2018: the year my vocabulary expanded

Over the last 12 months I have had the privilege of hearing the tales of women and men all over the world, from the Congo to Sweden, the US to the UK. Each person has a unique experience to share. What has it taught me? Sexuality — the way we experience and express ourselves sexually — takes so many different forms. There is no right or wrong way, so long as we aren’t hurting anyone.

Yet this isn’t the narrative most of us know. Instead we believe there is such a thing as ‘normal’ and if our expressions and experiences fall outside of those norms then we must be broken or weird. This belief does not serves us. It damages our well-being and prevents most of us finding real, unadulterated pleasure in our sexuality.

The problem is, as humans, we like definitions. It’s easier when we know what the rules are and how to follow them. So how do we create a new narrative, one that allows us the freedom to explore and experiment until we settle on the behaviours and practices that do serve us?

I believe it’s time to revisit what we think we know about sexual norms and ask ourselves ‘Sexuality: What does that mean in 2018?’.

‘Get your freak on’

Through the eyes of others, I have seen the new and exciting ways people are exploring the depth of their sexuality. One such practice is Kink, the colloquial term for non-normative sexual behaviours. These ‘behaviours’ include choking, dominance & submission and at one time may have included anal sex, amongst others. Yet over and over again, whilst sitting quietly and hearing the stories of others, similar themes kept popping up. These ‘non-normative sexual behaviours’ are described by individuals that would consider themselves ‘vanilla’ or ‘mainstream’. It would appear that this fringe practice, that was once so frowned upon, is increasingly becoming part of the ‘new normal’.

The way we interact between the sheets (or on the streets, if that’s your thing) is changing but so are our relationship dynamics.

Enter Polyamory!

For many of us, the idea of loving more than one person in a romantic capacity may seem impossible yet we are seeing a rise in polyamorous relationships. A few years ago I’d never heard of the term, now I have multiple friends that are in loving, supportive polyamorous relationships built upon compersion (the opposite of jealousy). A principle I think we should all try to practice more! Is polyamory the next monogamy? The ‘new normal’?

The Future of Sex?

Sexuality — the way we experience and express ourselves sexually. It feels like the tide is turning with a new wave of practices and behaviours that are gaining momentum. These things have always existed on the fringe but are the mainstream becoming bolder and braver? Are we ready to explore the way we experience and express ourselves, redefining our sexuality? Could this lead to increased sexual satisfaction and confidence in ourselves?

I don’t have the answers but I’m curious to learn more from those that live and breathe this ever changing landscape day in day out. On the 21st September my company, Leika, is hosting a panel discussion at Google Campus. The theme for the evening is ‘Sexuality: What does that mean in 2018?’. We’ve pulled together an incredible line up of panelists from an activist challenging the status quo to an investor scouring the startup ecosystem for the next big business that will disrupt sextech/femtech. We would love for you to be a part of this discussion. Register your interest here, the event is free! Come and join us for two hours of mind blowing…conversation!

Head over to our Instagram channel to learn all about our panelists! If you’d like to learn more about Leika, sign up for early access, get invitations to related events, check out our website and say hello! Or drop us a line at team@leika.io, we’d love to hear from you!

“In today’s world, we often reduce human sexuality to a mere act rather than an evolving, living, breathing part of who we are. We are human. We feel, we imagine, we create, we emote, and we express ourselves in everything we do. We seek out pleasure and we crave connection. Erotic intelligence is much more than mere reproductive health and function. It’s our personality, our creativity, imagination, and personal expression. It’s the way we perceive, connect, and engage with the world around us.”

- Centre for Erotic Intelligence

I love this quote. To me, it’s incredibly powerful. When I stumbled upon it 8 months ago, I felt…relieved. Someone had put into words, and succinctly at that, what I intuitively knew to be true but had been struggling to articulate. Sex is more than just a physical act, it’s a complex web of interactions that seeps into every fibre of who we are. Knowing this has allowed me to understand myself in new and exciting ways, to unlock my potential, especially in my everyday encounters with those around me. What I really love about this quote though, is its awareness that our sexuality isn’t stagnant. Instead, it’s constantly evolving and adapting as we move through our lives.

