How Sexual Liberation Saved My Life

For most of my life, pleasure felt like something I had to earn—or apologize for. But claiming pleasure has become a radical part of my healing. In this episode of Truth Meets Taboo, I explore how I went from body disconnection to embracing my sexual desires as sacred.

We talk about community support for relationships, the role of sexuality education, and how prioritizing pleasure has changed my relationship with myself. This is more than a personal journey—it’s a form of protest, a reclaiming of everything I was told to suppress.

Connect with me:
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desiretheforbidden
justasuccugirl

Website
https://www.desiretheforbidden.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro

Transcript

Sage (00:01.858)
Hey sweet vixen, let's take a breath together. And I don't mean the kind of breath you take when you're bracing yourself, but the kind of breath you take when you're softening, when you're about to say something you've never said out loud before, or maybe you're finally about to hear the truth.

Sage (00:29.132)
Welcome to Truth Meets Taboo. Oof, this place is my confessional. This is my place of worship. This is a portal. I am inviting us to unlearn shame. And we are coming home to the body here because I don't know about you, but I have been taught time and time and time again throughout the course of my life to be so disembodied. And I am ready. I am so ready to be home. And I hope you are too.

Whew! And this first episode, it is my offering to you. My story of how sexual liberation didn't just change my life. It honestly saved it. And when I tell you my heart is beating so fast, I mean my heart is beating so fast right now. And that means I am alive. That means I am breathing. That means I am here and I am present and I am feeling.

And I am so excited and so grateful to be feeling alive and present in this moment with all of you. Thank you for being here. The reality is sharing my story or thinking about sharing my story is so scary. It oftentimes feels like sharing my story comes with so many consequences and things that I don't always know that I'm prepared to receive.

people's reflections, people's opinions, people's activations, people's expansions, people's growth. And sometimes I can get wrapped up in this idea that all of those things mean something about me or are judgments about me or are facts about me or are truths about me. And the reality is my stories and my truth are my own experiences and that's all they are.

and they are reflections for other people, potentially, yeah, activations, potentially, yeah, but that's not about me, that's about them. And part of being in community with people, being in relationship with people, being in love with people, is letting yourself be truly seen and witnessed, even if that means...

Sage (02:50.666)
activations or expansions or discomfort for other people. And so I hope we can be here together, sharing in our truths, sharing in our stories, because I'm going to invite you to think of your own and to be here with me in this journey. Thinking of your own stories, maybe even sharing them out loud and thinking about your own truth. Because the reality is, once we uncover truth,

Once we really begin to see it, name it, own it, touch it, engage with it, you can't really turn back. You can only move forward from there. And I love that for us. I love that truth will bring us forward. And yeah, this podcast, this whole thing, this is my art.

This is my form of liberation. This is how I want my art to live and breathe in the world. My stories, my perspectives, my opinions, my guidance, my questions, my curiosities, my truth seeking. That is an art. The fact that I want truth so deeply that I seek it, that I demand it. That is art. And the fact that you're here.

Seeking it, wanting it, desiring it, being open to it, being curious about it. That is a form of liberation in you too. So let's make some art together. Let's get liberated together.

I am loving the space I'm in right now. I am in my office and I've lit this beautiful incense, Dragon's Blood. It's so yummy. I have my little intention candle set. I have all my little drinkies next to me. It's giving bisexual energy for sure. I've got a little lemonade and a water and I've got my little raspberry leaf tea. I am also on my period, so I am in my flow right now and so I am ooey gooey.

Sage (05:02.638)
for you all right now. I am just in my feelings. And I hope you're here with me, because we're about to feel through some things. I'm about to tell you some stories. Before we jump in, let me just say this. This is the moment. This is the portal. This is the entryway. We are about to go in. We are about to step into the portal. And there's some things in here that we're going to talk about.

that might be hard or difficult to navigate. Take care of yourself, love yourself, be gentle with that sweet, sweet soft soul. But we're gonna dive in and you get to opt in and consent at whatever level feels good for you. But I hope you'll stay with me through the whole episode, even through your activations, expansions, curiosities, and resistance. I'm here with you.

