Your Erotic Garden.

I recently had a lovely session clearing out my garden and planting new seeds for this upcoming season. And was reflecting on how cultivating eroticism and pleasure is like cultivating a garden. ⁠Our gardens are our right and our responsibility. Our pleasure, sexuality, eroticism, gender, relationship models, and joy practices are *ours*. ⁠

However.⁠..

As young people, the world around us was tending to our garden as we grew into ourselves. And, they might have planted some things that don't serve us in our gardens. They might have planted in sex negative education. Shaming about bodies, gender, pleasure, and sex. They might have planted the idea that other people have rights to our bodies or sexual energy.⁠ They might have planted that we are not good enough as we are to have the joy, pleasure, and sex that we are deserving of.

In fact, they might still be trying to plant more of these things into our gardens.⁠

Now, as a grown-ass gardener, the joy is in exploring what kind of garden *you* want. Because the stuff that others planted in your garden can be weeded out. You can plant and water new seeds. And you can create vision and intention for the kind of erotic garden that would nourish you.⁠

So! What kind of erotic garden do you want? What plants need to be weeded out? What plants need your protection and care? What could you do to begin cultivating the perfect erotic garden for *you*?

Many thanks to Emily Nagoski for offering this concept of the garden in her book Come As You Are. ⁠