Wild Girls Dancing
Posted by Nicole on November 14, 2013
Welcome, Dearest Friends, to the next guest post in our Love & Making It series, written by Esther Emery, a woman after God’s own heart. I began stalking (aka following) Esther through twitter long before we became friends through the Story Sessions. She fights lions and tigers and lies for the sake of her family – not just with words but with her bare hands and brave guts. She gives me courage and has helped me find my own voice. The following words are hers; read them and let them read you.
Enjoy the force she harnesses to clear the fog and reclaim her story. You will agree and you will disagree. Pay attention to what and why you feel the way you do. Read yourself as you read her story.
Love and Making It is a series all about sex and sensuality. Join us in finding the way back to confident joy in our bodies and in our bedrooms.
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Wild Girls Dancing by Esther Emery
I wrote a post recently that triggered a pornography firewall. Exciting, don’t you think? It fits with my rebel image. The trouble is, that post wasn’t about sex. At all. It was about my four-year-old.
Girls. Wild. Dancing.
Those three words. That’s all it takes to trigger a firewall.
I tried to think it was funny. I tried to say, “Oh, that’s the way the world goes, isn’t it?” But I couldn’t let it go. It kept reminding me of something.
How old were you, when you learned about the dark power of a woman?
The stain? The sin? The trouble that came in through us like an open gate?
We had a power, they said. To incite. To attract. To distract. Who knew? We were just twirling in our skirts. But we learned that the dirtiness, the exploitation, was ours somehow. It lived in us like some kind of a beast we had to control.
How old were you, when you first heard about the dark power of woman?
Were you just four, like my daughter? Or were you eight, trying on your mother’s high heels and makeup? Was it later, when they told you not to wear that, not to stand like that, sit like that, not to walk alone in the streets at night.
Or was it earlier? Was it when someone did something to you that you knew was wrong and told you that you couldn’t tell?
It was a lie. It died under bright lights. But it thrived in the shadows, underneath the surface. As a collective, especially among Christians, we swallowed it. We tucked it in pockets underneath our breasts, under our thighs, beneath the skin.
It is a lie with teeth.
Pornography is what happens when wild girls dance.
Sin is what happens when wild girls dance.
Satan – the King of Darkness – has a vision for Woman. She is the door into darkness, the foothold of evil in the world, the one that takes the blame, the creature abused, humiliated, silenced.
But God has a vision for woman, too. She is the last-created thing, the pinnacle, the crowning jewel of a masterpiece, the creature who when created makes the mud man burst into the Bible’s first love song.
I have seen Satan’s vision for womankind. I have seen it spread parent to child. I have seen it lifted up by the church. I have seen it laid on women by other women. Mother to daughter. Sister to sister. Friend to friend. This lie.
Sin is what happens when wild girls dance.
But I have seen the opposite as well, and I lift it up. Women reaching out our hands to one another. Voice to voice, stories told in bathroom stalls and over baby bottles. From a whisper to a shout, women sharing freedom instead of shame. Encouragement. Hope for healing. The promise of redemption.
We take back our pride, and our power. We take back the beauty of our sexuality. We take back our sacredness. Our createdness.
Free.
And wild.
And dancing.
We are wild girls dancing.
In the dark, in bedrooms, underneath the covers. In the light, in churches and at microphones, telling our stories. Alone with a mirror.
We are wild girls dancing.
We claim the arched back and the swinging hips – even this, as safe space. Our space, God’s space. This moan, God’s breath.
We are wild girls dancing.
Reclaiming, inch by inch, our own skin. Unbinding our breasts and wiping off the paint. A free woman is not Satan’s woman. A dancing girl is not Satan’s girl.
We are wild girls dancing.
Not white sheets to be stained by whatever a man spills on us, but living, breathing image-bearers. Our God lives here.
We are wild girls, dancing.
Make room for us, men. And other women. It is a slow dance to healing, and we bump into our triggers in the dark. But redemption calls us all to freedom. And we are walking our way.
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Esther Emery
Esther Emery used to direct stage plays in Southern California. But that was a long time ago. Now she is pretty much a runaway, living off grid in a yurt and tending to three acres in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. She writes about faith and rebellion and trying to live a totally free life at www.estheremery.com. Also, connect with her on Twitter @EstherEmery.
