Of Sex & Nakedness

I hide.

And I’ve often wondered why.

I’ve wondered if the reason I want to hide my body from the world is because, too young, it felt eyes burning through her church dress.  Too young to know what it all meant, not recognizing what that feeling of suspicion & fear was when approached by looming men, or coaxed onto a lap she didn’t want to be on. 

Do I hide behind modesty? Do I protect myself through celibacy? Because, too young, it was taken from me?

Now. Here & now, I get to control who sees - who touches - my body.

I was told that this, this conservatism, is what men desire. But it’s not so. Not really. I found myself heart broken too often, recognizing that the real desire was for easy pleasure, bodies that graced the screen unabashed, dancing, tantalizing, beautiful bodies. & I sat back a few times, I did, wanting so much to scream, “this is what you want?!”, & there, in some cheap act of revenge, allow my body & my pain to reach…..allow myself to be seen by the world.

But I cannot.

Even in my anger, fueled by I-fuckin-knew-it’s, I don’t know how to say to the world, “Here I am”.

I retreat, either in bravery or cowardice. I’m unsure.

I have contended with this for a long time; questioning my own beliefs, my own motives. I’m told it’s empowering. Is that how I regain the power taken from me? My body used without my consent, so now I am to use it - expose it willingly - as a means to show I have power over myself? Or is that it yet another lie we tell ourselves to make nudity & sex so unimportant that we don’t have to face the magnitude of it being used against us when we were at our most……powerless?

I don’t have the answer.

What I do know is that, somewhere, there is a man who will peel the layers off my heart, my body & see it. & it’ll be his touch, his kiss, that will see what I show no one else, & in my most indecent moments, be allowed to roam.

I see my body, my sexuality, not as a tool of empowerment or disempowerment, but as a gift. Not because it’s perfect; it’s certainly not but because there’s nothing to leverage, nothing to barter or pay. It’s because it’ll be more than skin; it’ll be a meeting of souls that so vividly see each other that nakedness is so natural, & sex, a spiritual conduit.

My power…..is in not changing who I am in order to reach you.