Your Erotic Garden.

I recently had a lovely session clearing out my garden and planting new seeds for this upcoming season. And was reflecting on how cultivating eroticism and pleasure is like cultivating a garden. ⁠Our gardens are our right and our responsibility. Our pleasure, sexuality, eroticism, gender, relationship models, and joy practices are *ours*. ⁠

However.⁠..

As young people, the world around us was tending to our garden as we grew into ourselves. And, they might have planted some things that don't serve us in our gardens. They might have planted in sex negative education. Shaming about bodies, gender, pleasure, and sex. They might have planted the idea that other people have rights to our bodies or sexual energy.⁠ They might have planted that we are not good enough as we are to have the joy, pleasure, and sex that we are deserving of.

In fact, they might still be trying to plant more of these things into our gardens.⁠

Now, as a grown-ass gardener, the joy is in exploring what kind of garden *you* want. Because the stuff that others planted in your garden can be weeded out. You can plant and water new seeds. And you can create vision and intention for the kind of erotic garden that would nourish you.⁠

So! What kind of erotic garden do you want? What plants need to be weeded out? What plants need your protection and care? What could you do to begin cultivating the perfect erotic garden for *you*?

Many thanks to Emily Nagoski for offering this concept of the garden in her book Come As You Are. ⁠

Erotic Ritual.

I’ve facilitated a few transition rituals recently - and am feeling grief about living in a world where ritual has been sanitized and removed from the winding path of our soul’s journey.

Throughout our history we’ve cultivated ritual for many reasons - from connecting with the seasons to communing with our past or future lineages to deepening into the milestones of our journeys and relationships. And, of course, so much more. Perhaps we have used food, sacred objects, rites of challenge, the erotic, or art, dance, storytelling, and creative practices within ritual.

For me, one of the most powerful affirmations and healing ingredients that I experience in ritual process is how the messy, unknowing, emotional, liminal and chaotic is acknowledged and often centred as revered qualities the human experience. What a far cry that is from the sanitized rituals we still observe in secular culture - birthdays, holidays, graduations, etc - these hollow rituals often enforcing the systemic oppressions of capitalism and white supremacy: tendrils of perfectionism, wealth, power, and hyper individualism wrapped around birthday cakes, fancy clothing, and ‘certificates of achievement’.

Within erotic rituals, a very different story is welcome to unfold. Liminal not-knowings. Occupying non-ordinary states of consciousness. Following the winding rivers of pleasure, grief, rage, and eros. Casting a container of time away from time within which unwinding, unlearning, and unbecoming can happen. Being a body that drips, smells, bleeds, moans, wails, and shakes. 

And! Sometimes erotic rituals are pedestrian - which is also it’s own magic! Not everything has to be an extra-ordinary experience. Not everything has to be perfectly on-brand, on-point, blog-able, 14/10-would-do-again.

That said, I feel erotic rituals always touch something real. Pedestrian or ecstatic, connecting with erotic energy is connecting with life force energy, and leaning into the experience of being alive will always give the gift of wisdom.

Trauma Informed Care.

Having been immersed in trauma informed friendships, community, and work for a number of years now, it can sometimes be easy to not notice the gift I've given myself.

In my work I offer education and training about trauma informed, sex positive, LGBT positive care for allied professionals - therapists, pelvic floor specialists, naturopaths, and more. In working with these amazing folks who have such gifts to offer their fields, I often feel that mainstream trainings still have quite a way to go towards offering trauma informed care.

I do not believe that every person needs to be a trauma expert - yet, I do believe that even a basic awareness and wisdom about the impacts of systemic oppressions, historic life experiences, power, and environmental realities on clients’ bodies and nervous systems has the potential to radically shift experiences of care.

After all, often we seek out the professional support of therapists, medical professionals, and other healing professions because of traumatic experiences. When our contractions and challenges are met with regimens that don’t intersectionally understand and account for this, sometimes re-traumatization can occur.

With trauma informed care, a little trauma magic can go a long way to offering a more deeply resourcing healing environment that allows the soul and body to unwind.

To all of the folks who have learnt about trauma informed care - I applaud you! To all the folks contemplating learning about this concept of care, I applaud you! To all the folks who feel resistant or questioning - I also applaud you! Resistance and questioning is just as important an ingredient in the cauldron of this conversation - I’m so here for it all!

The Medicine Of BDSM.

When I started exploring BDSM I was young and delighted by the sexiness, mystery, and badassery of playing with sensation and power. Over the years since those initial dabblings, my relationship with BDSM has occupied many realms. Currently I feel quite discerning and careful about this kind of play for myself. I’ve deepened into a space of more fully feeling how sacred and powerful this kind of erotic journey is. Through BDSM I access a depth of awareness of how I exist in this world.  A deepened ability to feel my skin, my nervous system, my trauma, my biologic, chemical, spiritual, and psychic composition. I  expand capacity to feel and understand power and oppression in somewhat shuddering ways. This makes BDSM a powerful healing tool for myself, and, one to be handled with care. I very much feel that BDSM is a part of my soul’s apothecary, and a key resource in my wisdom journey.

Along my path I have been blessed to have learnt with and from many wise players, educators, artisans, and sex workers. And, I am now delighted to accidentally find myself occupying all of these roles for others. I am teaching a workshop on somatic trauma informed BDSM practices soon - one I’ve developed for the University of Victoria. I’m reflecting with appreciation on the winding path of my journey, and how I will be teaching much different content to the students at this workshop than what I was learning as a university student. Seeing and feeling the cultural advancement of social justice, intersectionality, and trauma informed care is a delight as I build out my offering for this workshop.

