Even if I don’t envy the hardship and the struggles that gay people have to endure on a daily basis; the prejudice, the ignorance and the cruelty of narrow-minded people and societies, they do have something I wish was available for all of us to use at some point in our lives: a closet to come out of.

In my entire adult life I have found (heterosexual) sex to be the most difficult and confusing thing I know. I’ve had a series of relationships and the sex in all of them always felt uncomfortable and sometimes even painful. Although I was struggling with penetration pain for almost 15 years, I was struggling with something just as painful: emotional numbness and boredom during sex. I couldn’t feel IT, I couldn’t relax and enjoy myself – and I was not feeling any pleasure. While I could follow my lovers excitement and pleasure all the way to the climax while we were having sex, I was having a totally different experience.

I was traumatized, totally disassociated, distant and bored out of my mind. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me and I started to hate my body, my pussy and my own sexuality. But at the same time, I could feel how sexual I was, how I was longing to be touched “the right way”, to be fucked “my way” and to be seduced and teased so I wouldn’t be able to take it anymore and just unleash and be as sexual as I knew I was even though I didn’t have any experience of it. I was a butterfly trapped inside a jar and I couldn’t breathe or fly. I was a roaring lioness but chained and drugged in my cage.

My cage was the relationship – the mainstream version of a monogynous relationship, and the jar was my fear to look at the nature of my own sexuality and acknowledging its power and force.

Once I started to do that – everything else was falling apart. I went to sexual therapy (all alone, without my boyfriend) to “fix” whatever was wrong with me and my body so I could enjoy our sex life again, because it was so good in the beginning. Not once did I think that this might not be MY problem, that perhaps the problems didn’t have anything to do with me at all. Not even once.

I was the one who was experiencing the penetration pain, I was the one who hated my body, I was the one who felt gross and disgusting when I looked at myself naked in the mirror, I was the one who couldn’t relax and surrender to my boyfriend and the moment, I was the one who was a mess and felt like crap about sex. My boyfriends were all fine with the sex and their bodies. They had crooked penises, small ones, big ones, they were fat, skinny, tall, short, they had all kinds of weird sexual fetishes, loved to show off their sexual power or wanted to be dominated and they didn’t feel weird or awkward about it. They were all sexually confident (or like “whatever”) and I was confused and lost. The problem HAD to be mine.

I was the problem.

But after a year in sexual therapy, I was finding pieces of my sexuality that I didn’t know existed – or that I had repressed in order to fit into the mainstream idea of a relationship and its boring sexual routines. And this is what I found: I am VERY VERY sexual, I don’t like to be either sexually submissive or a dominatrix – I want to feel like an equal, I don’t enjoy sexual routines (like “foreplay-blowjob/being-licked-doggystyle-some-missionary-more-blowjobs-more-doggystyle-my-orgasm-and-the-big-finale-his-cum-on-my-tits/ass/face-and-then-feel-like-“OK-that-was-that”) I want the sex to feel like a dance – like pure energy being produced and released through my entire being. And I need to feel deeply connected to my lover, not just like the sex is part of the relationship because that’s what a normal, healthy relationship SHOULD include, like a duty or a responsibility, I need to be seduced and teased in order to feel sexually curious, awaken and stimulated, if I’m not, if you try to fuck me after a little foreplay (a foreplay that is ALL about getting me wet, not as a time to really connect through intimacy and love, but more like a necessary act before the “real sex” can begin), my pussy will be dry and the penetration will be extremely painful (like pouring acid into an open wound), it’s very simple really – I am not a machine that you have to lubricate so it can start working properly, I am not only a body that needs to get your sexual attention – I am a woman, a human being and I am sexual in my mind and heart too. That’s where the real sexuality lives anyway even though it is expressing itself through the body.

I can’t stand the mainstream idea of what sex is. I need so much more than that, I am so much more intellectual and present than it allows us to be. Before I started my journey to find out who I am sexually, I had no idea that sex is so much more than what we learn in school, hear from our friends when they share stories about their sex lives – or from the world of pornography. We think that the definition of sex is penetration and that we have to give blowjobs while the men tug our heads back and forth so our gag reflex is activated (it’s so fucking gross!), We don’t like to swallow a whole banana, we eat it like it’s supposed to be eaten, so we don’t enjoy that feeling during sex but with a cock either. It’s not a pleasant experience. We don’t like to feel like a piece of meat that you can put your cock into just because we are in love with you and because we happen to have a hole down there, we want to feel connected and loved – seen and appreciated for ALL of our existence, body, mind, heart (soul and spirit too) and invite you in because we want to feel close and a sense of total belongingness to you.

And we want to be FUCKED (so badly) but in OUR own way, not in the way you see in the porn movies. There is a balance between passionate, animalistic sex and sensuality and intimacy. It’s not only the women’s responsibility to know this balance, and to have fun with it and explore and experiment with it during sex – it’s an equal responsibility (or enjoyment). I guess you can find it in the love. Look closer. It’s there.

It was never my problem.

My body wasn’t abnormal or gross, my pussy wasn’t worthless and my sexuality was never in black and white – submissive or dominant. It was a perfect greyscale.

The problem was the shitty relationships and the boring sexual routines – colored by porn and silly mainstream ideas and definitions about what sex is suppose to be like and look like (because it’s so much about how it looks like from an outside perspective – to please the man and to live up to what a girlfriend is suppose to do for her partner), the problem was that I didn’t know that I was allowed to say “Hell no! Fuck this shit! If you can’t seduce me, if we are not connected and intimate in a way where’s there’s room for seduction and sexual exploration (without necessary props and fancy lingerie), then you aren’t allowed to come into me!  It’s as simple as that!”

When I found all the missing pieces to my sexuality – I broke up with my boyfriend and began to look for something new – something true to my sexuality. I had to find out what I DIDN’T want in order to know what I really want and need in sex. No more penetration pain, no more self-loathing. No more boring sex routines or a sense of sexual duty to my partner.

I hereby reclaim every single piece of my sexuality – I am gonna spend the rest of my life exploring my sexuality with someone I feel connected too, seen by, and equal to.

I will borrow the infamous closet from the gay people and I will come out of it and proudly say:

I am NOT sexual in the way I am “supposed” to be in a monogynous heterosexual relationship (and I am not a lesbian or a sexual freak because of that). I am not interested in sex as you see it being interpreted and portrayed in porn movies. Foreplay isn’t good enough – seduction is something that demands something from both of us. There’s no room to be lazy in sex. Lazy-boring sex is not gonna do it for me.

Let’s share any sexual problems, work on them together. To feel sexually lonely and lost is awful. It always results in a feeling of shame and being inadequate.

Let’s be connected.

REALLY connected.

Let’s create fireworks!