Women of Desire
What does it mean to be a “Woman of Desire?” The label alone provokes such a visceral response that I feel myself blush and look down and away, embarrassed and exposed that such a title would define me. What would someone think if they knew the desires inside, desires to live a life fully alive?
The world doesn’t have a place for this idea of desirous women. In fact, even as I write that last sentence, my word processor tries to correct me to write “desirable woman.” It seems that women aren’t actually desire-able at all for ourselves, but only to be desirable by others as the word implies. Sigh. Culture would rather relegate us to the neat and clean boxes of “career woman” or “stay at home mom” or demand that we “act like a lady” and “know our place.” But inside, if we peel back the labels, shoulds, roles, and responsibilities, there is so much more. So much it seeps through our pores, keeps us awake at night, and leaps into our consciousness despite our best efforts. This desire that cannot be contained beckons us to wholeness and freedom and pushes back against the walls that would close it in. We are women of desire.
For women, it is an uphill battle to become what we were created to be because all our lives we’ve not been allowed to pursue it, but instead we’ve been told to ask for it. To have what we want, we have to ask politely for permission and when that doesn’t work we bow, curtsy, and take our place on the sidelines of existence. But as desire persists, unwilling to be deadened or defied, it has survived in the forms of fight, flight, fawn, and freeze.
Women of desire must learn to feel, think, want, and need and to express these without rescuing others from the tension or feelings of failure (fawn), without demanding with anger, tears, or threats to meet needs “or else” (fight), without minimizing our experience leading to resentment, bitterness, and passive aggression (flee); and without acquiescing to others needs, enduring sex in numbness, pain, and disconnection, only to find romance on a screen rather than reality (freeze).
We must engage and befriend our need to be seen, known, engaged, and pursued unapologetically, as this is our birthright. As we dare to allow desire out of confinement, we assent to the accompanying work of owning and taking responsibility for our needs and wants and (for those in a romantic relationship) of grieving the loss of the fantastical relationship Disney and Hollywood sold us. Instead, we embrace the person and relationship we have with all their complexity and woundedness and engage the processes of healing and growth unto a healthy, whole marriage and autonomous individuality. A woman of desire not only embraces her passions and vitality, but also invites and allows those around her to do so as well.
Woman of desire, you were made to live life fully alive, but you were not meant to do it alone. We want to accompany you as you grieve the wounds that formed you. We want to strengthen you for the journey into ownership and growth. We want to champion you as you encounter, embrace, embody, express and expand all that it means to be fully you. Come and take a seat at our table, as we encounter the divine desire within and between us.
