My body opened up to me, unfolding just a little at a time. And I learned how to love myself, my life, my jaded, traumatized, extremely weird trans girl body, just a little bit more, in the middle of that terrible winter in my shoebox apartment in Toronto.
What matters isn’t my capacity for self-love anyway. I don’t control the systems of power which tear through the world I live in. I can’t change the material circumstances of my life, even if I go to yoga or buy a vegan cupcake. All I have is my desperate longing, my bitter bones growing around bruises and fractures. The dreaming I make in beds of nothing.
Boundaries aren’t punishments that happen to bad people. At their core, boundaries are about connection.
There is strength in an enthusiastic yes or a firm, unwavering no. For me, vulnerability, boundaries, expressing my needs, they made me trust myself. It made me respect that I could take care of myself. It allowed me to love myself.
Self-love is not possible without you. I do not end where you begin. You teach me what loving myself can look like when you love me. I teach myself what loving myself can look like by loving you. Self-love is connection.
Music is such an incredibly personal, incredibly liberating experience. Is there anything else that can connect you so viscerally, in such a primal way, to your identity? Is there any other form of art that serves as such an electric source of immediacy and intensely focused bodily pleasure?
Confidence encourages us to feel what is happening right now. It begs us to tap into our sensual experience and feel, see, touch, taste and smell without self-judgement. It asks us to be unapologetic in taking up the space we desire.
For me, loving myself is raging about the world instead of raging at myself. It’s understanding that my head leads me astray, not my heart.
A lot of industries capitalize on the fear that we’re somehow failing at summer. To push back against this idea, we’re making this the Summer of Self-Love at Venus Envy.
I’m a 23 year old cisgender bisexual man and I haven’t had sex because I’m ashamed of my penis size. Recently I entered a committed relationship with this woman I really like and she’s expressed interest in having sex, and this weekend we’re meant to have a romantic getaway.
How can I approach this situation?
Dear Venus Envy,
I’m a 22 year old cis woman, and I’ve been with my boyfriend for just under a year. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’ve been faking my orgasms with him during most of that time.
I don’t know how to fix it without hurting my boyfriend. Please help?
