Howl

In Sexual Gratitude

Thank you for the companionship, the love…and the orgasms

Thank you, body, for carrying me through this world in this lifetime. Thank you for teaching me about the balance of pleasure and pain. I’m so grateful that you drive me to pursue pleasure even when the cultural message tells me this is bad, immoral, decadent. You remind me again and again that pleasure should be a priority.

Thank you for being so patient with me, through all the years — waiting for me to explore you, to get to know you, to give you what you want.

Thank you for always alerting me when something is off. Thank you for the prickles on the back of my neck, the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I am enduring something that doesn’t feel good. Thank you for these cues that help me define my desires and autonomy. I’m sorry I haven’t always listened. Thank you for not giving up, even when I ignore you.

Thank you for blessing me with good health despite the fact that I have so often ignored you, hated you, abused you. How many times have I looked in the mirror and hated what I saw? Yet, you kept me going.

You did whatever I asked you to do. When I was scared of your beauty and began a long journey into eating disorders, you gained and lost weight at my bidding, hiding me when I wanted to hide, protecting me from sexual advances I did not want. You kept me safe from the boys at school who tried so many times to take whatever they wanted from you.

I hated you for it — for being big, for being ugly. But you only did what I asked you to do.

And through all of this, no matter how I felt about you, you gave me orgasms — glorious, toe-curling orgasms. It didn’t matter if I was by myself or with a partner. The pleasure you gave me came with no cost, no obligation. You gave it freely, no matter how I treated you.

You always nourished me in that way.

Thank you to my first lover, who knew as little as I knew about sex and therefore had comfortingly low expectations of me. Thank you for letting me keep the lights off, for going slowly, and for lasting long enough for me to come.

I’m so grateful that my inner hedonist insisted on pursuing more pleasure, despite the shame I felt about my sexuality, despite my boyfriend’s disinterest in learning how we could make our experience better. I’m grateful that I bravely went to the library and checked out all those books on how to be a great lover, and grateful I was curious enough to try the new techniques.

Thank you to the first man I went down on. I didn’t want that to be our first sexual interaction, but I’m grateful that you assumed I already knew what I was doing and that you didn’t judge me when it became apparent that I didn’t.

I’m grateful that you taught me that looks aren’t everything — pretty men can be truly unattractive on the inside. And I’m grateful for that one favor you did for me — staying at my apartment the weekend my car was in the shop, driving me around on your motorcycle, buying me breakfast. Well, okay, you got a lot of head out of the deal so maybe I shouldn’t be grateful, but the truth is…I had fun that weekend, even though I never saw or heard from you again.

You made me feel like a slut. And I loved it.

I’m grateful for my naked tumble in the library. For all the hungry embraces of my twenties. For the late nights, kisses under the stars, frantic disrobing in unfamiliar bedrooms. For the young man in my journalism class who flirted so exquisitely shyly with me. (Dammit, why didn’t I ask him out?)

I’m grateful for the awkward dates and even more awkward breakups. I’m grateful for the men who liked me even when I didn’t feel the same way. I’m grateful for the women I liked who didn’t feel the same way.

I’m grateful that I had fun. I’m grateful that my heart was broken so many times. I’m grateful for the exhilaration of it all.

Thank you to my ex for those whirlwind first few months, the most romantic experience I have ever had. Thank you for literally staring into my eyes for unspeakably embarrassing long periods of time, with your hand on my face. Thank you for all the times you stroked my jaw, bit my earlobe, kissed the back of my neck in that one spot I love so much. Thank you for being the first man to say “I love you” in a way that made me believe you.

Thank you for the endless hours we cuddled together, clothed, naked, or somewhere in between. Thank you for all the hours you stared at and touched my vulva, an action you loved so much that I finally began to let go of my self-consciousness about that area of my body. How could I think it was anything less than miraculous when I saw the way you looked at it, felt your fingers tracing every curve?

Though you were unaccepting of my body hair and period, you loved my body in every other way. Thank you for telling me I was beautiful. Thank you for asking me what my stretch marks were (you’d never seen stretch marks before), for tracing them with your fingertips, for never judging them. Thank you for telling me how much you loved my ass, even knowing that I’m most self-conscious about that part of my body.

Thank you for loving my saggy boobs, for encouraging me to let them swing, unfettered by a bra (free range, you called it). Thank you for spanking me every time you came into a room and found me in Downward Facing Dog. Thank you for asking me not to wear makeup when we went out to dinner or the movies because you said you loved looking at my real face, without embellishment.

Thank you for being as insatiable as I was in the bedroom, even though our appetites didn’t always sync up. Thank you for being so turned on by my expressions of desire. Thank you for encouraging me to get over my insecurities and be more adventurous in the bedroom (and on the kitchen counter, and the washing machine, and the living room floor…). I’m grateful for how much shame I was able to shed with you.

Thank you for your undying dedication to my orgasms. You never wanted to come before me. You would give me two, three, four, five…as many as I wanted until I begged you to stop because I was just too damn worn out. You made me feel like my orgasms were a gift to you — that they mattered to you as much as your own. I will always be grateful to you for that.

And thank you for leaving me. I couldn’t grow into the woman I wanted to be with you. I tried to change. I tried to accept things as they were. I even tried to end things a few times.

But it was better the way it happened. It made it impossible for us to ever reconcile, to ever fall back into our on-again-off-again patterns.

You set me free. Thank you.

Thank you to the world outside my front door. To the garden of my dreams that I finally created this past summer, a place that made me feel alive again for the first time in years. Thank you to the clapping leaves of the aspen trees, the heady scent of sage that envelopes me whenever I walk through the woods, the yellow gaze of the watchful, curious great horned owls, the yipping chorus of the coyotes.

Thank you to the trees, the wild animals, the wind, and the moon that love me so.

Thank you.

This article is a special edition of Howl by Yael Wolfe, a weekly column. © Yael Wolfe 2019