The lovely Nora
Ed Note: This is a guest post by Nora. If you’d like to share your sex-positive story, please contact us!
Who am I? I’m a woman who loves men and women. I am non-monogamous, in love with a man who is in love with me and another woman who is in love with him and another man. I’m a woman who believes that the relationship with myself comes first, even though I forget that sometimes. I’m a woman who likes to be a little girl every now and then.
My first sexual experience was at the age of five. I think the typical assumption one would make is that the reason I like to pretend to be a little girl is because of what happened to me. And there is some truth to that, but not in the way that’s obvious. I’ve written about it before, but that experience affected many aspects of my personality, not just sexually.
So I don’t have shame in wanting to regain something that was taken from me at that young age. I have to turn the situation into a positive, or else why bother with sex at all? And one thing I’ve learned for sure is it has happened to more of us than not, whether or not the statistics say so. If we all let it traumatize us to the point of no longer having sex, there would be far fewer people in this world
I didn’t remember the abuse until I was twelve. And even then, I didn’t fully understand or want to remember. I was petrified of affection or sexual contact for a long time. My parents gave me a book to teach me about it. And later talked to me about birth control. However, this was after the pregnancy and abortion they knew nothing about. Even then I was in so much denial that my best friend had to make me take the test and arrange the procedure. I was almost too far along to go through with it. My life for a long time was a chain link of denials.
What I knew growing up was that I was different. My parents were not open with me. My mom was a 1970s feminist who thought that sexual expression was degrading towards women. They didn’t approve of anything I was secretly interested in. Now my barbies on the other hand, they approved. And they experimented. And they got to do everything I wanted to learn about. I do remember my friend’s older brother’s porn stash and me convincing her that we should act out the scenes in my bed tangled in my mom and dad’s satin sheets. I don’t have many memories, but that is one forever etched in my mind.
I also discovered masturbation. I had no idea what sex was or how it was done, but I knew how to make myself feel amazing. I fell in love with my teddy bear with the hard plastic nose, and the brass knob on my bedpost is still polished bright to this day. Later on, my boyfriend became my inanimate object substitute. We were each others’ firsts and dated for six years. I believe to this day that the sex kept us together. I think he would say the same.
But therein lies my problem. I was willing to take any sort of poor treatment in order to feel that love, affection, and stimulation. I was definitely one of those girls who substituted sex for love. It continued into my twenties.
Then I met John. Nobody had ever turned me on more than he did. He was my first kinky partner. We were electric. We probably watched each other for about a year before actually speaking. Club Subversion in Hollywood. Ha, it sounds ridiculous now. But that was where I spent every Saturday night. And so did he. The strikingly gorgeous skinny cholo in a wife beater and baggy dickies. When we finally met, I spiraled into a whole new world of depravity. He was a drug to me. Our lust eventually turned into deep friendship that lasted until recently, sadly. We all make mistakes.
I was exploring my kinky side when I eventually met my now-ex-husband. This was the period in my life when I became proud of my body and my sexuality. My ex grew up during the 70s and early 80s, during the height of Penthouse and Hustler Magazines. He liked girls with big, exaggerated hips and thighs. Natural women who looked like someone you might walk past on the street but had a deep dark dirty naughty inner-slut. He loved to have me sit next to him on the floor on my knees, just so he could see and touch the curves of my thighs and ass in a crouched position. He introduced me to the golden era of porn and we lapped it up. He used to bring home toys for me, waiting for me on my bed after a long day of work. We wouldn’t have “date night,” we would have “porn night” and watch the hits of Seka and Christy Canyon. His lust for me never waned. In fact, it only grew stronger.
I remember for years my closest friends had called me the closet exhibitionist. Every time we’d go on a trip, I’d suggest we all take our clothes off and jump in the pool. I loved to dress up and give an air of mystery. After being with my ex, I got to finally fulfill those fantasies by turning to modeling.
Modeling was my new addiction. I could finally express my sexuality the way I wanted to, by playing roles and acting out scenes. I collaborated with photographers to create images I had kept in my head for years. The more I showed, the more I loved. I would do photo shoots in public, flashing bits and pieces of my curvy body while few daring onlookers gathered. I started a pay website that never quite made any money, but had enough followers to keep me interested.
But wait! My mom raised me to be a feminist?! What the hell was I doing objectifying myself this way? All along, I knew deep down that if a woman owned her sexuality, she could be powerful and strong. I was finally embracing what I knew all along. Hiding from my sexuality only made me a bigger victim. I needed to own it. And own it I did.
Unfortunately, that also led to my divorce. Well, many things led to my divorce. But it was my exploration and growth that really gave me the strength to do what was best for me at the time. At the end of my marriage, I ended up dating a man who was a good friend’s ex-boyfriend and still good friend. It was my first glimpse into open polyamory. Even though they no longer were in a relationship, I lived with her while I dated him, and we were all very happy about the whole situation. He was the first person who ever told me about polyamory. I knew it was something that I was cut out for.
It wasn’t until I moved a thousand miles away from home that I became truly sex positive. I guess for me it was separating myself from my past. I knew who I was, but I had not yet felt free to acknowledge it. I finally accepted my bisexuality and opened myself to all the love that I could possibly handle. Eventually, I met the circle of kinksters I know now. I finally feel like I have a community.
Sex is important to me. That doesn’t mean that I sleep with everyone I meet. It means I love and know my sexual self, and I feel fortunate to know people who want to know it too.