My Map of Sexual Awakenings
A journey through the moments in my life that defined my sexuality.
In all of our lives, we experience moments in which we come to understand our sexuality a little bit better. In some cases, it’s a spark, a breath of electricity that moves through us, and other times, it’s a full-on awakening.
We often don’t talk about these moments much and maybe don’t even realize the significance of them until we look back, years later. But they are the tiny pieces that fit together and make up the landscape of our sexuality.
These are mine:
My childhood
I can’t recall my very first awareness of my sexuality. But I know it must have happened outside. I remember lying in the California sun and feeling like it was in love with me. I remember the feeling of wet grass under my feet, and the feeling that it wanted to touch me, hold me, serve me. I remember the feeling of wind stirring my fine, blonde hair and understanding it was caressing me, kissing me.
My earliest memory of these seductions of nature was when I was in first grade and used to sneak across the playground at school to where a honeysuckle bush stood. I would pick its flowers and carefully pull out the stamen from the bottom until the little bead of sweet juice appeared, then I would lap it up with my tongue. Sometimes, I’d spend the entire recess there, drinking that nectar from flower after flower, even licking the petals in an attempt to get more.
Movies played a big part in my sexual evolution. I found the movie Splash to be almost uncomfortably erotic with its beautiful, magical, mermaid heroine and Tom Hanks at his absolute most romantic. I would play-act scenes from the movie in our spa, screaming, “Allen!” in a tortured voice, flinging my limbs in a swooning convulsion for my imaginary lover. And that’s how I discovered a whole new way to masturbate — as I flung my legs about, my clit came into contact with a spa jet and…the rest is history.
Then there was the scene in Flashdance when Alex slurps buttery lobster meat into her mouth while wearing a tuxedo. I didn’t know what it meant or why I had such a strong reaction to it, but I knew I liked it. And the scene in which she rescues her friend from the strip club was one of the first realizations I had that I was incredibly aroused by the female body.
A month later, another movie came out that would change my life, and not just sexually: Return of the Jedi. I had seen the first movie in the trilogy and loved it, but seeing the third installment, and in the theater instead of on cable, was the most exciting cinematic moment of my life. It blew me away from the very first scene and by the time Luke Skywalker walked into Jabba’s palace, in that goddamn sexy black cape, looking like he ruled the world, and then tossing people around with his Jedi mind powers…holy shit. I fell so hard in love — and in lust — that it took me years to get over the fact that Luke was just a fictional character that I’d never get to kiss.
My teen years
George Michael ushered in my teen years with his album Faith. His earring, jeans, cowboy boots, leather jacket, aviator sunglasses, and gyrating hips rocked my world. And that stubble defined raw, animal attraction for me. After that, I’d go crazy for a man with stubbly cheeks.
At 12, with my first boyfriend, I discovered that I was not ready to be physically intimate in any way with a partner. Hugs only. That was a very important moment for me, that even in the face of crushing peer pressure and constant bullying that I recognized a boundary and held firm.
Throughout my teen years, my mother was obsessed with bodice-ripping romance novels and I once flipped through one, just for a laugh, and instead found myself overcome with desire. Since I couldn’t seem to get my hands on Playboys anymore, I started “borrowing” her books and hiding them in the bathroom, where I could read them in peace and then have a little fun with the shower head afterwards.
As I got older, there was no end to my celebrity crushes. I had a strict TV schedule every night so I wouldn’t miss any of them. Nicholas Lea, Stephen Baldwin, Glenn Quinn… I really had a hard-on for guys with well-defined and/or plump lips, as you can see. I found it vaguely feminine and I loved a man with feminine or androgynous features.
In 1994, I, like all other human beings on the planet, became obsessed with Brad Pitt (talk about lips!) after seeing him in Interview with a Vampire. This, in itself, is not that noteworthy being as anyone with a pulse had a hard-on for him back then, but it was the first time I realized how attracted I was to tortured, self-destructive men. My friends had been noticing that for years, but it wasn’t until I became instantly horny during every scene in which Louis is weeping, clenching his jaw, or falling into spells of self-loathing that I really understood it.