Take a moment and rewind 10 years. Who were you then? What did you believe to be true about sex and your own sexuality?

I imagine that a few things may have changed between you now versus your ten-years-ago-self, but what are those things? And more so, what does sexuality really mean in 2018? To better understand this question, my co-founder @AnnaHushlak and I set out to explore it. Let’s call it, a journey into the great unknown. Ten months later, what is glaringly apparent, is that there is no one-size-fits-all to our sexuality.

Unfortunately, the sad fact remains that, as a topic, sexuality remains shadowed by a cloud of shame. So, in theory, whilst we may have the ability to reconstruct how we think about sexuality, the reality is that many of us don’t have the freedom, support or resources to actually do just that in practice. So, what do I do when I’m told I can’t do something? I do it anyways.

My challenge for 2018 is to reinvent and redefine the word ‘sexuality’ according to what I need, not to what I should be.

This means not only acknowledging my own needs, but accepting and acting on them. Determined to bring others on this journey and to create a space for everyone to freely and explore their ever-evolving sexualities, the teak at Leika have created ‘Taboo Tuesdays’.

Taboo Tuesdays bring together the curious and the open-minded. These are the individuals looking to broaden their understanding of self and to change their relationship to sex.

The events run every second Tuesday and cover what are seen as ‘taboo’ topics. They are open to anyone and everyone, the more diverse the group, the more interesting the conversations. The first rule of Taboo Tuesdays is to reserve judgement and bring an open mind. The second rule? To reserve judgement and bring an open mind.

We kicked off the series this week with a topical and often controversial topic [drum rrrrrrrrrroll]… ‘Polyamory’. It was a brilliant evening, shared with 25 open-minded individuals from a myriad of ethnicities, ages, genders, and degrees of experience.

We asked the question: does polyamory have a place in 2018?’ and the retort — ‘does monogamy?’

You don’t have to agree. We’re not asking these questions to form consensus. Instead, we are trying to create an environment for exploration. When our ‘sexuality is an evolving, living, breathing part of who we are’, isn’t it important to check in with ourselves regularly? Isn’t it important to see whether what we believe still serves us? And if not, whether there are alternative ways to, not just express, but also love and accept ourselves?

If you’d like to join our community and come along for some thought provoking conversation, join us for the next Taboo Tuesday! Sign up here and keep an eye out for the next topic, we’ve had some great suggestions already!

Sexuality in 2018? was originally published in noname on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“My mission…is to find peace with exactly who and what I am. To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I can’t be loved as I am” Anais Nin

Humans crave connection and intimacy but to be intimate, means to be vulnerable. Women’s — and increasingly men’s bodies — are the source of immense scrutiny in our society, and with every potion and lotion under the sun available to improve the way we look, it’s not surprising that the idea of being vulnerable and showing our true self is quite a terrifying concept. Until recently, one area of the woman’s body remained out of the spotlight, her genitals. Instead, they have long been a source of secret shame in society’s eyes. Almost as though, if we don’t mention this vital part of a woman’s body, we don’t have to acknowledge that women are also sexual beings. That, in fact, a woman may also seek pleasure from her sexual encounters. It’s time to lift the veil of shame and to talk openly about all parts of our bodies, to recognise and celebrate how different they are and, rather than changing our bodies to improve their perceived imperfections or to please others, to change the way we feel about them. It’s time to celebrate all sexualities, to create space for everyone to discover their desires and to make pleasure a priority. It’s time to be vulnerable and to make space for intimacy. It’s time to recognise our sexual wellbeing as an important component of our overall wellbeing.

Over the last 4 months, with my co-founders Anna and Quinn, I have dedicated my time to understanding the complexity around sex and female pleasure. Together, we’ve heard from close to 300 women and what we learnt moved us. Empowered women who are demanding egalitarian treatment in the home, the classroom and the boardroom, shared their stories with us. And, across them all, the common thread was that their pleasure always came second. They said things like they struggle to:

“Communicate what feels good because I don’t want to dent someone else’s pride” (19, Female)

Time and time again, they used words like anxiety, discomfort and shame to describe their sexual experiences:

“I feel like I’ve been doing it wrong, or that I’m bad at it, or that I’m gross or inadequate in some way. I’m worried I’ll never enjoy sex as much as other people do” (23, Female)

Yet study after study shows that sexual pleasure, self-esteem and satisfaction have profound impacts on our physical and mental wellbeing. It is a natural and vital part of our health, development, and happiness. So, in this moment of brave truth-telling and female empowerment, we felt compelled to tackle the taboo topic that is female sexuality and to help women find pleasure in their most intimate spaces.

