Howl

The Spiritual Practice of Opening My Legs

How I’m training myself to invite more pleasure into my life

There’s something about sex for me that feels…scary. Yes, scary. I long for the thrill of it, the pleasure, but also, with my history, it makes me feel vulnerable and afraid.

I still struggle with lingering shame about my sexuality, which makes me fear being too wanton, too hungry.

Opening myself to a new lover is ridiculously exhausting. There’s such a huge part of me that struggles to make a dispassionate risk assessment and then take action. Take a leap with this new person? Or stay comfortable and safe and just be my own lover until I’m sure? With my cautious nature, I typically choose the latter.

And what about trust? Can I trust this new partner to tell me the truth about his health and sexual history? Can I trust that he will be kind to me and care about whether or not I have a good time in bed? Can I trust that he won’t walk away the second he comes?

I have not had many good sexual experiences with men and it is still very hard for me to believe that that’s not the norm. In fact, it’s very difficult for me to imagine being with someone who makes me feel like I can fully let go. Who makes me feel safe. Who makes me feel respected and even cherished (even if only as a sexual partner).

But I want that. I want it so much.

“Put yourself in the shape of what you desire,” a yoga teacher once said during class.

At the time, she was instructing us on how to practice the harder poses. When working toward liftoff in bakasana, for instance, she showed us how to get into the position, with our feet still on the ground and keep practicing the position until we were strong enough to lift up.

I wholeheartedly believe in this concept — put yourself in the shape of what you desire and that desire will come to you. It’s training your body and mind in preparation.

I’ve started practicing this in a more sexual way. I realize that this might sound ridiculous, but to me, the practice I need to take on is opening my legs.

Yes, I mean that quite literally.

Most often, that means stretching throughout the day, focusing on hip openers in my yoga practice, and even just sitting with my legs open.

But I am also turning this into a targeted practice. Every day, I take off my clothes, lie down on my bed, and open my legs.

Somehow, this feels as vulnerable to me as if I had a lover hovering over me, seeing me like that for the first time. It is hard for me to be naked even by myself. It is hard for me to look at my own body and see all the flaws I perceive.

And after all the conditioning I’ve taken into my body around female sexuality, it is insanely hard for me to open my legs when I’m naked. There’s something about the act of revealing what’s between my legs that feels indecent. I can hear my mother yelling, “For god’s sake, keep your legs together!”

I think about the way my nephews, when they were very young, regularly ran around naked, seeming to have no shame around their penises. Thankfully, my 6-year-old niece seems to have inherited her older brothers’ complete lack of shame. A few months ago, my sister asked her if she had put on her panties, and my niece, not looking up from the book she was reading, lifted up her leg to reveal that, no, she had not put on panties that morning.

That story still makes me laugh, but also makes me sad. I was a pretty wild child, but I can’t imagine ever feeling comfortable enough to flash my vulva to my mother in response to a question about whether or not I was wearing panties. I already felt shame around my body even at 6 and knew that what was between my legs needed to stay hidden.

My first visit to a gynecologist took forever because she literally had to talk me into relaxing my legs apart. And my first sexual experience was almost humorous, had I not been so scared — I literally ended up with bruises all up and down my inner thighs because even when my lover had maneuvered himself between them, I tried to keep them as closed as possible, squeezing them hard around his bony hips (and not in a sexy way, let me tell you).

It’s literally an effort for me to practice opening my legs without shame — and to let them remain open.

There is an incredible energy in the female body. It feels almost as if it was specifically designed to not only feel desire, but to seek out the fulfillment of that desire.

When I’m aroused, or even just in a creative mood, it feels as though my body is drawing the very energy of the earth into me. As if my vagina wants to taste and touch and embrace everything around it.

My body is made of hunger.

But holding my legs tightly together denies this hunger. And I don’t want that. I want to feel it.

I love the power of my own desire.

Opening my legs, even in the face of the vulnerability of that act, makes me feel powerful. Like I’m inviting desire — maybe in the form of a lover, or maybe just my own desire that I can satisfy by myself.

I love the symbolism of the act. It’s bold and affirming, letting my body exist just as it is, revealing the power and hunger that exists between my legs. It’s loving, helping me accept myself, my body, my sexuality. It’s hopeful, as I imagine a lover slowly crawling over me, settling between my legs, our hips coming together with that sudden whoosh of sparking passion.

And it’s an act of pure trust, somehow, teaching myself to lay back, totally receptive, totally defenseless. To let the world come to me, over me, into me, and to receive whatever it has to give me.

Sometimes, I love the way I look like this — on my back, my legs splayed open. If my “open legs practice” evolves into a little self love, I try to keep my eyes open and look at myself throughout the entire process. I want to imagine what I might look like to a lover.

My thighs are puckered and slashed with stretch marks, but still…they make a beautiful and comfortable cradle. My stomach is fleshier than I would prefer, but it is smooth as silk, so soft, it overwhelms the senses. My breasts are a little on the large side, often spilling over into my armpits when I’m on my back, but is anything more beautiful than the curve and jiggle of those fleshy mounds?

Somehow, my hunger can evolve in ways that turn inward — a hunger for myself. To know myself. To please myself. To love myself.

I might even grow bold enough to try other positions in this practice — to kneel, for instance, with my legs apart. To move my hips back, as if searching for another body. To hover on my knees, as if about to consume whatever is beneath me.

I find it easier to sit in my body these days. I’m less self-conscious, in general, wearing leggings without worrying about how my ass looks, or stripping down into my underwear in front of a friend, no longer caring that my body is not perfect.

I can only imagine the freedom I might be able to enjoy with a lover. I’ve been practicing. Of course, it’ll still be scary, but this is muscle memory now. I’ll know how to fling my legs open in invitation, even through my fear. My body will automatically hold itself wide open — pliant, receptive, and yes, wanton. The wantonness will be stitched into my physiology…because I taught it to be.

Yes, I am still afraid. As I tiptoe closer and closer to that line of not just waiting, not just asking, but declaring, “Yes, I’m ready to invite someone into my bed,” I’m still very afraid of all the things that have always scared me.

But I’m teaching my body what to do in the face of that fear. I’m training her to receive in vulnerability, to desire in trust, to say yes, even when her hands are trembling.

I’m opening my legs and am ready to invite someone in…

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

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