Disclaimer: this post is ultimately going to be about masturbating. I strongly urge male family members or men who think of me in a sisterly/daughter way not to read this or to read with caution and never talk about it with me. Thanks.
I stopped seeing people besides my apartment mates and boyfriend 12 days ago, but today is the first day I’ve decided not to see anyone inside for a full two weeks. I had been hanging out with building people assuming it was futile to avoid them in a 6 unit building, but that’s just a lie I was telling myself because I’ll miss hanging out with them and they can all hang out without me now. But two of them (and the third lives with one of those people) still have to go into work and see 100-500 people a day and if I ever want to see my boyfriend and his daughter again I’ve decided I need to be more cautious.
To be honest quarantining doesn’t feel too different to me yet because this is generally how I live my life. I work from home, I isolate myself often, I don’t go out too much. Mostly I see building people. Many people are feeling pretty stir crazy and hungry for human interaction, but I’m just grateful I got quarantined alone instead of getting stuck with anyone for 14-? days. I’m getting less done, because the internet has become SO distracting. If there was a COVID-19 exam I would ace it from all the studious news reading I’ve done. I can’t stop watching my friends’ stories of what they’re doing while stuck at home. The memes are addicting, although nothing has been more addicting than watching this girl jump like a horse (which I intend to try today).
All that said, I know I haven’t been truly alone yet so I’m revving up to start missing human touch. Which brings us to my disclaimer: the fact that this post is going to be about masturbating. And it might turn you on.
I don’t know about you, but I’m good at getting myself to climax in like 5 seconds if I put my mind to it. Part of it’s that if I’m going to the trouble of masturbating, my brain is already 90% of the way there, and for me that’s most of it. Sometimes I wonder if I could make myself climax with no physical touch at all (something to put on my quarantine bucket list). But due to it being so mental, I usually have a story in my head, or I’m watching porn. I really rely on that story to get me there, so much so that I don’t pay attention to physical sensations the way I used to, and this has leaked into my sexual interactions with other people as well (to no fault of their own).
Like most people, whether they’d admit it or not, I started exploring my sexuality before I was old enough to understand that’s what I was doing. At our first house, my mom kept a book on giving birth in a basket with other books that I don’t remember behind a yellow chair we used to have to sit in when we were being punished (GO TO THE YELLOW CHAIR). Seems appropriate that I’d be lurking behind this chair hungrily consuming this book of women with their legs spread open, bushes on blast. I can still remember a specific photo, and the stirring it caused “down there”. I didn’t really understand what I was feeling, but she was naked, and I knew showing strangers your naked body was wrong, so I assumed looking at them wasn’t right either. I had no idea what that feeling was, only that it was deeply intriguing and I’d follow it to the ends of the earth no matter how long I’d have to sit in the yellow chair if it got me in trouble.
Many of the people with vaginas that I’ve talked to have described rubbing on corners of furniture or pillows as children for no other reason than that it felt good. I followed those instincts as I got older but I can’t remember if I ever figured that out before I was a teenager. I vividly remember laying on my bed and kind of fiddling with the flaps of my vagina eventually discovering THEE hole of all holes. I slid my finger up there experimentally and was horrified to discover it just kept going. This could have ended somewhere more exciting than me not understanding my own body, but it didn’t, sadly. As I got older I was fortunate enough to develop a friendship where we could discuss masturbation. She asked if we had a detachable shower head at home. As a matter of fact, we did. So began two-a-day showers, with the scents of old spice, dial soap, and store brand hair wash becoming triggers for me after countless sessions of lying in the tub surrounded by their steamy perfumes. It wasn’t terribly sensual, what with siblings hammering on the door saying they needed to use the bathroom (“I’LL BE OUT SOON GO AWAY”), but it didn’t need to be. It just felt nice.
This is how it was in those days, going off of pure instinct, touching and feeling around simply because it felt nice. As I started “dating” boys I’d experience arousal stirred by another human for the first time. I wasn’t really allowed to date yet at 14, so we’d just sit by each other at movie nights with friends and they’d put their arm around me, maybe slipping a hand slightly under my carefully chosen shirt, gently touching my waste, maybe even boldly going for the edge of my bra or just beneath the waistband of my jeans. Nothing more than that, I didn’t even get properly kissed until I was 17. But it was, exciting. And they were just happy to be there. I feel I should note that I was lucky enough not to be self conscious. I was traditionally pretty for a young teenager, almost boringly so. No one ever shamed me for anything other than having boobs early on, and they got over that pretty quickly. So there was nothing it even occurred to me to be worried about. I could just sit there and wonder where their hands might end up—and you can forget about them, I didn’t care about touching them at all. Penises were weird and foreign objects that did bizarre things I didn’t want to think about.
