Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Coming Home: Day 8 - romantically exhibitionistic

It was romantic today. This morning I'm in love with you, with all of you, with how gentle you are with yourself, with the showerhead, with this body this practice all this cracking open.

I come hard, feeling nearly torn open I'm pulled so deep inside out. After, cannot move for several minutes, just lie there, prone and boneless, panting.

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Today was to ease the cramps, my period having come on I think when I was on stage on Sunday night. The cramps abate for a bit but then return with a vengeance on BART, despite the ibuprofen. I breathe deep, grin at the boys sitting on their scooter in the bike part of the train, little, 2 or 3, adoring each other, brothers, maybe twins. The other day on the train I saw a little girl, long hair a little stringy, big glasses, clothes almost don't fit, and there was my 8 yr old sister in front of me, there was me almost crying 30 years later.

History is all over me, joy, small ones, the offerings, the forgiveness, how even the small parts inside of me are handing me back the old longings and the parts of adulthood they had to carry -- they are handing the grown pieces up to me and saying, here, this is yours right? Can you take this now, so that we can rest? And finally, I can take it from them.
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I'm disassembling, not taking care of much except the workshops and this blog project (which means, of course, my body-- imagine that. Putting the body first, even before writing. When does that happen?) This morning the fantasies were faint and flitty. I jumped from one to the next to the next --do you do this? I feel myself starting to build, to get Close, and then I want to be at he right and hottest part of whatever story I'm in tje middle of when I actually come--so I slow myself down, because god forbid I rush the fantasy; that breaks all the suspension of disbelief. (Actually, given this fact, maybe I am still putting the story ahead of my body.)

I'm writing this into a note on my phone while waiting for a MUNI train at Embarcadero station. Everything gets public, all the have-tos about writing are broken: do it where you can. That's what I've come to.

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Yes, of course this is exhibitionistic--did I mention that? Let's not pretend this project is entirely altruistic. I imagined you listening to me this morning, maybe recording myself so that I can listen, too -- what do I sound like? The deepening and shift, the build, where I giggle, where I remember to say thank you and good morning body--where I finally start asking for help. I imagine the listeners, the watchers.

Claim this part, too. In Carol Queen's fabulous book Exhibitionism for the shy, she encourages us to practice our showing off just for ourselves, first, to get comfortable (and get turned on!) by the sounds we make when we are loving ourselves -- not just the oohs and aahs and moans and yes and please and oh god don't stop that (how very dirty it sounds to say that when I'm alone!); Carol writes, about a lover with from whom she learned a great deal about how hot it could be to watch and be watched:
Natalie's sexual pleasure with me depended on our  being able to communicate. For my part, her insistence that I openup and tlel her the truth about my desires and responses served as proof that she really wanted me. It was healing as well as hot that my lover insisted on good sex. [...]  One profoundly useful reason to get comfortable with explicit sex talk has to do with communication. After I had comfortable mastered 'verbal intercourse' and we were on fairly equal footing guiding each other in pleasure, [Natalie and I] began to tell each other about some of our fantasies.
I've found it can be damn hot to tell someone else what I want, or what I'm fantasizing about while I'm getting myself off -- whether I'm imagining doing this or actually having them in the room (or on the phone), listening -- there are all these layers of eroticism in the practice: hearing my own voice saying the words that have lived only in my head for however many years, the risk of offering this vulnerability to someone else, the fact that they're getting turned on by my imagining, what I'm doing to my body while I offer these thoughts/desires to them... it all forms a tremendously hot feedback loop, until I finally have to stop attempting to speak in coherent sentences.

Ten years ago, and certainly further back than that, I never would have imagined being able to claim this part of my desire -- I was mostly ashamed of my fantasies, and frankly needed that shame in order to be able to come. Getting to this side, where I want to slide it all under your door so that you can hold it with me -- it's fascinating and delightful and a profound surprise. I just keep riding it all. Let's see what happens next.

Be easy with you and your body. Thanks for reading -- come again tomorrow!



2 comments:

  1. So many things!

    1. Loving the use of the word "boneless." I know that feeling. It's a good one! Super yesness to that.

    2. Yes, I get into TV channel-changing mode with my fantasies sometimes. Like, no, not that one. No, not that. Not that. No. No. Until something clicks and I stay. I've never worried about rushing myself through the story, though. I always figure I can come back and get to the "good part" later :)

    3. Orgasms for stopping cramps! Yes. I do this. It is the only thing that works if I miss my ibuprofen window... you know, taking enough before they get so bad that I can't get them to go away with IB.

    4. Do it where you can. Manifesto! Yes.

    Ok, just a lot of yesness to this post today. Loving it. Thanking you for sharing yourself and this growth and this project and for claiming the hotness of writing about sexing yourself. Because yeah. It's also kinda hot.

    <3

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  2. "History is all over me, joy, small ones, the offerings, the forgiveness, how even the small parts inside of me are handing me back the old longings and the parts of adulthood they had to carry -- they are handing the grown pieces up to me and saying, here, this is yours right? Can you take this now, so that we can rest? And finally, I can take it from them."

    This breaks something free in me, sharp and wailing and is so beautiful I have to re-read it again and again. Putting it up on my wall to remind me of what could be unfolding for me, in me, someday I hope, very soon. Thank you Jen.

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