I reached out to Laura because I wanted to be able to have an orgasm that wasn't controlled by my own two hands.
Hi! Are you freaking out right now because I just mentioned my experience with self-pleasuring and sex in one sentence? To be honest, I've re-written the first sentence about five times already. And I've put writing this article off for honestly, about a year. But I'm relaxing with every word I write and I am setting the intention right here, right now to get out of my own way and share this "taboo" subject because sexuality is a crucial part of wellbeing.
I started exploring what it looked like to de-stigmatize my relationship with pleasure in 2020. I read Regena Thomashauer's book, Pussy: A Reclamation and enrolled myself in Layla Martin's 6-week jade egg crash course called, Crystal Pleasure.
Like so many women, I grew up with a very confusing narrative: be sexy, but not sexual. Like so many of us, I was indoctrinated into the belief that a woman's body was to be objectified. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, trophy wives and a line of women in bikinis stood side-stage right in front of me and my mom to serve my dad tequila onstage during the midpoint of his rock show. I quite literally stood eye-level to the floss up their asses.
The crowd went wild as they stepped onto the stage and were a paramount part of building my dad's liquor empire. But my parents made sure to remind me how "bad" and "low class" they were. Imagine trying to piece all that information together at six years old.
My mom did her best. I think she realized there was no hiding these very adult themes with the life they lived, so one day, during a summer tour at a bookstore in Atlanta, she picked up a children's book about sex and intimacy. "Sex is the closest two people can get." I remember her reading aloud as I sat on the edge of my seat wondering what this whole crazy thing was about. She turned the page to a cartoon of two people under a blanket and stopped abruptly, shutting the book, saying this was just "too much."
Her discomfort became mine. Whatever this was, it was too uncomfortable for my own mom. But it was all around me.
The paradox of it all created a deep sense of shame for me. Maybe men were allowed to indulge in this, but it was not a woman's role to claim any of it for herself. Our job was to look hot and nothing else.
And so I did. I worked really hard on it, actually. So much so I got two nose jobs and threw up after every dinner I ate for two solid years. If I could keep my body under control and my pleasure at bay, I would be everything anyone could ever want.
I hid behind clip-in extensions and fake eyelashes and stayed hiding even during the moments I bared my body in front of another. I couldn't relax. This was far too vulnerable. This was far too out of control. Even years into my healing of mind, body and spirit, I went into deep dissociation in the bedroom. My pleasure wasn't even a concern - it was sheer performance, a desperation for validation, and ultimately, survival.
I knew too much now to continue in this way. I believed my authentic sexuality was the key to my radiance and success in every area of my life - it's my namesake after all (Kama Sutra, anyone?).
In a new relationship with a deeply supportive partner of this part of my journey, I decided to hire a sex coach to help me heal my relationship with my pleasure, to surrender control and deepen intimacy.
I wanted so badly to bail out of the first session, but her warmth and openness kept me. During our remote sessions, she invited me into vulnerability with open loving arms. She played so freely in a realm that had felt so rigid to me for so long that it began to break down my walls. She saw me with such empathetic, caring eyes that I felt safe to express the pettiest, most embarrassing and most vulnerable concerns.
My shame slowly dissolved.
And with her guidance, tips and resources, I found myself able to surrender to intimacy and pleasure like I never had before. I'll never forget the first moment I let go into climax: I sobbed uncontrollably. I was letting myself receive. I was letting myself be seen. Within two months of weekly sessions, I was experiencing waves of orgasmic bliss I didn't even believe to be possible (energetic + cervicals FTW).
If all this is foreign to you or makes you uncomfortable - I was there, fam. But please, for the love of God, don't let that stop you. You were put in this body to experience pleasure and there is nothing shameful about that.
Fast forward: eight months later I reached back out to Laura. I wanted to go even deeper. My original intention was to do sessions with my partner, but in a radical and important change of course, I found myself a solo journey, ending that partnership that I will forever be grateful to for my profound growth and healing in my sexuality.
"Now what?" I asked Laura.
"Now we meet you right where you are." She said.
And that marked the beginning of some of the deepest self-work I have ever done: meeting myself where I was in every way. In what I was calling my "asexual era," it wasn't quite so erotic, but it was more intimate than anything I had ever done. During this time, she taught me to practice being kind and patient with myself. She taught me to hold my inner child. She taught me that for balls-to-the-wall people like me, being gentle is actually the most radical thing I can do.
So I healed.
I healed my grieving heart faster than I ever thought imaginable. I healed my tendency to be self-critical and to self-abandon. I finally got my nervous system to rest after decades of dysregulation. I discovered how to relax into myself exactly as I am and to enjoy this beautiful life and body I was given.
Laura Jurgens, you changed my life. Your guidance helped expand me to take the leap of faith I took to follow my heart and my joy and to bask in the pleasure of being alive... because truly, what the f*ck else?
Truly...
what
the
f*ck
else?
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