I hope you're here with me too.

I want to invite us to explore the past. I know, I know, I know girl, I know, I know. Exploring the past can be a lot. It can be a lot. let me also just say this. I'm gonna say girl regularly. And I mean girl with a U, girls, girly pop, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl in the same way that I just mean hey. Like it's just girl, okay? So we're doing that on this podcast. just.

Buckle in for that. am talking to you. Yes, just know I just mean girl you And I just want to let's get into the past a little bit and I know I know the past can be It can be a lot to navigate. It can be a lot to think about The past has some things that sometimes we don't want to engage with but I'm gonna invite us I'm gonna invite us into the past because the past Gives us information

Sage (07:03.314)
It is through learning and thinking about our stories in our past that help guide us to what we might be able to do today. And so I'm going to guide you to think about the first time your body was met with shame instead of wonder.

Take a breath.

Sage (07:36.408)
think about.

When was the first whisper or moment when your sensual self was told to quiet down, to shrink, to be less?

I want that memory to raise gently into you.

What did it teach you about your worth?

or about your body.

Sage (08:09.944)
Now close your eyes if you feel safe or maybe find a spot to focus on, maybe something on the ground that you can allow your eyelids to gently fall for.

Sage (08:22.412)
I want you to ask.

When did desire first feel like danger for yourself?

Was there a moment when reaching for what you wanted came with a consequence?

and did that shape what you believe is safe? To want? To desire? To go after? To ask for?

Sage (08:56.366)
This story is a little hard for me to share, so yeah, I'm just gonna name that before I share it.

Sage (09:06.824)
I have always been curious. think I will forever be curious. Curiosity is just something that I think really enlivens me. I can't help but ask questions and want to know things and just be way too curious. And so...

I think that started for me at a very young age, and when I was about six or seven, curiosity for me was about my body. I wanted to know about it. I wanted to know what was going on with it. I was curious about it. was like, I was basically becoming conscious. I was basically becoming aware of being a sentient being, that I had a body, that I had this meat sack that I was going to be navigating around in for who knows how long, right? This idea of, yeah, my brain functionally understands that I'm a person, but like,

What is this meat sack I'm in? What does it do? What are the buttons on it? What are the different gear shifts on it? How do I keep it healthy? What is the situation? And I think when you're that young, you don't think about it like that, obviously. It's just more of like, what's this? What's that? What's this? What's that? And I started exploring my body, and I enjoyed that. There was something to it that, even though I didn't fully understand it, it felt right. It felt safe. It felt warm.

I was curious about it, but it felt like I was meeting my body for the first time. I was like, I'm understanding it. I'm learning this new system. I'm learning about how to function in the world, right, in this meat sack. And one time when I was exploring my body, someone opened the door. And I didn't know that what was going to happen next would happen, their face.

the way it dropped, the air got sucked out of the room. I learned in that one moment something was wrong. Doing this was wrong, finding myself, finding my body, something was wrong. And the discomfort that I felt between us wasn't closed through understanding or education or empathy or compassion.

Sage (11:22.614)
It was interrogation. It was explanation. It was like demandedness for explaining myself. And it really made me feel like this moment of like self-discovery got turned into a court trial. You know, I wasn't being guided. I was being judged. And it was the moment that I really felt...

maybe morality, like this idea of morality around intimacy and like the body, like that there was a good way to do it and a bad way to do it, or that pleasure and worth were like two separate things, like that there was like a tension between those things and my body and goodness were two separate things, like I couldn't be good in my body, I had to be good if I was only...

like shaming my body or like dismissing my body or like not paying attention to my body or not caring about my body and not focusing on it that that was goodness and I I don't know it really to me was the first moment I felt shame for my body and I think that this is the

where the journey starts, right? Like beginning to feel the shame for my body began my journey of sexual repression and oppression over myself. And you know, honestly, my adolescence was a really difficult time. It was a very confusing time. I was desired in a way by my peers that I just could not handle and did not understand.

