Sexuality and Desire: Masturbation as Self-care.

Written by Nyarai Tawengwa, Student of life, Creative

When I think about sexuality, I think about desire. About who I desire.

Do I allow my desire? Do I find myself desirable? I think about pleasure, about wanting. Do I allow myself to want?

In small ways like eating something I’ve been craving and not holding myself back. In bigger ways around how I let myself dream.

I think about the processes of unlearning I’ve had to go through. About how there’s so much I’ve had to teach myself around healthy sexuality and being comfortable with my own.

I think about sensuality and the things that feel good. The things that make me feel good. I think about sex. Sex with myself. Sex with another. The things that turn me on.

I can’t remember how old I was when I discovered that if I was to rub my genitals against something, whether that was a pillow, a teddy bear, or my own hands, that it would feel good. Books were also my chosen form of escapism as a pre-teen with budding boobs and hair growing in new places. I probably came across a descriptive sex scene at this time and that became my chosen form of erotica.

But, I was also an early bloomer and had a visible chest – even if it small – by the time I was eleven. I noticed that boys eyes would linger just a bit longer over me and the way adults spoke to me also began to change. Older women began to caution me – about how my skirt shouldn’t be too short, that I can’t be bending down in front of men, that I needed to learn modesty.

Combine this with being raised conservatively Christian where masturbation is a sin, sex is reserved only for marriage, and homosexuality is a road directly to hell. So this was also the beginning of shame, learning that what I wanted was secondary, and realizing the power of the male gaze over my body almost as if my body wasn’t exclusively my own anymore.

But I still was curious, so my masturbation habits continued but self-pleasure never came up and I was too ashamed to admit it. In high school – and I went to an all girl’s school – sexual exploration centred around you and the guy that you liked or who liked you.

My first kiss was when I was fifteen, and my first sexual experience at twenty. I had a different first kiss with girl at twenty-one but I brushed it aside. And in the sexual exploration of my early twenties, I encountered various experiences around sharing my body. I had a one-night stand. I bought a necklace that was also a vibrator for my twenty-fourth birthday.  And I sometimes found myself in situations I didn’t fully want to be in.

I had moments I woke up next to someone and my stomach would sink because it was morning, I was now sober, and I didn’t want to be there. I discovered how I was willing to give my body hoping that someone would love me back and how this didn’t feel good. These experiences cover a multitude of lessons, hurts and pleasures. Through out this time I was also relearning sex, and consent by following sex educators and reading books centred around female pleasure and why it was important.

And whilst I was being intentional about my unlearning and relearning of consent, body autonomy, and self pleasure, I realised I hadn’t applied those things to who I was engaging with.

But something else was happening with me that I hadn’t paid much attention too. I hadn’t been noticing the broadness of my attraction to people, different people. Not just men. Not until I sat down with one of my friends and she asked me whether I had explored my attraction to women. I was twenty-five, and in it’s own way, that was also a lightbulb moment for me. I was dating a guy at the time and began experiencing a strange dissonance and restlessness about the life I was told I should lead and who I’d been socialized to give priority over my desire.

And over the next couple of years I found myself going back and forth between wanting to be “normal” according to society’s standards and proudly queer in embracing all of the freedoms that queerness allows me, yet also taking a step back from engaging fully in sex.

So the later half of my twenties have been more of an internal quiet exploration and a taking comfort in who I’ve become and my identity. The sensuality of how I choose to show up and in who I desire and who desires me. Whilst also reminding myself that these are okay desires to have because doubt and fear still come up. I still embrace masturbation as a way of exploring my own pleasure, but also engaging in other ways of exploring. I’m curious about kink. I took a beginners shibari rope class once (think beginner’s bondage) and I enjoyed it.

I recently watched Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2, and that reignited a curiousity around lingerie and wearing things that can make me feel good. I’m also a big advocate for red lipstick, finding a shade you’re comfortable with and rocking it.

For me, it’s about allowing my sexual curiousity, but also knowing there are things I can do for myself that bring out my own sensuality, because they exist interchangeably.I do feel because I now exist outside of the structures I was taught to live in with being a black, queer femme, I have so much awkwardness and shyness around sex that I never had before. But, I also trust myself more.

I know now that healthy sexuality is about learning and exploring in a safe container that I create for myself, and/or a partner, where I am anchored and present in my body. Where I know what feels good for me and I lean into it. I can give myself permission to embrace pleasure.