My first orgasm “with” a person was when I was 16. I was dating a 19 year old and he was FAR more experienced than I was, and he was reasonably patient with me until he broke up with me probably because I was terrified to even kiss him, or maybe he just didn’t like me anymore. Can’t say I blame him either way, that was a big age gap at the time. But during our brief time together, I would lay on top of him on the couch and straddle his leg while he’d touch my butt and it was during one of those sessions that I first came from another person’s intervention. VERY exciting. Very scandalous. Again, with no thought for his pleasure, I assumed the pleasure of touching me was enough of a treat (cannot stress how not self-conscious or aware I was). This happened with my next boyfriend too at 17, who was exactly the kind of boy I should have dated and appreciated but really didn’t, and I eventually broke up with him. My next relationship was the one where I really explored everything, but it took me months to reciprocate. Which means for months I was receiving nothing but un-reciprocated foreplay. It was AMAZING. It took me a long time to realize this wasn’t exactly fair, but he never seemed to mind and I assumed boys were just happy to be there so I didn’t worry about it, until I did. Once we crossed that bridge it opened up a new world of erotic pleasures and I learned I enjoyed reciprocating, and didn’t understand why anyone would do anything but 69 all day everyday. I didn’t worry if I smelled, or if I was wet enough (I always was, because I wasn’t anxious, and was 18), if I was “good”..all I worried about was when we could do it (any number of “its”) again. It wasn’t until I got older that I learned to be self conscious due to unkind or thoughtless comments, cheating, getting dumped, etc. This is when I started employing the use of “stories” in my head. Heinous things I’d never want to do or have done to me, but to think about were exciting. I attribute this to those early explorations of my sexuality, the feeling that you were doing something wrong, but it felt exciting. It’s like things had come full circle with only a brief period of totally unhinged, out of mind and body, blissful sexual engagement.
It’s impossible now for me to not think about what my partner wants, vs. what I can/am willing to give them, which is maybe not always the same as what I want. But because sex and pleasure are so mental for me, if I feel guilty accepting only what I want, what I want becomes useless to me. But the right partner values your pleasure as much as their own. I don’t want to go down roads that infringe on the privacy of the people I’ve been with or am with, but suffice it to say I am not currently with a selfish or unkind person, and let’s leave it at that.
The road I will go down however, is one of rediscovering that feeling of someone just being happy to be there. There being my vagina and surrounding body. Someone being me. I’ve continued to enjoy masturbating as an adult, and though sadly I do not have a detachable shower head, I do have some fun toys, and my hands of courses. Generally, as mentioned earlier, I can get there in like 5 seconds if I feel like it. And since orgasming is more of a goal for me rather than a journey that may or may not have a destination, speed is generally preferred. So I think my thoughts, and use my vibrator, go to the bathroom, and go to sleep feeling nice about five minutes later.
But last night was different. I felt sick of depending on these stories to get out of my head, so that I could enjoy any sexual experience whether it be alone or with someone else. I decided to try and focus on sensations only, still using my vibrator, but once it was in place I used my hands to tease myself the way I felt teased as a teenager at the beginning of her sexual awakening. I gently touched my body, almost tricking myself, sucking in to make it easier to slide my hand down my waist, then pulling away, gently nudging the side of my breast, intentionally giving myself goosebumps with a soft caress on my side. It felt, amazing. I also realized I hadn’t felt my body this way in a long time, maybe ever. I’ve never explored my body trying to think like a fourteen year old boy who is just happy to be there. I noticed how soft I was, how parts of me have changed as I’ve gotten older, and tried to explore how that was positive rather than view any change as I age as negative. I’m softer, more gentle somehow, matured rather than firm and buzzing with a buoyant energy. It took a while, but eventually I finished and it felt SO NICE. I didn’t miss my stories, I was completely tuned in with what I was feeling, and I was truly just happy to be there.
So, I urge you all to take this time to practice the ultimate act of self love during this quarantine. Because there’s not a lot else to do, and it feels really nice.
Love,
Heidi Girl