@amalthea
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
While there are so many stunning and arresting images in this gallery, I have to admit that the image that moved me personally the most is this vulva flower. In my return to my own sexual power and masturbation practice in my 40s, I have been inpsired by the sensuality of the water lily plants (the nymphaea). They are my personal sexual guides. When I saw this illustration of Betty’s, which looks like a waterlily flower, I felt it to be another indication of Betty’s consciousness and the deep communion she had with the timeless symbols of female sexual pleasure.
<p class=”p1″>Definitely in reading the letters at the end of the book. That brought up a lot of shame, as I read the stories of how real readers discovered their sexuality. There was so much confession about repression and body shame. I felt like I was back in my bedroom masturbating at age 13, searching for evidence to reassure myself that I wasn’t doing anything that would hurt myself or make my mother feel shame.</p>
<p class=”p1″>I’m working on having more compassion for my pre-teen selves and witnessing them in their embarrassment.</p><p class=”p1″>“We were moving past two thousand years of sexual repression in one afternoon. We were bringing masturbation out of the nuclear family’s darkest closet and placing it back into the Priestesses of Avalon’s Temple, where ancient sexual rituals were dedicated to the healing arts.” (Page 84, Kindle version)</p>
<p class=”p1″>I love this because to me, this shows how the Bodysex groups liberate women, by tapping into our deep collective memories of womankind and by guiding participants to surpass their conditioning in a few short hours. Though I have not yet participated in a Bodysex group, I believe that the group helps women to recognize instantly what they have denied themselves and what their true nature is.</p>
<p class=”p1″>I also love this quote because it speaks to sexuality not only being healing for the receiver but for the collective. There is so much more we can do with our energy when it is flowing unobstructed and when we are feeling compassion and love.</p>It was really healing for me to listen to everyone talking about how sex relates to what they do in the world, how they bring their sexual energy into their creative and professional lives. I would have liked more dialogue about that, actually. I loved when Marisa said her intention was to “work in loving skin,” as if skin was something that you could spend your whole life doing. And why not?
I thought I was going to have resistance to the genital show and tell, but it was so celebratory and glorious. I didn’t feel any shame moving through my body while watching it.
I did have a lot of resistance to the vibrators; I have a story in my head that I don’t like them or rolling them over my pubic mound. I felt strongly that if I ever do a bodysex circle, I would need to overcome resistance to the vibrating wands! I felt there was too much emphasis on the wands, even though I loved the way Betty guided everyone.
<p class=”p1″>Bodysex is the brave act of welcoming and celebrating the female body and its intrinsic power, a power that is expressed through orgasm and the womb. Bodysex is a pathway to freedom from self-shaming and self-suppression. It is the legacy of a woman (Betty Dodson) who was courageous enough to believe in her capacity to teach from the place of her own body.</p>