Articles
Read articles and blog posts written by Betty Dodson, Carlin Ross, Bodysex Facilitators, and guest writers
Menstruation
Our coaches wrote about their relationship with menstruation. Browse the links below to read the full post.Shedding Menstrual Shame in the Sacred Space of Bodysex "I laid back vulva towards the circle and warned everyone again that they’d be seeing a lot of blood as I...
Shedding Menstrual Shame in the Sacred Space of Bodysex
I stared at my period app calendar, frustrated that either it wasn’t right or my body wasn’t. I was supposed to have my period by now, in fact I’d intentionally planned this Bodysex circle so that it would be just past the heavy days. Every time I went to the bathroom...
Who is Afraid of Blood?
“Monica? Are you listening to me? Could you please repeat what I just said?" – Yes, I do listen. You explained that the verb ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ are auxiliaries in French and… "Ok, Monica, that will be all, thank you." – May I go to the bathroom, please? 'Yes but...
Blood Everywhere
With my pants around my ankles, I squatted low in the 3-stalled corporate office restroom. My butt cheeks just a few inches from the floor, I pressed my PC muscles down and pulled the tip of my menstrual cup. Because squatting shortens the vaginal canal, it was then...
Blood Medicine
My understanding of the ways to connect myself with the Earth through my moon blood has been cobbled together from my own experimenting, errors, and random bits of information collected throughout my life. And I wonder how many fragments will equal a whole. How many...
My Menstruation Story
Art by Betty Dodson My mother told me about menstruation at an early age so I had been expecting it to come anytime. In fact, I was eager to get it and looked at it as a right of passage. I was 12.5 years old, sitting in my sixth grade classroom, when I was plagued...
My First Bodysex Experience
In April of 2019 I attended my first Bodysex Workshop. The months leading up to the workshop had been a whirlwind of emotions. In my personal life I was unknowingly at the very beginning of the end of my 15-year relationship. In my professional life I had...
A Love Letter to Moon Flow, Crones, and to Myself
My blood leaked around the edges, destroying countless pairs of underwear, spotting my pants, staining not just my clothes but my car’s seat, my friend’s couch, my good living room chair (years later, when I finally had a living room and enough time had passed for me...
Red Wings
When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. Whoever...
Busy and Disconnected from My Body
This is the most embarrassing story. And maybe even a little TMI (too much info) but if you stick with me there’s a point. Rewind to 2010. My days were fast-paced. At that time, my to-do list was never-ending. I’d earned two promotions at work so I was part of the...
Circles of Women are Powerful, Healing Spaces
These past few months have been hard. I want to blame it on perimenopause. I want to disconnect from my body, disassociate from the flight response building in my limbs. I think that’s why we scrape orgasm off our plate: it allows us to live without feeling, live...
Fantasy
Our coaches wrote about their relationship with fantasy. Browse the links below to read the full post.Life Is Just a Fantasy "That’s what fantasy is for, really, to help you push your self-imposed limits and find out who you really are. I’ve realized that I’m at a...
My First Bodysex Experience
When I arrived at Menla Center that Friday afternoon, I was tired yet excited. I drove all the way down from Quebec—a seven-hour straight drive to Upstate New York. For the first time, I crossed the frontier alone behind the wheel. “Is this your vehicle, Ma’am,” asked...
My Dirty Mind
Art by Betty DodsonHe smelled like gingerbread. We made small talk as he prepared me for bed. Then he instructed me to lay down on my back and get comfortable. He pulled the covers over my body and tucked me in. “If you need anything just call out my name,” his deep...
Fantasy Fosters my Self-Acceptance
Art by Betty Dodson As I ground my pubic mound down onto my partners I could feel myself getting closer and closer to orgasm. Strangely enough at that same moment my mind began wandering and started to really focus in on the guy I’d recently begun befriending. I could...
Normalizing My Fantasies
The same week in 1973 that Cosmo published an article stating that women were scientifically incapable of having sexual fantasies, My Secret Garden was released to the public. The book is a compilation of women’s fantasies. Nancy Friday, the author/compiler, grouped...
Kink Envy?
Art by Betty Dodson What’s my favorite fantasy? What’s my kink? What’s my fetish? For me, thinking about those questions can be tricky and somewhat disturbing. Why? Because they tend to make me feel ordinary and restricted. Am I really that vanilla-ish? What’s wrong...
Perfect Day
Art by Betty Dodson Faces are obscured by the sun setting behind them. But still, I can clearly distinguish silhouettes and curves lovingly caressed by the golden hour of the fading day. Four women stand right in front of me. Slowly moving, the waterline licks their...
Life is Just a Fantasy
The elevator jerked as it started its ascent, and I caught my balance. A hand grazed my elbow from behind asif to steady me and I mumbled the obligatory, “Thank you,” under my breath, while trying to stuff my notes away in the crowded car. Suddenly, I felt something...
February Blog Posts: Selflove
For Valentine's Day, our coaches wrote about how we learned to love ourselves. Browse the links below to read the full post.Imperfect and Worthy of Love Deep down, I knew that my body was unlovable and so was I. I could never be good enough for love.by Laura BogushThe...
A Quiet Power That Says It All
– If I scream, they sure will hear me? Right?!? … I used to think that I was forever stuck in the fight for my voice to be heard. That I would never be able to let my guard down … It was a cold winter’s morning, with the fire in my psychologist’s practice offering me...
Imperfect and Worthy of Love
“Do you think maybe it was a mistake to break up?” I said to a former boyfriend during a phone conversation, 3 months after he ended our relationship. I was devastated and unable to heal. He kept calling me. Our relationship had lasted several years, my first real...
The Power of Pleasure: Establishing Self-Love Through Masturbation
“You’ll be a pretty girl when you grow up” my dad said when I was probably around 10. I felt like I was in a car driving on the highway and hit a road block as soon as I heard this. I tried so hard to be what he wanted, to be someone he could tolerate spending any...
Uncovering the true, authentic version of myself, I had buried deep inside.
I was colliding with my “good girl” façade. I was wrestling with what I was told I was supposed to be, and the lived experience of failure that demanded I crack the façade and dance with carnal desires.I sat on the bathroom floor crying ugly tears. My marriage was...