Together, as these individuals shared their stories, we peeled back the layers of their experiences. Of the most recurring threads, two key issues stood out:

1. A lack of knowledge on their bodies — “Knowing what I want and being able to ask for it” (25, Female)

2. Problems communicating with their partners — “Not being able to communicate what I want/need effectively. I’ve had experiences of doing sexual things that I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with, not because I felt pressured, but because I didn’t really know how to communicate my comfort level’ (18, Non-binary).

Sex Education, where did it go wrong?

In 2019, Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) will, for the first time, be compulsory in all schools throughout the UK. This is a phenomenal step in the right direction but it does not help the millions of women that have already left this school system. For these women, female pleasure is still taboo.

However, young people are curious, and with sex education failing to match the real-world experiences they are engaging in, many are turning to the Internet to fill the gaps. In 2013, a survey by National Union of Students found that 60% of students relied on pornography to learn about sex. Yet porn is artificial entertainment. It was never intended to be an education platform. Free porn is predominantly male-centric, it creates unrealistic attitudes to sex and fails to represent the diversity of the female or male body.

Taken together, porn and inadequate sex education failed to teach this cohort of women how to love their bodies. We have not taught these women that masturbation is an essential part of learning as opposed to something shameful that can’t be discussed, and that a positive sexual encounter means everyone involved should experience pleasure.

Why can’t a woman just ask for what she wants?

Unfortunately sex education alone won’t change the way individuals, across all genders, experience sex. We need to show women that it’s not only okay, but important, to voice their needs. We need to challenge pop culture references to female sexuality and create a space for women to have candid conversations where they receive positive reinforcement for speaking up. Knowing our bodies promotes positive health and wellbeing and can empower our relationships. Research by the Kinsey Institute revealed that women who experienced more pleasure were more likely to ask for what they want in bed and to act out their fantasies. We can’t talk about what we like or don’t like with our partners if we don’t know ourselves. Plus, having also spoken to smaller groups of men during this process, we also know that many of them also face challenges around performance anxiety and desperately want to know how to pleasure their partners!

Whilst pleasure remains taboo, we risk the wellbeing of women the world over. It’s for this reason that Anna, Quinn and I are bounded together as we build our business, Leika. We’re on a mission to change the conversation and to empower women to recognise their pleasure matters.

Leika enables women to become masters of their own pleasure. We help them to develop a deep and intimate understanding of their bodies and provide the necessary tools to practice candid, two-way communication.

With a membership to Leika women get:

1. Guided, spoken conversation with a virtual coach that teaches the fundamental skills necessary to enhance pleasure

2. The ability to move at their own pace through each session as their coach responds to verbal feedback

3. A safe and imaginative space to discover the depths of their sexualities

4. Detailed metrics unique to their bodies, on the way they xperience pleasure

Think of Leika as a sensual Headspace but with the ability to converse and communicate. A coach that gets smarter and more personalised as you spend time exploring together.

In the era of Harvey Weinstein, #TimesUp and the #MeToo movement, the whole world is literally talking about sex. Whilst these discussions have been born from a place of negativity, the outcome is positive — global awareness! Together, across genders, we are breaking down the taboo associated with talking about our sexualities and challenging the status quo. As a result, we have a unique opportunity to address the inequality that exists in our most intimate spaces and specifically, the pleasure gap. It’s time for us all to make our sexual wellbeing a priority, to strive for pleasure!

Let’s build a world where, regardless of gender, pleasure is a priority.

We’ve given you a teaser but if you’re interested in learning more about Leika — or can’t wait to get your hands on it — please visit our website and join the waitlist or e-mail us at team@leika.io.

Source:

The Power in Pleasure: Practical Implementation of Pleasure in Sex Education Classrooms. University of Wisconsin-Madison

Female Pleasure — it’s time to put the taboo to bed! was originally published in noname on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.