Pink Slips: Here Is The Key To Your Cage

“Your tits are the key to your cage!”
 
So said a middle-aged mother to her grown daughter at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Of course, the mother and daughter were characters in one of my favorite BritComs, Absolutely Fabulous.
 
Perpetually sloshed and lost but always the boss, former hippie Eddy wants her prudish daughter, Saffy, to re-enact a ritual that Eddy and her BFF, Patsy, perform on their trips to Paris: they salute the City of Light from the top of the Eiffel Tower by raising their shirts and flashing their knockers.
 
Rigid, mousy Saffy can’t imagine exposing herself and stubbornly refuses. “You’re a prisoner,” her mother pleads. “Do you know what your cage is, darling? Other people’s eyes.”
 
Her mother sees this act of self-affirmation as a way for Saffy to release herself from the tyranny of others’ judgments. This got me thinking…
 
Is that my cage – other people’s eyes?
 
Or… is it my own eyes?
 
When I look at myself, I often see someone who is not good enough, not smart enough, and doggone-it, people don’t like me. (Thank you, Sen. Franken.) Many of us spend our lives trying to avoid the harsh judgment of our own gaze.
 
Yet we all have access to a place where we can see and feel and think and do whatever the hell we want. No critics, no grades, no reviews, no disapproving eyes.
 
That place is sex.
 
I know, smartass, sex isn’t a “place.” But really, it is. Like few other human activities, sex can transport you to a another plane of existence where your mind, your emotions, your body, your breath, your memory, your lizard brain, your entire self is engaged in the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, and where sense and desire and connection and biology override the acculturated voices of inhibition – and you just are. Sex is a way to be present and aware and feeling and reacting and giving while blissfully unjudged.
 
If you let yourself. Which is difficult for women in our culture, because we have a hard time releasing those negative judgments about sex and our bodies. Many of us, even in our physical prime, instinctively dread the first time we disrobe before sex with someone. Women worry about things like matching lingerie, body hair, cellulite, thighs, skin… we could go on all day.
 
And that’s really sad. Even when we’re in the same room with ecstasy, we push it into a corner long enough to dwell on our own flaws, thus blemishing what should be a generous, untroubled, joyful act.
 
We’ve built a cage with our own eyes.
 
Well, ladies, I’m about to give you the key to unlock that cage. (Cue the mystical music and dancing unicorns.)
 
A man I didn’t know very well (and wasn’t sleeping with) shared a magical insight with me when I betrayed insecurity about my body (and this was a good 20 lbs. ago, when I only felt fat): 99 out of 100 men, when getting naked with a woman, don’t pick apart our bodies. They can hardly hear themselves think over the voice screaming in their heads: “Duuuude! You’re naked! With a naked lady! And you’re gonna DO IT! Man, you are one lucky bastard! Let’s get to this!!”  I wish I’d met that guy before I met the monumental asshat who once told me helpfully, after a shared night of passion, “If you only lost 10 pounds you’d have men all over you!” Fuck you, buddy. ‘Cause I sure don’t wanna. (BTW, the secret for lesbians: your partner is probably so busy focusing on her own defects that she won’t notice yours.)         
 
That’s it. You’re free!
 
And what about Saffy? She flashes.
 
Your turn!
 
Post your reply to this question:  What was your “Aha!” moment that freed you from an inhibition?
 
Today’s Sexy Submission: Learn to be in and enjoy your body in this tutorial on “cliteracy.” (No, I didn’t make that word up – though I wish I had.)