Let me talk first about joy.

At a dear friend’s suggestion, I purchased Betty Dodson’s book: Sex for One. My girlfriend and I have each been reading it, separately, at our own pace. Shyly at first. When the other wasn’t around. Naked under covers, fingertips at the ready in case the text should inspire touch soft, steady, or frenzied. We paged and paged, rolling and laughing and looking for hand mirrors so as to examine our sweet cunts more closely as Betty extolled the virtues of physical sensual self-love. We searched for the magic, for the explosion, for the epiphany, for the orgasm imbedded somewhere in the text, the one which would accelerate all of our contracting and release it in a flash of light, like a star going nova. No nova appeared as such in the constellation of words, but laughter and steady hip opening and a brand new interest in electrical machinery (vibrators) and curiosity and my clit on the tip of my tongue all the time and suddenly I find myself downloading porn and reading stories, the door to my bedroom closed, the bottle of Probe open within reach.

At some point, the solitary searching merged as for the first time, my girlfriend and I began to touch ourselves in each other’s presence. Shyly at first, afraid of rejection or over-exposure. Increasingly bolder. My girlfriend fell in love with her cunt. In almost thirty-three years, she had never taken a good look at it. She walks around now, a woman with a cunt! Sensual, magnificent. I adore the burgeoning self-love in her. For her birthday yesterday, I bought her a vibrator. A big, electric one. I had never actually used a vibrator on myself before. I went into Good Vibrations, in search of the perfect vibrator for my sweet love, testing them all out on my hands, my arms, my face, my cunt buzzing in anticipation. The gift was for my girlfriend, but I know how she loves to share!

I used a vibrator for the first time yesterday. I cannot describe the wonder on my face. The ecstasy in my body. I had no idea it would be so extraordinary. I think I have always kept certain things at a distance. I never owned a vibrator, only relatively recently purchased my first dildo (and that, oddly enough, not really for personal use—it’s a long story)—I still don’t have a harness. I did fashion my own dildo once, though. I used a glass bottle of water, dark blue, which was wide and round at the bottom and which narrowed to a thin stem with a regular sized bottle cap at the top. I took paper towel, twisted it, and wrapped it thick and soft around the long thin stem of the bottle until it was about as thick as a cock would be. I covered the paper towel with packing tape, so that it would be more durable and then every time I used it, I put a condom on it. I held it by the big blue ball. It was still full of water. I never feared it would break. I just held onto it with one hand, Herotica open in the other, and I dreamed that sex with men would someday be as good as my blue water bottle was.

I was also quite efficient with my fingers and a little free sample tube of Astroglide. (And erotica. The erotica was a must.) So, I just never bothered to buy a dildo. I didn’t need one.

I was leery of electrical devices near my cunt. That’s for sure. I didn’t trust them. I also feared addiction. What if I did like it and then I couldn’t enjoy myself sexually in any other way? Hadn’t I heard rumors about that?

Oh! Oh! Oh! I didn’t know what I was missing! I want to sing about it, shout about it, call up everyone I know and tell them that they must go out and get themselves one of these kind little machines and work themselves into a frenzy. I very well may be addicted, but I don’t think it will in any way harm or hinder my sex drive.

What happened? I realize that I’m getting excited, that I’m leaving out the details. It was my partner’s birthday. We were in the loft talking about Betty Dodson’s book or about vibrators. Perhaps my girlfriend was recounting her recent first vibrator experience. Perhaps I told her that I’d never used one. Perhaps she suggested that I try it. And then the massager was in my hand. A long white wand with a round head. I was wearing thick jeans. I turned the vibrator on and set it against the denim crotch of my jeans. My whole pelvis began to hum. My eyes widened. My mouth was open in smile and astonishment. Everything I experienced could be read clearly in the shifting expressions on my face. It was so good. My body began to liquefy. My partner watched my eyes roll up and back into my head. She grinned at me and touched my skin as I tried different angles, different speed settings. I was fully present. I had aroused myself from a state of numbness to a state of humming thrummingness. I used no fantasies whatsoever. I was fully engaged in my body’s sensory joy. I exclaimed over and over. Things like, “oh my god” and “oh my god” and “I had no idea” and “wow” and “wheee!” The delight on my partner’s face sparkled and shone. Like her face was the supernova I was looking for in the book all along. Like my body was itself an exploding star astonished by its own power to contract and expand. Oh, I reveled in the grand delicious wholly unexpected sensation of it. I came huge and magnificent. I was flying. I was dancing. I was somersaulting through space. I had taken myself there. I could do it again.

I lay there, after, fully transformed. I was a different kind of creature. My body had reorganized itself. I was traveling through space cunt first. My body never stopped buzzing. I didn’t come and then collapse. My body was invigorated. I felt prepared. For sexual encounters. For further escapades with lust and passion. For sex with others as well as sex with myself. My partner the whole time exuding such extraordinary, extreme awe, it was as if she was watching me give birth.

Perhaps I shall become vibrator-addicted to some degree. I smile as I write that. I think perhaps I already am. I think perhaps it is one of the best things that could happen to my sex life. I desire stimulation almost all of the time. I think about sex and about touching myself. I revel in hidden moments in which I can be erotic and delight in my very own skin. I smile to myself. I smile with my partner. I watched her come last night, also, her skin abuzz in the afterglow of hum and thrum, my full hand emerged tight as a heart inside her. We are loving all of this pulse and drive.

There is a warm gentle man I shared delicious regenerative sweet loving sex with recently (as I came out of my self-imposed sexual hibernation). I might never be able to do so again, though I believe he and I both would like to (very much) and though my partner is tremendously supportive. I want to touch myself and think of him, but I don’t quite dare. I am not accustomed to fantasizing about people I actually know. I believe that that, like everything else in this (self-)sexual-revolution will rapidly change.

For now, I will touch myself and revel in my body. For now, I will touch myself as meditation. For now, I will touch myself so as to become a vessel for love and for passion, for joy and for peace. For now, I will touch myself as comfort. For now, I will touch myself for power. The power to fully inhabit my body. The power to speak. To speak openly about things my tongue fears to touch. The power to defy. This war. This war which tonight I have no words for. Just my body become a well of rage and grief.

For now, I will touch myself.

I will exult. I will laugh, contract, expand. I will release my anger at this toxic horror of murder and war-making in body-quaking waves of joy. My fury will strengthen me.

To Rise. To Resist. To Defy. To Love. To Grow. To Expand.

To Write about what frightens and enrages me.

To Write about this unholy unnecessary insanity of war.

Today.