Unraveling, with Brooke Baldwin

Week #14: Plot twist: sexual pleasure 🔥🔥

Dearest Unravelers and Unravelers-to-Be – 

I’ve been sitting here staring at the blank screen a lot longer than I normally do. My thoughts and words to you usually flow right out of my fingers. This week hits different. I addressed my immediate thoughts in the aftermath of the election on Instagram. If you missed my four minute video, you can watch it here.

But today, I’m choosing to just sit quietly. My gut is to STFU for a minute and just read, think and, most importantly, listen. So if you were hoping for something wise or revelatory from me on what I make of what’s happening in America or what I really think — I’m probably a lot like you. I don’t totally know. Therefore, I’m going to engage in “radical listening.” I learned that phrase today. What does it mean? Roughly it’s listening to someone with an entirely different life experience and perspective as me/you and not project my own ideas and identity into the conversation. Pause the judgement and just listen.

In moments like these, I turn to someone I massively admire… Brené Brown:

What do I want to write about today? What’s the topic I’m choosing to focus on, fellow Unravelers? It’s something I’ve been very intentional about in my own Unraveling (for the first real time ever?!): PLEASURE.

To be precise, sexual pleasure.

While I’d been thinking about — daring myself to — write about this, a good girlfriend of mine texted me a photo of her new vibrator complete with a voice note detailing how she semi-mortifyingly lost hers on a recent trip, adding the fact that she’d had this vibrator since her last marriage (girl, that shit carries energy — this was the Universe telling you to get a new one like yesterday!) — and the fact that this new one has a “travel lock.” I then immediately shot her a voice note back with one of the most embarrassing stories of my younger years. Should I share that story with you here? Yes YES I fucking should… and I will just below the paywall. But it got me thinking over coffee this morning — I need to write about pleasure.

(Note to those who don’t subscribe here: it’s all good. Zero pressure. I get that $5/month or $50/year may be too much. But I’m about to get into some of that yum-yum-chocolate-chip-honey-dip-can-I-get-a-scoop-kind of detail. And I like giving those who subscribe some extra extra. So… either think about subscribing to read my pleasure-filled thoughts below or just come on back next week where it will be less… eh hem… going there.)

We’re all grown ups here. There’s a lot in our lives we feel we cannot control right now. But guess what we can? Guess what we can control, something that makes our bodies feel better? And what costs zero dollars? Our pleasure.

Read on and enjoyyyyyy, friends.