There were so many bids for intimacy with me on such a frequent and ongoing basis in so many of my friends and connections. It was just so jarring for me all the time. know, especially even when I was young, like friends initiating and wanting to play these more intimate games with me.

Sage (13:26.942)
my friends coming to me and telling me about intimacy or sexuality from things that they learned from their like older cousins or family members or friends or whatever like intimacy and sexuality were just always around me as a young person and i don't know if this is like an anomaly to me and like just me i'm sure it's not but like this idea that like in your adolescence like physical intimacy sex all of this stuff isn't just around you and in the conversations and in the spaces

and finding you is just like, that's not real. because it is. It's prevalent. It is there. Because culturally, we have such a hyperfixation on it. And realistically, it is a core part of being human, is to have relationships, to be in intimate relationships, to be physically intimate with one another. So like, this is a part of how we live. This is a part of the human experience. And yet, there's just like this dissonance of like, don't talk about it.

don't say too much about it, don't engage about it. And it's like, it's confusing. It's confusing as an adolescent person, as a young person, not being clear on the message. And it's like the message is so unclear coming from everyone. And so...

As a young person, know, having all of these things happen where people are making bits for you and all of this stuff, and then I'm having like men and like authority figures or adults in my life making comments about me or making good advances on me or making me feel discomforted about my growing body or whatever it might be. It's just so confusing. And even in our education system.

Right? Like, even in the way that we are being educated about sex and intimacy, it is confusing because it is not fully comprehensive. It's not fully holistic. It doesn't give the full breadth of all the information that you need to know to have a full understanding. There are parts of things that we are hiding. There is truth that we are hiding that we are not allowing people to have in their sex education out of fear of all sorts of things.

Sage (15:36.234)
and out of the desire to control based on certain values or certain belief systems or placing morality or placing some sort of judgment on human sexuality. Instead of just acknowledging that human sexuality, like other things of the human experience, are just a natural part of the human experience. It's how we are created. It's reproduction. It's in everything. It's in everything, and yet we want to cherry pick where it shows up and how we engage with it.

And so as a young person, that's so confusing. And so the story I started to tell myself, right? Because as a young person, I'm navigating this complex feeling of like, I'm not supposed to be in my body. I'm not supposed to care about my body. I'm not supposed to be turned on by my body. I'm not supposed to allow other people to be turned on by My body is bad. That's the whole message. My body is bad. So I get that messaging. And then I get all of this attention and all of this lustful energy.

for my body, towards my sexuality. So then I start to feel as if I'm being punished. That like, having the body that I have, being in the body that I have, exploring it like I did when I was young, all of that led to being punished, which was like all of these advances and all of these ways that people were making me feel like I was bad for my body. So it's like this weird story that I started telling myself, this weird cycle that I started putting myself through.

And it all started because I genuinely believed that there was something to be shameful about in my body.

Sage (17:23.104)
Ahem.

Sage (17:29.73)
So it wasn't until I was actually a junior and senior in high school that I got my first, what I would believe my first opportunity to heal this, to start to heal my relationship with my body. And that is because I fell in love for the first time. Bringing a connection to the physical lust I felt.

Sage (17:56.942)
made me recognize that there is an emotional bond with the body. I can't believe I'm gonna talk about this relationship. This feels crazy to me. It was so long ago. I'm 36 and this person and I dated when I was 16, so it's about 20 years ago. So, I don't know on the off chance that that person ever listens. Yeah. I...

I hope you enjoy me telling this story about us because it's very special and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be gifted.

Yeah, the opportunity to heal. So yeah, like I said, I fell in love. And you know, say what you will about high school relationships or whatever. I definitely believe I was 1000 % in love with this person. I had a high school boyfriend that very much felt like a fairy tale. know, he went to a different school and played on their soccer team. I was head cheerleader and starred in our high school school plays.

