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Empowerment is a big buzz word right now and it’s one I’ve found myself using it occasionally.  What is empowerment and how can we be sexually empowered? That’s what we are going to talk about today.

According to the Oxford dictionary, empowered means “make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.”  

So what does it mean to be sexually empowered?  According to AhYes.org, sexual empowerment relates to seeing someone as a whole person, with them embracing their sexuality as part of themselves – having ownership of their body and feelings as well as accepting and sharing their sexual desires with themselves and their partner.

Well that sounds familiar.  Embracing yourself, your whole self, including your sexuality is what my Embrace You! Program is all about!  Sexual empowerment.

So the Ah Yes definition hints at two different parts of empowerment, an external piece and an internal piece.  In the traditional sense external empowerment means power over something.  Internal empowerment means the power to do something.  So being empowered means both: a self-knowledge, having self-esteem, self-confidence, and communicating your wants and desires.  

What might this internal and external empowerment look like in a sexual sense?  Internal empowerment might look like knowing myself and my sexuality well.  Knowing what turns me on, knowing how to turn myself on, and how to get in the mood.  External sexual empowerment might look like the ability to talk openly and unapologetically about sexuality, especially with your partner.  And being able to communicate what we want and desire with them.  

Empowerment doesn’t just happen in a vacuum.  It’s a process that happens continually and happens on a continuum.  We hopefully feel more empowered over time, but at the same time, depending on our circumstances can also feel less empowered in certain situations.

I think about when we were born, we had no shame.  No inhibitions.  We felt very empowered in our bodies as we learned about ourselves and discovered different parts of ourselves.  But with conditioning, over time we became more shameful and less empowered when it came to our bodies and our sexuality.  And now we need to reclaim it.

 We can also get into situations where we don’t feel the same level of empowerment that we do in other situations.  I recently returned from Embrace You! Women’s Retreat.  One of my favorite things about the retreat is the boudoir photography sessions.  While these might seem initially for our partners, and of course it’s a nice idea, my intention with the boudoir photography is to empower women to see themselves differently.  And boy did they!  Everyone is always nervous at first but by the end most of the women were willing to share a photo or two with the group for a slideshow and many of those were fully nude!  It was absolutely amazing to see women embrace their bodies and their sexuality so fully in just a few short days!  

So how do we become sexually empowered?  We do this by working on our relationship with ourselves and understanding ourselves better.  How do we do this?  By becoming aware, often through journaling, of our thought processes that make us feel more or less confident and empowered.  Also working on feeling good in our desires.  Self-exploration can be a great way to feel more sexually empowered in our own body.

When we are feeling empowered, we will have more confidence to say yes to what we want and no to what we don’t.  We feel good about who we are.  We can communicate to our partner what feels good and what we want more of or less of.

But sometimes we get it wrong.  Often what looks like sexual empowerment is actually validation seeking behavior.  Many men think and feel like they are sexually empowered but are actually seeking validation through their sexuality. They want to know from someone else instead of knowing for themselves; 

• Do you love me?
• Do you find me attractive?
• Is my sexuality too much for you?

Someone who is empowered doesn’t seek validation from others.  They know it within themselves.

So how do you know if you are empowered or not? By the feeling you have in your body when you do something. Our bodies tell us what feels good and what doesn’t.  

• If you do something to escape a feeling, that is not empowered.  (Anxiety)
• Are you holding tension somewhere when you say or do something?
• If someone asks you to do something and it doesn’t feel right in your body, do you do it anyway or do you listen to your body and follow it?  

Sexual empowerment looks and feels different for everyone, this is something we evaluate for ourselves not determine it for someone else.

So in summary, let’s talk about three qualities that empowered women embody:

1. She knows her worth.  An empowered woman knows who she is, what she wants, and what she deserves.  She knows that she is enough just the way she is.
2. She knows how to communicate effectively.  An empowered woman is capable of stating her wants and desires and sharing them with her partner.  She’s also able to say no to what she doesn’t want.
3. She never stops learning.  An empowered woman understands that learning about herself, others, and learning in general is a lifelong process.  She finds ways to grow and develop herself in all areas of her life.

As I was discussing the Come, Follow Me lesson this past Sunday with my husband, I loved studying and learning about how Christ was truly empowered.  He knew who he was.  He knew what His mission here on earth was.  Satan tried to get him to doubt who He was, just as Satan does to each of us.  As we apply this to us, I think that we often don’t remember who we are. We let others tell us. Can we recognize who we are from God’s perspective instead of our own, others, or the world’s or others perspectives? In remembering who we are, we will more fully be able to embrace everything about us and become truly empowered. Including in our sexuality.