Wow, I just watched Eve Ensler’s TED talk on reclaiming your inner girl, and I find myself feeling humbled, enraged, and inspired, all at the same time. I am humbled by the harsh awareness of how privileged I am, that no matter what I have suffered in my life, it is nothing to that of so many girls and women around the world. I am enraged by how much I and others have been focusing on this ridiculous fictional tale of romance and kink, when there are girls and women elsewhere just trying to stay alive, trying to figure out how to educate themselves, running away from home to avoid being mutilated, enduring the harsh, torturous, repeated rapes of men who have been taught how not to feel or to regard females as less-than-human. I am inspired to take this lesson deep into my heart, my cells, my soul, and to put it back out into the world in such a way as to inspire others.

We in the U.S. do not live in the hyper-patriarchal, sexist societies found in some parts of the Arab worlds and across tribal Africa and other places. We have no excuse as to why we’re continuing to cripple our children, both boys and girls, by withholding from them the information they could use, that they NEED, to protect themselves and to own themselves. This 50 Shades movie is an opportunity! An opportunity to have 50 talks about sexual agency, about knowing oneself, about consent, and so many other things. We have a responsibility to our girls and our boys, to teach them how to develop and determine their own value system, how to use critical thinking and practice compassionate judgment regarding what’s good and bad for them.

We need to be teaching our children how to think for themselves, how to become the most empowered, authentic, and sovereign beings they can possibly be, People who are not afraid to speak their truth, to engage in the type of physical pleasure they most desire, to interact and form partnerships with whomever they happen to fall in love. Let’s re-empower our children to feel and to learn the intelligence embedded in their emotions. Let’s quit shaming them for their feelings and for being girls or “like a girl.” Let’s convince them that they have the right to self-determine, to self-identify, and to self-realize. Let’s teach them to love themselves and to pleasure themselves. Let’s convey the message that they are good enough, smart enough, attractive enough, gentle enough, strong enough, tall enough, short enough - that they do enough, they have enough, and that they ARE enough and wonderfully unique and powerful beings deserving of respect, love, and pleasure in the ways that they most desire!

I, for one, am re-committing to this mission. I am going to pull out the sexual education workshops I’d designed for teens many years ago, and I’m going to brush them off, tighten them up, and perhaps I’ll publish them in ebook form. Maybe I’ll start leading workshops again for girls and boys and women and men and all those in between to learn to reclaim their power and agency, not only in their sex lives but in the rest of their lives as well. I will continue writing and promoting my ideals. I will continue reaching out and offering my coaching and counseling and consulting services to help individuals and relationships to heal and move forward. What will you do? How can you take what you’ve learned from 50 Shades and improve the world? Will you stop at writing or reading some stuff on the Internet, or will you get out into the world and do something to change it? Will you start by turning inward and seeing what needs to change within yourself, to re-empower YOUR inner girl, regardless of your gender? Will you reclaim your powerful Self and offer your unique gifts to the world? Will you?