theresa "sexual energy as fuel"

danish wilderness vibes. photo by emily

by emily

“What we haven’t talked about enough tonight, is sex.”

It was 2 in the morning at a beautiful wedding in rural Denmark, and the dance music came to a halt. All the guests went out to the front lawn to see a fire show by the bride’s friend, Theresa Kirby. It was pitch black outside except the torches that lit the big front lawn of the mansion.

Theresa had changed out of her wedding attire and gotten into a black and gold sparkly costume to perform a fire show for the bride and groom. As a symbol of their fire signs (Aries and Leo, what a fiery match!), she had them light the flames, and wished them an amazing sex life. Her performance was beautiful and skillful, including hoola-hooping and fire-throwing. It was really sexy, and it definitely encouraged a certain mood for the rest of the night. Eighty-something people in an old-fashioned mansion with fields and hills for miles-- yeah, it was hot.

The wedding this summer was the first time I met Theresa, although I had been told a lot about her. Our mutual friend Tatiana (the bride) connected us on Facebook a while ago and said that we had to know each other.  Theresa is a sexologist, a hoola-hooper, a body therapist, and just a genuinely really magical person to be around. When we finally met in person, we hugged like we’d known each other for years.

Orgasm&Sexology

A few days later, I met with Theresa for dinner in Copenhagen and we talked mostly about love and sex because...well, obviously.

Having read a statistic about women who can’t orgasm-- and having never had one herself-- somewhere in her early twenties she accepted that that may be her, too. At the end of a relationship, while living in Australia, another woman told her she thought those kind of stats are bullshit.

Theresa set out on a very serious mission to have an orgasm. She knew this had to be achieved alone, first. (As a side note, I’m very excited about my own personal self-love revelations that happened within this conversation-- whoa! Self-love comes in the form of masturbation and I don’t understand how I didn’t see this before.) After a lot of self-love hard work, guess what: she came! She says this was the beginning of a journey that she hasn’t stopped. She wanted to empower other women to get in touch with their own sexuality before trying to achieve orgasms elsewhere.

I didn’t actually know what it meant to be a sexologist. Turns out, when she signed up for the course by a famous Danish sexologist, Joan Ørting, neither did she. She was called to study sexology with this woman because she admired her for her openness and the way she talked about her experience as a woman.

Being a sexologist is basically being a sex therapist, so it takes many forms. Apart from a more theoretical course in university, this kind of education is only available privately, which means you actually have to pay for it. By Canadian standards this isn’t big news, but I mention it because she’s the only Danish person who I know who has paid for their education (I know a lot of Danes!) There’s something about the fact that this doesn’t fall into the realm of state-funded education that bugs me. In some way, it feels like sex isn’t deemed important enough to be discussed and studied. Hmm.

Being a sex therapist certifies Theresa to talk professionally about all matters related to sex, intimacy, the body, and love. She does therapy with women individually, with couples, does workshops with kids (so exciting!) and even Bachelor parties. Yes. Bachelor parties. Truthful lessons about female sexuality at Bachelor parties. And they love it.

I asked Theresa (in person, but again via email) why she does this work. I’m including her entire answer in full form, in a non-stylistic/non-journalistic way, because you need to read the entire thing. No Emily edits. This is why I love her:

“The main reason I do this work, is because I truly believe, that so much of one's sense of self-worth can be found through diving into one’s sexuality. Through speaking openly about and breaking sexual taboos, the world would definitely be a better and more peaceful place. Sooooooo much shame and guilt lies within our sexualities. We spend an awful lot of time thinking about sex, but an awful little time talking about it in a grown-up and serious way. And I think it's so important to start this work with kids and young adults. To talk about the body, how it works, about limits, sexuality, feelings, hormones, about the opposite sex and the different ways in which we think. If we learnt about these things from an early age, hell.. If we learnt about these things now, it would save us a from a lot of pain, suffering, shame, misunderstanding, guilt.. I we actually learnt to communicate about our sexuality in an open way, and if we were taught that exploring our sexuality is a healthy and good thing, compared to a sinful and bad thing, we would be SO much better at loving ourselves. Right? Every journey starts within ourselves and every human being struggles with loving themselves to some degree.. So yes.. My reason for doing this work, is to make people accept and love themselves just a little bit more.”

Sexual Power&Being a Witch

The morning after the wedding, Theresa and I had a conversation about what it means to her to be a witch. The night before we had both had our own (separate) experiences watching an incredibly beautiful wedding guest own her body and her sexuality in full force on the dance floor.

I was in awe at how someone can be that in touch with who they are, and made the decision to get seriously empowered by my sexuality. Theresa was super excited about seeing a woman command power and attention with her sexual energy. She proclaimed to me: that’s being a witch.  Full expression of self is so intertwined with sexuality, I realized. Fuck. I was having revelations on this Denmark trip!

I asked her again via email (these answers cannot be edited) about what it means to her to be a woman and a witch.

“My favourite part about being a woman is my sexuality and the power that lies within it. I almost feel, that because I own my sexuality and am so open with it and use my sexual energy as fuel for many of my ambitions (because sexual energy is life, force, creativity, passion, fire) and because it's helped shape me into the woman I am today with a courageous heart, a strong sense of self-worth and a good ability to self-love, I feel respected by men and women to a degree that almost makes me feel like a witch. To me, being a witch is to rely on and feel comfort in my own power and in the power of the universe. To be able to feel love and life within myself, regardless of not feeling it from others. To be a witch means to look beyond everything our eyes can see, to look and believe in a world higher than ourselves, but to also believe in OURSELVES - that we are love and light and power. And that we are fucking raw beings and an absolute perfection of life. Being a witch to me, is to be in my own power of womanness with all that it brings.”