Sexual synesthesia (part 1)
A LITTLE PLEASURE is a periodic periodical focused on plumbing the depths of the sensuous world, claiming the breadth of our aliveness, and being moved by the immensity that is Human Intelligence. Like, comment, and share as you please.
We are living amidst a terrible heist, and I am enraged about it.
I’m not going to rant, though, for I’ve learned that spewing my fury has less impact than sitting with it, processing it, and companioning it until it turns into love and a bold path forward.
I’m also not going to write about the nuance of said thievery (there isn’t space here), nor am I going to speak about it in a widely inclusive way (I don’t have the experience or expertise to do so). But I am going to say the following . . . collectively, we are being robbed of:
1. Female safety and pleasure;
2. Male connection and belonging; and
3. Access to our most creative selves (A.K.A. a sense of deep, booming aliveness that encourages possibility, strengthens imagination, and nudges us to become agents of change in shaping a future that hums).
And I know this won’t make sense right away, but I came to the above knowledge by way of a new relationship to color and a crystal dildo.
Read on for Part 1 (the new relationship to color), and, in the coming weeks, look forward to Part 2 (the crystal dildo).
Yours, as I declare myself as an instrument of great pleasure, a creational field, and the doorway into a very fecund future,
P.S. I am going to offer the opposite of a disclaimer here. It is called a Claimer.
CLAIMER:
a) I claim that the writing below includes details about my intimate and sexual life. I claim that future editions of A Little Pleasure may also include details about my intimate and sexual life.
b) I claim that some of you will call this a “tasteless bid for attention”, “too much”, or “an overshare”, among other things.
c) I claim that I don’t care. Because…
d) If I know one thing about the relationship we have to our sex life and the understanding that it is part of our mental, physical, and emotional health, and overall vitality, it is this: The aforementioned robbery is taking place not because we have too much information or too many people sharing, but because we’ve never had enough.
P.P.S. If you’re new here, WELCOME! Feel free to look around. Here are two links— the first post of the series and the most engaged with edition to date:
When I lie down next to him, color runs to the edges of us. Our bodies slowly saturate— arctic blue becomes cobalt and rose turns ruby red. We look at one another, and we both feel it; his blue and my red make purple, a wash of plum moving across sheets, Byzantium soaking into cold-pressed fibers, a soft spilling of mulberry wine.
It is a Tuesday, and this man, who is made of azure and lapis lazuli, is going searching for garnets.
We don’t know it yet, but on Thursday, he will search for emeralds, and we will turn this room green. The following week, the walls will be lit with burnt orange and sienna. And a month from now, texture will be added. He will carve me as if I’m limestone, and I will be a wash of marbled creams— jasmine and magnolia, mushroom and birch.
I haven’t always experienced color this way— as an internal sense, pigments rising from the bedrock of me, no external image in my mind, no colors in my sight line.
I am eleven months into an experiment of deeply intentional embodiment, and there’s no arguing that my sense-based pleasure-seeking has changed the way I engage with color. But this is different. This isn’t based on cones and optic nerves, but rather, a language of frequencies coming from the root of me, pouring from the walls of me, a sexual synesthesia. My mind is not involved, nor are my eyes. I’m not seeing color, but feeling it, I am it.
And…as the pigments fade, as I lie panting on my bed, I hear a voice begging the following question: If I can be color, what else can I be?
The answers always vary, and the answers are always true:
I can be an artist. A lover. A bird that sings.
A dream-catcher, storyteller, gold-hued wings.
I can be the wind, the rain, a storm, a gale.
A mystic, a shaman, a vessel, a veil.
I turn to my lover, who has a look of awe on his face.
“What are you thinking?” I ask him.
“That you’re a nebula,” he says.
nebula | ˈnebyələ |
Etymology: mid 17th century: from Latin, literally ‘mist’
Dictionary: a cloud of gas and dust - remnants of dead and dying stars and cosmic birthplaces for new ones
Poetry: a womb in the sky
“That you are an entire Universe,” he continues. “That you are a place in which I feel a sense of belonging.”
I nod. My chestnut hair is messy and streaked with silver, my cheeks are glowing pink and red, and my lips are bruised purple from kissing. I let him stare into the everything behind, and inside of, my ocean blue eyes.
“You are correct,” I say. “I am all of these things.”
I suppose you could say I have a fantastic lover— a man who fucks me into synesthesia and beyond. This is true, I do have a fantastic lover, but there’s more going on. Because to get to the place (mentally, physically, and emotionally surrendered) where one invites said lover to turn them into a rainbow, one has to put in some work.
One has to reclaim the valuables that were stolen, that are being stolen, that are under constant threat of being stolen.
One has to descend.
One has to stand, sit, and then lie down in a dark, muddy void of a field.
Breathe, she tells herself, as the panic of the places threatens to take over.
This is nobody else’s but yours, she says, as shame sneaks out of the room.
Once there, one has to search for evidence of life— amidst the pain, the irritation, the discomfort. They have to feel for an unfurling, listen for the cracking open of a deep inner husk. They have to try and try and try yet again.
One has to then learn about the way their own body folds and unfolds, its pathways to rapture and release. What is a no. What is a yes. What is a ROYGBIV.
One has to fall in love with oneself from that place.
One has to find a way to claim this as a worthy pursuit, and then a virtuous pursuit, and then a holy pursuit.
And then…one has to understand that right there, within them, exists a center of a universe. And one has to connect to the wellspring, tap that life-force, and start living from that soil, that water, that air, that fire. Offering themselves to their life from that place, guiltless and unconcerned. Offering themselves to the world from that place, with claiming and conviction. Knowing the whole while that the way they’ve become turned on by life has everything and nothing to do with sex.
“So how does one do all of this?” you ask.
Enter the crystal dildo.
To be continued…
Below is a short list of delights. Podcasts, poems, and pages that have quickened my pulse. Muses, music, and moments that have moved me in some way. Use them as you would a recipe... to make a little pleasure.
Other words that will make you blush:
LEVEL ONE: THIS POEM by Ada Limón.
LEVEL TWO: pretty much anything by JOY SULLIVAN.
LEVEL THREE: CHRISTOPHER SEXTON on Instagram - enough said.
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Cards pulled in your name and an altar built for your spirit explained in every symbolic and mythological detail; and
A post-session recap - a poetic translation of our time for intellectual and intuitive resonance, with a handful of handcrafted bonuses.
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Oh hot damn, Christopher Sexton.