I won’t be able to weave all that I want to into this workshop, however, I feel absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to emphasize the importance of following your own body wisdom when exploring BDSM. To tune into the somatic conversation happening within in these potent experiences of power and eros. That there is a reason behind whatever your desires, preferences, and limits are being felt. And those feelings are important and needed parts of your journey with BDSM.

A Story About Yesterday’s Pleasure Practice.

A little story about my pleasure practice yesterday.

I took (most of) the day off, and went out to the coast for a beautiful walk in the afternoon. It was raining, and I forgot my raincoat… again. Hearing the sound of the rain in the woods was such a gift. “Life is much simpler, more richly complex, and a helluva lot bigger than your stories” it pattered soothingly to me, teasing my curls and kissing my shoulders.

I stopped to visit a small waterfall & peed (because, waterfalls) as I listened to the water churn. Absentmindedly gazing at the leaf humus & rich dark soil holding me as as my pelvis dipped to the earth, steam rising from between my boots.

Driving home, I made myself the best meal I’ve gifted myself in some time. A beautiful detoxifying & healing soup of bone broth, cabbage, mushrooms, ginger, turmeric, and garlic. Sulphur magic - offering medicine to my mitochondria and connective tissue. And, a blueberry pumpkin cake. Offering the medicine of memory and cognition, yes, but more importantly, the medicine of savouring the sweetness of life and love and blissful carbohydrates.

And, most importantly, the memories of processing the broth, pumpkin, and blueberries for my freezer. Yes, I come from somewhere. Yes, I am somewhere. Yes, I am going somewhere.

Then… I logged onto Instagram and accidentally fell into a shame hole.

My learnings / rememberings? Watch out for that damn algorithm! It is not benevolent! It does not want me to have an ambiguously deep and connected life. Honour and fortify my sacred time with the agreements, infrastructure, and intentions that protect my needs and goals!

And.

That there’s always another moment available for joy. There is always another moment of choice. There is always another moment to practice protecting internal and external boundaries with clarity and integrity. There is always another moment to sink into who each of us is are beyond social paradigms and cultural shaming, even if just for a few minutes.

Elemental Arcs of Arousal.

I often think about eroticism using the elements - it helps me steer clear of gendered or cultural expectations of how sexuality or eroticism is meant to look, and offers a greater capacity to understand the profundity and power of my experiences beyond modern limiting belief systems. If it’s helpful to hear, I’ve shared a little about how I notice the elements in my arc of arousal - and, I would love to hear how you notice the elements in yours, if you wish to share!

For me, I begin with earth: I connect with this element by honouring my boundaries, needs, and desires - tending the soil before planting begins. I ensure that I can feel myself - the earthy culture of who I am - at the onset of my journey. If I wish to explore the other elements of my arousal, my Virgo self needs to have a relationship with my parasympathetic state: feelings of slowness, rest, and digest interwoven with self intimacy and integrity.

Often next I unwind into air. My Gemini soul feeling gusts of desire, the heady and breathy intoxication of adventure and possibility. I connect with air by circulating my breath and movement, and by honouring the complex dance of my nervous system - the sympathetic arousal of excitement woven in with familiar feelings of fight and flight responses. I find beauty and movement in feeling the ‘both/and’ of my joyful activation.

My experiences of air often combust into feelings of fire. The power & energy of my Leo sun - contracting muscles and the brew of excitement and sympathetic ‘fight’ responses deepening me into an otherworldly land of fire and strength. Growling, mane-shaking, and grappling with myself or others - feeling the primal truth of being an animal, living in a blissful moment of time away from time in the erotic realm.

Sometimes this slow deepening - moving at the speed of trust from earth to air to fire offers the deepest gift of arriving to water. Arriving to an ocean of feeling. Arriving to an endless well of intimacy, love, grief, wisdom, and tears. When I arrive to water, I arrive to a primordial and uterine-like experience of existence. I feel deep truths of me, my wounds, my fundamental worthiness, and that of those I may be in an erotic weave with. 

And, slowly, I surface, and climb back onto land.

Learning how to come into mindful presence with, and build an empowering and value-neutral way to celebrate my arousal has been such a gift within my training as a Somatic Sex Educator that I’m deeply grateful for. And it is such an honour supporting clients in reclaiming and rewriting their own erotic truths in creative defiance of the disempowering sex negative culture we live within.

Recovering From Sexual Trauma.

Most current content about trauma recovery does not include information about recovering from sexual trauma. And, by sexual trauma I mean trauma that has manifested through some form of sexual experience, or trauma that impacts people’s relationships with sexuality or gender.

Which, frankly, is a wide range of experiences that affect many (if not most) folks! Yet, we’re not talking about it! I have a few choice words about how problematic this is, but, I’ll save those for another day… 

In my experience and in my work, the process of trauma recovery is a unique and winding path. That said, I believe recovery work involves five key elements:

1. Establishing Voice & Choice: Recovery work includes identifying our yes’es, no’s and maybe’s. It includes developing embodied wisdom about ‘what would be perfect’, and learning how to listen to and respect our internal voice and preferences.

2. Expanding Embodiment: Recovery work includes connecting more deeply with our bodies and emotions. Practicing embodiment means practicing feeling a wide variety of experiences and emotions and being able to sit with them. This may be done by exploring sex and pleasure, but, it doesn’t have to!

3. Healing Through The Body: Whether practiced solo or with folks that feel safe enough (such as a Somatic Sex Educator!), receiving pleasurable touch and fulfilling desires can be a beautifully healing and sacred experience. As can touch that aims to unwind trauma stored in tissue.

4. Exploring Mutually Respectful Connection: Within recovery work, the process of asking for what we want while celebrating others’ boundaries is deeply supportive in learning to unwind feelings of fear, contraction, and self-silencing.

5. Embodying Wellness and Pleasure: Recovery work is a process meant to open each of us to greater aliveness. Manifesting the practices, pleasures, and people that most deeply support our experiences of aliveness is key to ensuring that we cultivate a joyful life.

