Howl

Why So Many Women Run Hot and Cold When It Comes to Sex

We’ll die in our cages but it’s not safe to run free…

“Yes, I want this,” I say, softly. Of course I do.

Or rather, I want what I think this is. I want to take off my clothes and let loose with someone I think I can trust. I want to let myself be overcome with this desire. I want to drop every wall that I work so hard to keep up around me.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. But I’m not sure, at all. I’m sure that I want what I think this is.

But are my instincts accurate? Because this has really never gone well. They always seem so nice in the beginning. So respectful. So thoughtful.

Then it comes up: the comment about my weight, a pointed question about why I don’t wax my pubic hair and that he’s really not gonna be able to “do much with that,” that “just-so-you-know” statement that he probably won’t call tomorrow because he’s really only into one-night deals, the thinly veiled frustration about how long it’s taking me to come…

I want to let go like I have never let go before. To not feel tensed in dread and anticipation of these words. I want to roll around naked without worrying about how my stomach (or my apparently unwanted bush) looks or if my thighs seem fatter from that angle.

They always seem so nice in the beginning. So respectful. So thoughtful.

I just want to be deep in my body, and more importantly, I want him deep in my body. I don’t want to think about anything but enjoying myself — feeling pleasure and giving pleasure and surrendering to this totally wild place in my soul. I don’t want to feel this anxiety, trying to guess how he’s about to make me feel badly about myself or this encounter.

I try to ignore my fear. I know how to play the part. I know how to embrace my inner wolf. Because it’s real — that’s a real part of me.

But it’s so rare that I actually let her out of her cage. I can only do that if I know she will be taken care of. If I know she will be respected, protected.

I’m too old to let her run through a wood where I know someone might be lurking, hunting for sport. I’m not stupid. My inner wolf is more important to me than anything — she is my soul. I’ve learned never to risk her life or health for a good time. It’s not worth it.

But how I long to be able to let her run free, all the time. To let her go roaming into the night without fear.

I can’t, though. This wood is dangerous. There are hunters everywhere. I know she’s not safe, and so I have to keep her close, no matter how much I long for her to be free.

Not long ago, my bio included the line: “Send me a love letter,” followed by my email. A lot of people include their email in their bio so editors and podcasters can get in touch. And yes, we love to hear from readers, too.

When it comes to love, I have a very broad definition— I think of this term beyond romantic love, beyond sex. I try to make my whole world romantic, both for myself and for others. So a lot of my branding revolves around that idea of bringing romance and passion into the ordinary moments of our lives.

I thought “Send me a love letter” accomplished that beautifully, envisioning an exchange in which love and kindness could be shared between two people who’d never met before, for just a moment, through a simple email. It was also a spell, if you will — my attempt to direct the intention into the universe that the emails coming to me would be loving in energy, discouraging hateful emails from trolls.

This was my wolf’s way of inviting in friendly guests, and patrolling the perimeter.

I thought “Send me a love letter” accomplished that beautifully, envisioning an exchange in which love and kindness could be shared between two people who’d never met before, for just a moment, through a simple email.

I had to call her back soon after, though. I removed this line because as the months went on, I received an increasing amount of actual love letters. Men confessing overwhelming love and passion for me, asking me to be their girlfriend, imploring me for sex.

(Honestly, if you all would just believe me that I’m a disappointingly ordinary woman with a disappointingly ordinary body who just happens to know how to take a sexy picture of herself and happens to be filled with passion... It’s not the fantasy you think it is.)

Every single one of these emails mentioned my directive* to “send a love letter,” as if they had done their part — now could I please do mine?

Maybe this is naïve of me, but I didn’t expect that. I reveal very personal things, it’s true — love, sex, life — but this is a fusion of my art and my job. Like a painter in her studio, my space here is where I produce my art, both for the fulfillment of my soul…and so I can pay my mortgage.

I did not expect people would see my work as a romantic or sexual invitation. I did not expect that people might use a non-dating platform as a dating platform. I did not expect that people would take my line about love letters so seriously.

