Sex, for me, has always been something of a transformative experience. When I was younger it transformed me into someone desirable and wanted by the fuck buddies that I had. It also made me feel powerful to be able to give and receive such pleasure. I was a Goddess. There was no ritual to the sex; we were just people coming together in the most intimate of ways. It opened my eyes to many of the joys and exciting or taboo things about sex and I loved exploring every minute of it. It gave me a type of freedom.

After I got married sex was still transforming me, but not in a good way. My ex-husband used coercion, sometimes mild force, and the age old threat of “I’m your husband, it’s my right” to get sex from me. He was a selfish lover and I often finished our encounters unsatisfied and unhappy at the very least. He would clean up and pass out to sleep and I would lie awake wondering what I had done to deserve the treatment I received from him and why he couldn’t just love me the way I had always dreamed of in the fairy tales. I learned quickly that marriage (mine, at least) was no fairy tale, but yet I stayed. I was determined to make it work. Ultimately, that didn’t happen and I’m in a better place emotionally, mentally, and physically than I was when things ended about five years ago. But I am still damaged from the transformation and impression placed upon me by our sex life.

I struggle to express my needs and wants. Sometimes I can’t handle being touched. I feel broken or ashamed of the things I want or need to be satisfied in bed. These things transform me too. I become someone who is timid and unsure, someone who can’t (or won’t) ask for what I want to be happy. That often leaves my partner guessing and in the dark and this is a bad habit I know, but nearly a decade of habit can be hard to break.

That said, my sex life now is more positive than it has ever been and again I am transformed by it. My partner touches me freely with my consent and checks in often during sex to make sure that I am OK or having fun or just to make sure that I know I am loved. The first time we had sex blew my mind, especially because no one’s clothing came off, but it was sex all the same and some of the best I’ve had in my life. It was almost a spiritual thing for me and I’ll never forget it. Since then our sex life and blossomed into something that makes me happy, that I derive a deep pleasure from that isn’t just sexual in nature.

Sometimes my orgasms are so mind blowing that I forget to breathe and, inevitably, will pass out for a few seconds. My partner has been trying to train me to remember to breathe through them and therefore prolong the orgasm for as long as possible. They only want what is best for me. And they tell me that I am a “good girl.” Again, I am transformed into a lover who wants to please and by extension of pleasing, be pleased because I am good.

Sex has changed and still changes me in different ways every time it happens. It can also challenge me to reach higher, seek out new heights of passion or approval. I find my freedom in sex and sexual release; it lets me be who I am and who I want to be without judgment or censure. Those feelings and transform me and I am, once again, a Goddess of my own design, one who sees and loves and gives and takes. Sex has slowly begun to turn me into the person I’ve always wished that I were to begin with. Powerful, confident, and sexy. None of these come easily or naturally to me, but gradually as I reclaim my sex after years of abuse, those old feelings return. And so do I.