AlissaBC said
Ah! So so good. All of it. I need more words like this in my life.
Esther said
Thanks, Alissa!
Tanya Marlow said
Wild girls dancing. Man. Can’t believe that triggered a firewall.
This made me think about when I first ‘learnt it’ – ie that I had some kind of dangerous / sinful power of sexuality. The thing is – I don’t know if I ever did learn that, not for myself. I was the geeky teenager that no one asked to dance. I don’t think I ever saw myself in that light. At university, guys attempted the ‘is that skirt too short’ and I just scoffed and said, “are you trying to tell me you fancy me?” Which shut them up pretty quick. I just didn’t take them seriously. There are a few negative sides to having this self image for so long (and is not entirely how I see myself today), but I also think it saved me from a whole lot of heartache.
Esther said
I could write another post about how women can be treated completely differently from one another related to our tags of perceived desirability and availability. For me it was a good girl vs bad girl kind of choice, and I tried both. But I am recently learning to hear that social systems define girls by all sorts of things (hair color, skin color, etc) and there are disadvantages and advantages for us wherever we land. No wonder we struggle so much to learn to define ourselves by something other than our “tags.”
Victoria said
“We had a power, they said. To incite. To attract. To distract. Who knew? We were just twirling in our skirts. But we learned that the dirtiness, the exploitation, was ours somehow. It lived in us like some kind of a beast we had to control.”
I remember this, when I was growing up. I remember getting the book “the secret keeper” from a my mother who most likely only had good intentions and wanted to shield her daughter from the stares she saw directed my way. But there was more to it than that, and I started to see more clearly how I was dirty, and why I should be ashamed when they looked at me. I also started to see men as predators. I can echo a lot of this post, and am so glad you posted it.
Briana Meade said
I cried through this. Thank you, Thank you. I don’t know what else to say.
grace said
This was beautiful, freeing, and strengthening to read.
Diana Trautwein said
Wow. This brought tears, and they surprised me so! I remember twirling in a sweet skirt, on the edge of the driveway of our little tract home in North Hollywood CA. I did not have a shirt on – it was hot and evening was coming and the cool air felt so good on my skin. I was happy and felt filled with light. I think I was five. And then the front door opened, and my mother (bless her) peered out and panicked. “Get in the house, Diana. Don’t you know you can’t dance with your shirt off?” Say wha? Why the heck not? And it was right about there that I began to be really embarrassed about my body, especially my uncovered body. And that has lasted ever since, though I work on it from time to time. These are good words, Esther. Hard words, even scary words sometimes. But they need to be said. Thank you for risking it.
Cara Strickland said
Oh Esther. This made me cry, really really cry. I have only recently started to see this within myself, and to realize how ugly it made me feel, how I wasn’t ok because of something I had no control over.
Thank you for this. Thank you, thank you. I’m looking forward to reading more.
Chris said
I was a late bloomer, came into my own in my teens, and luckily did not have many who threw restrictions in my face. But I can find the moments you mention peppered here and there in my memories of childhood and childrearing. Thank you for the thought-provoking post.
Diane said
Lovely, lovely, lovely. Thank you for giving a voice to this. There’s so much truth here, it hurts to read it – and yet it heals to read it, too.
Brittany said
I have no idea how I missed this, Esther, but MY GOD. I am in love with it.
sharon baney said
oh esther …I just read this and again you have brought me to tears. I have carried so much shame for so long. I sent you a link to my facebook page yesterday and would really like you to help me with some insight. my name is Sharon miller and I am in charlotte so if you for some reason are having a hard time finding me just look me up that way. Ask me to be a friend and then you can see what I have written. Anyone else that would be interested please send me a private message to let me know why you would like to be my friend. I am literally just starting this process and trying to sift through each broken piece and would love you guys to join me as I process the pain and start this road to healing. I need as many friends as I can get that can help me along this journey.
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[…] Wild Girls Dancing by Esther Emery at 1000 Strands. Not a post goes by that I don’t learn to breathe deeper and see brighter and stand prouder from Esther. This one is no different. There she goes, fighting the ubiquitous lie of women as pornography, declaring a better world for her daughters. “How old were you, when you learned about the dark power of a woman?” […]
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