Supporting clients as they come home to their bodies and joy is always such an honour. In my practice trauma recovery work is more than learning how to not get triggered as easily - it’s about connecting with your power and passion and individuality!

Where Do I Want To Go?

The modality of Somatic Sex Education is a client directed one. This means that as a Somatic Sex Educator I believe that you are the wisdom holder. You are the one that decides where we need to go.

Embodying a client directed practice has been a deep re-learning for me as someone who has had so many experiences of authorities, professionals and ‘experts’ not listening to me or doing thing that I feel are deeply not okay. As a facilitator, I certainly arrive with tools, education, and professional training for the purposes of ensuring I can be a resourcing and helpful ally in my clients’ journeys - however, it is certainly *not* up to me to be calling the shots on how that journey unfolds!

Moving at the speed of trust, and following the client’s internal compass about what would be best for us to be addressing can be in and of itself a healing and wholing experience, restoring perhaps years of unwanted experiences in relationships, doctors offices, workplaces, and more.

In my practice I always begin my work with a new client by inviting them to explore the questions from earlier in this post: “Where do I wish to go?” “What are my goals?” - from this point we can begin to learn about the map we’re looking at together, and start understanding our path.

And, it’s always a beautiful path!

From The COVID Archives.

When COVID first arrived I was living in Ontario and working as a worker/owner at Come As You Are. One of my roles at the co-op was writing newsletters for our readership. I recently stumbled upon this beautiful pleasure-full pep talk I wrote during those first uncertain weeks of the pandemic. My hope is to offer the same spirit to you, as someone who has made it this far into these unimaginable times - with an eye to pleasure, healing, and joy.

—

As an online business, we’re fortunate enough to have the opportunity to continue to work during this Covid chapter, and while doing our work, we’ve noticed a shift in what you’re investing in. And through this shift, we have a confession: we have never been more in love with each and every one of you and your brilliant journeys than we have been over these last weeks.

This is because we see you investing in your curiosity. The number of times we receive orders for, like, a smorgasbord of lubricant sampler packs is unreal. The number of orders we’re receiving that are folks investing in educational books and DVDs (with maybe a length of rope or g-spot vibrator to supplement the learning) is exciting. The number of orders we’re receiving that include some of our less-mainstream gear - candles, floggers, speculums, e-stim toys, urethral sounds… so invigorating. The number of orders for copies of Pleasure Activism alone - beautiful.

Witnessing so many of you taking this challenging chapter and imagining how you want to harness it is inspiring. Witnessing so many of you making the choice to say ‘yes’ to pleasure is stunning. Witnessing your projects of expansion and healing and reclamation of your bodies breaks our hearts with so much damn love. Witnessing you as a community literally activating your bodies: inviting pleasure as a practice that transforms and transmutes.

This reminds us of the work of Joseph Kramer, Barbara Carrellas and others in the 90’s during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. That in the midst of a deeply dark and painful chapter, these brilliant queer activists turned to pleasure to heal. They turned to pleasure as a harm reductive strategy to minimize the impact of HIV/AIDS (which many of you are doing by opting to explore your own pleasure in your own spaces). And, they turned to pleasure because through pleasure we can come into relationship with our authentic power - that healing ourselves, building up our resiliency, integrity, and capacity through pleasure is powerful, and, well, pleasurable! Which, again, is echoed in what we’re witnessing is unfolding instinctively amongst so many of you.

Further, we’re deeply touched seeing how many of you are choosing to invest in your pleasure by also choosing to invest in DIY anti-capitalist / small-scale businesses. Seeing you spread your pleasure around - cultivating the multiplication and expansion of your pleasure by ensuring the survival and thriving of artists, visionaries, and tradespeople is nothing short of stunning.

As such, let’s team up and set an intention to collectively do what we can to take care of our grassroots infrastructure of makers and sex workers. We would like to donate 10% of the profits from the sale of *any* of our indie made goods to Maggie’s Covid fund - and we’ll match that donation. We will run this promotion until the end of April. This pandemic chapter is so dynamic and complex, it feels important to us to ensure that we can do whatever we can whenever we can to take care of our loves.

And, our loves are you: the folks that keep caring for us by writing us, investing in us, cheerleading us. Our loves are the makers that exist across the globe that labour tirelessly in unapologetic service to grassroots radical pleasure. And our loves are sex workers: folks doing hard and thankless work that have been disproportionately affected by this pandemic - and already disproportionately affected by the brutality of capitalism.

So, in closing, let’s remember that what we pay attention to grows. Wherever you are, whatever is alive and real for you during this unimaginable chapter, remember that your attention, your care - that is your power. May you find moments to pay attention to your self, your pleasure during this chapter where it is all too easy to forget that it is through darkness that we find our light.

The Power Of Joy.

In my own healing journey I have spent years doing important unwinding and repatterining work, making changes in how I eat, sleep, organize my work life, and move my body. I did this based off of books, articles, and the advice of my medical care team. I was often spending my nights reading articles about the harmful effects of this or that, and trying to see how I could adjust my life in response to this information.

When I discovered Somatic Sex Education and started mobilizing the practices that inform the modality, I realized I had stumbled upon a very powerful ingredient that would completely transform how I understand healing, and how I would steward my experience of life.

That is, that instead of always reacting or responding to what I’m afraid of - the health impacts of X or Y, the relational challenges I was facing, the work stress I was experiencing - I could instead choose to choose pleasure and joy. This was a *complete* game changer.

When we mobilize pleasure, we are mobilizing powerful chemicals in our bodies that offer a multitude of healing effects that often outstrip antidepressants and other pharmaceuticals. We are repatterining our neurology as we practice - literally changing the way we think. We are also doing the work of social change - systems are literally woven into each of us as individuals, and we can create systemic change by creating personal change.

