Let's Talk About Sex

Lots of revelations about my lifelong sadness. Nick and I had a conversation last night that started about sex and porno and ended with an in-depth look at my issues about being a woman in our modern society. I think I’m on the edge of discovering the roots of some of my issues about my sexuality and why I became a stripper and all that jazz.

The key factor in understanding my coming-of-age has always seemed to focus on finding the porno magazine trunk in my basement when I was about thirteen years old. I was at an impressionable age when I was just learning about what it means to be a woman. The naked photos seemed to show me what it meant to be a desirable woman.

Thus began my conflicting attempt to become both a desirable woman and at the same time to stop myself from ever growing up at all. One part of me urged on my self-discovery of my sexual self: dancing half-nude in front of the living room mirror every day after school, learning how to undulate my body to make it look good from every angle and practicing my new discoveries with boyfriends. While it seems that I was attempting to become a “desirable” woman like those I saw in the magazines, I also began my attempt to halt the process altogether: starving myself all day long, seeing how tiny (and unwomanly) I could become and sinking into an attention-desiring depression.

I was like most hormone-driven teenage girls—making out with my boyfriends and savoring every passionate-filled moment grabbed in the backseat of cars. I was always dating older guys and feeling super-sexy and just enjoying my discovery of how much fun my body could supply me.

Once I actually physically became a woman and realized the process was unstoppable, I slowly began regaining weight and coming back from the edge of scary skinniness. The crack in my, what I consider normal sexual self, happened when I became a stripper. My sexy self became exaggerated and a performance. That’s who “Kyrea” was. Sheila, on the other hand, became the good girl, who wasn’t terribly interested in sex because that other me was getting all the “sex” she needed at work.

Soon, the split deepened, and I found myself becoming a promiscuous and cheating female. That was when I felt sexy. I began to associate sexiness with being bad. Not a great development for my own sexual self in real-life relationships.

Fast forward to today. I’ve gone through a long trip to Hell and back. I’ve landed in a place where I want to reunite my split selves. I go through phases where I think I’ve already done that successfully, but I realize I still have a lot of issues to work through.

Sheila can be sexy without having to be overtly “sexy”, like I was as a stripper. That real sexy part of me is allowed to exist. Time to let go of all those messages driven in by well-meaning boyfriends that I could leave “Kyrea” behind and just be Sheila. Kyrea is a part of me. It’s time to make her feel welcome rather than hanging her out to dry in the name of being more adult.

I am a sexual person and I’m allowed to express my sexiness. Take that world.