Uncoupling Sex and My Value

I was taught many of the same ideas as most young girls. Your sex is to be kept under lock and key and the only person you give that key to is your husband or at the very least your beloved.

I was taught that boys “only want one thing” and that men “will not buy the cow if they can get the milk for free.”

At no point was there any mention of the notion that I, a girl soon to become a woman, might engage in sex for the sake of enjoyment. No one talked about the gifts of pleasure and connection that sex opens up.

It was my understanding that my sex was my bargaining chip. A tool to get a man to love me and marry me.
End. That was it.

The use of sex by a woman for pleasure immediately earned her titles such as slut, whore, skank. Women who enjoyed sex had their value slashed and became unworthy chewed up gum, if you remember that lesson.

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I have been on a personal journey to locate and reclaim the keys to my sexual freedom. I learned recently that I have had the keys all along… I’ve just been too afraid to use them.
Who might I be if I stepped FULLY into a life of sexual freedom?
Would the rest of my life blow up?

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As I sit here, rereading that last passage, I’m reflecting on how much of the fear of my own sexuality has diminished over the last couple of years. The current still runs but it is more of a trickle, a whisper, a memory.

Something has shifted. It has been so subtle and slow that I failed to notice it.

Have I already become the sexually expressive, expansive, embodied woman I feared?

I have, haven’t I?!

And life HAS blown up! My life has exploded with love, abundance, and freedom.

The shift has been in how I source my value.

My value is no longer determined by what others think.

My value is inherent, sourced from within.

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Arriving here was not a single moment of courage.
It was a thousand small decisions to listen inward instead of outward.

And maybe that is the part we don’t talk about enough.

Transformation is rarely dramatic.
It is subtle. Gradual. Often invisible while it’s happening.

Until one day you look back and realize—the fear that once ruled you is now just background noise.

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In the future, I will undoubtedly have moments where I question my worth. These wounds linger and I will lovingly attend to them.

But today, I celebrate a victory.