It starts in my face, tension, clench and contraction. Unrelenting, trapped in my eyebrows and my pursed lips. I take a deep breath and try to soften even a little. Maybe it’s left over frustration from something earlier in the day. 

I go back to massaging my vulva, stroking my quite responsive clitoris. I check in with my body. My brows are furrowed again, and frustration bubbles up. “What the hell?” I think. “I’ve already had one orgasm, why is my face still doing this?”

Clearly an orgasm wasn’t the entire fix. I set the vibrator down, place my hands on my heart and belly and take a breath. This anger, I’ve learned, is a last-ditch effort of my body to get my attention. It’s essentially an alert flag telling me there’s information I don’t have. It’s growling and grumbling, it signals that something isn’t right and thank god it does. This anger is making sure I get curious and figure out exactly what I need.

I lay and try to envision different things that could have been what I wanted. Thoughts of a nice full body lotion application cross my mind. A long warm up with a hot, and spicy book. Morning masturbation. I think of a bunch of things until something clicks. This time, it turned out my preference was taking time to actually touch, see, and appreciate my body, feel and move sensually to some music.

There have been times when I’ve shared masturbation with my husband, only to realize mid-way through that what I really needed was time alone to myself for pleasure. Times I’ve been using my tried-and-true dildo, only to realize that the nagging “not enough” feeling was a clue that I wanted a different sensation. Most of the time, I have to experience what I don’t want or like in order to get curious and make space to figure out what I actually do want or like. 

The lifelong journey of figuring out what I like has often felt like I’m fumbling around blindly in the dark looking for strangely placed light switches. It hasn’t been easy. I started off thinking I should already know everything I like, and that it would always stay the same. What I’ve learned over time is that preferences aren’t really like that, they ebb and flow, shift and change, and all of that is normal. Nothing is wrong with me because The Iron Giant dildo isnt making me come tonight. If I can shift from furious to curious, I tend to learn at least a little about myself. 

Communicating what I learn with a partner can be difficult at times. Most of the time, if I’m not really enjoying something, my body sends signals. I’ll scratch my nose, adjust my pillows, rub my face, stare around the room. My husband almost always picks up on these things and asks, “what do you need? wanna switch positions? need more lube?” 

Sometimes I can only sigh and adjust my body, words are too hard in the moment. Other times, I say, “I don’t know, let’s try doggy”, or “try fingers for a minute”. There have also been times where I didn’t know what my preference was until it was over. Maybe it was too hard to figure out and say what I wanted in the moment, and I had to reflect and communicate afterwards, that’s also ok. 

Anger, frustration, and confusion don’t have to be blocks to my preferences. Turned inward, they are a perfect compass, pointing me to curiosity, discovery, acceptance and eventually pleasure. 

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