Shame, Silencing, and Why I’m Still Talking
TikTok video from 2022-05-21
Hey babe. It’s Lisa, the Polly Wife—and today, I’m feeling raw.
This morning hit hard: I found out I’m permanently banned from going live on TikTok. No warning. No “here’s what you did wrong.” Just silence. One second I was connecting with my community in real-time, and the next, the door was slammed shut.
It hit me in a tender place. I’ve worked so hard to create content that’s educational, honest, vulnerable—and joyful. And now, I’m being punished for it. That stung. It still does.
And that sting? That feeling of being rejected for showing up authentically? It brought up a much older, deeper pain. Shame.
I was in college. Young. Curious. Still figuring myself out. I brought whipped cream to a hotel room with my boyfriend—trying to be flirty, playful, sexy. I thought we’d giggle and have fun.
He laughed. But not in a sweet way. He laughed at me.
That moment stayed with me. Not because it was dramatic or cruel, but because of how small it made me feel. Like my desires were silly. Like I had overstepped some invisible line of what was “allowed” in bed. I carried that with me for years—too afraid to ask for what I wanted, too afraid of hearing that laugh again.
It shows up when we’re most vulnerable. When we’re naked—physically, emotionally, or both. And it shuts us down before we even realize what’s happening.
And this week, I felt that all over again. After the TikTok ban, I wanted to hide. I thought, What’s the point? Why keep doing this?
But then I remembered something SPI and I have been planning: a conversation series on shame. And I thought, Of course this is happening now. Of course this feeling is showing up. It’s the exact work I’m meant to do.
Shame thrives in silence. But we can’t heal in silence. We heal when we share. When we shine light on the dark corners and say, “This happened to me too.”
I once had a client tell me the deepest shame he carried was from a moment when his girlfriend said, “For such a big guy, you’ve got an awfully small dick.”
Let that sink in.
That’s a kind of shame that doesn't just sting—it buries itself in your bones. And it’s not rare. I’ve heard so many stories like that. Women shamed for asking for pleasure. Men mocked for being vulnerable. People of every gender shut down for expressing the most human parts of themselves.
And honestly? I’m over it. I’m done being quiet.
I’m going to keep talking—about shame, about sex, about polyamory, about love and power and pleasure and pain. Because when we talk about it, we stop carrying it alone.
Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when the algorithms try to shut me down. Even when I feel the old twinge of shame trying to tell me to shrink.
Because someone out there—maybe you—needs to hear this today:
You are not too much. You are not broken. And you are not alone.
