Howl

How Do I Become a Bad Girl?

Is there a manual for this?

I’ve recently experienced a major change in my life — a loss. Something that has separated me from people I love. Something that has made me question what I’m doing with my life, why I live where I live, who I really am.

In the few days since it happened, I find myself desperately wanting to change. Suddenly, I’m “over” it all. I feel…confined. Stuck.

I don’t want to be this person anymore. I don’t want to feel this way. I want to feel expansive. Free.

I want to…do something crazy. Something out of character.

I have this fantasy, lately, in which I meet a man I don’t know very well. I’d know him well enough to arrange a meeting for dinner, maybe — he wouldn’t be a total stranger. (I doubt I could leap that far outside my comfort zone, even if I wanted to.)

But of course, we’d both know that sex was the most likely way we’d end the evening, even though we wouldn’t necessarily say anything right away. Maybe we’d just see if there was any chemistry and let ourselves enjoy the unspoken tension.

And then, yes, I want to break free and suggest going back to his hotel room. Just to have sex. We can figure out the rest later. Or not. I don’t think I really care. I just want to have a good time. I just want to do something different.

I just want to let go.

But I’m not sure I know how.

It might surprise you to hear that I’d call myself “uptight.” Maybe even “sexually stifled.”

The funny thing is, I’m pretty chill about what other people do. I love to hear about people’s adventures. There’s not a whole lot people can say that would truly shock me or cause me to judge them.

You just decided to start doing sex work? Awesome. How can I support your journey?

You just got fingered in the Safeway parking lot by some dude you met in the checkout line? Sweet. I want to hear every detail.

You just went to your first orgy? Stellar. Again: details, please.

But me? I grew up trying to walk a tricky balance between being a good little girl while somehow trying to satisfy my sometimes voracious sexual curiosity and hunger. My plan was to find a monogamously adventurous, long-term partner with whom I could explore everything I wanted. It seemed perfect — I could get what I wanted and needed and you know, not be a slut.

As you can guess, that did not work out well. Even just finding a monogamous partner was a challenge, let alone one who didn’t have all kinds of judgments and rules around my sexuality.

Though the truth is, I was the problem. I’m the one who was the most uptight about everything. I was the one who was struggling to uphold all these rules around how I should conduct myself as a sexual being, how female sexuality should look, how I should pursue (or not pursue) sexual fulfillment…

I felt trapped in ways that literally made it hard for me to pry my legs apart.

Much of my uptightness was born from having two extreme helicopter parents. And I mean extreme. From the very beginning, they were constantly intervening in my life, physically removing me from situations of conflict or discomfort. Any time I had a problem with a teacher, a friend, a kid at school — they just moved me to a new school or took care of the problem, themselves.

They never gave me the chance to solve my own problems, and by the time I was a teenager, I had this uncomfortable feeling that I was “behind.” Stunted. All my friends knew how to debate their way out of detention or figure out how to get through a fight with a friend or set down a boundary with a boyfriend.

I knew virtually none of this and it made me feel like an incompetent child.

Along with that feeling and having parents who were always hovering over me even into my twenties, I began to feel like it was wrong — almost perverse — to want to do things that adults did. Like sex, for instance.

My parents had always been open about sex, making sure we knew how to protect ourselves because, as they said, they didn’t expect us to wait until marriage. So my shame around wanting to engage in sexual behavior with others wasn’t born from their disapproval of sex but from the fact that they didn’t really give me a chance to grow up and become my own person.

For twenty years, I had a recurring nightmare in which I was having sex with a lover or masturbating in a huge house and suddenly, my parents would come barreling into the room, screaming in horror, “Yael, what are you doing?” or would knock incessantly, hollering for me to let them in, demanding to know what was going on. In some of the dreams, I’d even sneak through the house from room to room, and each time, they would find me again, legs flung open, and the horror on their faces made me feel so ashamed.

I had these dreams until I was 36 years old. It would be funny if it weren’t for the very real issue that those dreams represented my feelings of being sexually and emotionally stunted.

I just wanted to be free and instead, my subconscious was always looking over its shoulder, wondering who might “catch” me doing things only adults should be doing.

I turned my whole life upside-down once to do what I wish I could do right now — to take that leap, to become someone else, to do something crazy.

At 25, I couldn’t handle my relationship with my parents anymore and couldn’t make it one more second feeling so repressed. So I moved — 1,300 miles away to Santa Fe.

I went home with men I didn’t know very well. I threw myself into sexual situations, desperate to change my life, to free myself, to stop being so uptight.

It was a phenomenal failure, I’m sorry to say. I will always enjoy the memories of those wild days, but none of it was healthy. None of it helped me. None of it nurtured me. None of it respected me and my sexuality.

I took foolish risks and hoped for the best, instead of actually putting some thought and intentionality into it. I thought for sure that if I just tried enough times, eventually, I’d find myself with someone with whom I could do some exploring. Have some fun. Build trust and maybe even friendship. And who knows…maybe a long-term arrangement.

I didn’t realize how much taking risks with people who don’t give a shit about you can hurt. I didn’t understand how much the experiment would cost me. I had no idea that it would end up making me feel more uptight, more sexually stifled.

It’s been twenty years since I’ve had a genuinely casual sexual experience. I don’t even remember how to do it.

And do I want to? I don’t even know the answer to that question.

At this stage in my life, I know that I have very specific needs and I finally feel that it’s okay to seek out the fulfillment of those needs. Things like sexual pleasure, intimate contact with another human being, touch, touch, touch.

At one time in my life, I felt that I was supposed to seek those things out within a specific container in order for it to be “appropriate.” Sexual pleasure and intimate contact within a relationship was a-okay. Or leading up to a relationship — also approved behavior. So if I pursued sex, it was either after I’d already become emotionally involved with someone or with the hope of becoming emotionally involved.

I’m older now. More pragmatic. I know relationships are hard. I know I have massive trust issues when it comes to romantic/sexual partners. I know I struggle to feel that I’m worthy of being loved by a partner.

So I’m not holding out for the Gold Deluxe Package — relationship, commitment, love, sex. I think I’d be fine with the Basic Bronze. Good sex with someone who respects me. Hell, in a pandemic with no apparent end in sight, I might be willing to take the Temporary Tin Package.

I just want to change. My soul is vibrating, wanting to burst into a million stars and destroy this edifice that I’ve come to believe is Yael. Is this me? Is this who I am?

Or am I a woman who can go fuck someone I barely know in a hotel room without worrying about whether he’ll call me tomorrow?

I don’t know. I feel bad about myself that I even have to ask this. What is wrong with me that this is so fucking hard?

All I know is that I want to be intentional about whatever I do from here. If I decide to do something out of character, then I want it to be with a kind, generous, honest, respectful partner who will hopefully share my need for intentionality.

I want to be free…but I don’t know how to find my way there.

This article was written for Howl by Yael Wolfe, a weekly column. © Yael Wolfe 2020

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