and presence: cooking thoughtfully, clearing out extra stuff, reducing what we use, while having fun at it, then GRACE will step in to replace the RACE to nowhere. With this knowledge we choose a partner because we want to be in their company, because their presence makes our lives richer, grander...because we like how they smell and feel and how they touch us.
Imagine lying in the woods next to a rushing, exploding river, next to the man or woman you love on a soft, fuzzy blanket, surrounded by your favorite foods. Imagine kissing slowly, tenderly with the taste of fresh peaches on your breath, the feeling of the silk dress and bare feet pressed to the velveteen. You are best friends and lovers. And let it be enough to just be you on the blanket. You are your greatest witness. THIS sensuous vitality is what being in the body is about and it is a celebration of the sacred reflection that we are – it is a holistic presence, and interjection of the gift that we are into time.
In gratitude,
Jen
