When what is Considered "Edgy" Goes Mainstream how do you find your next edge?
When what is Considered "Edgy" Goes Mainstream how do you find your next edge?
The spiritual sexual trends, waves, and edges and how we fit into them...or don't.
While the current conscious culture trends and edges of expansion tends towards psychedelics, sex magic, play parties, sexual polarity, non-monogamy, trips to the Amazon, and more, I will confess and share with you in this essay… that my current edge is elsewhere and I wanna tell you why.
My edge is not peak experiences at the moment, but gentle stabilizing ones, it is not opening up my relationship, but sexual containment and commitment to one person, it is not becoming more polarized as “feminine” but more heart led…
Does that sound mega boring? To be honest, sometimes I judge it as so! It would be way easier for me to hop back to who I was before when I was into all those “edgy” things, but since that’s not where I am at now, I have to ask…
What is my edge beyond the things I thought to be “edgy?”
One of my many edges used to be the way I shared my sexuality and body publicly, which started when I was nineteen and did my first performance art and then showed my first naked self-portraits at a gallery. Over the years sharing my body and sexuality became less edgy. My current edge doesn’t involve that, or the attention, healing, or validation that came from it. There was a shadow side and a light side to that level of body and sexuality exposure for me, and I wouldn’t trade it! Mine (and our) collective sexual reclaiming and healing is essential to the healing and wellness on this planet, and how we engage with that process individually over times varies.
However, within the conscious spiritual current culture, I personally feel mostly out of sync. I am not feeling like talking about my pussy on IG. I am going to play parties or neo tantra groups or posting about kink. And ya know, it can feel lonely to be off trend. Sometimes you feel at home in a spiritual culture and then you realize it’s just like any other subculture, it has its trends and waves, and sometimes you just don’t fit into them.
I was on a spiritual path, moon lover path, reclaiming-myself-as-witch path, before it was trendy and mainstream-ified. My queerness is not a trendy bicuriosity. I was eating mushrooms when it was taboo and very illegal. I don’t say that to be an assshole, but to share honestly.
There is an excitement to feeling ahead of a curve. (There are many curves). And there is a sadness in feeling: “I don’t ever feel like I belong. I’m doing things at the time they are considered still ‘weird.’” And that is an exaggeration in ways. I've found belonging in many moments on my path…but there are moments when I have to be dead honest with myself: “This is not my current edge or area of pleasure anymore. And damnit now I feel left out!”
For the record, I am happy to see people exploring in all ways on all timelines. One shitty part though is the consumerism and capitalistic madness that also comes when something hits mainstream. But the high side is that more people get to find their truth, heal, and explore new things that once only “weird” people did.
But for now…none of that is my edge anymore, and instead of betraying myself to fit in I am staying with what my true edge is at the moment.
I love a fucking edge. I’ve always had an edge, and I been wondering: “Now that all the things that defined me as edgy have gone mainstream what the hell is my edge?!”
The conclusion I have come too, with the help of Lux Atl in our recent podcast episode, is that the new edge for many of us is not having purple hair, or having a threesome, or taking mushrooms, but the new edge is something more “boring,” quiet, integrated, whole, contained…and…gulp….”normal.” Whether it is around sexuality, mental health, recreation, spirituality…once the edges that defined you become non-edgy, as rebels, misfits, weirdos, and visionaries we gotta keep moving, finding the new edge. And I suppose that is the one I am still exploring and landing within.
In terms of my sexual edge, I’ve changed how I seek attention, love, and energy. I used to post all kinds of pictures of me online where I looked like a sex bomb, and I loved the attention. I was hungry for the attention. (I love bein’ a sex goddess btw. I do!) But underneath that desire for attention, I think I actually wanted love, to be honest. That was at the core of it. I also did wanna be seen in that part of me, which had been so shamed when I was a girl in Georgia, and that felt necessary at the time, and really healing. Now I feel less of that need. I feel less of that craving to be seen, to be experienced in that sexy way. Though I still do feel fucking sexy. And I will have a public sex goddess revival and show pictures of my ass when I am called again, there is no shame there, and no need currently, but when it arises, I will heed the call!
I don’t talk about my sex life or drug life publicly so much anymore. In my 20’s, I worked through my own body shame and did performance art covered in fake blood, posed naked in about ten pages of a Toys in Babeland book, acted as a stripper and a sex worker in a movie and a TV show, and 14 million people saw me dance at a truck stop strip club for my Vice documentary. I worked hard to free myself as best as I could from shame around my sexuality, and I don’t regret it being a public act. That is my path as a creator.
For now, I am practicing the edge of not getting and seeking attention from lots of different people in that kind of way which was my usual. I'm practicing being with one person in a monogamous relationship. I am practicing not having my nervous system jacked up on Instagram dopamine hits and attention from strangers on the internet.
It is a delicious, healing, deep, sacred and true edge.
Some of the healing that has happened for me could only happen within the safety and trust of monogamy and depth and a mutual spiritual life.
Sexuality and spirituality and the expression of both evolve over time. There is no rush, no right time, or wrong one. We just follow our own paths and for those of us that love pushing edges, we don’t stop looking for our next edge. We explore, we stay curious. The misfits and the rebels will leave the party when something becomes too mainstream. Maybe that’s our curse. We are so attached to staying “cool” we miss the party and the fun times everyone is having. Or maybe we are right where we are meant to be, as we leave the room when something goes mainstream, we leave with the others like us. We keep doing our things, regardless of if it’s in style or not. For us it’s not about it being in style. We are the ones who used to sit smoking outside the party. Our too coolness partially a wall barring intimacy, partially a truth, that we are a little ahead of the game. Both can be true. As in my podcast with Lux, we acknowledge it’s a blessing and a curse, one that we may take to the grave.
The good news for you, Dear Reader, is that I have somewhat wise things to share with you, and I am available to you since I’ve walked a few “edges.”
As for me, I am meeting my new edge of commitment, within the context of a deeper trust that I've ever experienced in my whole life; a deep, reliable love with shared spiritual values holding it. I am also facing how confronting it is to be loved, and how confronting it is for someone to see me in my most fucked up, broken, weird, troubled self, and to still love me there. And this has been the sexiest edge that I've ever met, the least normal thing for a gal like me.
Who knows what the future will bring, but I will say…sometimes I miss doing drugs and having sex with strangers and showing my booty on the internet.
TLDR POEM:
What if the new edge is not posturing
What if the new edge is not trying to prove anything
What if the new edge is containing
What if the new edge is compassion
What if the new edge is opening the heart
What if the new edge is living with an open heart
What if the new edge is being a leader of love
What if the new edge is some days seen, some days veiled
What if the new edge is being a millionaire with a micro loan business
What if the new edge is not abandoning any emotion
What if the new edge is not shouting about who you are, but whispering so people have to lean in
What if the new edge is having opinions, but rooting them so deeply in the heart that they feel like love
x Alexandra
The Ecstasy Of Simplicity, photo by Shay Munroe.
You and only you can be you ..... that is your best and most unique edge, and staying with your truth is seriously edgy ..... I wonder are most of those following mainstream following their truth?
I love this. You are such an inspiration and reading about your new edge gives me permission to cultivate those “boring” things more. Not that I need permission of course - but it sure helps knowing that a badass woman like you is not afraid to explore them, too