I started my journey into Bodysex in 2022. Before then I was engaging with the Dodson&Ross website for a few years.
My career as a dance artist, actress and teacher spans over sixteen years. In 2011 I began making work focused on female empowerment which played with archetypal and historical female goddesses and their roles, relationships and sexuality.
My focus has always been driven by women’s sexuality and yet the work never felt complete, a feeling, which often came up in my career as an artist.
The feeling of sexual loss, sexual desire, sexual freedom, it all felt stuck. Something was blocked sexually until I came across Betty’s work.
Bodysex has opened a path for me. Eventually I plucked up the courage to email Carlin in pursuit of becoming a Bodysex coach. I didn’t hear from them for quite some time. I realised later that Betty had died and everyone in her community was mourning.
I felt the void even though Betty and I never met. I felt her presence in my life. And her willing me, to just go for it.
Ever since I was a little girl I had a healthy relationship with masturbation even if I didn’t know that that was what I was doing as a child.
However it was only until my teens did I start to feel deeply uncomfortable in my skin and masturbation became the only tool to help me cope with my body dysmorphia, bullying and family challenges. When I looked in the mirror, I saw an ungly girl, she was skinny, no tits, no ass and nothing resembled what I thought a young woman should look like.
Feeling the release of my orgasm was an escape and a coping mechanism. It was a healthy coping mechanism, but I still felt sham around it.
Jump forward to summer 2022. And I finally hear back from Carlin.
My Bodysex journey started with five online one on one, private sessions.
Carlin always made sure to check in with me and talk me through the shape of the session before we started.
This put my mind at ease, but I did feel nervous to bare all and be witnessed going through what can only be described as a private and very personal experience.
It felt strange and simultaneously so normal to be witnessed and guided through my masturbation practice. After the first session I journaled about the shame I should have felt, the guilt that should have crashed down on me, and the questions around “is this spiritually appropriate?”.
I questioned the authenticity of these questions and I realised these questions were not mine. They belonged to the repressed feminine inside me, the repressed women inside me, the repressed lineage of female ancestors inside of me.
And yet there is a pioneering female linage inside me because my desire to feel fully sexual empowered came from deep within. I felt a strong commitment to be a Bodysex coach, using my sexual journey to help others, and this strength wasn’t mine alone it felt ancestral.
By the next session I was feeling excited to be witnessed, I almost felt embarrassed by the thought. And then mystically Carlin shared that sharing orgasm and being witnessed is a normal and arousing experience that women can create together without it being directly sexual.
Sigh of relief and intrigue grow in me.
By the 3rd session I was feeling deep vulva/clit appreciation. YEAH!!!
I named her Queen and as the session progressed she became Queenie. I’d always looked at myself but after the first session “ vulva show and tell” a seed of curiosity was planted. Why don’t I look at her more?
Why don’t I know her more? Why don’t I give her more?
Carlin was so normal and relaxed about it all, I quickly felt myself becoming more curious about what I would learn about myself and what she might share with me to help me grow more connected to my sexual energy.
Bodysex has reignited my wish to help reform sex education in the UK/Europe.
I see myself doing a PhD on Sex Education which questions and considers the very real challenges young people are navigating around identity and how as adults we can safeguard their sexual development.
This has been a passion of mine since my early 20’s. I feel the ultimate sex education should focus on RESPECT of our bodies and how to love ourselves regardless of orientation. As Betty has often said “ sexuality is fluid” not fixed.
I feel even more determined to assure that sex education is about our humanity, about all the awkward, weird, smelly, beautiful changes we go through and that it’s normal, and normal is also uncomfortable sometimes.
The feeling of not feeling well inside yourself is a journey of acceptance and radical self love. Which I had to go through and which I believe is a right of passage.
I had body dysmorphia, I didn’t like my body and I didn’t feel like a girl or a boy.
I went through this journey in silence and it taught me how this process of discomfort was temporary and not fixed, as nothing is.
I LOVE that my heart and mind are being cracked open.
Laura has provided a framework in the course that felt holistic, thorough, thoughtful and inspiring.
There were so many opportunities for reflection. Which at times I felt resistant to give time to. Of course I persevered and found that I was reeducating myself. I did at times find the topics and questions confrontational, which was great.
I have cried so much during the process of becoming a Bodysex coach, tears of joy, tears of sadness and sometimes I just cried. It’s a cathartic journey. And I’m only getting started.
For me Bodysex opens the door for women to reclaim and reconnect from a grounded sovereign knowing that they can be fully sexual just as they are, it is a mantra, a calling, a song, a release, a wish, a truth.
It is an invitation for women to step forward owning all that they are, feeling fully orgasmic.
