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Danielle Kingstrom

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Stripping Down: Why Sexual Deconstruction/Reconstruction Matters

Stripping Down: Why Sexual Deconstruction/Reconstruction Matters

Last updated on: November 6, 2020 at 10:45 am by Danielle Kingstrom

Stripping Down: Why Sexual Deconstruction/Reconstruction Matters 2020-11-06T10:45:06-06:00 Danielle Kingstrom

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If the idea of having sex stresses you out, upsets you, makes you feel self-conscious or insecure, or makes you feel anxious, panicked, or filled with worry; isn’t it time that you explored why?

When I first started embarking on my fervent rejection of organized religion, I struggled immensely with how I saw myself as a sexual being. Mainly because I came to realize that I was one! I went too long in my life failing to acknowledge that my purpose in life was attached to my sexuality. I know initially, that sounds vapid and purely physical, but trust me, the nature of God is sexual, why wouldn’t ours also be? When we are starting to really embody who we are in the Universe and in relation to God, accepting sexual nature is kind of important. Otherwise, we are leaving a big part of who we are out of the full dimension of potential self-actualization.

The thing is our religious beliefs have a lot of influence over our sexual identity. We may even believe that we have “deconstructed” and therefore, because we reject the attitudes of sexuality that the Church upholds, somehow that means that our own beliefs are changed. It’s one thing to break free from a homophobic organization and affirm for the sake of affirming, that you don’t have a problem with two men getting married. It’s quite another to pause and ask yourself “Do I even know for sure if I am sexually attracted to women, or do I also like men?”

That may seem like a question most of you don’t need to ask yourself, but for many others, we’ve never been given the opportunity to ask it, for fear that we would be shamed or scolded for daring to ask. More than that, we don’t ask bigger questions about what we desire, what turns us on, and why we prefer the positions that we do. Seriously! We just go through the motions in sexual practices without giving it much thought.

You may reject the idea that sex is only for procreation. You may reject the idea that a woman is to submit to her husband sexually. You can say that you have changed your mind about sexuality now that you are comfortably deconstructing/reconstructing, but have your sexual practices changed as well?

Deconstructing eroticism is much more difficult than saying goodbye to a church and deciding not to read the bible anymore. You don’t embody your erotic self just because you now proudly wear a tee-shirt that says, “God Loves Gays” or “Jesus is Queer.”

I know it seems as if I am picking on the Queer community a bit here, but I assure you, I am picking on the post-Evangelical deconstructionists more. I see it day after day, I am greeted with it by clients weekly. People pat themselves on the back because now that they affirm same-sex marriages, that must make them sexually woke or fully transformed. That is not the case. It’s one thing to say, “My choir director is gay, and that’s great, because God loves all people, no matter their orientation.” But what would you do if your spouse told you he was bisexual? What if your spouse told you he cheated on you with a man because you denied him sex for 8 years? What if your wife wanted to include another woman or man in the bedroom? What if your husband wanted to tie you up and be more aggressive? What if your partner wanted to start streaming sex videos for OnlyFans to make additional money for the family? What do you do if your partner discovers that she is asexual?

We really don’t consider all the dimensions that deconstruction can disrupt. When we are really at the root of it all, once we expose all the bare bones and scarred flesh, in our nakedness we realize that there is so much about our own mind, body, and spirit that we still must discover. And we do that by integrating our most primal urges with our most conscious understanding of connection, communion, and love. A religious deconstruction begins this stripping down, but until we move beyond the spirit until we rejoin flesh with spirit, we haven’t really prepared ourselves for any sort of reconstruction. The foundation hasn’t been exposed, yet.

All the questions one begins to ask when seeking the truth about God resemble the questions one begins to ask when seeking out our sexual story. Our nature is very good. Our nature is very sexual. Our nature is love. How do we integrate this into our being?

Let’s go back to those questions I posed earlier.
Does the thought of sex stress you out?
Does it upset you? Anger you?
Does sex make you feel self-conscious or insecure?
Does a proposition for sex make you feel anxious, panicked, or filled with worry?

If you have answered “yes” to any of these questions, it’s time to put our erotic thinking caps on and journey back in time. Hold that “yes” in your mind while you trace back to the first time you were exposed to sex. What happened at that moment? What do you remember feeling? What did you see? Was anyone else there? Was anything said?

Be aware of the feelings that begin to surface when you reflect on this moment in time. What does it feel like to watch over this memory? Do you feel stress or anxious? Do you feel shame?

Now go back to the first time you remember your religion being used to dissuade you from interest or curiosity in sex. Does anything resonate with your first memory of sex? Is anything vastly different?

Ask yourself if any of the feelings that you conjured from your memories feel like the emotions that surge when your partner either asks or rejects your request, for sex.

Sometimes, the feelings that surge when we think about sex in the present moment come to the surface from the past. These sticky emotions get trapped in the body. Even the increase in heart rate is imprinted, formed, and recalled each time something triggers that memory or that feeling. And when we refuse to pay attention to it and trace the memory and feelings back, we just repeat the same pattern of self-soothing to get over it. And that self-soothing can look a lot like an aversion to sex.

It’s simple to affirm that you reject puritanical views of sex. The complexity of deconstructing beliefs always seems to be watered down. Sexuality isn’t simple. And if I am being honest, repenting of religious ideas is more or less acceptable in the daylight. We don’t like to bring sex out to the light and expose it. We prefer to keep that in the dark. But if we want to be honest with ourselves, if we really want to fully transition away from boxed-in ideas and conformist ideals, then stripping down to and fully exposing the inner erotic self is a necessary phase of reconstruction.

I have been observing my deconstructing friends closely for the past few years. When it comes to eroticism—when it comes to sexual transformation, we are a lacking bunch. And I get it! It’s a tough topic to tip-toe into. I say, don’t tip-toe, stomp into it. Let others see you. Deconstruction is about stripping away, isn’t it? Aren’t we all trying to strip away all that hides the real us from us? How then, can we find any justification to ignore the sexual dimension of our lives in this process? How can we not see that everything in our productive, related, familial, social life is connected to our sexual life?

Danielle is the host of the Recorded Conversations podcast. A podcast dedicated to compassionately considering all perspectives while engaging in authentic, connected dialogue. She is also an erotic embodiment advisor with Naked Tree Advising. As an advisor, Danielle assists others in discovering their erotic self and helps answer questions about struggles with sexuality.

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deconstructing the erotic

sexual deconstruction

sexual identity

stripping away

About Danielle Kingstrom

Danielle is the host of the Recorded Conversations podcast. A podcast dedicated to compassionately considering all perspectives while engaging in authentic, connected dialogue. She is also an erotic embodiment advisor with Naked Tree Advising. As an advisor, Danielle assists others in discovering their erotic self and helps answer questions about struggles with sexuality. You can read more about the author here.

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