It just honestly felt like something people write books about. And to this day, I genuinely am so grateful for what that connection had brought me and taught me. He was really one of the first people in my life who really loved me in a way that made me love myself and made me think about...

the fact that I could heal and be different. And he just loved me so unconditionally and so freely and so fully and, yeah, it was just really, it was a really wonderful, wonderful relationship. And through that relationship, I got to experience sex and intimacy very, very differently. It wasn't just about touching each other, it just wasn't about being physical, it was about being present.

Sage (20:03.286)
with one another. He was so good with like asking me, how are you feeling? How does this feel in your body? Are you having fun? Are you enjoying this? He invited me into the experience. I wasn't just there. I wasn't just a part of it in a way that was like non-conscious or non-engaged. I was invited to be a part of all of it.

and to be present with it and to be present with my body and to be present with him and it just it allowed me to tune into my body in a way that I had never really experienced before. It gave me so much freedom to stop controlling and just being open and soft and receptive.

It was the first time I felt like I arrived back home into my body again, like I did when I was, you know, six or seven. And, you know, we just gave so much permission to each other to explore and to play. Like there was just so much permission to like, yeah, like let's think of fun things to try. Let's think of new things and just giving each other so much encouragement, so much adoration, so much support.

and empowerment for exploring. And I can't say that enough. It is so healing to have a partner who invites you and gives you permission to explore. There's just something so beautiful about that. The other beautiful thing was I got to be the first person that he had penetrative sex with. And that was such a beautiful...

experience and it gave me the opportunity to see how aligning your emotions to your physical desires can bring forth so much connection. You know, he wanted to wait for a number of reasons, but one of them was because he wanted to be sure and he wanted it to be special in some way and emotionally.

Sage (22:27.305)
secure and

The fact that we were able to get there together and the fact that we were able to have that was just so deeply, deeply beautiful.

Sage (22:47.398)
He is someone that I feel like really taught me what the expression of love in physical form truly means. Like when people talk about sex and intimacy being like the physical expression of love, he really, really helped to tune that in my body for me. And that was so healing for me because it helped me love myself in my own body as I was also exploring my body.

and having it and being alive with it. We also played around with documentation, which I think is super cutie, especially back then. We're talking like 2006. So, like filming or photographs or whatever. you know, back then it was like, I don't even know what that technology is now, but it was just so pure and fun.

And I think it really brought home to me that pleasure can be fun. Having desires can be fun. Exploring pleasure can be fun.

And there's something deeply beautiful about two people who are so deeply in love that they trust each other with the truth of their desires. And that's truly what he gave me, a space to be wildly free in my expression of pleasure. It truly, truly, truly expanded me.

Sage (24:26.38)
Ahem.

Sage (24:37.004)
I wish I could say that this is what led me here, but I actually spent 12 years clawing my way back to this form of liberation, knowing that even though I was experiencing the most disconnected years of my sexual life for those 12 years, that I would find my way back home.

that I knew what I was fighting for because I had had that relationship. I had had that experience. I had had that relationship. And so even though the story I'm about to tell you is about how I got deeply disconnected from that.

Sage (25:27.016)
this relationship, this opportunity where I found love in physical form for the first time.

It was always my North Star. It was always the thing that I was running back home to. And I did. I definitely did. got back here. And I'm so grateful. But it was quite the journey. You know, it's never really clear when a moment will completely change your life or how it will impact you, you know?

Sometimes we experience things and it's only looking back on them that we see the damage that they've maybe caused or the ripple effects or whatever it might be.

Sage (26:17.11)
The day before my first class as a freshman in college, I was sexually assaulted by a person I was in an intimate relationship with.

you know, this person and I had been seeing each other. My boyfriend in high school that I had went out of state for college and we just couldn't make that work. The long distance, it was a lot and we just weren't able to make that work. in my pain and in my suffering, I...

of got entangled with someone a couple weeks later after we broke up. You know, looking back, I could definitely see the ways that I got entangled into that relationship out of my own need to to heal my own wounding and maybe feel a little band-aid over the heartbreak. And this person really liked me and they

were actually very sweet and

Sage (27:35.18)
Yeah, we were in an intimate relationship where, you know, there was some physical intimacy happening, but I wasn't fully ready for penetration yet.

