Having your VISA Declined at the Threshold
When the only accepted currency is romancing the questions we're afraid to ask
My friend Jessiemarie has witnessed something profound from her time in adult retail: how desperately we want to purchase our way past discomfort. Customers would arrive seeking the magic toy, the perfect lubricant, the thing that would “fix” their bodies and restore them to some mythical past when everything worked perfectly.
But between the fluorescent lights and silicone displays, unexpected alchemy would occur. These utilitarian spaces - think IKEA meets Home Depot for pleasure - stripped of sexiness, almost clinical in their presentation, became containers for raw confession. People who couldn’t tell their partners they felt nothing would spill their fears to a stranger holding a clipboard and wearing a name tag.
She witnessed the same pattern repeated across all genders: shame about not performing sex “correctly,” desperate attempts to return to how things “used to be,” the shame of why pleasure had become a stranger; and the belief that the right purchase could bypass the patient work of understanding our evolving desires.
But there’s also profound bravery in walking through those doors, approaching a stranger, and voicing what you’ve kept silent—even from yourself. That first admission of ‘something isn’t working’ takes more courage than any purchase that follows. Throughout it all, she held space for these moments of raw honesty, understanding that her real offering wasn’t products but permission to speak the unspeakable.
In time, Jessiemarie also discovered that her real work wasn’t selling solutions—it was slowing people down. Creating space for curiosity. Because when someone says “I need something to make me feel,” they’re not really asking for a vibrator. They’re standing at a threshold, terrified of what crossing might mean.
This is how all thresholds work. We arrive clutching our metaphorical credit cards, convinced we can transact our way through transformation. But real crossing requires something more vulnerable: the willingness to linger in not-knowing, to let questions ripen before grasping for answers. To admit what we’ve never voiced. To consider that maybe our bodies aren’t malfunctioning—they’re evolving.
Sometimes the most profound threshold guides aren’t wearing robes or carrying talismans. They’re wearing name tags, standing between rows of vibrators, gently suggesting that maybe—just maybe—you were never broken to begin with.
Share this with someone who’s trying to rush their own crossing. Drop a comment about which thresholds you’ve tried to purchase your way through—we’ve all done it. Because the best conversations, like the best transformations, happen when we admit what we thought we could buy but had to earn instead.
Guest Bio:
Jessiemarie Duplessis is a certified relationship facilitator, event coordinator, and self-described "sex witch" who brings profound curiosity and tender irreverence to every threshold she helps people cross. With experience ranging from library sciences to adult retail, she's spent years meeting people in their most vulnerable moments—whether they're seeking the perfect book or the perfect vibrator. Her gift lies in asking the questions that crack people open, gently challenging the stories we tell ourselves about our bodies, desires, and capacity for transformation. Currently, she weaves her various practices into creating containers where humans can explore what they're actually seeking beneath what they think they want. Find her wisdom and offerings at @honey.hued.health on Instagram.
