I Emerge: A Hot Girl

It was a couple years back when the concept of a hot girl summer took us by storm. To me, its origin and objective was clear, but I still let the surface definition keep me uninterested in stating my claim on the festivities. Take a lot of the internet labeling it as “hoe shit” and mix it with my first realizations that I’d been holding onto immense sexual shame, and you better believe, I wasn’t interest in playing. 

In the years that followed, I’d started to uncover a lot. I realized that what I dressed up as “sexual empowerment” for so much of my life, was actually trauma and not coming from true choice. In attempts to take control, as a teenager, I loudly embraced being a “hoe” without the empowerment of actually seeing that as a positive word. So, what manifested in my behavior is the negative thing that I was taught a hoe was, a person with no boundaries. 

Through therapy, self-work, and light shining conversations with my previous partner, I was finding myself doing the real work to shed the beliefs that held me hostage. I needed to heal what sex meant, what pleasure meant, and what it meant to act from a true sense of desire; not obligation. I’d obligated myself to sex before, and now I’m unlearning that. I’m listening to and letting my body guide me. I’m voicing my needs and being intentional about my pleasure. This! This is real hot girl shit. 

On an episode of Away With Words The Podcast a couple of weeks ago, I defined my idea of being a hot girl as someone who chooses. Whether what you do is perceived as hoe shit or prude shit, you’re a hot girl if those actions stem from you and only you. Your wants, your needs, being fulfilled on your terms. 

So, after shedding beliefs that don’t serve me, I re-emerge a true hot girl. Please note that, while for me, in the beginning, this shedding and unlearning had a lot to do with sex and healing sexual trauma, the hot girl shit is universal. It’s not just sex. It’s a holistic mindset about living every inch of my life on purpose. A mindset that will continue to evolve and serve me well past the summer. 

I’m wishing real hot girl shit for us all. Cheers.