Coming out with any aspect of our identities, at any age, can be a challenge; I'm no different. I'm 30 years old and have kept 3 big portions of myself a secret from my family and most co-workers for the past 8 years: my bisexuality, my non-monogamous/ polysexual relationships, and my involvement in the BDSM & Kink community.
To protect myself and my living, I've often lied, denied, and obscured the truth about my very active sex life, my explorations, and my discoveries. I've hidden all the things that make me who I am and who I want to be, particularly from my family. It's been exhausting, shameful, embarrassing and a constant source of discomfort. There've been so many moments when I could have opened up and been honest about everything; one in particular stands out as "the opportune moment." Fear stopped me at every turn, until recently.
Within the past couple weeks, I've started the process of forcing my parents to start seeing me as a sexually aware and awakened being by discussing the sexual aspects of this career choice. As a Sex & Relationship Coach, I won't just be working with relationships; I'll be working with sexualities, desires, and helping people obtain pleasure through their sex life. I felt they needed to know that, especially given that I strongly identify with some minority and "deviant" communities.
I made the very bold choice to begin sharing DURING dinner, AT the kitchen table, WHILE we were eating a very wholesome meal of pork chops, roasted potatoes, and green beans in their very cute log cabin home. For about 20 minutes, I rambled and blurted excitedly about a good portion of what I had learned: the 4 Hottest Sexual Movies Themes, Core Desires, the pleasurable areas of sexual organs and anatomy, and the 4 different ways women can orgasm. You can imagine how talking about my most recent experiences in class went over, but to paint a picture.... My prim and proper mom turned extremely red and buried her face in her hands; she kept repeating that "she couldn't believe this was the Sunday dinner table conversation" and "if anyone asks about how your classes are going I'm just going to tell them 'good.' She was probably seconds away from plugging her ears and loudly singing "La La La La La; I can't hear you." And my very conservative, close minded dad was dead silent as he continued eating his dinner. Awkward (and hilarious) doesn't begin to describe it. Beyond the awkwardness and discomfort, I think it went fairly well and feel a lot of joy and pride in having begun to share about this part of my life with them.
This past weekend, I decided to show them this website. Having learned to use a bit of caution and tact, I chose to wait until after dinner, skip over the sections that talk about how I identify, and provide content warnings for the spicy sections, rather than just bombard them with a lot of new and scary information. Again, they were overwhelmed and didn't understand some of what was shared: BDSM, kink, non-monogamy. Overall, sharing all the hard work I've put into this for the past 2 months went well, and they were impressed. The positive affirmations and praise made me happy and glad that I shared another sliver of my interests with them.
Hopefully, more exposure and conversations around these sensitive topics will lead to more understanding and insights for the two of them, which will allow me to continue opening up. With time, patience, and continued education, I'd like to be my full authentic self and talk about everything with them, including my kinky sex life and multiple relationships.
Feel free to share your own experiences down below!
Lots of love,
~Lauren