‘I would like to… make life kinder, freer and more respectful for for the women coming after me’

Lucy-Anne Holmes presents a compelling case for the links between sex and spirituality, says Rebecca Hardy

Lucy-Anne Holmes. | Photo: Courtesy of Lucy-Anne Holmes.

I’m sitting in a cafe in Potters Bar and listening to a Quaker telling me about an orgasm she had that felt like it could create world peace. Yes, really. Being British, I shuffle in my seat awkwardly and take a sip of my tea, only too aware of a man on the next table who keeps glancing at us.

It is hardly surprising. So far my conversation with Quaker actress and writer Lucy-Anne Holmes, the woman who pioneered the No More Page Three campaign in 2012, has included sex festivals, orgies, tantric sex and an all-consuming orgasm that revealed to her the secret of global harmony. All this and it is barely past nine o’clock in the morning. I have only just dropped the kids off at school.

It may sound unorthodox, but this member of Hertford and Hitchin Area Meeting, who writes romantic comedies when she is not challenging the sexual taboos of her day, presents a compelling case for the links between sex and spirituality.

We are here to discuss her new book Don’t Hold My Head Down, a frank and funny book that charts her rise from buttoned-up ex-convent girl to the sexually liberated attender of the aforementioned festivals and parties. It is a racy and yet serious read, squirmingly honest and, at times, hilarious. The tagline is so filthy I have deemed it far too long for my word count, yet it is this very coyness that she is trying to unsettle.

‘The anti-page three campaign I ran in 2012-2015 is really the story of the book,’ the author tells me. ‘I went on a personal journey on why I was disempowerinrg myself.’

Lucy-Anne Holmes started the campaign before she was a Quaker, although she wishes now that she had been one at the time (‘Having the support of the Quaker community would have made it healthier,’ she says, citing ‘helpful’ tools such as Experiment with Light and Meetings for Clearness. ‘I don’t think I would have burnt out.’).

‘I grew up with page three,’ she continues. ‘My brother used to get The Sun for the sport.’ Her moment of realisation came when she bought the paper during the 2012 Olympics and found that, despite the preponderance of female medalists, the ‘largest image of a woman was on page three’. ‘I became freaked out,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wrote a letter to the editor but I knew nothing would happen. Then I started an online petition over Facebook and Twitter.’

The petition went on to attract 215,000 signatures by January 2015, with widespread support from MPs and organisations, and the page was finally stopped. But it wasn’t easy: not only did she burn out, but she met what she calls ‘a lot of resistance’, including death threats. The idea for the campaign came in ‘a very Quakerly way’.

‘I was doing a lot of meditation and in that quiet time, it came to me.’ She was introduced to Friends by her partner, who had grown up within Quakerism. ‘So when I heard how Quakers wait in silence and feel a call which leads to action, I thought: here’s a community that is doing what I’ve been doing, alone.’

The ‘sexual journey’ she describes in her book, which led to the campaign, started from what she calls her ‘epiphany’: when she typed ‘beautiful sex’ into an internet search engine only to find nothing but profanity and charmless porn. There is a moving passage where she thinks of her four ‘amazing’ nieces and feels sad at what they might find online about sex. She wants something more ‘respectful’ and ‘tender’ for them, she says.

‘Wow,’ runs one passage, ‘I thought, if someone had said, “Here you go, human race, here’s this thing, it’s called sex, it’s an amazing, loving union between two people, where you celebrate and pleasure each other, and it ends in waves of bliss. Take it, human race, and, just for a laugh, see just how far you can debase it.” I’m not sure we could have done a better job than we have.’

What follows is an unflinchingly candid look at her sex life – and some of it is eye-wateringly funny. We follow Lucy’s journey as she realises that she has never been fully in control of her sexual experiences.

With a forensic eye at what has – and mostly hasn’t – been working in the bedroom department, she concludes that she has basically been too ‘passive’ and sets about empowering herself. Her wish list includes slower sex, to explore sex with a woman, and have an all-over body orgasm.

There’s a hilarious scene where she asks a male acquaintance if he will try tantric sex with her – as she stands there in her running shoes, floral cagoule and woolly hat – and there are some lovely throwaway lines, such as: ‘Tantric was all about breath, looking in the eyes and touch, so I was on the lookout for someone with hands and eyes, who breathed.’

