“I’m a lesbian.” These were the three small words that changed the entire trajectory of my life.
My coming out wasn’t the thing that Lifetime Original Movies are made of. In so many ways, I was lucky in comparison to many of my generation and geographical location.
And it pains me even now to attribute the fact that I didn’t lose love from and didn’t get disowned by my parents to “luck” simply because I know that’s not everyone’s experience.
I grew up in the central valley of California, not far from the town that boasts the most churches per capita in the state. As a Catholic child of Portuguese immigrants, there was still a lot at stake in this three-word confession.
And can you imagine how confusing this might have been for the parents of a child who grew up prancing around in princess dresses all her life? It took me longer than I care to admit that while sexual orientation and gender expression all comprise a person’s identity, they don’t necessarily function as indicators of the other.
Anywho, I’ll spare you the details of my personal downward spiral to an attempt on my own life back in 2007 because it’s not my trauma that makes me who I am; it’s my love.
I will say that as I realized that in saying those three words I also realized I’d never have the external validation that I’d believed to be love ever again. In the crashing down of my previous cisgender heterosexual identity, so did another prominent identity crash down – that of Mallory, the good girl. The version of me who defined her personal worth by the approval of others.
I wish I could say it was smooth sailing from there on out, that the Mallory from 2007, laying on the floor of the psychiatric hospital in a puddle of her own tears vowed never to people please again, and lived happily ever after.
But with the label of lesbian came a whole new set of rules I thought I was meant to follow – namely that my gender expression had to look like Ellen DeGeneres’s. I certainly didn’t want to do that, especially in light of all the hate she got upon her coming out in the 90s. Most importantly, I loved, and still love, to express myself in a way that feels highly feminine to me. I would quite often get people telling me I couldn’t possibly be gay because of how feminine I was and it would really piss me off.
But it turns out they were actually right. In my haste to ascribe a label that would help others make sense of me, I shut myself off from exploring the wholeness of my sexuality.
If a label is helpful for you in understanding me and how I love, I’m going with soulsexual… because who I love has more to do with soul-level connection rather than anything to do with the gender binary (which is why I don’t particularly like pansexual for myself either.) Demisexual is another possible descriptor but to be perfectly honest I’m at the point where I just find labels more limiting than expansive for me. (I want to be clear that I adore words and I think it’s so important to have language reflect who we are. That said, if you find comfort in labels, I celebrate you for knowing that about yourself!)
My journey has been a massive unraveling and one that I’m grateful for. In a way, understanding that I wasn’t heterosexual eventually provided me with so much freedom. Knowing I was queer – that this queerness is a part of me and that not everyone was going to like it – in some respects it made it easier for me to translate that learning to other areas.
And when I could reach that level of love, honor and acceptance of myself, it opened up a whole other world of exploration of who I am as a divine being. It was only within this last year that I added they/them to my pronouns. It’s not that I’m no longer a woman; I’m just not only a woman. As I keep evolving, I don’t know whether he/him pronouns are on the horizon for me but it’s certainly a possibility!
In all of this exploration and discovery, I’ve been trading the three small words of my coming out for an entirely different set of words:
I am love.
Because for me, while I see the value of labels to give us language to communicate who we are, the labels have now served their purpose in my personal landscape.
I’ve never officially detailed this story for the eyes of others before… but here it is now. I feel the tight throat of vulnerability taking over as I type this but I believe everyone’s stories are a pathway to love and understanding. I’ve chosen now to tell my story, in an attempt to forge another pathway in the wake of those who came before me, for more stories to be told.
I hope to one day hear yours.
The reason I chose to become an Erotic Blueprint Coach was because of the revolution I experienced as a result of reclaiming my own pleasure. This was the work that helped me to dismantle my triggers around my sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
That said, I came into Erotic Blueprint work a little bit backwards. It seems to me that most people approach the work wanting to work on their sex lives; after all, that’s what the work is for! Then they start seeing their entire life shift as a result of this work.
In my first time going through the Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough™ Course, I saw the applications to daily life. When I understood my Energetic desire for spaciousness, I completely revamped my life. I decluttered my environment. Prior to understanding how highly Energetic was, I was doing what most people propose for epic time management: color coding a calendar that was booked out to the five-minute increment.
And I was wondering why I was constantly stressed and on the brink of burnout.
So I did something drastic: I deleted everything out of my calendar that wasn’t a client session, meeting, doctor’s appointment, fitness class- anything that required me to be somewhere at a specific time. Voila! Space!
(If that just totally freaked you out, it might soothe you to know that I started using a project manager – listing out my tasks in priority order – to help me stay organized around workflow.)
But understanding the Erotic Blueprints in this way first was what created the safety for me to explore my sexuality fully. I’ve dismantled so much judgment and shame about my sexuality, sexual orientation, and pleasure… and wow what a wild ride this has been!
I hope you’ll consider joining The Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough Course. When you opt in, you also receive premium access to the sex positive community, Erotic Freedom Club, where people just like you are doing this work for themselves.
Plus, we have some pretty epic Pleasure Mastery calls hosted by Certified Erotic Blueprint coaches who are here to support you on your journey!
Still have questions about which of our programs is right for you? Ask our Pleasure Bot here for assistance, or reach out to our customer care team for more personalized service!
The journey is more than worth it.
Mallory Kiersten (she/they) is here to help recovering people-pleasers reclaim their pleasure and be in their fullest expression; she guides her clients into the deepest levels of love and acceptance for themselves so they can create the juiciest, most delicious pleasure-filled lives they could ever have imagined.
Mallory is a self-love and Unstuck Yourself™ coach, an Erotic Blueprint™ coach in training and Accelerated Evolution practitioner in training, certified in the Sacred Money Archetypes® framework and an emotional clearing practitioner of The Spiral modality. In all of her work, she helps to liberate her clients from their limitations so that they can reclaim all parts of themselves- particularly those parts they’ve been ashamed of or have been told are “too much.”
When she’s not coaching, you can find Mallory reading, dancing, watching cartoons, and probably making silly faces at herself in the mirror.
