Pussy Power (part one)

The music video is out! And it's deeply sexy...

Back in 2022, I spent a lot of time envisioning my dream life in Puerto Rico. I set intentions for how this future me would live, who she’d hang out with, what she’d be doing on the daily. I also listed some big aspirations, like:

I’m going to be a dancer in a music video.

In my ideal vision, it was a Bad Bunny music video (yep, dreaming BIG). I imagined how I’d meet a choreographer, start taking her classes, work my ass off and get recruited from there…

It was pretty unlikely — considering that I Love to dance, but I didn’t intend to drop everything in pursuit of becoming a professional dancer. And still, just two years after I wrote that statement in my journal, I ended up dancing in a music video.

No, it’s not Bad Bunny’s. But tbh? For me in this moment, it’s so much better.  

I got to join 10 badass women embody the powerful messages in artist Alyssa Aparicio’s original song, “I Am Who I Am.”

Life’s not about…
Looking for answers
It’s about…
fanning our fires
Unleashing our true desires

Sure, they’d rather us play small,
But why would we?
When we can have it all

We made the video in culmination of the first Pussy Empowered retreat, led by Alyssa, which I wrote about back in March. (She has another retreat coming up in September!)

Little did I know, the seemingly improbable aspiration of dancing in a music video would lead me to her work. And that delving into Pussy Empowered Dance would crack open an intense desire to express myself authentically and be comfortable being seen in that expression; that it would bring me closer in touch with the powerful erotic energy I had been taught to suppress and misuse.   

I thought this post was going to be simple: me sharing the music video with some context about how it came to be. But since I started writing a couple weeks ago… I haven’t been able to stop. Pages and pages have spread into six docs, touching topics as far-reaching as the first time I talked to my own pussy, the global boob-size dissatisfaction crisis, and the moment I learned Kamala Harris was running for prez.

There’s A Lot here. And the timing feels right to explore it more deeply.

Because we’re living in world where patriarchal capitalism that mostly benefits white, moneyed men is still king.

Where the first woman of color, major-party candidate in history is running against a person who, during his excruciating term, eroded access to birth control, abortion and enforcement of equal pay laws, (among so many destructive actions in his agenda against women and people of color) and who continues to champion and fuel racism and misogyny.

Where less than 30% of members of Congress are women, up from a devastating 17% about a decade ago (and still devastating). As I have to remind myself when I’m tempted to turn away from politics altogether (often): in the fucked up system we’re living in now, these people make decisions that significantly affect our daily lives as well as our rights to our own bodies.

It’s just another reminder that we continue to have to fight to live on our own terms.

But that becomes easier when we’re fully aware of our own capacity, awake to our own power. There are many pathways we can take towards our empowerment, towards a world where we are ever freer to experience joy and pleasure, to have space to rest and create. For now, I’m here to focus on the path of unleashing erotic energy — because it has been so mind-blowingly transformational for me, and because I don’t think we talk about it enough. Intimacy with ourselves, sex and power can be taboo, and yet our connection to them can determine so much about our agency in the world.

I love how Alyssa put it in this recent post:

“… erotic energy is deeply entwined with an overall sense of autonomy and power. Power that goes beyond the patriarchal definition of power over (for more on the different kinds of power listen to my WTF Is Pussy Power Anyway podcast episode). I believe this is why the erotic has been the subject of so much policing. The further estranged from our eroticism we are as individuals, the easier it is to be controlled…

… In a world that has not made it safe for us to thrive in our eroticism, we will have to make and find safe spaces to do so. And it’s worth it. Because the alternative is never exploring, or discovering and that to me, is tragic.”

Thanks to the safe spaces she cultivates, I’ve been getting a taste of this power. And wow.

QUÉ RICO.

So I’m going to spend a few posts sharing this journey with you. How I’ve been moving from performing for others towards play and pleasure for myself; from shame and repression towards expression and expansion; from self-doubt to grounded confidence; from insecurity to rich self-love. How working to cultivate a healthy relationship with my erotic energy has strengthened my capacity to be seen in the world; to speak my truth; to create… to feel generally way more unstoppable.

I’ll start at the beginning(ish), at a local farmers’ market where I met Alyssa buying platanos. When we ran into each other weeks later and miles away, in the midst of a march for solar energy, it didn’t feel like an accident.

As we tried to chat over blaring conch shell horns and chants of “LUMA pa’l carajo!” I learned she was a dancer.

“What type of dance?” I practically yelled.

She smiled and leaned towards my ear, “I call it Pussy Empowered.”

I had this full-body reaction that let me know I was destined to meet this woman.

When I got home, I found her website and discovered Alyssa’s nine elements of Pussy Empowered Dance, including untaming your wild hips; conjuring your intuitive womb; and building an intimate awareness of your physical pussy.

Her podcast episodes, especially Womb Sovereignty, Lineage Healing and Practical Magic; Denying Sex = Denying Life; and Colonization, Catholicism and Autonomy, blew my mind.

Like so many women, I’ve struggled to find a healthy relationship with my sexuality. A collection of shitty experiences with men; abysmal public school sex ed; pervasive religious pressure to be “pure,” plus pressure from the omnipresent male gaze to be sexy-as-fuck has made it feel impossible. For years, I’ve been toggling between repressing my erotic energy with deep shame and using it to get attention/validation.

All Alyssa’s rich material was like the sex ed I never knew I needed. It gave me so much context for exploring my sexuality in an entirely different way, and from aaallll the angles — physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual.

It was like opening a portal; for the first time, I could see a glimmering possibility of a new relationship with my erotic self.

But as I travelled deeper into the portal, feelings of shame and confusion tied to past sexual trauma and repression resurfaced. (I’m learning that often when you set an intention to liberate a part of yourself, what’s standing in the way makes itself Super Known.) Thank goddess Alyssa reached out to let me know she was hosting a dance class on the beach — I was excited to have some in-person, embodied support.

Seated on our towels facing the sparkling blue waters lapping against Punta Borinquen, she guided us in sensual movement, starting with self-massage. We rubbed tension from our foreheads, lovingly squeezed our necks and shoulders, caressed our ribs and stomachs, working our way down.

Thanks for capturing the moment, Alyssa!!

“If you feel comfortable, hold your pussy in your hand,” she said softly.

I tried it out.

“Let her relax into your palm.”

I felt this tension I didn’t realize I carried start to melt…

“Tell her, ‘I gotchu, you got this. We got this.’”

With those simple words, there was a shift; I got a sense of what it feels like to be on the same team with my own body. It was a moment of reconnection that planted a very fertile seed for growing into the juicy, creative power of my erotic energy.

Stay tuned for part two: What the Video Vixens had to teach me*
*actual title TBD