I am not sure this is something that I ever remember being taught. In fact, I was older than I should have been when I figured out I had any at all. My life experiences taught me that other people, particularly men, had sexual power, and I, as is it turned out, had none. That wasn’t true...but it is what I believed for a long time.
By the time I figured out that I had any at all, I was too old to make an intentional choice about how to use it and too young to have any maturity in my decision making process. So I misused my sexual power to everyone’s detriment, my own most especially.
I never really took the time or interest in seeing how having this power created a responsibility in me. I didn’t see that I was responsible for myself in this area of my life, and kind of adopted this “it isn’t really up to me...” kind of stance about it. When the truth was, I was totally in charge of this and knowing that earlier and more pervasively would have been a game changer for me and the men that I have flirted with, dated, engaged with, fucked and married or almost married.
Because I had no idea first that I had sexual power, it became very hard for me to use it rightly or well. I just thought that I was this hapless victim in the whole ordeal and never really saw that it was my own failure to own that which was mine that really caused me all the issue to begin with...
What do I mean? Ok, I will try to give an example - and just one because if I start citing more, I will never end this blog post and we will fall down that rabbit hole forever.
Where sex was concerned, I operated like the limits were not mine to set. I had this very childish and undeveloped sense of whose job it was to ensure that I was ok in a sexual capacity. I was just supposed to show up and flirt and be my sexy self and the guy was somehow supposed to figure out what I wanted and when. I completely abdicated my responsibility to communicate clearly, concisely and consistently what I wanted in a sexual capacity. I kind of felt like it was somehow his job to figure it out and then I would just say, “ok”.
SO NOT TRUE!
I can totally see the chickenshit manner in which I handled this issue previously. My failure to understand that I had power, and then my failure to use it rightly, created a great deal of hardship for myself and then men who happened to cross my path. And so it was easy to blame them for all their often glaring faults when in reality, a great deal of the time, it was my improper or misuse of power that I in fact wielded that set us all up to begin with...
Please do not misunderstand me...I am not saying that I am responsible for men’s bad behavior...they have a similar duty to figure out they have sexual power, and then set about learning how to use it rightly.
What I am saying is that I didn’t know, and so I misused and abused my own power for like ever. I didn’t know, so I didn’t do better.
I wonder why we don’t teach our kids this? I wonder why we don’t start this whole conversation about sexual power and power in relationships in general earlier. I mean there are those who believe that only two things rule this entire world. Two powers that are at the base of everything we do: sex and money. And I know that I have been incredibly stupid about both.
I am not saying that if I had harder, deeper and more intimate conversations about both subjects earlier in my life things would have turned out differently. But I can’t help but think that to some degree a different start would have to beget a different trajectory.
So here is what I know today...
I see that I have sexual power. That is a huge leap forward for me because historically I have failed to see that I have it or been able to even talk about the subject with any kind of maturity. In short, and sorry if this feels gross but I was just a child acting out in a very adult world. My own immaturity what seemed to cause me all the blight and hardship that I was so quick to attribute to others.
Today, I am concerned about all of my behavior whether it is self serving, self seeking or dishonest. But I would be a fucking liar if I didn’t own that I have had a very hard time ever applying those questions to my sexual behavior. For me, the whole topic was much more primitive than that. I wanted you, you wanted me, and that was about all the depth I had. My ability to think through the relation and see the harm we could do each other, the likelihood of that and my own prurient interests in the whole debacle seemed impervious to self reflection and examination.
And mostly because I failed to own that I had something I was wielding daily.
As I see it now, my behavior in this area would be akin to me walking around with a sword, cutting people down left and right and then wondering why everyone was bleeding. Turning round and round, attempting to piece together how all this bloodshed happened...never being able to see that it was me, I was the one who felled all those people. Me.
And I can see now, that I am the problem. I am not the only problem or the sole problem or responsible for any other person’s behavior. But I can see now, at a very late stage in life, that I have been the architect of my own subjugation with an alarming frequency. All because I didn’t understand that sexual power is God given, but needs to be human managed. With some spiritual principles in play. Like every single day.
My inventory of this whole concept leaves me littered with glaring examples of my own selfishness, self interest and dishonesty. And it is humbling. And hard to look at. But I am, perhaps for the very first time, owning that I do have sexual power in this world, and my first and foremost job to learn how and when to use it rightly.
Again.
Still.
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