And, studies have shown that when we have a guiding star to orient our actions towards, we will feel greater satisfaction, efficiency, and experience more of the change that we desire. When we simply try to just avoid ‘the bad stuff’, we lack clarity, direction, a deeper purpose, and a balm for collapse or despair.

I am excited to be co-facilitating an upcoming somatic workshop on this topic called Weaving Collective Joy, with The Body Erotic. We will be diving into a rich 2.5hr somatic journey with fellow pleasure seekers and curious souls, exploring they joys woven within the body, and within the wider world. I hope you’ll join us! More information coming soon, or DM me for details!

Your Sexual Revolution.

While most of us haven’t been raised in sexually liberated spaces, that does not mean we are not entitled to living our sexual liberation *now*. History has shown that waiting around for someone else to do the work of “overthrowing the regime” means we’re going to be doing a lot of waiting.

There is no time like the present to say ‘fuckit’ and live the lives we dream of. As we do this, the world *will* slowly shape in that direction.

So! What does *your* sexual revolution look like?

Do you have sex with yourself? If so, what would your solo sex practices include? How often would you have solo sex with yourself? For how long? Would there be toys? Outfits? Porn?

Do you have sex partners? If so, who are they? Are they all the same kind of person, or, are they different? What kinds of sex do you have with others? What does ’sex’ mean to you when it involves other people? Do you do things besides have ’sex’ together?

How do you dress your body? Feed your body? Photograph your body? Care for your body?

What values do your friends and community embody? How do they speak about themselves, their lovers, and their desires?

Sustainable change is often found by visioning into deep dreams and fantastical futures, and then reverse engineering those dreams by making small choices in daily life. The thing is that simplistic & instantaneous sex positive utopias are not a reasonable expectation. The world is far too rich and complex for Disney-esque truths to come to pass. 

This is such a gift! It means that there’s enough richness and complexity for all of our personal sexual revolutions to unfold according to our unique needs & desires. We can live our revolutions by identifying and acting in service for what would be ‘perfect’ today.

Neuroplasticity and Sex.

Neuroplastic change is the shifting of patterns that results from changing your inputs. Brains remain ‘plastic’ throughout life - they are always tracking their environments and adapting as changes occur.

Changes can occur through new skills and experiences - our brains receive new information, and they develop new neural connections to respond to that new information.

Change also becomes entrenched when we strengthen those neural connections by repeating and practicing that activity. And, as we *decrease* an activity, neural connections also weaken.

Neuroplastic practices have been shown to help ease or overcome experiences of depression, addiction, OCD, ADHD, and more. We can literally always change our minds! 

A huge part of my work as a Somatic Sex Educator is in supporting clients in developing and strengthening new neural pathways - cultivating neuroplastic change.

This happens by being an ally that can offer touch, conversation, ideas, or education in collaboration with clients’ intentions and goals, and supporting clients as they practice towards pleasure, abundance, joy, and embodiment.

You can always learn new ways of being and responding. That said, the brain is value neutral - it just learns and deepens whatever patterns it is exposed to. This is why being intentional about what you are learning, exposing yourself to, and actively practicing is so important!

What are your deepest goals and intentions regarding intimacy, eroticism and sexuality? Practicing towards these goals *will* bring about neuroplastic change!

Self Soothing and Social Media.

I know I’ve written about social media and mental health before, however it is such a pressing topic on my mind that it’s worth a re-visit! And, frankly, a few more re-visits too.

A huge way that I try to cope with stress is through social media. But, I’m not actually succeeding at self soothing. I’m actually checking out from the present moment, and letting a lot of content from the internet into my psyche that I might not actually be consenting to / that feeds the fire of my stress.

There’s a huge amount of subtext floating around on social media apps - the ‘stories underneath the stories’ - and, when we look at the state of the world, it means that all the fear, uncertainty, anger, and unowned baggage that is a part of current life is seeping into our social media content and into each other’s psychologies.

Further, we disconnect from our bodies and enter into a ‘freeze’ state when on social media - right now I’m writing this while hunched over, not breathing properly, with a clenched butt and frozen eyes. Hmmm. 

Comparison culture, FOMO, bandwagoning, and reactive binary thinking thrives on these apps. Which, at least for me, are antithetical to my life intentions that I spend a heck of a lot of time / money / energy on trying to unwind in my ‘real life’ (because social media is not real life).

Emily Nagoski offers some really great education about stress and suggestions for resolving stress in her book Burnout, including:

• physical activity like running, swimming, dancing (this is the single most efficient solution)

• intentional breathing

• positive social interactions

• laughter

• affection

• a big ol’ cry

• creative expression

… and I’m gonna add solo / partnered sex to this list!

We’re all on social for a reason, and I’m not aiming to dismiss that. Yet, I want to be contributing to a conversation that is questioning and investigating the gifts and costs of social media as we navigate self care and community care during the covid era, and I want to be contributing to a conversation of expanding our choice and awareness regarding self care.

Pandemics: turn on or turn off?

There’s a model of sexuality called the dual control model - in this model the premise is that things that hit our ‘gas’ pedals support us in having sex, or ‘turn us on’. And, things that hit our ‘brake’ pedals tell us that sex is not a very good idea or ‘turn us off’.

Turn offs that hit our brakes might be small things like sheets that don’t feel *quite right* or big things like histories of unresolved trauma, systemic oppressions, nosey neighbours, or challenging responsibilities. And, y’know, multi year global crises with abundant death, unemployment, and injustice. Turn ons that hit our gas pedals can include pleasurable spaces to have s e x in, people or fantasies that we resonate with, feeling seen and cared for, and moments of presence.

