I love sassy, powerful and successful women. Women who embrace their feminine power and never give it up. The reason why they don’t give it up is they’ve seen it both ways. The ways they’ve given it up and how much better it works when you just enjoy that power. We’ve all done it. We’ve done it with men because in the last few decades, that’s what we’ve been taught. Books like “How to Land a Man” and “He’s Just Not that Into You” epitomize this. Just put the books down Bitches! Instead look toward women like the fabulous Sheila Kelley.
Cast in a role that required her to be a stripper, “Dancing at the Blue Iguana,” she researched the role in strip clubs. She discovered how beautiful a woman’s body was. The beauty of the curves, slowly moving to beautiful, sexy music. The power of that movement. How the power disappeared after she took money from a man. She clearly saw the gem lingering in that moment. She also loved how long, lean and fit her body became. So she created a business, S Factor based on her experience. Unlike other pole dancing work outs, this is all about women. Us enjoying our curves, our bodies. How good it feels to move slowly, sensually to gorgeous music. How it transforms. She has taken the negative applied to pole dancing: All for the men and made it all about the woman, her power, her curves and the gracefulness of her body. That rocks!
I’ve been given permission from Sheila to share stories about how she stays grounded in her femininity. How she handles the highs and lows. Enjoying men without giving yourself up. Kicking them in the butt when they need it. Following is something she wrote I just loved:
Here’s the truth of the matter… There ain’t nothing like a huge dose of masculine testosterone-filled, body immersion to make an S woman shine!
Men. In all their glorious colors, shapes and sizes are interesting creatures, they are. I talked about this last year when I was shooting LOST, but damn the boys on the film set in Hawaii were SMOKIN’ HOT! Of course I am referring to shooting Hawaii Five-0 a couple of weeks ago. I guess I am going to have to get a role every other month to get my man power fix. That, or find another man-filled arena to bask in. Come to think of it, golf courses are great, especially if you tag along with a bunch of guys like I do. Hmmmm, now that I’m thinking about it, racetracks, be it car or horse would suffice. There are public basketball courts and softball fields in whatever city you live in that might work out nicely too. Some of them even have built-in benches or bleachers for the feminine viewing public.
Being around all that man power used to make me shrink my feminine power. It used to make me “man up” — toughen myself, or guy myself up — so that I would be seen as worthy of conversation, not just as the object of their visual quest. I used to feel like it was either be the feast for their voracious eyes or be taken seriously. Never did I feel I could be and have both, beauty and brains. Until S came into my life, and I learned to eat, sleep, drink and breathe my Erotic Creature. If I were really being honest with you, and myself for that matter, I’d fess up and say that I used to de-feminize myself because living in my feminine space felt too vulnerable. And I didn’t know how to protect myself in that vulnerability, whether it was on the set of ER, or a movie set, or just hanging with my hub-man’s friends in the softball league in NYC. I wanted to have something in common with the guys, my friends, co-workers. I wanted to be “taken seriously.” I didn’t want to be one of the peripheral Social Network chicks. (You know how in the film The Social Network there’s that scene where there is a busload of girls literally bussed into a fraternity party for merry-making…and nothing more? I didn’t want to be that.)
Through S and living proudly in my Erotic Creature daily, I take great glee in illuminating the differences between women and men, instead of trying to homogenize and be so like them. What I realize is that I didn’t know my feminine or erotic self enough to inhabit her body, mind, heart and soul. Even though men might have seen me as “erotic,” I didn’t feel it and didn’t know that side of myself enough to live powerfully in her.
And now? I know her oh so well. I WANT to be oh so femininely different. I want to teach men the art of the feminine mind. I want to educate them on the eloquence of the femme heart. I want to awe them with the inhabitance of the soulful feminine body. All the while holding court on the state of politics in the world. Ah, yes, I am inspired to be all I can be. (I knew that Army slogan would come in handy some day!)
This week in class, “Be all you can be!” The body, mind, heart and soul of you! Slink your beauty forward into the light of the red, red, glow of your studio, and burn brightly!
So there you go. Go pursue and revel in your gorgeous feminine self. Revel in your “Inner Erotic Creature” as Sheila calls her. You’ll find magic! Love, Goddess
© S Stevens Life Strategies