Let her be naked.

For thousands of years, we’ve been talking about women’s bodies and what we believe they should be doing with them. So here we go again…

Sydney Sweeney.

She appeared nearly naked in an ad surrounded by sports equipment, and the internet did what the internet does. Some female athletes criticized the campaign for sexualizing women in sports. Others defended her right to present herself however she chooses.

And away from all the noise there’s one question on my mind:

Who gets to decide what liberation and empowerment is supposed to look like for each individual woman?

There’s another point I haven’t seen mentioned…

What happens when the woman being sexualized is willingly participating in her own sexualization?

What happens when (gasp!) she likes it?

There’s a big difference between having sexuality imposed on you and choosing to express your sexuality yourself.

Consent changes things. Agency changes things. Having the choice changes things.

I spent years in the spiritual world before entering the adult industry. I taught yoga and eastern philosophy. I wrote books. I traveled the world teaching spirituality, embodiment and the Divine.

And then I made a choice that confused a lot of people.

Suddenly, people who had respected me for years as a spiritual teacher began looking at me differently because I chose to express myself sexually, on my own terms.

As though taking my clothes off had taken my spirituality with them. As though sacredness requires modesty. As though there were an invisible line between the woman worthy of respect and the woman willing to be desired.

I crossed that line openly and willingly. And maybe that’s what made people uncomfortable.

That, and the fact that people seem to have a hard time understanding that what feels empowering for one woman doesn’t need to feel empowering for every other woman. What feels alive and exciting for me doesn’t need to feel alive and exciting for you. It’s strange to expect us all to be carbon copies of one another in this way. And yet we do.

There are archetypes existing underneath these conversations: the good girl vs the bad girl. The sacred woman vs the sexual woman. The woman you respect vs the woman you desire.

I’ve never been interested in choosing between them. I want to be the fullest expression of myself in this existence, and that expression doesn’t fit into a box with one label neatly scribbled over it.

I want to speak about God and sex in the same breath. I want to meditate in the morning and take photographs that make you blush in the afternoon. I want to be intelligent without pretending I don’t enjoy being desired… celebrated… for my holy, sensual feminine expression.

I want ownership of my body to include the right to reveal it, not only the right to cover it.

Bodily autonomy can’t mean, “A woman can do whatever she wants with her body, as long as I approve of what she chooses.”

That isn’t autonomy. It’s just another way of controlling women. And I think that’s where the criticism around Sydney’s ad misses the point.

A woman can understand the gaze and still enjoy it. She can know she’s being desired and desire that experience herself.

She can be sexual and intelligent. Naked and powerful. Soft and ambitious. Sacred and erotic. Wild and holy.

Actual freedom has never been about deciding which kind of woman is most acceptable. It’s about finally letting women decide who they want to be.

And my love, this isn’t only about women.

I wonder how much of you has been edited for an audience you can’t see. How many desires you’ve ignored because somebody taught you they were embarrassing or shameful. How many pieces of yourself you’ve hidden because they didn’t fit inside the person you thought you were supposed to be.

You’re allowed to examine what you want. You’re allowed to question it. You’re allowed to change it.

And when it’s truly yours, you’re allowed to fully CHOOSE it.

I hope you learn to live fully as yourself without apologizing for any of it, and offer others that same freedom to be exactly who they are too.

The world needs a lot more of that.