However! Sexual energy can be trickster energy, and sometimes the opposite of this is true too! Sometimes bodies feel that spicy times are exactly what is needed during times of destabilizing stress and challenge. And, bodies might not feel too spicy at all in relationships that feel safe, secure, and blissful.

So, if you’re sitting around wondering what in the world to do about your low / high sex drive, creative drive, or feelings of aliveness, know that your body is being a super clever (if obstinate and confounding) ally. It might not always feel this way, but, your body is doing what it thinks is right to do given the context you find yourself in.

If *witness you* would prefer things to be different, there are practices and tools that can be explored. Yet, at the end of the day, the journey might also be to perhaps simply watch your patterns and learn what the organic medicine of your body’s wisdom is.

Fuck Sexual Perfectionism.

I ‘came of age’ into a sexual philosophy where I believed that the only way to ‘do the sex thing’ was to give 150% to be as knowledgable, performative, and spicy as I could. And, you know what was missing from the books & messaging that I received? That sex isn’t a job to do. That practicing feeling my body, communicating my desires/needs/boundaries, and following my pleasure is important. That sex often doesn’t look like a single photo or tip in these books.

Learning techniques to level up sexual skill, aesthetics, and knowledge is great, but, at the end of the day, sexual pleasure is about enjoying what authentically feels good. And, spoiler alert - what feels good is sometimes is not very fancy. In fact, what feels good is gonna sometimes be quirky or weird or goofy. But, fuck it. We’re quirky and weird and goofy animals that do what quirky and weird and goofy animals do.

I feel like I’m in danger of creating an either/or dynamic here. Sexual showmanship is hot! Sex nerdery is a joy and love language! People who express sex with artistry are sexy wizards! A triple recipe of spicy sauce that is the perfect shade of red and photographs beautifully for the internet is a-ok!

I just really hope for a world where regardless of what’s on the menu, we taste the recipe as we go, listen to our taste buds about what the recipe needs, and aim for a finished dish that hits the spot… and without making this a new form of perfectionism!

Intentions, Rainbow Joy & Sex Work.

I’m writing this on a day of rare snowfall - a big Jeep is having some fun and dancing in the snow outside my window, and I’m cozied up in wool and longjohns. I’ve got water boiling for mint tea, winter sky is shining in the window, and I'm feeling feelings of curiosity and excitement about writing you.

This last month has been a whirlwind. I had a client fly in for an intensive, which was a real joy and privilege, and I visited Salt Spring Island. While on the island I grew some juicy blisters from hiking up mountains, cuddled with puppies, slept in a sweet little cabin, and had a great time talking with friends about the erotic (my favourite topic). And, I collaborated with a friend regarding intentions for this next year. Intention setting is not a traditional practice for me, but research (and common sense) has shown again and again that having dreams, goals, and values that we express and organize around is important. When we have a guiding star, it can help us as we navigate the details of daily decision making and conversations with greater clarity and purpose. When we get lost in the woods, taking a breath and looking up at our guiding star to help us find out way can (often!) be more help than getting panicked and running about every which way looking for the 'exit' sign. Unless you've got great luck at panicked-midnight-woods-running, that is!

Intention setting is an important value I bring into my Somatic Sex Education work - regardless of what stories, systemic realities, or histories we've experienced, we always have choices available to us. And, this includes when we're exploring sexuality - whether solo or with partners. Harnessing simple & achievable intentions - whether it's an intention to explore sexual healing, or to try out that new butt plug, or to practice self-kindness, can help remind us of our choices, guide erotic experiences, and be a helpful way to re-write sexual ruts, bring meaning into why or how we're exploring eroticism, or weave new or desired experiences into how the erotic is showing up.

I’ve been in a rainbow-y mood this last while - I pulled out my rainbow tie-dyed one-piece long johns yesterday and my day got so so much more interesting once I put them on! I’ve also been working on sewing a rainbow quilt (with lots of mustard yellow!). A friend who is a gifted quilter asked me about this quilt and what the story was. Initially I felt there was no story - I was making it just because it felt like a good idea. I've been thinking about what the story is (see the above points about intention as a guiding influence!) and realized that this rainbow-y quilt is a 'joy practice' journey for me. My body looooveess it when all the colours are mixed together, and I get playful and smile-y. This quilt feels like it connects me to a younger self, and welcomes that self. And, it tips a goofy-hat to irreverence, silliness, and unbridled me-ness.

In other rainbow-y news I bought a new sex toy from Come As You Are that has been a much needed companion through these short days and dark nights. It’s silicone, made with swirly blues and pinks and glitters, and, like so much of the gear that Come As You Are carries, is made in a fair-wage environment. I’m not on their books (anymore) but I still sure do love their selection. Sex toys and I have an on-again / off-again relationship, and this chapter of on-again has been good for my soul.

I often get the question about what my days look like as a Somatic Sex Educator. Each day can be quite different, but, I’d like to take some time in these newsletters to offer little windows into different avenues of how I work… One avenue in which I work is by offering bodywork via traditional sex work lanes. This is less about offering educational sessions regarding the nervous system, attachment, boundaries & communication, pleasure practices, and the other topics that many Somatic Sex Education clients come see me for, and moreso about weaving this knowledge into full body sensual touch sessions. Sometimes people are arriving with a desire to be held in trauma-informed, non-judgemental, and non-oppressive ways, and sometimes people are arriving looking for a professional to offer hands-on education as they learn new erotic practices. And, sometimes folks are looking for a pleasure cruise!

It’s been joyful connecting with clients about what makes them them - their adventuring, handiwork, values. Or, we might talk about the big soup pot on my stove and basket of onions sitting next to it, and then move into a session of full body erotic touch. Cultivating connections across genders and generations has been a delight, as has been the slow magic of witnessing clients unwind and feel themselves in a cozy and unhurried erotic space that is a time away from time. This work that I do has become a cherished part of how I arrive as an educator and a touch provider. I absolutely adore that I have found ways to weave my values (soup is a value, yes?!) into my erotic work.

