PANTHER BODY

horny on a new level

Since I was pregnant with my son 12 years ago, I haven’t actively engaged my body. Exercise never became part of my adult life. I’ve been looking for something to get obsessed with– you know I need that intellectual pull, that’s my hook– and nothing has stuck. My body has been in the background of my days.

Now at 39 it feels like a now-or-never kind of thing…

I gotta move. I want to feel strong. I want to feel confident. I want to feel like I can inhabit my life. Cause if you know me… you know I’m here to enjoy this bitch! Did you know the word bitch used to refer to the goddess?

But hold on,
I do this,
I drift off…

So
I went on a bufo journey– that psychedelic frog venom experience– with the intention that I must find the urge within that makes me want to move.

I expected
pain
or clarity
or nothing.

In the experience,
I arrived
in a lush,
moist,
hot
jungle.
I couldn’t tell
if I was inside it
or if it was inside me.
I couldn’t tell
where my skin ended
and the air began.

The space had the texture of heat—
soft,
wet,
gripping.

A panther appeared soon after. A sort of intelligence or presence my body recognized.

Inside that sensation, I started touching myself—
my throat,
belly,
womb.
It felt like I was discovering
my body
for the first time.
As if it wasn’t mine.
As if it was a foreign being–
But from that moment on,
this body belongs to me.

This is my body.

And as I felt that, all of a sudden, I saw erected cocks in my field of vision with balls unattached to bodies… as if they were birds flying in the sky, spraying sperm carefree.

I GIGGLED OUT LOUD

At that point, I haven’t had sex for months.
That breakup I’ve mentioned before did it…
And anyway I was busy building my new projects, focusing all my creative energy there– not releasing it, not letting it flood into sex for the sake of sex.
I haven’t had an orgasm since July 2025.

Near the end of being with bufo, I kept feeling something extremely soft, almost unbearably sweet… and then I heard this sentence echo in my head:

My body is my baby.

The sensation brought me to another form of release :::crying::: very softly while hugging myself. Tears like a lullaby and simultaneously like a vow. Instantly the conclusion arrived–

WHAT
I
NEED
IS
SEX

To find someone I can have sex with.
Someone I can learn to trust and play with and have fun with.

This thought surprised me…

I went into this trip asking to ignite an sort of spark to make me want to exercise, get strong– not just sit around like the houseplant I am most days– and I came out wanting to fuck. Turns out, sex is the strongest urge to get me moving. I have been so ashamed of my body that I have completely blocked even the slightest possibility of getting naked with someone. In the past years I have become tight and rigid.

I wish to
be fluid
and free.

And besides… I spent so many years treating my body like a temple and my womb like a sort of sacred space— a sacred space that could only be entered through love, through devotion. Yet all of a sudden, I had the urge to make it about sex.
Only sex.

I went home and downloaded Tinder. Then a friend of mine suggested I get off Tinder and use this app called Feeld instead. For the next week I was talking to 10+ men and couples looking for a third. The conversations took a turn from vanilla to: do you want to see videos of us fucking? And unsolicited dick pics rolling in nonstop.

Was I hooked?
Yes.
To this new freedom.
This new freedom thing where anything goes.

I found myself climbing Cowles Mountain, getting off on my recently-quit-smoker-lungs burning together as one with my thighs. Bumping Pretty Ricky’s Bluestars album in my big headphones, licking my sun kissed salty upper lip often enough to feel like a treat. Soon after I found a trainer to weightlift with and immediately after the first workout I felt my horniness taking on a new level…

YES BABY, WE’RE INHABITING THIS BODY

Never would have thought that the urge I was looking for to make me move was igniting the fire inside me named Desire. That the shame ive been carrying around like a big fat cement block would loosen by my body becoming mine again.

To be touched–
to lick, to drool,
to rub against,
to suck and get sucked
in by Desire.

After two weeks of exploring online dating, I was ready to bring the feeling into my physical world. A Saturday arrived that I had organized like a dare:
3 dates
Yes, 3

Nr 1 – 9:08am, Kobey’s Swap Meet
Instant undeniable chemistry– thick, almost like dew in the air. While we walked around the market I could barely see anything because my body was occupied with this magnet-like sensation, hyper-focused on where his body was compared to mine, gravitating toward him with 99% of my being. The most wholesome conversation– I felt safe, like this guy could make me feel good. He walked me to my car and we made out under a tree.

Nr 2 – 4:00pm, the feet of Mount Helix.
He was sweating so much. I felt like I was interviewing him. All I could think of was dinner with Nr 3. I left quickly but elegantly.

Nr 3 had been sending me voice messages all week. I liked his voice. I was looking forward to the one or two times a day he’d choose to speak to me… grounded, playful, the same age as me, tall, Midwestern, no kids, no divorces. It made me feel familiar in a weird way.

We walked and talked, place to place, on an adventure. At this one karaoke spot we sat in a booth close to each other. I could feel his big bear body as he pulled me close, his left palm planted gently on my left butt cheek.

Would you like to come over to my place?
No expectations, just to chill– he said

Around 4 in the morning I decided to go home. It was cold. I asked for a hoodie to take with me.

Are you a hoodie collector? –he asked

And I laughed. My smile on the inside felt as playful as it was painful.
Because am I?
Will I wake up tomorrow and feel nothing?
Was this real or was this just my body starving for touch, creating a mirage?

The question landed like a tiny pin in a big balloon. A little claim. A joke that wasn’t only a joke. I don’t even think the hoodie was the point. The point was the moment my body realized that even softness can carry a sense of possession… even gentleness can want something from you.

Nr 3 had a big heart and big hands that seemed capable of holding whatever needed to be held. I sensed no urgency, even in the silence. My chest pounded. I got into the cab and went home. And later, alone again, I noticed a bigger thing ::: something in me had come back online…
The panther in me.
The jungle in me.
And a new question, arising from within…

How do I stay soft
without being claimed?

JOURNAL PROMPTS

When we put sensation into language, we stop outsourcing our knowing. Let the page be a place to listen… write <3

1. Where in my life is my body asking to move and what am I resisting?

2. If my desire had a voice today, what would it say in one sentence?

3. What do I do to avoid being in my body (scrolling/ working/ controlling)?

4.What shame story am I carrying about my body right now?

5.What would it look like to treat my body as mine and not an object to manage?

6.What is one “loophole” that gets me moving (pleasure, music, a crush, heat, curiosity)?

7.When do I feel most fluid and free? When do I feel tight and rigid? What’s the difference?

8.What does “softness” mean to me and what does it cost me?

9.Where have I confused devotion with restriction? Where have I confused freedom with chaos?

10.What is my relationship to sex right now: hunger/ fear/ numbness/ play/ grief/ power/ tenderness?

11.What does my nervous system need in order to feel safe enough to be open?

12.Have I ever felt “a tiny pin in a big balloon” moment where a small comment revealed a big truth? What was it?

13.Where in my life do I sense a soft form of possession?

14.How do I want to stay soft without being claimed? What boundaries / rituals / agreements would support that?