All of You

Someone said to me recently: I want all of you.

Not the polished parts. Not the version that's been softened for consumption. Not the careful performance of personhood that stays palatable and safe.

All of me.

I didn't know how much I was holding back until I tried to stop.

It's subtle, the softening. It happens before you even notice. A word chosen for comfort instead of truth. An edge sanded down because it might be too much. A want left unspoken because wanting fully feels dangerous.

We learn this early—especially those of us who weren't supposed to take up space in the first place. Be less. Need less. Ask for less. Make yourself small enough that you don't inconvenience anyone with your existence.

And eventually, the holding back becomes invisible. You don't even know you're doing it. You think the softened version is who you are.

Here's what I've learned from writing about bodies and desire and the sacred mess of wanting:

The explicit is where the truth lives.

Not because sex is the deepest thing. But because it's where we're most likely to perform instead of feel. Most likely to fake it—literally. Most likely to disappear from our own experience because being present is terrifying.

When you write a character learning to stop faking orgasms, you're writing about so much more than orgasms. You're writing about the moment someone decides their own experience matters. That they're allowed to feel what they actually feel. That presence—real, embodied, undeniable presence—is worth more than performance.

Someone told me never to hold back again.

Not in my writing. Not in my wanting. Not anywhere.

And then they showed me what that meant. Not gently. Not gradually. With their hands. With their voice. With the kind of attention that leaves marks—not on skin, but somewhere deeper.

The lesson burned itself into me: Softening is a lie you tell yourself.

When you hold back, you're not protecting anyone. You're just making yourself smaller. Easier to dismiss. Easier to ignore. Easier to forget.

I'm done being easy to forget.

This is me. All of me. The philosopher and the erotic. The tender and the explicit. The one who says NO and the one who says yes, Sir. The mind that thinks about consciousness and the body that learned to feel through wanting.

I'm not going to apologize for any of it.

I'm not going to sand down my edges so you're more comfortable.

I'm not going to pretend I'm less than I am just because what I am is complicated.

If you've been holding back—softening yourself, dimming yourself, performing a version of you that's easier for the world to swallow—

Consider this your permission to stop.

Not because I can give you permission. But because maybe you need to hear it from someone who's learning the same lesson:

You're allowed to be all of you.

Even the parts that are too much.

Especially the parts that are too much.

Arriving,