In fact, I’ve recently decided to publicly offer erotic massage and trauma informed BDSM on my website. Often erotic massage and BDSM might be part of my work with folks seeking a more educational series of sessions, however, I also want to make sure that it's clear I'm available to folks who are interested in having a pleasure cruise! Offering my Sexologic Bodywork training and supporting folks embracing pleasure and joy is pretty much always how I want to be spending my time!

Closing The Orgasm Gap.

The orgasm gap, or pleasure gap, refers to the disparity in orgasm time and enjoyment between two sexual partners. While this can happen in many different types of sexual dynamics, it is most common in parings between cis men and cis women.

Research shows that in heterosexual pairings less than 30% of women orgasm, whereas 90% or more of men do (this number is similar for men’s same-sex or queer pairings). However, in women’s same-sex or queer pairings, there is a significantly higher orgasm rate (up to 83%). And, there is scant or no research available to date on gender non-conforming and trans erotic dynamics and orgasmic experiences. However, there certainly can be wisdom gleaned when reflecting on what early socialization and cultural messaging we have each received as a sexual human being.

This orgasm gap within heterosexual relationships (the relationships that receive the most study!) has been largely summed up as due to the ignorance of the clitoris and it’s critical role in pleasure, as well as lack of communication about women’s sexual arousal and needs within sexual dynamics, plus the misinformation communicated culturally and through porn about sexual pleasure and enjoyment. Do you want to close or narrow the orgasm gap between you and your lover(s)? Here are a few keys to support you!:

COMMUNICATE!

One dynamic at play is the way in which women have been socialized in the realm of communication and assertiveness - and that this socialization dynamic is to the detriment of women’s sexual satisfaction. Leaning how to sexually communicate needs desires and boundaries, while listen to your partner’s needs is key on the path of closing the orgasm gap. Relationships where both partners have space and a feeling of welcomeness to openly articulate their sexual needs and interests, while having a receptive partner that will do the same are much more likely to report having a satisfying sexual relationship. Further, if one partner experiences challenges orgasming, they may hide this from their partner, and misrepresent their sexual experiences through practices such as faking orgasms. Within heterosexuality, women’s orgasms tend to be culturally understood as more important for their partners’ bolstering (to illustrate their sexual prowess) as opposed to for their own pleasure. This creates a sexual stress, which exasperates sexual challenges.

FOREPLAY!

Another key step on the road to closing the orgasm gap is de-prioritizing penetrative sex, and exploring a greater range of sexual play. To speak broadly from cultural rhetoric regarding cis hetero pairings, women’s pleasure doesn’t operate the same way that men’s does, as a general theme. Men may find themselves genitally focused, whether due to their authentic sexual desires, or due to the cultural conversations that illustrate this is how men ‘should’ behave sexually. Alternatively, many women tend to enjoy a slower ‘waking up’ of the body, starting with sensual touching of areas away from their genitals, and then slowly & non expectationally moving towards genital play. Of course, there are many exceptions to this trend - however, when exploring ways to close the orgasm gap, focusing on erotic, non-expectational, non-genital touch is key.

THE CLIT!

Clitoral sensation and play is critical for clit-owners to be able to access sexual pleasure and orgasm. There is a long history of the clitoris being largely or completely omitted from medical texts and educational information about human sexuality. The focus on the vaginal canal as a primary erogenous zone has resulted in a great deal of misinformation that prioritizes vaginal sex, which is not a reliably orgasmic experience. This is especially true within heterosexual hookup culture, where research has shown that men are not considering their partner’s pleasure within the encounter. Exploring clitoral massage, masturbation, or play using mouths, toys, and other body parts is yet another key to closing the orgasm gap.

And, of course, you’re so welcome to get in touch for a coaching or bodywork session where we can explore these topics of sexual communication, non-expectational erotic touch, and pleasure beyond penetration! Humans have evolved as collaborative and social animals - and these are traits we can expand with practice and guidance!

Unwinding Trauma from the Body.

Living with unresolved traumatic stress in the body may mean that normal everyday experiences like a friendly hug, a vacation, or a doctor’s office appointment feel unsafe and unwanted. Old nervous system responses to past traumatic experiences may be deeply grooved into the body in ways that result in unwanted or unsupportive physiologic reactions to things in the present day. Recognizing these patterns is key to expanding opportunities to live in relationship with what truly matters to us.

While we may want and long for greater aliveness, erotic freedom, and juiciness, or feel we ‘should’ be able to enjoy sex, we may find we’re not able to ‘think’ our way into this desired reality. We may try to override our physiology with conscious decisions to have sex - however, our Old Stuff may show up, and we might find our responses of fighting, flighting, freezing, appeasing, and dissociating arriving during or after the experience. Making a decision to pursue sex that is not interwoven with the body, spirit, and emotion may end up causing a deepening of traumatic pathways, experiences and patterns. 

One of the first steps to include the body during sex is to seek a sense of grounded safety, and to gently unwind these old patterns from our bodies. We need a felt sense of having a supportive environment, resources that serve us, as well as patience and compassion for ourselves. We need greater clarity of our patterns, and tools to help soften, unwind, and re-enliven the body from our Old Stuff that no longer serves.

Often unresolved trauma leaves us feeling off-balance - ungrounded, with frozen or numb or painful body parts, racing hearts, shaking limbs, challenged breath, and more. Gradually building resources and finding physiologic safety and stability in our bodies opens doorways to greater possibility and pleasure. These resources support us in feeling safe enough and brave enough to erotically explore. And, support us when challenges get unmanageable by being places of refuge - either outside of our bodies or within.

