Very recently I had a dream. I was riding through the city on the back of a deer. She was beautiful and strong with big deep eyes. We traveled along with a dog. We were radiant and untouched, walking through a city of strife. In that dream, I was shown an archetypal portrait of myself as the Roman Goddess Diana or her Greek counterpart Artemis.

Diana is a woman of contradiction. She is at once the hunter who protects animals, the virgin who promotes promiscuity, the man killer who watches over babies and aids in fertility. She was a woman, a tree, a bear and the moon. She is all of us. All women, moving through life assuming different rolls at different times. We are the strong and beautiful, yet, many of us have not laid claim to the power within.

Western culture today doles out standard and norms-neat little boxes that tell us how we are supposed to feel and act sexually.

-We are supposed to be attracted to members of the opposite sex.
-We are supposed to view intercourse as the ultimate sexual act. Everything else is considered "foreplay" which implies it is all a step to something better.
-We are supposed to experience orgasm as the climax of any and every sexual encounter.
-We are supposed to relate sex to love. It is considered odd to love someone with out sleeping with them. Traditionally its been looked down at to have sex when not in love.

Most cultures through the ages have established mythical standards and expectations regarding sexual performance. Performance standards for women have been characterized by screaming, near bionic orgasms in the media and especially pornography. Watch any porn, and the same identityless, large breasted woman will be undulating and screaming at the top of her lungs at the end of any and every sexual encounter. In a society that idealizes and places the orgasm as the standard for sexual success, failing to achieve an orgasm, is perceived as a failure at womanhood itself.