SPECIAL | Sex & Intimacy: A Letter To My Younger Self By Adriana Potts

What do you wish you would’ve known as a girl about sex and intimacy? A chance to reflect on the ways we have grown may come from writing a letter to our younger self. Writing a note to that girl you used to be, helps channel a sense of tender self-love. CrunchyTales has invited ladies from the community to express themselves and put on paper their thoughts; a mindfulness practice to help cultivate a better body positivity, too. 

Dear Adri,

Oh how much I love you and wish I was able to tell you these things then…
You felt invincible and immortal in all your splendid youth…yet you were so vulnerable.

You did things because they were supposed to be the ‘right’ thing to do or you didn’t want to upset someone. I know how guilty you felt whenever that wave of sexual desire came onto you as a young teenager. And whenever you had the opportunity to quench it, it was in fear that someone might walk in on you…not too difficult in a house where bedrooms had thin curtains instead of doors, where sometimes we had to share that space with other people.

I know how you doubted yourself when even as a single, professional, independent young woman you had sex with different partners. Enjoying the moment but then feeling bad you did so. Questioning yourself and wondering whether your sexual fantasies with other women were ‘normal’. Sex and intimacy can be very complex. But it doesn’t have to. You can desire and love without limits. You can enjoy this desire and intimacy with yourself (oh the joy of knowing what gives you pleasure!) or with someone else, man or woman if that’s what you want. Of course, there’s something special about sharing these moments with someone else. And to be intimate you don’t even have to have sex.

Remember those long conversations you’d have with someone, well into the early hours of the following day? you talked about everything and nothing, deep and shallow, serious and funny, often silly things. But there were never awkward silences because even those were shared. What an amazing connection between two human beings! You can enjoy this intimacy and sex with anyone you want to. I can tell you now: the only person you need to be accountable to, is yourself. The only person whose happiness you’re responsible for is yourself. Live, love and have as many adventures and experiences as you wish. Live them intensely. Life’s too short not to.

I love you forever.

Your Older, loving, Self.

Adri x