Through a blend of approaches, we may find our ways forward towards greater aliveness and resiliency by gently engaging with finding safe places in our bodies, memories, and environments; exploring our choice and voice; evolving loving kindness; connecting with our centre of gravity; identifying our triggers and their symptoms; re-engaging the body through intentional movement and exercise; and practice engaging both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system branches in safe enough ways to feel and notice both the excitement or anxiety of aliveness as well as the bliss or depression of stillness.

As we build up our toolboxes of resources that support us in thawing and feeling ourselves more deeply, the magic is in taking a neuroplastic approach to healing. We know that the brain and body continually evolves in relationship with their environments - it is never too late to make the choice to affect change and make moves towards what is longed for. Finding practices that feel pleasurable and sustainable, while determining what kind of consistency is sustainable is key. Five minutes of daily care is more supportive than 30 minutes once a week, or 3 hours once a month. 

Whether support is desired in grounding and centering yourself, developing self-soothing and self-stimulation resources, or cultivating your compassionate witness, I’d be delighted to offer the tools I’ve learnt to help during moments of anxiety, depression, overwhelm, or traumatic stress, as well as resources to slowly unfold into feelings of pleasure, bliss, and aliveness. 

Here are a few practices that might be fun to explore, if it feels right!

Grounding and centering helps create a feeling that we cannot be knocked off-balance by emotions, sensations, or thoughts. Perhaps explore standing your ground. Feel your feet on the ground, almost like suction cups. Notice the springiness or stiffness of your legs. With feet firmly planted like a well-rooted tree, sway slowly from the ankles - from side to side, from front to back. Keep your balance as you sway, feeling into the limits of possibility. How far from your personal centre can you safely sway, in this particular stance, at this particular moment? Feel the pull in you to keep coming back to center. 

When our systems get activated into hyperarousal or hypoarousal, we need self-soothing and self-stimulating behaviours to calm and comfort ourselves. We tend to develop a collection of practices to support ourselves, however, sometimes the behaviours we practice may not support us in the long run. Perhaps explore getting physical. Self-regulating behaviours need to be physical in order to regulate the autonomic nervous system. We may find we are already engaging in self-regulating behaviours naturally and unconsciously. Finger and foot-tapping, rocking, blinking and playing with objects are ways to self-regulate autonomic nervous system arousal. By tuning into what happens in our bodies as we engage in these behaviours, we gain more awareness of the calming and/or enlivening effect they have on our physiology. Walk. Run. Skip rope. Play ball. Put on some music and dance. Notice changes in your muscle tension, posture, heartbeat and breath. What is calming and comforting to your body? How are you stimulated to feel more vital and alive?

As we explore healing experiences of trauma, neglect and feelings of shame, some of our greatest tools include cultivating compassion and kindness. Cultivating ‘compassionate witness’ consciousness - viewing one’s own emotions, thoughts and actions with loving detachment - means developing the skills to take a fresh perspective on the anxious rumination and intrusive distressing thoughts that are typical for trauma survivors. Perhaps explore touch as witness. Kindly and compassionately touch yourself. Or, receive kind, compassionate touch from a professional massage therapist or friend. Stay quiet and focus on your experience during the massage instead of chatting. Absorb a sense of being witnessed and cared for into your cells.

With thanks to Caffyn Jesse’s The Science of Sexual Happiness and Emily + Amelia Nagoski’s Burnout.

The Weave of Health and Pleasure.

What does it mean to be healthy? So often, the rhetoric of health is liberally peppered with classist, ableist, ageist, racist and phobic rhetoric that creates narrow windows of acceptable selfhoods. Often the bodies who don’t experience themselves as fitting into these windows are left with an individualized burden of shame and blame, which nourishes a destructive feedback loop of depression, anxiety, and wash of damaging chemicals that are anything but ‘healthy’.

We all live with the burden of body shame and health shame to some degree or another, and, instead of continuing to deepen the neural groove of expectation that each person can access perfect bodies with enough grit, diets, and plastic surgery, perhaps it is time to dream into new cultures. Making manifest explorations of what orienting to health would feel like if it were an opportunity to orient to pleasurable and nourishing experiences.

Perhaps this means inventing new language to speak to cellular and cosmic wellness. Perhaps this new idea of health holds in it that wellness is far beyond an individual project - the wellness of our communities and planet is also held in the arms in this new culture. Perhaps this new idea of health holds that anti-racist activism, gender expansion, and economic justice work is part of what it means to prioritize wellness. Perhaps this new idea underscores that the health and movement of our food systems is as important as the health and movement of our bowels. And, that in both instances, focusing on cellular wellbeing and nutritional density are a key component to surviving and thriving.

Perhaps this means creating art, porn, films, poetry, music, and children’s books with people in them like ourselves. Where we honour ourselves as beautiful and worthy of celebration as the expansive and perfectly imperfect beings that we are. Weaving empathy, compassion, common humanity, and kindness into our storytelling is an act of magic and manifestation in defiance of the shame and blame saturated in current media content of health and bodies.

Perhaps this means mapping out a diet of pleasure. Diet comes from the Greek word diaita, meaning ‘manner of living’. If our current model of diet, health, and body care is rooted from a place of self-denial and shame, that’s no ‘manner of living’ that is going to result in a life worth living. Instead we might ask ourselves “what are the seeds of joy within my pleasures?” “What is the true pleasure within this pleasure?” Through this we might learn more about what our diet of pleasure would entail. An attachment to high risk behaviours might indicate a seed of desire to cultivate extraordinary experiences. A love of sweet foods might indicate a seed of desire for the sweetness of life. Porn addiction might indicate a desire for transcendent ecstasy.

