Deborah Lipp

I got a pedicure last night. It was a new salon, because the last time I got a pedicure, the woman was really hurting me, and while I understand that manicurists don’t need much in the way of English skills, “Ow” should be on their vocabulary list. I could not get her to stop hurting me, no matter what I said, and it was an object lesson for me in how I still let myself get abused. People don’t necessarily see that about me, they see someone strong and brash, but I have a hard time stepping forward in a moment like that. My friend said I should have gotten up and left, or, I dunno, pulled my feet away, but there you are.

So anyway, I tried a new place. And the woman gave the most sensual massage. It was mind-blowing. It was very gentle; light touch combined with firm, but not deep, strokes. I tend to prefer a much stronger, deeper massage, something that edges on too much. But this was amazing.

And I was so moved by how erotic the whole thing was. I’m not talking about sensations experienced in any part of my body but my feet and legs, but those feelings were sexy. They were so lovely, so enveloping, that I shuddered more than once. Sexy. And again, at no time did I feel anything in my sexy parts, but at the same time, I felt I could have had an orgasm from those feelings.

We constantly demean our sexuality by thinking it belongs only in the realm of the bedroom. Like, if it’s not naked, or involving specific body parts or specific activities or specific moisture levels, it’s not a sexual thing. But our bodies are inherently and naturally sexual, responsive to sensation, and eager for touch.

In Paganism, we talk about “Sacred Sexuality.” And a lot of time, people assume that means it necessarily involves intercourse. Which, sometimes it does. But if my sexuality is only sacred when I’m doing the deed, well, then I am not sacred, I am merely an object that performs a sexual act for the purpose of sacredness. For my self to be sexually sacred, or sacrally sexual, it has to be my inherent nature and my choice and my expression of my nature and choice. That’s sacred sexuality. If I express myself as sexual and sacred, I can do it in the context of a dance, or of intercourse, or of a leg massage; it doesn’t matter. Because it’s the sexuality that’s sacred, not playing by the rules of society’s definition of sexual.

And by the way? Totally going back to this woman for my next pedicure.