Howl

What Female Sexual Instinct Reveals

The one truth that women have been taught to forget

Trigger alert: Rape, sexual assault

I am a woman. I grew up believing what I was taught: that my sexuality existed for men’s pleasure, that men were supposed to manage and define it, and that it did not belong to me.

These ideas, of course, were at war with the instinctive knowledge of my soul. Somewhere, deep inside me, I knew my sexuality existed for me and that anyone who was invited to enjoy it was lucky as fuck (just as I have been lucky to share in other people’s sexuality). I knew my sexuality was mine to define, mine to manage.

It is independent of other people’s desires, independent from the manipulations of the world, independent of criticism. It is freedom and it makes me free.

“Your next boyfriend is gonna be so impressed when he finds out you know how to use a circular saw,” my little brother, Jack, joked the other day, when he was helping me with some repairs at my house.

“Or girlfriend or…,” I said.

“Oh. I didn’t realize you…” He stumbled for words.

“Yes, you did,” I said with a knowing look.

“Oh right,” he said. “Eva Green.”

Everyone knows about my mad crush on Eva Green. They just seem to forget what it says about me, probably because I’ve only had sexual relationships with men.

But I’m extra vocal these days about my sexuality. In the past, I wouldn’t have bothered — I’d have accepted the “hetero-sumptions.” Because it was easier. Because I wouldn’t have to endure all the questions and judgment.

No more.

I know what I like. I know what I want. I know who I am.

I am free.

My best friend, Sunny, and I talk a lot about dating and how to go about it. Mostly, it’s about logistics. How does one date in a pandemic?

But a lot of it is about what we want and how we should go about getting it.

Neither of us has had a relationship that didn’t strip us to the bone. There’s been abuse. Physical assault. Deep emotional damage.

And let me be clear that we are two fucking amazing women. We both are so generous and have such a deep desire to love and be loved. We are both emotionally and sexually hungry in the best of ways, willing to go deep with a partner. And to top off her sundae with an extra cherry, Sunny is one hot little number.

We cannot figure out why it has been so hard to meet available people and we’re struggling with how to move forward. Should we wait and see what the world brings to us? Should we sign up for another round of loin-girding online dating? Is there something in between?

We haven’t quite figured out our strategy here.

But there’s one thing we know: We are ready to walk away from partners who demonstrate a lack of respect for our freedom and sovereignty.

In the past, when a partner laid down his dealbreakers (no body hair, maintaining a certain weight, wearing makeup at all times, etc.) I’d “compromise” and concede to their desires. I was so afraid to lose my chance at what might be a good relationship.

It didn’t occur to me that good relationships are not possible with someone who insists on managing my appearance and the expression of my sexuality. It didn’t occur to me that anyone who assumed he should have that kind of power over me didn’t deserve me.

Neither Sunny nor I have ever asked a lover to groom themselves in a way that would please us. It wouldn’t have even occurred to us to try to exert such authority over another person’s body.

We now know better than to accept that from someone else. I have no fear of walking away from a partner who tells me he won’t be with anyone who weighs more than a certain number or who doesn’t wax her pubic hair.

I’d rather be alone and free than be trapped with someone who tries to control me. Instinctively, I think we all know in that case, we’re better off by ourselves.

Don’t touch me if I don’t want to be touched. This is not yours to take.

I’ve got a real thing about boundaries since the #MeToo movement exploded. It’s only since then that I’ve had the courage to call what my 7th grade classmates did to me day after day “sexual assault” instead of “bullying.” (Though that statement is accurate, too — just not inclusive enough of the way they violated me.)

If you read my work regularly, then you know that I’ve referenced this time in my life over and over again — because it’s the first time I’ve ever felt that I had permission to do that.

Can you imagine that? A young woman — hardly more than a child — fending off physical assaults day after day and being told again and again that nothing was wrong with what the perpetrators were doing, or worse, that it was my fault? That I’d asked for it?

And all the while, deep in my soul, I instinctively knew it was wrong. I knew they didn’t have the right to touch those parts of my body. I knew they didn’t have the right to pin me against the wall and do what they did. I knew they were doing something very, very wrong, despite the fact that almost no one else seemed to agree. I knew they were disrespecting my sovereignty over my body.

I still couldn’t tell my truth in this even after I became a teacher and knew that those boys would have faced serious consequences if that had happened today and not thirty years ago. Even knowing that, I feared that I wasn’t allowed to define what happened to me as assault.

Only recently have I given myself permission to tell this story truthfully, to stop agreeing that it was a misunderstanding, that it was my fault, or that it’s normal and acceptable for men to violate women’s bodies.

And now I’m trying to take that further, though I still struggle with it. I wrote an article about sexual microaggressions late last year and it stunned me that so many people told me those were not microaggressions, but actual violations.

Further, I’ve already realized that there were situations with past lovers that… Hmmm. I still cannot bring myself to say it. To use the “R word.” And yet, how else do you describe someone pinning you down against your will while you say “No” over and over again through your tears? I never thought of those incidences as…rape. Because I was in a relationship and I thought gaining consent was no longer required after the first “yes.”

Now I look back at those moments with deep pain — not just the pain of being forced to do something I didn’t want to do, but the pain of not having my own back. The pain of not knowing that even a partner has to have my consent to touch me.

I won’t make that mistake again. I am free and no one can take that from me.

The world will try again and again to manage and control a woman’s sexuality. But what do you feel in your bones? What do your instincts tell you?

I am learning to listen to my body, to my deepest instincts. And they are giving me the same message over and over: I am free. I am free. I am free.

I am learning the voice within is the only voice I need to listen to — the only voice that can accurately guide me.

The only voice that matters.

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

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