Every Woman Thinks She's the Only One: Introducing The Five Elements of Sexual Agency. A framework for understanding, not fixing, female sexuality.

Sex is confounding.

It connects us and divides us. It brings us together and tears us apart.

Sex is one of the most universal manifestations of being human, one of the most intrinsic, animalistic parts of who we are. And yet, it remains one of the least understood, least discussed, most stigmatised, and most weaponised domains of our lives.

Industries make billions of dollars every year from sex: porn, erotica, romantasy, dark romance, sex work, pleasure products, cosmetic procedures, medical interventions, dating apps, coaching, matchmaking, courses, and on and on. The receipts alone show us just how much sex, desire, and our need for intimacy drive us.

Yet when I talk to women about sex, it feels as though we’re discussing some classified government technology that only people with top-secret clearance are allowed to access. At the same time, we’re all expected to pretend we’re one of the few people who already has that clearance.

Women are guessing. Wondering whether everyone else understands something they don’t.

Sex is so ubiquitous, yet so profoundly isolating.

Beneath the guessing lies a torrent of questions, thoughts, contradictions, and quiet musings that span the full breadth of womanhood. They are too expansive to be captured in centuries of books, let alone a single essay.

What Women Say When Nobody Else Is Listening

To love someone and not want them to touch you. To crave connection, intimacy, touch, and warmth, yet have absolutely no idea where to begin, even when your partner is sitting six inches away. To carry fantasies so private that you’re not only hiding them from everyone else, you’re hiding them from yourself.

To have faked orgasms for twenty years. How do you bring that up now? To wonder if you’ve ever actually had one. To Google, How do you know if you’ve had an orgasm? To wonder, Was that rush... it? Or is there supposed to be more? Was that pee? Oh my god, was that pee... or ejaculate? Can women ejaculate? What the fuck is a G-spot?

To wonder why your vagina is dry. Why your nipples suddenly feel electric. Why sex hurts. Why the best sex is with the men you can’t fucking stand. Why you stayed with that person long after you knew better.

Why you want him to touch you. Why you want him nowhere near you. Why you wish it were a woman pressed against you instead. Her softness, her breasts, her body like yours, her sense of familiarity and safety, instead of a hard dick that feels foreign and aggressive.

To think, I love you so much, but if you touch me right now, I’ll jump out of my skin and run away from this family for good.

To miss wanting him. To miss wanting anyone.

To wonder whether you even miss sex at all, or whether you simply miss the version of yourself who wanted it. To wonder whether you ever really wanted it or whether you were simply good at performing desire. Performing sexy. Performing slutty. Performing hard to get. Performing demure.

To buy the vibrator and leave it in the drawer. To buy the lingerie, only to feel so exposed and insecure that it never sees even the dimmest mood lighting.

To shave everything. To stop shaving altogether.

To wonder which version of you is the “right” one. To look at your body and wonder whose body this is.

Will he see past my C-section scar? Will he notice my stretch marks? Will he see my belly rolls hanging when I’m on all fours? I hope he doesn’t grab me there. Will he care if I leave the lights on? Will he care if I don’t?

Do vaginas all smell like this? Why do my labia feel like they’re getting longer, rubbing against my jeans? How do I tell him his stubble is chafing my inner thighs when he goes down on me? How do I shut my brain off? Should I eat before our date? I don’t want to feel bloated. But when are we going to have sex? Will I come? How will I relax?

Should I tell him I’m on my period now, or wait until we’re there? Should I tell him I want children and my biological clock is ticking? Would he understand? Do I understand?

Why does my body feel like it belongs to someone else? Why do I feel like someone else?

I wish he’d kiss me longer. I wish he’d stop trying to kiss me. I wish he’d initiate. I wish he’d stop asking. I want him to ravish me. I want him to fold the laundry. I want him to pull my hair so hard it hurts and choke me a little. I don’t want him to think I’m “that kind of woman.” I want to be desired. I don’t want to be objectified, but except sometimes, that’s exactly what I want. I want to feel beautiful. I don’t want to perform beautiful. I want to be wanted. I want to disappear. I want to be fucked by a stranger who’ll leave immediately afterwards. I want to be fucked by my partner, who hasn’t looked at me that way in years. I want to be held. I want to leave.

I’m numb. I’m numb. I’m numb. But I don’t want to be numb.

I don’t want to spend another happy hour making jokes about my husband. I don’t want to join in when everyone laughs about how useless he is. I don’t want to become the woman who rolls her eyes every time he walks into the room. I don’t want to bash men, but I’m so disappointed. I want to feel empowered. I want to want sex, but I just don’t. Or at least I don’t think I do.

I want to discover myself. I spent my youth hoping to be chosen, trying to be everything for everyone else. Somewhere along the way, I lost myself. I don’t actually know me anymore.

I want to know myself. Was that me, or was that performance? Is this me? Who am I now?

Am I normal? What the fuck is normal?

There As No One Way To Be A Sexual Woman.

Too many women believe they’re the only one. They’re convinced everyone else understands something they don’t. That everyone else has figured out desire. That everyone else knows what an orgasm feels like. That everyone else enjoys sex more. That everyone else is more confident. That everyone else is normal.

They are wrong. They are normal.

There is no one way to be a sexual woman. No one way to experience desire, to be in a relationship, to love, or to lust. There is no one right way to inhabit your sexuality.

We’ve never been given a language expansive enough to understand ourselves. Instead, we’ve been handed labels, diagnoses, archetypes, tips, and boxes.

Women deserve better.

That’s what this series is about.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll discuss what I’ve come to call The Five Elements of Sexual Agency: a framework for understanding, not fixing, female sexuality.

It’s not a prescription, hierarchy, or another five-step hack promising better sex.

It’s a tool for understanding. My hope is that it invites curiosity instead of shame, conversation instead of silence, and complexity instead of oversimplification.

I’m inviting us to explore each of these elements together, in all of their messy richness.

The Five Elements

1. Permission

For generations, women were rarely given permission not only to experience desire, but to embrace it as legitimate, valuable, healthy, and worthy of pursuit. Permission asks us to reclaim what has always been ours: the right to desire.

Question: Am I allowed to want?

2. Power

Sexual agency is an expression of personal power. Power means recognising that our sexuality belongs to us, not to our partner, society, religion, or cultural expectations. It is ours to define, communicate, and embody.

Question: Can I choose?

3. Performance

How much of our sexuality is authentically ours, and how much is something we’ve learned to perform? Performance invites us to distinguish between the sexual responses, behaviours, and personas we’ve adopted to meet external expectations and the sexuality that genuinely reflects who we are.

Question: Who am I doing this for?

4. Pleasure

Pleasure is more than orgasm. It is our relationship with our bodies, our capacity to receive, and our ability to experience sexuality as something that nourishes us. Pleasure asks whether we have created the safety, connection, and embodiment needed to fully experience our own desire.

Question: What feels good?

5. Play

Play reconnects us with our innate nature. It is the freedom to explore, experiment, imagine, and express ourselves without fear. Like all mammals, we are wired for play. In sexuality, play creates the safety for curiosity, risk-taking, spontaneity, and joy to flourish.

Question: What becomes possible?

Women deserve a language expansive enough to hold the fullness of who we are. That’s where this series begins. I can’t wait to discover what we’ll find together.