Confessions of a libra

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16.05.25

You have been programmed to feel shame around your body. The systems to dismantle are multipronged; patriarchy, colonialism and religion. Patriarchy is the oldest system, having taken root in the early Mesopotamian period. Prior to that you were likely to find a lot more Goddesses than Gods, and a lot more matrilineal Black and Indigenous cultures. The modern woman if asked is likely to associate war Gods with masculinity. Prior to patriarchy, we had many a war Goddess. For the lovers of mythology, or if you belong to a religion predating Christianity, you will be well aware of this. This isn’t to discredit male gods, but rather to reclaim a history not often honoured.

The idea that femininity equals fragility is a patriarchal concept. Something patriarchy has tried to foist down our throats. Women have been birthing massive heads through very small canals, that does not a fragile person make. Women also have really high pain tolerances. Even when a man and woman have the same physically taxing job, women are also doing plenty of unpaid labour as well as emotional labour. Women are if anything misunderstood because of subjugation.

Women’s power has always stemmed in community, sensuality, the menstrual cycle and even in dancing. There is a reason that shaking your hips is a holy act. To dance is to; reclaim the feminine, to stimulate the sacral  chakra and release creative energies or memory, to channel the female ancestors that came before her, the repetition is sacred magic and to heal through somatic means. Even without my spiritual knowledge, I would have always craved dancing. No matter the dance style, I have always been happy to pay for dance lessons.

I love learning new rituals through new dances. Allowing my mind the privilege of peace as my hips move rhythmically. When I’m free of voyeurs I play some music and dance whole renditions for the ancestors. My favourite has always been pretending I’m a ballerina, since that’s something I haven’t explored in this life. Yet.

I always knew that my body hummed for the literary word. That was one of the earliest, most successful memories of arousal. On my own terms. Reading the vivid descriptions of how the body could be activated by touch, did something to my nerves. Suddenly, I was heightened and primed. Like a feather could cause involuntary jerks of pleasure.

Yet when I tried to play it out in my own body, it felt like it lost all its magic. My body wouldn’t respond under my ministrations, no matter how clear the instructions. I could feel pleasure when another person touched me. Yet until my 20’s, there was a disconnect within me, causing me to not be able to relax into my own pleasure. Perhaps an underlying feeling that my body couldn’t be that divine. That pleasure was something to be given to me, ordained. Not my right by birth.

Colonialism came next. The globalised development of patriarchal power, rooted very much in racism. Within colonialism, women of colour were dehumanised and therefore were treated as objects. These ‘objects’ could then be rightfully traded, classified and assaulted. Human women who were not White, were treated as lab rats. To be displayed and experimented on for the pleasure of White society. It’s always worth learning the story of Sarah Baartman, a clear example of the dehumanisation of Black Women. Through her story we can see that Black bodies were admonished for their natural development. Black women were considered to be more ‘sexual’ by virtue of having a curvaceous body and wearing their cultural attire. The remnants of this are still very much within society. Black women are much more likely to be oversexualised for being themselves.

Through colonialism, Eurocentric beauty standards are introduced. Now the standard is; White, slim, hairless, clothed in Eurocentric styles and fabric. Anything outside this scope was therefore easy to demonise. Our beautiful coils called unruly, merely for having evolved to protect us from sunlight. Early white philosophers were glorifying the mind over the body. Something that went against Black and Indigenous philosophies. Therefore any our practices that honoured the body – such as nudity, scarification, body painting, dancing rites or even braids – were demonised and called primitive. Primitive was a convenient word White society used when they didn’t understand the importance of someone’s cultural norm. That is, until it they ‘discovered’ it decades to centuries later. What was called savage was often sacred.

I started intuitively doing activities that reconnected me with my body. First was dancing, then meditation and yoga. Back then, I would have loudly told you that I valued my intellect above all else. I saw no need intellectually to connect more to my body. Likely because my body hadn’t always felt safe to be in. But slowly, over-time I fell in love with the feeling of grounding myself. Going on long walks, practising the asanas, felt like a pilgrimage I was making back to the self.

It’s also important to be honest that it didn’t all happen with me alone. Meeting one of my soul mates when I was younger, allowed me to be with someone who made me relax. Relax in ways I couldn’t have named or expressed prior to him. His patience and determination regarding my pleasure, made me bloom in ways I needed. Through my relationship with him I learnt that, the eroticism I craved and read about was something that could be emulated in reality.

Our connection was almost instantaneous, the energy between enormous like a planetary collision. His voice played the strings of my body with an unnatural accuracy. He always gave with fervour and he was greatly rewarded. It’s this combination of factors that told me that I could personally achieve a state I hadn’t dared myself to get to alone. The struggle was understanding why my body ever clammed up at all.

Prior to colonisation many Black and Indigenous peoples had their own religions. Or at the very least their own spiritual practices. Religion was the deadly killer.  It came in with ‘morality’ (who could argue with that premise with a gun pointed to their head) and claimed the body to be temptation and sin. This meant that flesh was something to be controlled so as not to sin, or punished in the event of sin.

During ovulation, women would have to pretend or override their natural needs. They would have felt guilty for ‘impure’ feelings and sensations of the flesh. That is insanely restrictive, a mental prison if you will. Nature’s rhythms disrupted by religious thought-leaders. Modesty was associated with morality through religion. Black and Brown societies typically wore less clothing due to a mixture of; the environment, nudity was viewed as natural, dancing was common, adornment was used instead to express identity or rank and clothing had more to do with a ceremony than modesty.

A lot of the Abrahamic religions were spread or have survived in part, through some bloodshed. In Africa the religions used to colonise our spirit as well as our minds, were spread through genocide. This is why for many of us, the ancestral wisdom we carry would have never allowed us to remain in mainstream religion. The body keeps score, and you have your mother’s mitochondrial DNA within you.

In every single phase, I have worked on connecting with my body. It’s not been in a linear process, but it has paid off. Where my younger self couldn’t sit with herself in adoration, now I can do that and more. Now it’s my body that I think of lovingly. I think of my body before I think of others, of comparison. I can tell myself I love myself in the mirror, without laughing or feeling uncomfortable. My touch is now enough, where before it wasn’t.

I’ve realised with the length of the journey that the programming was so deep, that it took at least 5 years of exploration to feel fully unshackled. While unlike some, I orgasmed by my own hand after penetrative orgasm. I have bridged that gap now and I am now someone who can proudly own her own pleasure. By myself, with someone else or with several people in the room.

Reclaiming pleasure as a woman, especially a woman of colour is your birthright. It is when you feel free in your body that you can truly become unruly and untethered. Free, if you will. You can manifest your own desires with greater ease. Your womb whispers it’s naughty little secrets, including new creative projects when you are nursing it. You nurse your womb through movement, through healthy sex, through loving your body one cell at a time.

To truly feel powerful as a woman, you need to blast through the walls of shame. Shame serves no one but the ‘Big Brother’ figure implanted in your head by society. You will find as you explore and expand your horizons, your body begins to speak clearly as though the line was previously static. Let your ancestral erotic power be channelled into building a life of lush abundance. For you, and every woman after you.