I really feel like I am coming out. But what am I coming out as? If I was to sum it up - I would say that I am coming out as an integrated woman. Once upon a time - I didn't integrate my life. Because women are never actually encouraged to do this. We are expected to be one thing or another. We are either "professionals," "homemakers", "Madonnas or Whores". But I have decided to stand up for having an integrated life. It's not easy and it is already making some people uncomfortable.
I am out there swinging for the woman that wants to have a professional life, and still have a family. And What if being a successful lawyer didn't mean that you could still also be around to cook for your family if that pleased you? What if you could be wearing sexy lacy panties under your business suit - and was meeting your lover for some fabulous sexual adventure after work? I think that if women allowed themselves to truly embrace all that is possible - they would really have so much more!
Isn't this what we have been saying with the introduction of egg freezing? That it is okay to freeze your eggs now - and have your children later while you were figuring the rest of your life out? That you didn't have to choose? That everything could happen in it's own good time and that women could integrate their lives as they saw fit?
Could we actually be mothers, madonnas, workers and sexual beings all at the same time? Perhaps the bigger question is will society know how to wrap their arms around us wants woman truly embrace all of their possibilities.
I am still fascinated with that damn study where scientists hooked up women to machines to look at their sexual response - and their bodies register a response to the visual stimulation but the woman's mind did not. What is going on? How do we help women connect these dots? There is something incredibley broken in that - and I want to help fix it.
I think that we are getting closer to putting the pieces together. But we will never get there if a woman's sexuality is still used to punish her. And even today - it is in so many ways. Well - I am coming out. I know that there will be stones - that my sexuality will make a lot of people uncomfortable - but there is always one penguin that jumps in the water to let the other penguins know that it is safe to swim. Watch me jump! And I hope that I inspire you to take a look at your own life.
Look - times are changing! It is safer than it used to be for women to live fully integrated lives - after all - I could never have found such a prestigious publisher such as Rodale Press to take on my memoir Shameless in another time. A publisher would have been too frightened to break open that particular egg.
But women are still persecuted today for being sexual beings. And when you are a woman about to come out in a big way - it is good to know this. I hope that you will read my memoir Shameless. I hope to make you laugh - inspire you to take a look at your own life - and see that anything is possible for a woman today if she decides to take the time for give it to herself. I am looking forward to talking to you about my story - and hearing yours. On January 18th - the conversation will truly open across this country about women and sexuality. We will be talking about a lot of possibilities that no one really brought to the public stage before in a real way. I am coming out. I am terrified. But I truly believe that we can live in full color and have integrated lives.
Nothing is stopping us but a little bit of fear - and concern about whether or not you will be taken seriously if you dare be all of the parts of you. Dare!
