New Year's Eve is upon us, which means 2018 will be the new 2017 and, for some of us, a night of celebrations to ring it in.
What do you plan to do to celebrate the big night? For some of us, it’ll be a quiet evening of reflection with a few friends or our sweetie.
For others, it might be the night to embrace your inner animal, dress up a little extra, have a few drinks and find someone to take home for the final event of the year.
Hook-up culture has always been quite interesting to me. In some parts of my 20s, that was certainly a part of my lifestyle. As I moved into my 30s, my needs shifted into something a bit more monogamous, so I could start working on my own relationship to secure attachment.
Looking back, I did have a lot of fun. Ultimately, it was an incredibly empowering and healing time of exploration for me. Not to say that going out and finding a casual encounter is the only way to find empowerment and healing, but it is one way for some folks.
Something I noticed was how some people were participating in this culture, but not as many were owning it. It was almost as if it was okay to do it as long as you weren’t really proud of it, talking about it or being honest about it.
The name we have given to the morning journey home, “the walk of shame,” is an excellent example of our society telling us how we should feel about having casual encounters. Goddess forbid that we make an empowered and informed decision about our own body and take control of our pleasure.
If your approach is honest (with yourself and the people you are engaging with), full of informed consent and safe, I don’t see a point in hiding your intent or being ashamed.
It’s like going out for a sandwich and then getting to the sandwich shop and telling everyone there that you hate sandwiches. You probably aren’t going to end up with what you really wanted or someone's going to get hurt.
Having said that, I can understand and have compassion for those of us who are driven to hide by our collective shame. It really is a powerful force.
So this one's for the brave souls who aspire to reach for what they want, are honest about it and may or may not hold some nervousness in the process.
You got this, go have fun!