Yeah, there was a moment where we had penetrative sex and I was definitely not in a place of wanting to consent and struggled to navigate that with the person and ended up in a situation where I was coerced.

into having sexual activity and it was really interesting because the coercion didn't necessarily just come from the person I was engaging with.

This interaction I had my freshman, the time before my freshman year, man, it really.

It really brought up so much for me around relationships, but specifically community. Because this was the first time I felt coercion from a community. And really realizing that even unintentionally, rhetoric or narratives of you owe someone sexual favors because of something that they did for you.

Sage (29:14.59)
is such a slippery and dangerous slope.

for all sorts of things.

Sage (29:27.47)
And that's essentially what happened to me. This person did something for the group and the group felt grateful to this person, which I understand.

and I became the prize. I was the thing that could make this all okay. It could ease the discomfort. It could ease the pain of what this person had to sacrifice or what this person did that everybody was feeling so grateful for.

Sage (30:10.688)
And I didn't know how to communicate well back then. And I didn't know how to...

push back in a way that was more clear and more direct. And that's not to victim blame or to say I was at fault or anything like that. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that I was so disconnected from my body. I was so disconnected from my truth. I was so disconnected from my sexuality that I could not stand up for myself in the way that I wanted to, that I needed to for myself.

And having this intimate act happen so closely after a breakup with my ex-boyfriend who I had such deep intimacy with and such a space of liberation with, it felt so jarring and I just got catapulted back into that space of shame. How could I let this happen? How could I not be stronger? How could I not be more self-assured? How could I not, how could I not, how could I not?

How did I not know how to navigate my no better? You know, when I went to the Kinsey Institute recently and I was doing a certification there and they talked a little bit about research on rape myths and apologizing. And it was just really interesting to me to hear about the cultural understanding of consent around, you know, when people say no or if they want to say no or unwanted sex or whatever that is.

and just really recognizing how easy it is to apologize away unconscious behavior.

Sage (31:59.774)
and to not demand people be more conscious. Because that's really what we're asking. Be more conscious, be more aware, be more sure that you're getting a yes or that you're getting clarity on what's actually going on. Be more thoughtful, care a little bit more about the other person to be like, this actually something that they want to have happen? Instead of just being like, well, this just happens.

because we're so comfortable with misunderstanding each other, because we're so comfortable sitting in the untruth of it all, and sitting in lies, and sitting in misunderstandings, and sitting in misrepresentations of each other, that we would rather do that than just ask an extra question or ask for extra clarity.

Sage (32:53.59)
And so this shame just took over me. It just consumed me.

Sage (33:06.55)
And if you're still with me in the story and you're thinking through your own, maybe thinking through a moment where you got catapulted back into shame in your body, maybe even after having healed something or maybe even feeling like you had made some progress.

Sage (33:23.81)
Were there still moments after that?

When you said yes with your mouth, but your body whispered no, did you maybe ever perform pleasure or agreement? Not because it felt true, but because you were feeling afraid or that you didn't want to be left out?

Sage (33:45.878)
Or maybe you started to begin to learn that disappearing, shrinking, silencing, softening, all of that made you more desirable. That if you abandoned yourself, you'd be chosen. And that that would ease that sense of shame a little bit. That that would sue that sense of shame.

Yeah, well that's what I started to do.

I started to spiral, and I mean spiral into a slew of relationships and dating patterns that created so much harm, and I mean so much harm for myself and other people. There's literally a joke in college that my apartment door was a revolving door. Yes, a revolving door because people were just in and out of it constantly.

And I was the one that was like, they don't ever sleep over. There was like this deep, deep commitment to being disembodied and not even letting anyone get close enough to me to help me be more embodied. I was so, I became so committed to abandoning myself that I was like, I can't even risk allowing someone being around me long enough to even try to get me to change.