All those years of teenage angst and awakening got me pretty worked up for my first sexual experience two years later, at which time I discovered that I was ravenous for orgasms, crazy turned on by nipple play, and yes, I did love a man with big lips who was tortured and self-destructive.
But I’ll end this section not with him but with Tori Amos, who turned me inside-out with that photo of herself breastfeeding a piglet.
My twenties
I’m not ashamed to say that I had a huge moment of sexual awakening at 24, again at the movie theater. Yes, I (and my clit) still remember seeing Hugh Jackman for the first time, in X-Men, grunting, hairy-chested, broad-shouldered, scowling, sweaty… I was stunned by that display of masculinity and stunned that it had such an effect on me. I had always been drawn to spiritual, controlled, emotionally intelligent men (remember Luke Skywalker, circa Return of the Jedi?) or brooding, damaged men with feminine features (Louis de Pointe du Lac). All of a sudden, my sphere of attraction swelled to include this stereotypical (but hot as fuck) hyper-masculine anti-hero. I finally understood why all my friends had been in love with Han Solo instead of Luke.
I was 25 the first time I met a woman that I actually wanted to sleep with. I’d been attracted to women my whole life, but mostly in an abstract way. Then, at art school in Santa Fe, I met Megan, a redhead with pert little A-cup breasts and…a lip stud. I don’t know what was more of a sexual awakening for me — the first time I’d experienced a deep desire to have sex with a woman or the fact that I had a real fetish for pierced lips.
I also discovered, that same year, that I had a fetish for pierced nipples, as well. Didn’t matter the gender — I just got crazy horny when I saw pierced nipples. I remember going to a dress rehearsal of Cabaret in which a cute guy from my art history class was playing the emcee. He whipped off his shirt in the introductory number and I saw he had pierced nipples and I literally felt like someone had just tasered my clit.
I had a lot of sexual awakenings in my twenties: my first blow job, my first time dating a younger guy, my first time getting naked and engaging in sexual activity in a public place… It was exhilarating, I must say, but also painful. I did not guard my heart well and the partners I chose were neither kind nor respectful.
My thirties
My first truly long-term relationship (seven years) brought with it all kinds of sexual experiences and awakenings. I discovered how much more open I wanted to be, not just in the act of sex, but in expressing my fantasies and desires to my partner. I discovered we both had a love for sending each other dirty photos and even dirtier text messages. I discovered that I liked playing with exhibitionism (though only to a point).
I also noticed that my attraction to women was becoming more evident — and not only that, but I seemed to have a “type.” I loved tall brunettes with piercing eyes and (no surprise) distinctive lips — large breasts were a huge, though unnecessary, bonus. Eva Green was the first celebrity lady crush I had had for a long time, and all my female celebrity crushes since her have strongly resembled her…because let’s face it, she is absolute perfection.
My partner and I occasionally explored porn together, which gave us all new fodder for our fantasies and sometimes opened my mind to new desires.
At the end of this decade, finding myself single and brokenhearted, I returned to my very first love: nature. I let the earth, the plants, the birds, the trees heal me and reconnect me with my sexuality, just like that little girl sucking the nectar out of the honeysuckle blossoms.
My forties
This is a short chapter because I’m only three years (okay, almost four) in. While there hasn’t been much action, I feel that in many ways, I’ve grown more in these past few years than I have in all the years that came before.
Defining moments of this decade so far include luscious, passionate friendships, beginning my journey of writing about sex, and being more open about my sexual identity with close friends and family members. There have been some bumps along the way, that have also influenced my sexual identity and expression including an emotional affair and other painful, difficult, and complicated entanglements.
But overall, I’m finding my way again. I’m thrilled to find that my moments of awakening and influence are less and less about other people and more and more about my connection to the world and to myself. That’s what I want for myself as a sexual being: not just moments filled with satisfying sexual encounters, but the experience of knowing myself and finding satisfaction, connection, pleasure, and fulfillment in all the little moments of my life.
© Yael Wolfe 2020
