the Renegade Goddess

A Goddess From Bottom To Top
The Starting Line

Until two years ago, I always considered myself a normal woman in early middle age – if the living incarnation of Betty Crocker qualifies as normal. What I mean is I was –and still am – married to the only man with whom I’ve ever had full-blown sex. We have two fabulously quirky, smart adolescent sons and a large mixed breed terrior. The four of us plus Fiddo, defy conventional wisdom about personal space, living quite happily within the confines of a nice but teeny two-bedroom apartment in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn. Yes, it’s very up and coming….I have been there forever. I shop, cook, and manage the household while running a helpline for run away kids—headquartered at a splinter of a desk in the corner of the living room. I have become a bit of a famous child’s advocate….Because of my work, I’ve been on Oprah. I’m quoted regularly in the New York Times and the Wall St. Journal. I am respectability embodied. Normal? Hmmmm.

*_My Personal Sexual Revolution_*

There’s nothing that would tip you off my adventures in the just-below-the-surface world of sacred sexuality, erotic massage, and oh yeah, leather chaps and spankings. You’d never guess that the last 24 months my personal sexual revolution, so long overdue, has turned me from tremulous explorer to courageous underground sex goddess. No one
would have guessed it was me honestly blogging my escapades in Tantric workshops in Sedona – where men blew Oms into my naked belly – or unflinchingly describing my first flirtation with wristcuffs and paddles.

My blog was funny, steamy and out there. It was even hard for the sex blog congnoscenti to believe that I was a real person, and not a creature made up to promote some upcoming movie. But it was me, all right. All 5’2”, slightly chubby me struggling to lace myself into a chainlink corset, see-through skirt, patent leather stiletto boots for the BDSM ball while I finished up my phone order with Fresh Direct. God forbid, my family wouldn’t have organic greens and grassfed beef while I was away for the weekend!

_*Oops! The Personal Becomes Political*_

My awakening, chronicled with what I suppose many see as audacious honesty, became something of a cause celebre. I had thousands of people accompanying me my on deliciously wack journey. Everyday, they jacked into my blog, gave me feedback, shared their own secrets. They identified with my discovery of my self and my struggle with self-acceptance. (Did I mention that I’m not exactly Cindy Crawford?) The corps of supporters and fans grew fast and furious.

And then, well, the vanilla army of my “regular” life caught wind of the dark chocolate and red wine guerillas who were becoming so close to me. One of my long-time work associates, convinced himself and a few others in my organization that my extracurricular activities were turning me into a renegade missile primed to blow up myself, my family and jeopardized the very foundation of the organization that is my life and livelihood.

The hammer came down during a meeting that was set up around an important legal issue….I didn’t know that the important legal issue was me. I was sandbagged by this cabal of the “concerned” who gave me a choice: shut down the site or be replaced. Some choice! I shut down the blog.

That put a kink in the process of sharing. But it didn’t slow me down. I took off for San Francisco to lick my wounds and my dom’s boots, and to get a license as a certified sexologist.

How it all turned into this surprises me as much as anyone.

_*Let’s Go Back to the Beginning…

*_A few years back, like so women of a certain age, I was feeling restless, unsettled in my bones. I loved my husband, who by the way has to be voted The Most Understanding Man of The Decade. But when my friends talked about their amorous adventures and their affairs, my blood ran hot and my skin burned. Their lusty tales turned my thighs to molten lava. I wanted some of that! I wanted to feel for myself what it was to cut loose and feel sensual and sexy and stop worrying about the 40 pounds I gained during pregnancy and kept as a fond memento of the experience. NOT!

Without too much conscious thought, the question evolved from would-I-ever to how-could-I-make-this-happen.

Unlike my reckless pals, it never occurred to me to get involved with anyone but my husband. He’s been my one and only, the high school sweetheart I met when I was 17, the one I’ve been faithful to for about a quarter of a century. My cloistered existence provoked exclamations of surprise tinged with pity from my friends. /How long? Absolutely no one?
You’re kidding, right? No? Oh honey…/

Yeah, well, it worked. Kind of. I was in a stable, loving marriage and we were companionable in bed. Companionable? Yes that’s what I said.

I wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize my marital bond. No messy emotional entanglements or complicated “arrangements.” Hell, all I wanted was the erotic charge of another man’s hands on my body before I died. I had love. I needed safe, sexual thrills. I needed an up and up professional to massage me, to transport me to a place of sensual arousal and erotic pleasure. I wanted a guy who knew how to move a woman’s flesh and bring her to ecstasy. Is that so much for one woman to ask?

*_How to Have Extramarital Sex Without Cheating_*

I made an exhaustive study of the services available to women and, you know what?

Let me put it this way, for straight women the landscape is barren. If I was a man, gay or straight, I could have masseurs and masseuses up the yin yang offering neat packages of erotic touch. No affairs. No secret rendezvous. Just a tidy two hours of arousing pleasure. Unless I wanted a woman or a bona fide male prostitute, I was in a world of nada.

Now I was not only frustrated, I was getting pissed. Gender equality, my ass. Then I had my Eureka moment…

I was at my regular masseur – I really do love being touched— and he was practically salivating over the latest erotic massage he’d received. A massage that, mind you, protected his relationship with his long-time gay lover. Ah ha! “A Gay Man!” Maybe I could find a gay practitioner who’d be willing to work on big breasts and full hips and wouldn’t be too scared of the other stuff either.

I finally found a willing practitioner. He hadn’t worked on women but was open to the possibility. I made an appointment.

_*My Date With Destiny, Complete with Hidden Chaperones

*_On the day, I showered, shaved, creamed and activated my safety phone tree. My friends were ever so supportive: “What the hell are you doing? Are YOU CRAZY!!” I believe is how they expressed their considerable concern. Still they rallied around and agreed to meet me at the appointed time at the appointed place. If I didn’t show, 9-1-1 were the only digits they needed to know.

I left early, went to an upscale restaurant in my practitioner’s neighorhood, and knocked back a martini to coax my heart out of my throat. Then I walked into his very respectable apartment building and rang the bell. (Little did I know that the very handsome man who answered the door was having an anxiety fit of his own. But that’s another story…)

_*The Wild Journey Begins*_

It never dawned on me that when I crossed that threshold, my first wonky step would turn into an Odyssey of self-exploration, understanding, healing and acceptance that has blown my mind ever since. The minute I made the decision to go get myself some good hands on my body, my life became a crazy junket into the darkest and lightest parts of my secret heart. It’s a wild journey that’s setting me free to be more loving to myself and others.

Somehow, I’ve touched a core of deep longing in a whole lot of people. I know this because I’ve got a crowd walking with me every step of the way. Every day they read my “diary entries” and dozens of these men and women email me in return. We trade confessions of desire and hold hands through the ether.

They’ve got my back; I’ve got theirs. They worship my sexy, liberated spirit; I worship theirs.

I don’t know quite when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I was reborn.

The woman who used to be Betty Crocker fell away. Rising from her cupcake crumbs and funeral ashes is someone I’m learning to love and adore. Just call me The Renegade Goddess……

(Just don’t tell the neighbors….)