At times the book reads like a self-help book, but her process of excavation looks at body image, internet porn and feminism. She goes to a sex festival and a sex party; she propositions people and takes part in an orgy; she tries tantric masturbation and BDSM. And yet she regards her search as being perfectly in line with her Quaker values.

‘It fits into my testimonies,’ she says, particularly equality. ‘I would like to do what I can to make life kinder, freer and more respectful for the women coming after me. The journey I have gone on in the book empowered me to speak out. If I had not gone on that journey I wouldn’t have been inspired to make a change [with the campaign]. Ultimately, it is a book about sex, but, for me, it was very much a spiritual journey.’

Part of this journey involved rewriting the messages she was given in her youth. ‘I grew up Catholic, where sex is shameful and the only female role model is the Virgin Mary.’

The conversation around sex was ‘quite confusing’ particularly when it was about something so potentially ‘pleasurable’ but set against the backdrop of ‘page three, genital mutilation and a society that has controlled female sexuality. But what I found again and again was the journey I was on to explore my own pleasure was really cathartic, mystical and spiritual. Many times I was moved and wept and felt a presence far greater than me. Many people think of sex as something base, but, for me, I felt that Spirit or God or Goddess – whatever you choose to call it – was supporting me and welcoming me on.’

Which brings us back to that orgasm: ‘I had an orgasm which felt like it could create world peace,’ she says. ‘It felt like I was discovering something that was my birthright and had been hidden from me, and to do that felt important to bring the world into balance. I do think that empowering women could really create world peace. Although it is unconventional, I do think my journey is rooted in the testimonies – for example, simplicity. I mean, what could be more important and simple than exploring yourself?’

‘What has the response been so far from Quakers?’ I ask. ‘I haven’t stood up and told people what I have done,’ she says, ‘but I went on Women’s Hour and, afterwards, got loads of messages from Quakers. I was a bit worried because of a hangover from my Catholic days. I thought some of the older people might find it challenging, but, overall, the community has been positive and very supportive.’

Should Quakers talk more about sex? Should we try to do more to repair that ancient rift between our spiritual and sexual selves? ‘Quakers are not the most embodied group,’ she says, but she is ‘inspired’ by her faith. She tells me that she is ‘still on a journey of sexuality and spirituality. I did come across a lot of anger in me against patriarchal Christianity. The old testament talks about stoning women and I felt outrage – why are we not outraged by this?’

But the Quaker practice of shared silence is conducive to deepening self-intimacy, she says. ‘I find sitting in a circle, we are able to honour who we are. That’s exactly how people can explore their spirituality and sexuality. Women’s spirituality and sexuality have been controlled for years – Christianity had this male-bearded God and holy men – but now there’s this beautiful reclaiming. Because if we are not free sexually, then we are not free.’

The last chapter ends on a hopeful but sobering note, as she reflects on how lucky she is to have a voice, unlike so many women who have preceded her. ‘Because I am educated and don’t live in a world where I am shamed, and I have a partner who supports me,’ she explains to me today. ‘I felt so lucky for the freedom that has allowed me to write, but I’m aware of the lineage of my grandmothers and ancestors who didn’t have that freedom. The #MeToo movement came out when I was editing the book. It was empowering but also traumatic. I realised that we have had this for hundreds of years. Think of all those women before us, saying “Me Too”.’

Are sexual freedom and world peace interlinked, in some strange nebulous way? She gives the matter some thought and says she will get back to me. But ‘the world is so out of balance,’ she adds.

‘Feminism is so Quakerly. I don’t feel that in an equal society we would have made our military and political systems. They were all created when women had no say. We have to create a system that works for all of us, because it is not good for men either, the culture of toxic masculinity.

‘Boys are growing up without the whole spectrum [of emotions] to express themselves. We are used to telling girls now that you can be anything you want to be, but we need to be saying it to men too – they could be a florist, for example.

‘When I was growing up, the news was all men in suits talking and men with guns fighting, and I thought: where are the women in all this?’

Don’t Hold My Head Down is available now from Unbound.

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