Pamela Madsen
Women have been historically taught to suppress the erotic, the sexual, the sensuous. We have been carefully indoctrinated into the school of thought that it’s through the suppression of this incredible life force energy that we will be respected and achieve in the world. Yet this notion could not be farther from the truth.
Few women want to be regarded as a “slut”, or dismissed by seeming too “sexual” or vibrant. We learn to hide our sexual connections, desires, and even our sex positive friends. We don’t want guilt by association. It’s through this learned suppression that women have learned to distrust our own bodies.
What I have found in my practice of working with women around sexuality is that after 50 can become the time of letting go of that distrust.
I invite you not to dismiss the erotic. For when we do, we are turning away from our own organic power source. After 50, this force has the potential to be the most powerful that it has ever been in your life. When we buy into this belief that woman can only achieve greatness by denying our sexuality – we learn to deny it, or believe that it does not belong to us – we stop exploring it. We turn away. And we give up a wealth of information and understanding about the uses of the erotic in our lives. We literally zap our power.
The truth is, while you may be powerful and successful right now in this place of erotic suppression, imagine what you could be doing and feeling if you had it all: full access and understanding for the uses of erotic energy in your life.
How do we allow our precious selves to live a life without access to our own fullest potential?
What is there about this paradox of beliefs?
If we are taught to keep our sexuality small in order to achieve professionally or in relationships and our true power lies in learning how to access and use the tools of the erotic for our creativity which is our life force energy – is there some kind of weird conspiracy going on?
The message to women is confused. Be small sexually to achieve. Tamp down. But erotic energy is powerful, and if women are permission-ed and taught to use their erotic energy in all aspects of their lives – are we threatening something?
It’s in this confused sexual environment that women who seek to explore and reclaim their own erotic potential face. And it can take incredible amount of courage.
Even among the sexually enlightened and conscious thinkers, I wonder if there is still some fear of sexually empowered women – just under the surface. And women feel the fear and tamp down. We want to be held, loved, adored. We want to melt. Somehow we have gotten this idea (because most women have been carefully taught), that we need to be small to get that. We may feel like we risk a lot to be our full selves. The fear of being dismissed or marginalized because we are not seen as “Proper” is real for many.
On some level the sexually enlightened woman is dangerous and dare I say it – “unGodly”.
When women learn how to bring our erotic energy into all aspects of their lives everything can change.
The sexually empowered woman can not only feel fully, she can bring that energy into all of her life’s endeavors. It’s powerful. You become a force of nature. Men actually have to show up to meet you. They can no longer be small either. Not to be in your life. And not everyone is ready for that.
Understand his fear, society’s fear, or your own – as you embrace, uncover, and actualize your power.
The erotic, if we can embrace, understand and nurture it’s energy- is the pilot light within yourself. If you feel it dimming, it’s because you have not had the skills or the permission to nurture it. You can. It’s never too late to claim this.
When we allow ourselves to release it, this energy can flow, color and heighten all areas of your life: whether it is cooking, money making, painting, dancing, teaching, mothering, making love, or examining your own ideas and life.