If you haven’t yet seen the new series, Dying for Sex, DO IT.
The show follows Molly, played by Michelle Williams, who after her diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, decides to live her uncertain remaining days in pursuit of pleasure.
She leaves her sexless marriage to explore her desires, and along the way discovers some kinks, the unknown realms of her sensual and sexual potential, and some portals to healing.
The series follows a journey of unabashed self-discovery, in tender duet with a profound portrait of female friendship — Jenny Slate plays her best friend Nikki, who volunteers as Molly’s caregiver during her cancer journey.
Seriously, let this show be the next thing you gift yourself after you’re done reading this. This show is fucking groundbreaking.
There’s so much good stuff to chew on — from the stunning depths of female friendship, to the art of dying and how we can do that better, to the ability of kink and consent to work through deep wounds — this show blew my mind.
But the thing that stood out to me the most, is that Dying for Sex — really Molly’s approach to her diagnosis — exemplifies what it means to really live in a body, even when you might be dying.
…Even when you can’t move or feel your body. Even when you’re in pain. Even when the world doesn’t see the depths of your humanness that innately lives within you.
Molly’s experience reminds us that simply being human, being alive, gives us the right to pleasure.
Molly’s story explores what it can look like to really appreciate, know and love our bodies.
To show up for and advocate for our beautifully unique bodies.
To allow our bodies to feel…everything.
To magnify our sensation by pushing past fear.
To examine the things hiding in the shadows by opening ourselves up to the vastness of what we are capable of feeling.
Even when our bodies are falling apart, or injured, or deemed inferior, or unsexy, or unworthy — we have the power of choice — we can expand the bounds of how we live in our bodies. Anytime.
AND, it’s not always easy, especially when just living in our bodies is hard. Sometimes it’s seemingly impossible, maddening, devastating think about feeling more, or even…good?
But the truth is, our bodies were literally made for pleasure.
There’s something about living in a sick or disabled body that can strip us of things that make us feel human.
It’s odd that oftentimes when enter a hospital, a place to heal and survive, we can end up feeling dehumanized, misunderstood, unseen, and oftentimes separated from the very body we are trying to heal!
It’s a lot of pressure, it’s emotional, it’s exhausting, it’s scary, it’s disembodying. We can lose a sense of agency, autonomy, and sovereignty.
We’re woken out of a deep sleep (if we even get one) to get our vitals taken. We’re presented with options that sometimes feel more like demands or threats. It’s all too easy to lose a sense of ownership of our own bodies.
We’re ultimately in charge, but…A person in a position of power, with a white coat, can make it hard to advocate for, listen to, or trust ourselves.
That white coat, and all the other blue scrubs, (Spirit, bless the good ones!) have to really see us, or the whole thing can fall apart.
It’s hard to self-advocate in general, especially as a marginalized person, but when we feel vulnerable or disempowered, it’s damn near impossible.
Then we return home, and we often feel that languishing separateness from our bodies.
Back to our lives, we create our new reality after whatever we’ve endured. Maybe we have a new routine, we likely have adapting to do, recon to do, new care we need to incorporate into our lives.
Our bodies can become our business, a vessel to be managed. We have schedules, staff, medical supplies, and medications. We’re surrounded by all the evidence of our medical, mobility, and care needs that surround us daily.
It can all feel…unnatural. It’s not part of us, but it’s for us. It helps us live, AND it’s all plastic, man-made waste, expensive waste. It all screams medical medical medical!!!…insurance companies, bureaucracy = dehumanizing bullshit.
It’s all a reminder of how much work it is sometimes. It’s having to justify our bodies, our very existence, and whatever it is we’re going through to an unjust system.
It can feel like an overwhelming force that continually separates us from our very nature, from our flesh and bone and blood. From our place in nature.
Over the years, with a disability, I have had to work hard, every single day, to see myself as the very thing that I was brought into this world as:
a sensual being.
After every procedure, every piece of paperwork I’ve had to fill out to prove my needs and keep my care, I’ve had to integrate the ownership of my humanness back into my being.
Embodied self-love has become the most important and dynamic work I’ve ever done. It is my foundation. It holds me together in a world that sees my body as separate from the normal, unfortunate (yet inspirational), unnatural, uncomfortable, weird, inconvenient.
Sometimes I feel empowered when I open a catheter and I’m able to pee out of a hole in my stomach independently. It’s incredible, really. It’s progress. It’s freedom. It’s a blessing.
And other times, I look at all the medical supplies in my house — the endless use of plastic, the boxes of gloves and bed pads and syringes and colostomy bags, that I both loathe and love, and need — and I imagine what it would look like without all this shit.
Those are the days I know I need to find the nature within and around me.
Those are the times I need to remind myself of my earthy humanness. My deliciousness. My sensuality. My sexuality. I invite in, maybe even for a minute, a reminder of the sweetness of my skin. The grittiness of my desires.
The freshness of an inhale. The relief of an exhale. The energizing death of an orgasm. The catharsis of a dance.
I explore my sensual nature, sense by sense, piece by piece, and I come back to my sovereignty, my joy, and my pleasure as the anchor of my sacred existence.
No matter what it is that is removing me from my inherent sensuality, it’s my duty and privilege to investigate and protect. My connection to my pleasure and my body is what brings me back to my empowerment and divinity.
In the same way, as Molly works toward her goal of experiencing an orgasm with another person for the first time — as she explores her desires, her yes’s, her yum’s, and investigates kink to find healing — there’s a self-prioritization and self-ownership that Molly teaches us.
Even in the midst of a death sentence, her sensual exploration is a portal back to her own divinity.
Molly’s radical acceptance of her body reminds us all that our bodies are our delightfully expansive treasure. They are not to be underestimated or ignored.
They are to be discovered, over and over again, as the ever-evolving cellular landscape they are.
Molly reminds us that sex is our birthright. And that, yes, our bodies, in any form, were designed for pleasure, that quite often, they are the medicine — we are the medicine.
If we can open ourselves up to the offerings around us, and the wisdom within us, if we can trust our intuition and go down the rabbit hole, we can find that our connection to our bodies is usually just what the doctor ordered.
Big love,
Kels
If you enjoyed this post, give it a ❤️ or a comment, or a share. I love to hear your thoughts! How do you sensualize YOUR life??! Xoxo
Paid subscribers:
See tips for sensualizing your life in any body — in a medicalized body, after a procedure, or while living with an injury or illness.
*If the tips below are not accessible to you or don’t work for your body, that’s A-OK! Take what works, and leave the rest. 💜
This is an exercise appropriate for the season - both spring and Taurus;)
You are part of nature too. You are nature…
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