Let Me Be a Whole Woman

I am not a virgin. I am not a whore. I am a human being.

I am a woman. A human being. That means I get hungry. I need to sleep. I love other people and seek out their company. I want to be loved and for my own company to be sought out.

And also…I’m a sexual being.

Just like we all eat, sleep, and love, we want and need sex, too. And I am no different.

What’s different is, that as a woman I’ve been taught to hide that part of myself. It only belongs in one place (the bedroom) with one person (my forever partner) and even there, it should be carefully demonstrated in a way that’s appropriate (in other words, subdued).

Very early on, I learned, like so many women do, to see myself as two different women: the good girl and the bad girl. The good girl was going to get her teaching degree, marry some nice, hetero-normative guy who maybe worked in the nonprofit sector, and have three kids.

The bad girl (and I use the word “bad” loosely) was curious about life. She was open to marriage but wanted to have some fun experiences, first. Maybe sleep with that hot redhead chick with the lip piercing. She wanted to take off all her clothes and get hot and heavy with someone in the basement of a Catholic library. She wanted her boyfriend to pull the car over so she could give him a blow job in a parking lot.

This bad girl, though, has always been confined to very particular territories. She’s only been allowed to “roam free” in fenced pastures, or in situations in which “good girl” goes entirely away.

I learned how to compartmentalize myself more and more over time. I basically tried to ignore Bad Girl entirely throughout the rest of my twenties, focusing almost exclusively on Good Girl. I went back to school, got that master’s degree, looked for a nice husband, and spread kindness and virtue — but not my legs.

When I met a new partner, I was exhilarated that he immediately recognized my Bad Girl — and adored her. All of a sudden, that part of me I had hidden for so long could come out, and my god, did she run wild. She sent him skanky text messages and naked photos. She groped him in hallways at family events, complained bitterly when sleepovers (sex) only happened a couple of times a week and planned an elaborate, kinky weekend sex-getaway for his birthday.

In the beginning, he was voracious for Bad Girl. He wanted all Bad Girl all the time.

But as the months went by, I saw another side of him. A side that seemed increasingly uncomfortable with Bad Girl.

He didn’t like it when I dressed sexy for date night — he didn’t want other men looking at me. He started making odd comments about how the Bible had taught him that women were dangerous because their sexuality forced men to do immoral things. Once, when he was drawing flowers on my breasts with a marker, I looked down to find that he had also written “Property of” and his name. And after we moved in together, one of our biggest recurring fights was over the fact that I never closed the curtains before I took a shower and would walk into the bedroom naked to get dressed. “The neighbors can see you! I don’t want them looking at you naked!”

It affected me. I started being more and more careful about Bad Girl. I really never knew when he wanted her and when he’d prefer she stay shut away.

By the time I came to Medium, I was a free woman who wanted to be freer. My plan was to use this pseudonym to let it all out. To do whatever I wanted without question. Say anything. Do anything. I wanted to let Bad Girl run free.

It’s funny to me now that I thought I could operate in a bubble. I don’t know why I thought that hiding Good Girl under the bed was any better than hiding Bad Girl. It’s the same problem — splitting myself into two beings and not allowing myself to experience wholeness.

I also don’t know how I thought I wouldn’t end up getting to know people here and even building connections. Of course, I would! That’s what we do. We’re social creatures.

And so, after my initial flood of articles about sex, I started struggling. It’s true that I wanted to explore all kinds of subject matter — not just sex — but I could feel a dampening of my passion for that subject that got worse over time.

Why? Because I started getting to know people here. And goddammit, I started caring what they thought.

What is worst of all, what makes me cringe to admit — not just cringe, it makes me feel physically ill — is that I specifically started worrying about what my male readers thought about me.

Dear fucking goddess. What the unholy hell?

I had already noticed I felt trepidation when I posted certain articles — like my article on sexting, which I think is one of the most delightfully filthy things I’ve ever written. I was terrified that people would judge me for that article.

And then there’s my love of nude, semi-nude, or just defiantly sexual self-portraits and selfies that I like to post on Instagram or in my articles, and truthfully, every time I post them, I worry people will take me less seriously, or that they will think I’m being a bimbo, a slut, a show-off, a skank… The list goes on.

There’s no end to how out of control and afraid I feel when it comes to Bad Girl.

This past Monday, I sat down to write an article for Sexography. My column, Howl, runs there every Friday, but I also promised the editors that I would submit one more a week, outside of the column, which I always have ready for a Tuesday posting.

Sitting there in front of my computer, I just didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t in the mood for one of my usual “sexual social justice” pieces.

I started thinking about what an exhibitionist my ex was when it came to sex (I wonder if he would’ve let the neighbors see me naked if it had been part of this particular kink of his…). That might be fun to write about. But no…I can’t just write a story about sex for no reason. It has to have a point, a deeper meaning.

Wait? Does it? I didn’t use to think so. I’ve written a few articles that had no point other than to talk about my sex life. And I’ve always been a very strong advocate for other women here doing the same thing. I’ve always felt that is something we can do to regain our sexual empowerment: simply speak up about experiences and desires and not feel that we have to explain or justify ourselves.

So I did it. I wrote it, hit Submit, and shared it across social media and…I felt afraid every single time. I was afraid of what readers would think of me.

Again, I say, What the hell is going on with me? I am sickened that I feel this way.

This is my life, my work, my experience. I don’t owe anyone anything. I get to be who I want to be.

And of course, there was no backlash. No sexist comments. No random criticisms. I mean, sure, maybe some were offended by that article. More than anything though, I’m fairly certain no one noticed that it was such an edge for me.

I used to be able to do that with so much less fear — and not so long ago when I first started here and didn’t know anyone and felt safe to be myself in the anonymity. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that the sexism of the patriarchy is still rooted so deeply within me, I can’t escape it, even behind a pseudonym. It’s still editing my behavior, splitting me into two different women.

But I’m not going to stop fighting that — even if it means I have to make really embarrassing confessions that I’m still, even in my forties, prone to changing who I am and what I do in order to be “acceptable” to other people.

All I want is to be whole. My Bad Girl and my Good Girl deserve to not only live side-by-side but do not have to be named or defined. They aren’t separate — they’re both me.

Sadly, I suspect I won’t live to see a culture in which I’m free to say, do, and wear what I want without the fear of criticism — and not just from men, but from women, too. But I’m so glad I wrote that article. That was a step in the right direction. A reminder to myself that it’s okay to be sexual just for the sake of being sexual.

I am a good girl. I am a bad girl.

I am vulgar and virtuous.

I am all of this and more.

© Yael Wolfe 2019

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