anatomy of shame

Tonight I would like to explore the intricacies and vagaries of shame. It was Eleanor Roosevelt that said, "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." I've always known this to be true. But when I go through being shamed and becoming ashamed of myself, I FEEL how true this statement is.

My last heavy relationship was a lesson in being trained into being ashamed of oneself. In the beginning I was a typical young woman with flirtations, a few hookups, and such. And when I started dating him, started getting involved, it was just a challenge. He seemed so remote, so dangerous to care for. He became somebody that mattered to me. So his opinions started to matter. Much too much. It was a slow, subtle, stealth attack upon my self esteem and how I carried myself. My nails were too unfeminine, my makeup was too minimal... I didn't play up my femininity much. Then I had too many guy friends, I acted too flirtatiously, too this and too that. These stealth attacks didn't come often. They didn't come loudly. I didn't even recognized them as attacks either. But it all added up over time, chipping away at the bricks in my spine. Pretty soon I felt like a Muslim woman garbed in a Burq'a. He flipped out one time because I was playing tennis with some USTA guys.

By the time I got out of that relationship via a restraining order (which he just violated over Thanksgiving) I barely recognized the woman I had become. I hated her spinelessness, I cringed at the guilt she had piled upon herself, the subjugation of her being under someone else's thumb. What was most insidious is the shame. The shame of using my femininity, my sexual identity for my own pleasure and my own personal freedom. Somehow being the object of desire is a whore-ish, skanky, slutty thing. And it's via these labels that sought to shame me in being a woman, a sexually desirable woman, with the power to act upon those desires.

And then came the revelation... sexual power. If a woman has desires and acts upon those desires, as she wills it, what are men left to do? Jump through hoops and strings in hopes of being apart of that desire or they can be irrelevant? I barely knew what sexual power was going through college and learning to explore. Then I lost it all. And now that I have it back, with a better understanding of what it is, how it is, and what I can do about it. Somehow I came out of this fiasco more sexually powerful than I ever was before, more able to apply the no strings attached philosophy as I pleased, without messy expectations, more confident than I thought possible. Someone else's pleasure... or displeasure, is NOT my problem.

Sexuality without guilt... what a novel idea. What a revelation. I can leave the cultural shackles behind that shuns a woman for being sexual, for daring to poke at male insecurities and fears. Why can't a woman have sex with someone she wants to when she wants it? And when it's over, why can't she just move on? Why is she now obligated to that man and let him/others label her? Why does it have to be in a relationship? How shameful would it be to enjoy one's naked body? Why does it have to be shame at all? Culture plays a big role... it has successfully mind fucked almost every woman in history. The subjugation of women so that they don't go around fucking whoever the hell they want to when they want to. Sex is a commodity that must be held in tight supply by MEN and the women who buy into it and stigmatize other women, placing greater risk on sex outside of conventionality. The ONLY risk that should be present when two consenting individuals engage themselves should be health factors... and ovulation. Those judgments that seek to control... no longer affect me.

I will have what I have, when I please, how I please, as it pleases me. Sex without guilt. Because pleasure makes me happy. Because I do not give anyone leave to make me feel inferior.