I am in a life long relationship. We’re the same age and met in our early twenties. In our mid fifties each of us started to feel a nagging need for personal growth and self-exploration. We both were looking for an adjustment to our life choices and routines. We both felt stuck but also too scared to share our doubts and moments of hopelessness. We had always thought we were the best of friends, but suddenly and immaturely we detached from our partnership while dealing with the toughest questions: Is this what’s in it for me? Do I feel connected? I am more than halfway and I am not sure I have wrapped up the gift of life yet? Lots of despair but also a lot of longing. During our parallel struggles, we made a few regrettable missteps. That’s part of life! We also made some important corrections and meaningful confrontations. In the end we succeeded in opening up to each other about our individual needs for a reassessment of our relationship. My own motivation for change was fueled by a strong feeling of something major and maybe even magic being available for me. And I knew it was about sex!

The process of my transformation was not fully planned out from the beginning. But the direction was clear. My intention was to spend a lot of time and energy on exploring and developing my own sexuality. For too long I had hated my body – or to be more precise; the size of my body. For too long I had let myself experience the sweet sensations from my partner’s touch only as random side effects of being there for him. His pleasure was what mattered for me. I was eager to feel sexually validated despite having a body that I was ashamed of. But in reality, there were consequences of not prioritizing my own pleasure. Because I gave nobody a chance to know me. Not even myself. I hid my sexuality behind my partner’s sexuality. That way I avoided confronting my body shame. I kept the darkest and most vulnerable part of me as a secret. And then the midlife train ran wild and gave me an important life lesson: I had to open up or else I would never experience the intimacy I had always longed for. Instead of degrading my body, I had to figure out my wants and then honor them with pleasure. My changed approach completely shifted my reason for having sex. I stopped using sexual encounters as means of affirmation. I started to have sex just for the fun of it. And surprisingly, the playful sex made me not only experience much more pleasure and healing, it also made me feel truly connected. To my own body, to my partner, and to life.

So, how did I learn more about my own wants in order to experience more pleasure? I practiced! Lots of exploratory masturbation. Lots of partnersex. The playful kind of partnersex between people who had learned to stand up for their own erotic longings. Today I know I would have had an easier process had I kicked off my sexual revolution with a Bodysex workshop. I even came across the website www.bodysex.com. But I was only in the beginning of my own process. I wasn’t ready to be part of a circle of naked women. In fact, I was kind of puzzled that any woman in her right mind would do a thing like that. Naked! No way! It was my body shame speaking. It was the repression speaking. After a couple of years of practicing pleasure on my own hand as well as with my partner, I became more sex positive and finally I was ready to sign up for Bodysex.

The story about how I healed my body shame cannot be told without highlighting my experience with Bodysex. Because, even though I had worked hard and gotten a long way on my own, my growing sense of self-worth often felt out of touch from reason and reality. I felt a bit crazy-special-alone. I wanted to talk to other women about sex and healing, and especially to talk about masturbation. But culturally, that is TMI. It was like I lived in my own bubble. Am I the only one who figured this out? I felt like I had been on the moon and planted a flag without anyone witnessing. I needed equals. Other women who had also experienced the link between masturbation and independence and between masturbation and self-love. Someone who could hold space for me while I was securing my new found independence and self-love. Despite my many positive changes, I was still hit by triggering thoughts. Am I just pretending? Will it last? Is this for real? It wasn’t self-hate or body-shame anymore. It was more like leftovers of self-doubt.

I want to end this post by mentioning some personal take-aways from my first Bodysex experience. By sharing my self-doubt it was normalized to a level that made it easy to shed it. I left it in the circle. By taking off my clothes and showing my body, the last bit of my body shame disappeared. The diversity made me feel equally beautiful. Adding context and community to my development turned out to be the missing part of my process. So, if you are considering whether to sign up for a Bodysex circle, my advice would be to do so. Attending a Bodysex circle is a lot to ask yourself about. It is scary. But confront your resistance! Don’t wait as long as I did. My biggest fear was standing up for the look of my body. For others it is standing up for the shape of their genitals or their sexual identity, sexual orientation or sexual preferences. The resistance I felt when I undressed and entered my first Bodysex circle was directly proportional with the level of personal healing I gained from doing it. I cannot recommend the experience enough. It will change your sex life.