Category Archives: Sexuality

Claiming my Sexuality: I am a Woman

Day 46 of 100 days of Blogging

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I was 32 years old, visiting my parents on Cape Cod with my two young daughters for a week vacation. The transition I was in included divorcing my first husband, a new job working full time as a Project Manager at Johns Hopkins University in Epidemiology and moving out of my marital home into a house I was renting for my daughters and me.

I had a moment with my Dad upstairs and I asked, “Dad, when did you finally feel like you were an adult?” He looked at me like I was crazy. He told me he had no idea what I was talking about. It felt like such a natural question to me. Wouldn’t there be a time when I felt like I had moved from childhood to adulthood? Weren’t you automatically supposed to feel like an adult when you had responsibilities?

For most of my life, the roles I let myself play were connected to being a daughter to my parents and a mother to my children. Neither of those roles allowed for sexuality in my mind. No one in my lineage of women ever demonstrated that sexuality was a part of their lives. I was told to cover up my breasts and not wear anything that was too revealing. Sexuality was not on the table for discussion. Not the essence or the power or the desire.

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My sexuality began to wake up three years ago, at the age of 56, when I started to practice Orgasmic Meditation (OM). All of my children were adults, my husband had died, and I wanted a safe, sexuality practice. I wanted connection. I OMed for eight months before I met a man who I was interested in spending time with, including having sex. My body was awake and alive and I wanted to have sex and to allow myself to play. As we explored and got to know each other we finally had sex and it made me feel like I was 16, not 56. I returned to a time in my life where I felt alive and free with my sexuality; when I began to explore with a boyfriend in the back of my parents station wagon.

The ten months I spent with Axel uncovered subtle places where I had blocked my sexuality.

A moment like this:

Axel: “What’s the sexiest panty you could wear under your dress to today?”
Me: “I don’t have any. I couldn’t let my kids know I have a sex live.”
Axel: “What?! That’s the reason? That was ages ago!. Your kids are all adults.”
And I walked out of the room…speechless. I didn’t have an exclamation. I just know that was the reason for a long time.

Axel loved seeing me in my power. Standing on the stage. Writing. Leading. His attention encouraged me to express ALL of me and I did the same for him.

In the story I wrote for Sensual Voices: True Stories by Women Exploring Connection and Desire, I claimed that I am a powerful woman with desire. Claiming desire involves surrender and vulnerability and softness.

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Recently, I met a man, a much younger man, who I OMed with in New York on my birthday in October. The minute his hands touched my thighs with grounding pressure, I felt a jolt of electricity. His hands on my pussy during the 15 minute practice brought me into a deeper surrender. I felt like he followed the sensations and knew my body in a way I had never felt before. I felt like he really saw me. When I asked him what he felt, he said, “The minute I touched your body, my hand fit you like a glove.”

He came to see me in Washington, DC a month later so we could explore this electricity and connection. I just wanted to have this experience where we were both filled with desire and we could explore the sensations and feelings in our body.

For the first time in my life, I felt like a woman. Whole and complete and nourished. And as I open to this relationship that is based on desire, sex and friendship, I wonder how many women are denying themselves this kind of real body connection and repressing their sexuality because of the “rules” they were taught about how you have to be married, or he has to be your boyfriend or there has to be some other commitment other than an experience of body connection.

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In this connection, I learned how Orgasmic Meditation is opening my body to more sensations and pleasure and personal power. I experienced a man’s full attention on my body while we explored this connection in bed. Now, that I have had an experience of passion and tenderness at a new level, I have a better idea of what I want to attract more of in my life.

It’s time!

 

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Photo from Andrea Hylen

Andrea Hylen at Agape in Los Angeles

Andrea Hylen believes in the power of our voice to usher in a new world. She is the founder of Heal My Voice, an organization that inspires women and men to heal a story, reclaim personal power and step into greater leadership. Andrea discovered her unique gifts while parenting three daughters and learning to live life fully after the deaths of her brother, son and husband. In addition to serving as Heal My Voice’s Executive Director, Andrea is an Orgasmic Meditation Teacher and Sexuality Coach.

She is following her intuition as she collaborates with women and men in organizations and travels around the world speaking, teaching and leading workshops. Her passion is authentically living life and supporting others in doing the same. To connect with Andrea and learn about current projects go to: www.andreahylen.com and www.healmyvoice.org.

Freedom: The Great Wall of Vagina

Day 39 of 100 days of Blogging

 

Have you ever seen The Great Wall of Vagina?

http://www.greatwallofvagina.co.uk/home

Screen Shot 2015-11-07 at 7.58.38 AMHere are a few words from the website:

“For many women their genital appearance is a source of anxiety and I was in a unique position to do something about that.”

The Great Wall of Vagina makes for fascinating and revealing viewing which is a far cry from pornography. It is not erotic art. It is not about titillation. McCartney has pulled off an amazing trick – to deliberately make the sexual nonsexual and take you much deeper. One is able to stare without shame but in wonder and amazement at this exposé of human variety.

“It’s time our society grew up around these issues and I’m certain that art has a role to play.”

http://www.greatwallofvagina.co.uk/great-wall-vagina-panels

 

As I have started practicing Orgasmic Meditation regularly again, I have found this renewed curiosity with my genitals. My latest reflections involved this:

I was just looking at my pussy in the mirror and doing a light trim on the pubic hair around my clitoris. Deciding what to do with pubic hair has been a journey since my first Introduction to Orgasmic Meditation class and I feel good about where I am with it right now. Anyway, I was looking at my pussy and wishing I had taken photos over the years.

What did it look like when I got my period at age 10?

What did it look like when I was in my first circle with a mirror and plastic speculum at the age of 21?

What did it look like when I got pregnant with my first child?

After each child (4 live births)?

After menopause?

Before my first OM?

An updated photo at each stage of my life. The same way I have a photo of my face.

 

I know that my pussy is different now since my first OM. My clitoris and hood are so much fuller and open. I just wish I had some photos. And I wish it seemed like a natural thing to do that instead of weird and shameful and something to hide.

 

I would love to hear your thoughts about your genitals. Your pussy. Your vagina. Your clitoris. (And men, if you want to post thoughts about your genitals, I would love to hear your voices, too.)

 

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Andrea Hylen believes in the power of our voice to usher in a new world. She is the founder of Heal My Voice, an organization that inspires women and men to heal a story, reclaim personal power and step into greater leadership. Andrea discovered her unique gifts while parenting three daughters and learning to live life fully after the deaths of her brother, son and husband. In addition to serving as Heal My Voice’s Executive Director, Andrea is an Orgasmic Meditation Teacher and Sexuality Coach.

She is following her intuition as she collaborates with women and men in organizations and travels around the world speaking, teaching and leading workshops. Her passion is authentically living life and supporting others in doing the same. To connect with Andrea and learn about current projects go to: www.andreahylen.com and www.healmyvoice.org.