As an only child, growing up with a sick mother, I played by myself a lot. My make-believe stories were as real to me, if not more real, as the world I interacted with on a regular day-to-day basis. Except, in that ‘real’ world rules were dictated to me by others. In my make-believe stories, I made the rules, and anything could happen.
When I hit puberty my make believe stories began to have a more adult flavor. I have this very vivid memory of locking myself in the bathroom one day when I was eleven years old, and enacting in my mind a story about lots of women being naked and kissing…
I was eleven years old.
Eleven.
I feel incredibly fortunate that I experienced no sexual abuse or trauma as a child. My mother was incredibly protective of me- to the point of insisting on chaperoning my first few dating experiences- and I grew up in a household that was in no way overtly sexual (if anything, it was the opposite- my parents started sleeping in separate rooms when I was a toddler). The recurring female fantasy make-believe story didn’t seem to have any sexual tones per se; rather, it was very much a loving and intimate kind of energy, with an almost ritualistic feel.
Where on earth did those pre-adolescent notions come from?
I remember not totally understanding them at the time. Even when, one day, I learnt that women kissing women could be a thing, it never occured to me that it might be something I wanted to do, make believe stories aside. My mother’s absolute homophobia seemed to push the idea right out of my mind. And I went through my teen years being sexually attracted to women and completely denying it.
Its something that has still been a struggle to fully integrate into my modern reality of being okay with being myself.
How interesting it is then that I recently found myself hosting a women-only make-out party.
Not a sex party. A make-out party.
Margareta mentioned to me one day after we’d had coffee and were saying goodbye that we should throw an all-lady sex party. Took me till I got home for it to sink in what she’d just suggested. The idea gestated and evolved, and we decided that baby-steps were a good thing, and making out and cuddling would be a good ice-breaker for the idea within the poly and bi community of women we know.
And it struck me, as I was cleaning my bathroom and contemplating what I would be saying as the co-facilitator/host of this event, that in that early adolescent fantasy, I was an instigator of the orgies of women. Like a priestess guiding maenads in a raptured frenzy to Dionysus. And even though this event was a clothes-on party, it would mark a significant step in making life-long dreams a reality- even the really bizarre and out-there ones.
Women are really beautiful.
The women came with honesty, fun, and vulnerability. Not everyone was feeling the vibe, and that was ok. Some people left early, for various reasons, and the dynamic between everyone evolved and changed as the night progressed. There was kissing. There was spin-the-bottle. There was spontaneous intimacy. There was a removing-of-bras. There was blushing. There were looks exchanged and delicious sighs exhaled and little whispers of “lets go for coffee soon”. Ice successfully broken.
Back in June I made a resolution to have a “Lesbian Summer”. It was a fairly limited success, mainly because I kept falling into bed (and tents and sleeping bags and couches and futons) with men. And though I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this women’s event has helped to balance the scales per se, making out with three gorgeous and beautiful women on my bed- women I have grown to know well in the past year- oh wow. I’m grinning ear to ear. As are they, I think.
I remain, with a warm glowing feeling.
Will there be more?
I’m pretty confident I can say that there will be.
Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
~ e. e. cummings
