Can isolation teach us to be better lovers?
Updated: May 19, 2020
Sierra: Self-pleasure helps us tap into our deeper selves. It helps us slow down and relax and reach a different state of mind in order to be more creative without having an external stimulant, like a person. You can listen to yourself and learn to give yourself what you need. I don’t think you need a sex-toy to pleasure yourself either.
Nicolle: What changes when a woman develops a relationship with her body?
She’s a fucking goddess!
And what do you feel when you say that word?
It’s like there is energy coiling out of your feet into the earth and there is a glowing ball in your pelvis that moves up into your chest, then you’re floating and there is energy coming out of every tip. You’re a powerful thing. When you’re not in touch with your feminine energy, you feel restricted and you're tensely moving through life. Having a relationship with yourself and that goddess within, that’s a deep source of pleasure. Pleasure is when ease with power. It’s not a forced power. It just...is.
It kills me to think that so many people don’t understand those energies.
When did you begin to understand them?
In a way, sex plays a major role. I never had good sex before I met my ex. But then I started getting interested in sex and went to your erotic writing workshop with The Bad Academy last year. I started using sex to discover my more feminine side. Once I harnessed my power, the energy just started coming. I went to a lap dance class and got some free therapy sessions with Brittany Ann, she’s all about the different energies and it’s been a huge learning experience for me.
Once you have transformative sex and embrace it, you must give off different energy too? Yes! I think my biggest piece of advice is not to think of an end goal when you’re discovering something. It doesn’t need to be about orgasms. So many women think they need to orgasm for masturbation to be good but if you’re fully in pleasure without an end goal, the pleasure never ends. Which is the feminine way, which is again so funny because aren't we in that right now with isolation? We’re in a situation where we don’t know where the end is and we’re learning to find pleasure in the process.
And being able to find pleasure in this is the ultimate feminine energy!
It’s like one long female orgasm! I know it’s being called The Great Pause, but it’s also the great re-calibration or the great rebalancing. My hope for this campaign is that even if women don’t bring themselves to orgasm, now is the time for slowing down and expanding the scope of pleasure. Pleasure is holistic. It’s not about getting to an end goal. How do you think someone can live an orgasmic life?
I do it every day but I don’t know how to put it into words. It’s just an energy. I wake up and it’s like, today is another orgasm!
Last night I sat on the ground with all my candles and had a playdate with myself in front of the mirror. I was bawling my eyes out, but I was so happy. Before I would never do that until this COVID happened.
Today in my session with Brittany, we talked about the past, present and future as layered, rather than linear.
The idea that when you talk to your childhood self, you’re talking to her now?
Ya! I think this could help people live a more orgasmic life because if you’re living like this you’re not worried about what happened in the past. I think part of what stops someone from experiencing bliss is the shame or regret from our pasts.
Healing-self now is also healing your child and future self simultaneously. Your whole life is affected by the way you choose to live daily, which is why being present has literal implications on the entirety of your life.
Exactly. So I think when one learns how to pleasure themselves, sexual or not, when you cultivate that within yourself and you’re not actively seeking that out in someone or something else, you feel whole. I could be in a sewer and I’d be fine because I’ve got myself. That’s a huge one for me.
Sierra Holmes is a brand designer, art director, and illustrator currently working in Vancouver with an affliction for bold popping colour, controversy, and yams. Sierra creates influential and bold brand experiences as well as illustrations. She aspires to create work that invokes joy with her bold and playful style. More often than not her work is inspired by the female body and spirit as well as nature and animals. When she isn't designing or illustrating you can find her djing, praticing yoga, skiing, hiking, adventuring, eating yams, or dancing in the rain. IG: @Sierra_holmes_