A Series of Writings that Celebrate Sexuality and Gender Expression
Embodiment – Living in Our Bodies
by Peter Welch
When we started talking about the possibilities for this column, many ideas for the title emerged. We decided upon “embodiment” because we believe that it captures something powerful and significant in terms of purposeful writing on sex and sexuality. The word embody means “to give form to” – this is what we hope to accomplish in this column, give form to ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings about sex and sexuality. Molly Goulet, former SHARPP Outreach Coordinator and also the woman whose ideas this column was born from, describes this project as “renorming our sexuality.” I believe that she is exactly right. We hope to give voice to new ideas and ways of thinking about our bodies, about our genders, about our sexuality. We also hope that you will not turn away from what challenges you and makes you uncomfortable here, because in the discomfort, we stretch ourselves in unexpected ways that help us to celebrate the unique nature that is each our own.
So let us begin.
Living honestly within our bodies is no small feat. From a very early age, we receive thousands of mixed messages from just about everywhere – parents, peers, teachers, clergy, and particularly the media, about how we are supposed to be, look, feel, and act in our bodies to be loved, valued, accepted, honored, and respected. These messages often leave us feeling confused about who we are within our bodies, especially if we don’t fit the socially constructed notions of what it means to be living in our bodies at this point in history. Ask any transgendered person about embodiment and you are sure to learn a lot about what it means, or doesn’t, to be one gender or the other or to live outside of the social constructions of “female” or “male.” Or talk to someone who is aware of the “body ideal” that the dominant culture projects, who is also trying to become their own person, creating a sense of “home” within their body (in spite of these messages), and you will witness the suffocating grip that these messages have on the human psyche. Really, talk to anyone who doesn’t fit the dominant culture’s ideas and ideals about what a body is supposed to look like (never mind how we are supposed to FEEL inside these bodies) and you’re sure to learn something about the struggles of living with a sense of integrity and authenticity within our human form.
With so many conflicting and confusing messages, how do we come to know who we are in our bodies? To really know, we have to be willing to look within, and become familiar with our interior life. The centuries old question “Who am I?” might be expanded to “Who am I in this (my) body? How do I give form to what is true and right and real for myself? And how do I know what is true and right and real for myself in my body at this point in my life?” This is no easy task, given the identity crisis that potentially emerges as we attempt to filter out unhealthy messages we receive from outside ourselves about who we are supposed to be within our bodies. If we are not defined by our culture, they how are we defined?
I believe that we are each born with an inherent sense of ourselves, an intuitive knowing that, if we listen, guides us to being with ourselves, in our bodies, in ways that are honest, authentic and true. The disconnect between our bodies and our minds happens when we listen to outside messages for affirmation and validation of who were. We’re essentially allowing someone or something else define us by answering the question “Who am I (in this body)?” rather than looking within and answering that difficult question for ourselves.
We need to purposefully look within. We need to ask ourselves difficult questions, like “who am I in this body?” and “how would I be in this body without external influence?” and “how do I (or don’t I) live within my body in sacred ways?” and “what are my ideas, feelings, and beliefs about how I experience pleasure in this body?” The list goes on if you let it. Part of the joy in asking these kinds of purposeful questions is that we sometimes arrive at, if we are true in the asking, answers that bring us back to our authentic selves, the place from which we began. And then we begin to breathe, moment to moment, living within the meditation that is our body.
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