The thing about some of us is that our desire is shy, tiptoeing around us. It’s the pot of rice on the stove that takes a while to come to a boil, but when it does, it bubbles up to the surface, pushing its way forward.
Not to be nosy, but when was the last time you talked about your clitoris? I know. Some of you are re-reading that sentence whilst your cringe factor escalates several notches. But bear with me.We live in a country where violence against women is so endemic, that a huge part of our brain is wired to think about our bodies as sites of violence.
Even if we’re lucky enough to be one of the few women who hasn’t had a gendered experience of violence, chances are that we know someone, possibly many someones, who has. Think about the effect of this. In her book, Pumla Qola describes the ubiquitous fear that women have encoded in their bodies. Qola describes this fear as being a consequence of the theatrical and public performance of patriarchal policing and violence against women.
I recently read a poem, “How to make love to a trans person” by Gabe Moses and it reminded me that our bodies are fleshy, sweaty, hungry, pulsating and erogenous. It encapsulates everything that we need to hold close to our hearts:Like a paramedic cracking ribsScratch new definitions on the bones.
Instead, when we are in touch with the erotic within ourselves, we use that lens to light up our actions in the world and we begin to be responsible for ourselves in the deepest sense. Lorde reminds us that when we are attuned to the erotic within us, we are less willing to accept powerlessness, resignation, self-effacement, and self-denial.
When I was in my early twenties, working at an NGO, I went to a learning circle on violence against women in Nairobi. I remember sitting at a dinner on the first night, listening to an older South African woman tell us about coming into her sexual power. Taking a sip of her wine, she nodded sadly and said, “You’re only likely to truly experienceafter the age of forty.” I was aghast. Firstly, because living to the age of forty was a million years away.
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