I’ve been masturbating since I was a little girl, long before I got my period in 8th grade. My first vibrator was a handheld massager from Brookstone (which I hid in a tissue box next to my bed -- oof, it’s uncomfortable telling you this). 

Although I was sexually active from a young age, the depths of my yoni felt like unknown territory. Reserved for tampons and the men I was sleeping with, I didn’t realize the healing potential of self-penetration until my late 20’s when I learned how to use a jade egg.

As I started to create more space for sexual self-exploration, I noticed resistance to spending time with myself. Where I could lay around all morning having sex with lovers, self-care felt rushed, and self-pleasure was something I did before bed to numb and fall asleep.

In time, touching myself became less about chasing clitoral orgasms and more about exploring and getting to know myself on a deeper level. Spending hours relaxing and indulging in embodied self-massage, breast-massage, yoni-massage and jade egg exercises became an integral part of my physical and emotional self-care.

I remember the first time I ditched the vibrator and fucked myself with a crystal wand. I had my first cervical orgasm -- the most satisfying, nourishing orgasm I had ever experienced. This transformed my sex life, my relationships with men, and my relationship with myself.  

I had discovered a new level of pleasure and self-intimacy that fueled my growth journey, unraveling pent up shame around my sexuality, illuminating the ways I’d abandoned myself to be pleasing to men, and cultivating my self-worth and self-love.

I learned how to use meditation, embodiment, my fingers, my jade egg, and my bloodstone wand to untie knots of past traumas held in my yoni: the stuck energy and tension from two abortions, nonconsensual sex, and pain I had endured during sex without speaking up. And I realized that somewhere deep down in my psyche I had associated my value with sex and my physique -- a recipe for disaster in relationships because I would stay as long as I was getting validated physically and sexually, even when my emotional needs were not being met…which was most of the time.

Masterbation helped me experience myself as a sensual, erotic, creative being with a deep feeling sense and intrinsic worth. I became keenly aware of the wisdom of my body, my ability to heal myself, and facilitate healing in others. I started to spend more time with myself, and realize my value.

As women, we must constantly remember to cultivate our feminine essence, wherein lies our power. If not we risk steamrolling our capacity for sensing and feeling and living a life wrought with people pleasing, selflessness and dissatisfaction. As long as we are being self-honoring, sex and masturbation are a direct line to our femininity, our creativity, our intuition, our heart (the cervix is the reflexology point for the heart).

May is National Masturbation Month. In celebration, I invite you to spend the morning or afternoon in embodied self-pleasure. Take your time, go slow and deep; give yourself the love and attention that you desire and deserve. And remember your power.


Allie Andrews
Self-Care Coach, Yoga Teacher
ombodyhealth.com
@iamallieandrews

May 04, 2021 — A J