SPECIAL | Sex & Intimacy: A Letter To My Younger Self By Monica Bevacqua

What if you could go back in time and show that past version of yourself the love and empathy you needed during those times when you were discovering sex & intimacy? What if you could give your past self the advice you needed back then? Writing a note to your younger self can be cathartic. Monica Bevacqua accepted our challenge and faced the past head-on with a letter to her younger self.

My dear younger self,

I am writing today to thank you and to tell you that I am proud of you. You worked hard for me to be who I am today. You have been brave, you have worked in difficult conditions and I understand today that this is why you remained hidden for many years. In hindsight, I can say that you used the moments of refuge well to get to know who you are and find the courage to come out and show your renewed splendour.

People told you for a long time that the body that was given to us as a gift, should not be felt. That it was just a machine. They told you to be a good girl. Good girls think about studying, later about working, then getting married, having children and always giving precedence to everyone else.

The body must not be looked at, it must not be touched. The body doesn’t think about pleasure, it doesn’t have to know what pleasure is. What is pleasure? You never heard of it, did you? Definitely not, nobody wanted you to know what it was because many people think it is a bad thing. A sin, something for which you could even end up in hell. Nobody ever explained to you that it is part of life itself, one of the five lines of expression together with affectivity, vitality, transcendence and creativity. It is a form of manifestation of life. But how could you have experienced it? You were too busy being a good girl. And good girls do not do certain things.

Do you remember what you did when you started working in Paris and in the morning, getting ready to go to work, you found your roommate in the living room with the boy of the day (or better of the night) and you had to climb over them to get breakfast?

You weren’t shocked, but worse, you thought you were wrong, ashamed of yourself, to feel “too old-style” because the “modern” world worked like this. And you closed up even more inside yourself…

Actually, no one was wrong in that situation: we were all playing and learning the game of life. There are no fixed rules, everybody can play their favourite way. The only important thing is to understand well what’s your own favourite way because the risk to play unconsciously someone’s else way is very high.

Then one day your body started talking to you louder, I would say it screamed to you. And you started looking at it, feeling it, listening to it … It took some time, but it found its way, its expression, that strength and innate ancestral knowledge found its way.

But with your mind, it has been a longer battle. Your mind told you many hard stories, told you that you were not doing well, that you were not up to par, that you were not enough, that you were strange, that you had not been able to make a family, to find a husband and have children. That you weren’t the good girl you should have been. So why should you have right to feel pleasure?

When you managed to silence her and listen to your inner deep voice, you finally felt how many wonderful and unique things you had done and were doing in your life. Walking less explored paths, but all the same unique ones. You understood you were expressing your uniqueness.

Everything became easier. And also that wonderful body that is transforming and maturing over the years, has found its full expression. And also pleasure. Without needing “the man of the night”, because it is not a matter of numbers.

Thank you.

Monica