Guts and Sex

Your unvarnished, authentic self is that part of you that only you truly know. It’s the secret self we all have, and we’re loath (aka scared shitless) to let just anyone see it. Instead, we show each other cinematic versions of ourselves, kinda like movie characters, ones we hope will pass as ourselves. One carefully concealed area of our authentic selves is our sexuality.

Most of us have the experience of letting someone see at least some of our authentic self. Love will have us do that. But love can’t even begin to grow, let alone thrive, without you having the inner fortitude to be vulnerable enough to let someone see that authentic self of yours. That inner fortitude is called courage. It takes courage to be vulnerable. Courage, also known as guts, is what gives you the ability to act despite the anxiety you feel.

Google and Siri will tell you that courage is “the ability to do something that frightens you.” and that bravery is “courageous behavior or character.” Courage is the willingness and determination to confront the uncomfortable feeling of anxiety. When you want to do something that gives you anxiety, it’s your tolerance for anxiety that makes it possible for you to be courageous.

Where does anxiety come from? From your reptile brain, your amygdala. It’s the part of your brain that reacts to the tiger at the door… it’s your flight or fight response. In my experience, it created a lot of running away. But our modern lives no longer need our reptilian brain to keep us alive as much as we did before the dawn of agriculture. There just aren’t as many tigers roaming around looking for their next tasty human morsel. But our reptilian brain is still very much on duty, keeping us from stepping in front of a moving bus, or jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, or talking to a stranger, or standing up to a bully, or running across a busy street, or being late for a hair cut appointment, or being seen wearing the wrong seasonal fashion.

A basic human need we all have is to belong. When that need is threatened, our reptile brain reacts as though we’re looking a tiger right in the eye. It’s that threat to our belonging that the culture we live in conditions us with the clear message “Don’t step out of our cultural norms, or else.” and in the area of your sexuality, the message is “The only sexuality that’s acceptable is what we tell you is allowed.” It’s the most effective method of controlling people. It’s so effective that we even become unwitting agents of expanding that control, no matter the area of life being controlled. That’s the power of using the threat of rejection, or banishment. Hello social science. I guess it’s nice to meet you, and now that we know what you’re getting up to, we can take back control of our own lives.

Many (most?) of us have a hair trigger in our reptile brain in the area of our sexuality because of that social and cultural control. It’s this area that reveals how social and cultural pressures over reach by tricking our reptile brain into seeing our authentic sexuality, among other perfectly normal and healthy areas, as a threat. Your sexuality is decidedly not a threat to you (or anyone else for that matter) no matter what the society and culture you live in tells you.

Pretty much every aspect of life that involves the acceptability of your body and your sexuality is very much under the negative influence of social and cultural pressure. For starters, women’s ownership and control of their own bodies. And social nudism, aka Naturism is another. No matter what you’ve been hoodwinked into believing, your body is beautiful just the way it is, not too much or not too little of anything. Another is slut shaming. That’s just fucking cruel and is shameful to do to anyone, and it’s is a super clear example of how we’re unwitting agents of social and cultural control. How easy is it to do that to others when your so convinced you’re above reproach, also known as conforming to what you’re told is acceptable. I’m sorry if that’s you, but it doesn’t have to be.

Lucky for us, our reptilian brain can and does learn to distinguish between real and paper tigers. It uses one thing and one thing only to do that… your personal experience. That’s why skydiving is a sport, why I wear a hat, and why all the stuff that used to scare you doesn’t anymore. But cultural conditioning also has us disbelieve our personal experience, especially about your sexuality, leaving only the cultural messaging it wants us to adhere to.

This is where your tolerance for anxiety comes in. When your tolerance is low, you won’t be able to trust your experience to guide you as you try new things, and the life you lead will be largely uneventful. But when your tolerance is high, your life and sexuality will be as exciting and diverse as you want it to be because you’ll have the ability to hear your cultural messages AND trust your own experience to guide you. This trust in your own experience is not discarding the cultural norms you live with, but is how to discern if they’re valid based on the knowledge you’ve gained through your own experiences.

Can you build your tolerance for anxiety? Why, yes you can! It’s as simple as deciding to feel the anxiety and doing it anyway, a little at a time, until your anxiety about it isn’t such a big deal. Eventually, the anxiety will go away on its own. Building my tolerance for anxiety is how I began wearing a hat. And how I can openly and fearlessly love everyone I love. It’s simple. Just not free from the feeling of anxiety… at least in the beginning.

Go on…. put this “feel the anxiety and do it anyway” thing to the test, again and again and again in any and every area of your life you want to. If you do, I promise you, the quality of your life in general will go up, and so will your sex life when you put it to the test in that area too. Your actual needs will start getting met. Your self confidence will improve… and your sex life will be a source of joy, instead of anxiety or shame!

Take a deep breath, feel the anxiety, and do it anyway.