One of the most awful things that I think I enacted in behaviors around my shame at this time was sleeping with my friends' boyfriends. And I'm going to do a whole podcast episode on this because I do want to talk about this, not just from the standpoint of my experience of it, but just the cultural context of it all, especially being somebody that does relationship anarchy and polyamory because

Sage (35:43.276)
the femme relationship structure around male attention and dating and all of that, like this plays such a role in all of that, but like, let me just be very clear, like I was enacting some super problematic behaviors around sleeping with my friends' boyfriends and crushes of friends and things like that. I was so in my shame and just so wrapped up in my shit that I was...

not able to

see how damaging I was being to the people around me and

really operating from a place of dishonesty and like really running away from the truth.

Sage (36:34.408)
seeking a lot of solace in the attention of someone committed to other people like that feeling of like ooh like they are willing to risk it for me or like risk it all for me like that ooh that need to be chosen and it was so it was such a hard time my shame was just creating so many stories for me about how unsafe my sexuality was how unsafe my body was and

I was engaging in a lot of risky behaviors.

It just, it made it so I spent years performing pleasure, know, faking it a lot and, you know, being in a place of thinking that being chosen meant being safe and not being desirable meant being lovable. But it's like every time I was in these connections, every time I was doing that, I was just like, my gosh, I feel like I'm disappearing a little more every single time. Every single time.

Man, there are so many rock bottom points, I feel like, for me at that time. But that shame felt like it's...

was always going to be there and that it was never going to leave. I was a shell of a person wrapped in pretty packaging. You know, I had somehow convinced myself that it was better to feel nothing than to feel the shame that pleasure brought me. And so it always felt like my pleasure and my safety were at opposing ends of the spectrum and that they could never intertwine and could never be brought back together.

Sage (38:21.59)
And so I spent most of my college years hating myself, hating my body, hating my relationships, feeling out of control, feeling chaotic, feeling like I could never figure anything out.

Sage (38:47.658)
It was a really hard time. Even thinking back on it now, it's hard to believe I was that person. And it's crazy because that version of me still lives inside me. She's still here. She's here with me now. She came online when I started talking about being in college. She is a part of me. And...

that time of sexual shame and repression and aggression and toxicity and really problematic behaviors.

Sage (39:26.11)
It really, it really was reminding me how important it was to come home. That if I stayed there, if I got lost out there, that if I didn't start to try to find a path back home.

that I wouldn't make it out alive.

Sage (39:55.99)
So what moments, know, practices or touches brought me home? You know, what helped me?

Sage (40:05.966)
There was a moment after college where I discovered kink and rope or shibari, Japanese rope bondage.

Sage (40:19.95)
This was the first time again I allowed myself to be curious, to play and to explore. It felt like I had walked into a whole new world. Where things I was afraid to say were just being named so easily and spoken about and engaged. It was the first time I found community. You know, I joined the kink space back when I was... 2013, so I was like...

like 22 maybe, 23. And coming into that space not knowing anything and feeling so curious, I needed guidance. I needed what I needed when I was a teenager, right? Like I just want us to pause and think about that for a second. Like when you're a teenager, when you're coming online to your puberty in your adolescence, when you are actually coming online to your hormones and your emotions and your body, all of that is starting to finally come online together.

you're getting basically no support. There's no support, there's no clarity, there's no real education, there's nobody actually helping you, and you just feel so out of control.

At least that's how was for me, and I think for a lot of people I've talked to.

It kind of felt like that again. Finding the King community kind of felt like, oop, I'm coming into puberty again. Like this idea of like coming into my sexual body again, coming into my sexuality. And you know what? That was the first time I was actually met with being held. It was the first time I was actually met with community. It was the first time I was actually met with love and care and support. There were people in the community who were like, I wanna show you things. I wanna teach you things. I wanna answer your questions.

Sage (42:07.502)
There was guidance, there was structure, there was education, there was relationships. Because here's the thing, we're all talking about, what we're talking about is being in relationship with each other, being in intimate sexual relationship with each other. needing help with that is normal. Needing support around that, normal. Normal's such a, anyways, it doesn't matter.

Sage (42:42.444)
It's just important to remember that.