There were days when I felt I had done something wrong. That maybe I was leading people on by saying that. I didn’t know what to do.

Eventually, I deleted it. Pulled back. Made sure my wolf was safe in her cage.

I love creating nude self-portraits. They help me explore and express my sexuality. That might not seem like a big thing, but for women, it is. We are not encouraged to explore our sexuality and we are definitely not encouraged to express it.

I feel very safe in front of my own camera, all by myself, playing with poses and shutter speeds and lighting. Some of the most intense moments of self-love (and I mean that emotionally — that’s not meant to be a euphemism for masturbation here) I have experienced happened when I was taking photos of my naked body.

I love to share these, too. It’s such a revelation that I can feel good enough about my body that I want to let it be seen. What a feeling, after thirty years of trying to hide it and feeling ashamed of it.

It’s also such a revelation to assert myself as a sexual being. I’ve never done that before in my entire life. The power of that is overwhelming. It’s my wolf running free in the woods, wind rustling her hair, muzzle half-open as she breathes heavily, intoxicated with her freedom.

It’s also such a revelation to assert myself as a sexual being.

But then I post a photo and suddenly, my inbox fills up in a matter of hours.

“Can you please post a few more of your breasts? They’re so beautiful and I want to see them a little better so I can imagine sucking on them just the way you say you like.”

“These are great, but I would love some shots of your pussy. When are you going to post those?”

And interspersed in there are the other messages:

“Thanks for setting women back another few decades by turning yourself — and therefore the rest of us — into a sexual object.”

“Yep. Call this what it is. Slut.”

I call my wolf back. My voice cracks with the strength of my insistence. She obeys, her eyes darkening, her head dropping. She lets me usher her back into her cage and she flops down on the ground, defeated.

I love to talk about sex. Obviously.

All my female friends know this about me. The ones who don’t like talking about it have made it clear that that subject is not a welcome topic of conversation. The other ones aren’t surprised when I utter something obscene at the most random moments.

With some of them, we go into deep talks about “sexual philosophy.” What we want. What we observe in the world. How we wish our culture’s perspectives on sexuality would evolve.

These conversations feel safe. My friends aren’t attracted me (so far as I know) nor am I attracted to them. I don’t see us suddenly looking at each other from across the couch, overwhelmed with passion as we talk about our sexual philosophies, falling into each other’s arms.

I love being able to have these conversations and I long to have them with men, too. What an incredible experience, to learn about men’s perspectives on sexuality and get to talk about it, in-depth.

Somehow, though, that always leads them to initiate further intimacy of a sexual nature.

I often want to ask what happened. How did we go from two friends pondering human sexuality to the assumption that I wanted to have sex with you?

But I never ask. Because I know:

• If I write an article about the joy and satisfaction of having my breasts touched, someone will email me, saying they know it was written just for them (even though I never “met” them until that moment), and that they would love to be the one to perform this duty for me.
• If I say “send me a love letter” in my bio, many men will assume it’s a personal ad, rather than a cheeky, fun profile of a professional woman with an advanced degree who is here to work and create art and change the world.
• If I sign a comment with “xoxo” (as I so often do), many men assume I’m expressing sexual interest, instead of just trying to express affection and warmth in a world that needs more of that.

There’s very little that I do that isn’t interpreted as a sexual invitation by many men. I feel like it’s pointless to ask why.

I just keep my wolf close to her cage.

Men want me to let my wolf run free. Sometimes, they seem even angry or frustrated when I don’t, or when other women don’t.

But how can we, in a world that doesn’t protect our wild, female wolves? Those beautiful creatures, running free, tend to inspire voracious, uncontainable desire, or suspicion and condemnation.

It’s only logical that we would keep our wolves close — caged, even. Protected.

And yet, we know they can’t stay in those metal cages. They’ll die if they can’t run free. And they’ll die if they do.

How do we create a world that protects our wild, female wolves?

*If you have emailed me, making reference to my line about “love letters,” and have received a response from me, then rest assured that I felt you understood the intention behind that line and this is not meant for you.

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

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