Sage (42:58.018)
Being held in community when you're having intimate relationships is one of the most profound ways to be seen, heard, and held in your experiences and also receive support to navigating those relationships better. The more information you get from your other relationships helps influence

the relationships that you're having struggled in. And all of this feeds off one another. The more you get educated, the more you get supported by people in your community, the better off you are as a person in that community. And so the fact that we were exploring such deeply intimate, emotional, sexual things together, and also having deep, supported, structured

relationships with each other where we were learning and growing together, meant that created a lot of safety for exploration, for being curious, for trying new things. And the one practice that really brought me home back into my body was rope. It really became a ritual for me. I remember tying myself for the first time and really just attuning into my body and...

holding my body and feeling my body in a way where I knew I could support myself, where I knew I could be supported. And something about that was so healing. It really brought me to a place of consciousness, to a place of embodiment, to really being able to hear myself and feel myself.

I began to really start to explore desires that once felt forbidden, and it was like an unraveling. I met parts of myself that I wanted to hide before. I touched the edges of my shame, and instead of shrinking, I opened. It became about becoming liberated. I began to learn about consent more deeply. I was able to...

Sage (45:16.514)
to process what happened to me in college more fully. I was able to understand consent more fully because I found Kink, because I was able to explore Kink, because Kink helped me see the ways that consent can show up and will show up in your intimate interactions, and it helped me have a more grounding experience of it. My fantasies, my thoughts finally had a safe playground to exist in.

I was able to finally speak about the things that I wanted to explore, that I wanted to play with, that I wanted to do. And I was allowed to do that in a way that was safe and grounded.

Sage (45:59.566)
And I found teaching. Being in kink is what made me realize I wanted to do this work, that my purpose was in this work. It was through navigating kink with people. It was through teaching them about kink. was through teaching them about relationships and polyamory and how to navigate non-monogamy. All of that.

so many years of that and really realizing, wow.

Education is liberation. And I am watching people liberate themselves right in front of my eyes. That there is something so beautiful in that, in being able to witness people.

Sage (47:16.238)
Finding kink is also how I found relationship anarchy. It is how I learned a non-monogamous framework and a more liberated framework for relating and being in relationships. Because here's the thing about sexual liberation, especially as someone who is socialized as a woman. There is a lot

of socialization and cultural rhetoric around your sexuality being controlled, being possessed, being managed. And for me, the idea of being free is about the fact that I am not owned, that I am not possessed, that I am not something to be had, that I might be the object of someone's desire, but I am not an object. And...

When I say that being sexually liberated saved my life, I mean it saved me.

from the life of being owned and being possessed and being someone that wasn't myself, someone that wasn't me, someone that wasn't living in my truth. And it is through knowing my body, being embodied, having a clear idea of how I want to relate to others and be in relationships.

All of that is liberating me and saving me from a life that doesn't give me what I want.

Sage (49:05.292)
and keeps me closed and keeps me caged and keeps me hidden.

Sage (49:13.656)
when we allow ourselves.

to be liberated when we prioritize our sexual liberation, when we care enough to be in our liberation around this, we become better lovers, we become better partners, we model freedom, and we challenge the idea that our pleasure doesn't matter.

Sage (49:40.994)
And we get to say, yes, we get to prioritize our pleasure and we get to prioritize our freedom.

Sage (49:51.278)
Pleasure as resistance is such a beautiful way.

A finding truth, a finding connection, a finding yourself in the world.

Sage (50:14.966)
And that's what this podcast is, an opportunity to think about truth, truth as a form of liberation, truth as a way to find ourselves in authenticity, in the most free expressions of ourselves.

I'm gonna invite you to stay gentle with your heart as you think about this episode, as you think about the things I asked you, as you think about the things I asked you to explore. To be sweet to yourself as you navigate over the next few days. Thank you for being here, thank you for listening.

I am grateful to get to share this truth with you. I'm grateful to get to share this episode with you. This is Truth Meets Taboo. I'm Sage, and wherever your longing leads you, stay turned on by your truth.