In this new culture idea of orienting to health as choosing pleasurable and nourishing experiences, perhaps we can hold the dynamic and tension of sometimes choosing ‘maladaptive’ or ‘harming’ pleasures, and that there is no ‘bad’ in that. And, with a steady and curious gaze, plus a willingness to deepen into the ‘whys’ with curiosity, we might find our way into deeper states of pleasure, with greater clarity about a new culture ‘healthy’ that is exciting, blissful, interdependent, and complexified.

With thanks to Caffyn Jesse’s The Science of Sexual Happiness.

Sex, Mental Health, & Social Media.

As a bodyworker and Somatic Sex Educator, I’ve been reflecting on the role social media plays in our lives. Both from the standpoint of deciding how I’d like to relate to it professionally, and how it impacts our bodies and access to pleasure, sexuality, and embodiment. Digital life and social media affects us in many ways, and I’d like to share some observations from my research.

When people spend time on social media, they dissociate to some degree. This means that a person ‘checks out’, and trains themselves to ‘check out’ - the skills needed to discern how to feel about a situation is diminished when a person is dissociated. And, capacity to engage in internal psychic boundaries is lessened. Lots of information that someone may not wish to invite into their inner world will make its way inwards via dissociated exposure to social media. Further, there is so much information being communicated that’s non-explicit in social media content. What are the stories underneath the stories, and are they being noticed? It seems a little bit like visiting an orgy without considering preferences, boundaries, and limits before leaping in.

Social media use increases dopamine - a yummy ‘happy’ chemical. Yet, when a person experiences a dopamine drop, things start feeling rough, and they go through withdrawal. As such, folks who use social media may end up chasing a high - increasing the amount of time on social media, and analyzing social media to figure out how to get as many likes/comments as possible; contorting and refining to become a ‘pleasing shape’ to people on the platform. This has some pretty serious impacts on a person’s sense of authentic self and personal identity.

Social media does not promote creative, curious, or deep thinking. Brain states are shaped by what they’re exposed to, and spending time on social media means that brains are being trained by whatever content is consumed - which among other things may include trolling, negative, or confrontational interactions. This results in neural wirings that deepen sensitivity and reactivity to this style of relating, whereas other neural wirings - such as the wirings involved in complex emotionally resilient conversations, or other non-social media leisure activities such as creativity, play, hobbies, reflection, or good old fashioned boredom get weakened and rewired.

Further, comparison culture is real - yet, this isn’t Kanas anymore where we might be “only” judging ourselves in relationship to neighbours, classmates, or co-workers. Now there are countless people & brands to witness who are communicating an idealized and contrived version of reality. It’s easy to fall into ‘lesser-than’ thinking, noticing everything that’s wrong or not enough about your own life, without remembering that this content isn’t ‘real’ or recognizing with gratitude things that are going okay or well in life. This has been shown to increase depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns. 

It may be worth taking a week or two off to get curious about if social media is affecting your quality of life, and, if so, how? If taking a break isn’t possible, are there other ways to get curious about how social media may be affecting you? If it doesn’t feel like there’s any challenge with social media and life, that’s wonderful. This invitation is coming from a part of me that notices that many folks name discontents with social media, such as noticing anxiety and stress while on social media, disconnection with the body, fear and paranoia, loss of vitality, and other really real effects of social media use.

For folks who are identifying that their emotions, mental health, sexual energy, or sense of self-worth are being affected by social media, there are some wonderful, simple, and actionable ways to address this. Firstly by managing exposure to social media! Take breaks and limit time on the apps. Also, by refining the content being visited. What kind of social media experience would you would like to have? What would be perfect? If you have chosen to take some breaks or limit exposure, consider filling that time with things that offer pleasure! If the premise of social media is about connecting with others and being inspired, perhaps consider real-life social contact on the phone or in person. Reading and writing. Creating and enjoying art.

Importantly, another invitation would be to explore finding pleasurable dopamine hits in other ways. As a Somatic Sex Educator, my suggestion would be though mindful pleasure-based practices! After all, social media causes damage to the brain’s capacity to focus on single tasks or experiences for periods of time. It also has a negative impact on libido and arousal. Taking the opportunity to learn how to focus and hold attention on pleasurable sensations in the body supports expanding a person’s range of capabilities. Rewiring bodies is 100% doable with some intention and attention. After all, for those of us with ‘social media brains’ our attention and intention created that outcome. Every person is always at choice in deciding what outcomes they would like to see with the dedication of their time and energy.

Further, for folks who have been raised in sex negative conditioning, traumatizing environments, religious communities, and other environments that are sex-negative (read: everyone!), choosing to turn towards pleasure and practicing mindfully expanding it has deep potential to rewrite stories and neural pathways away from the impacts of those harming experiences and towards more abundant and nourishing ways of experiencing pleasure. Our bodies are designed for pleasure, and feeling more pleasure is a matter of practicing deepening the range of pleasurable possibilities.

After all, the western world is conspiring to program each of us to orient away from pleasure. Instead, we are urged to stay in our thinking & problem-solving minds, and be enmeshed in abstract digital worlds where many folks end up feeling the need to be on guard, holding their breath, freezing their bodies, and scanning the digital landscape with defensive or offensive vigilance. Dropping back into the body, presence, and pleasure is a powerful disruption of this systemic and cultural force that is a part of modern life.

Oh, and one last thing about social media… Social media has a dedicated history of restricting and banning sex workers and other people working within the sex industry from having the same reach, access to income, and safety as other users. It’s no surprise that we live in a sex-negative culture, yet, restricting sex workers, businesses and educators from advertising or speaking plainly and abundantly about sexuality is an ongoing act of anti-sex cultural violence. This is doubly the case when the people in question occupy multiple marginal positionalities - sex workers, businesses, and educators that are IBPOC, trans or gender variant, poor, fat, old, experience dis/ability, or other ‘othering’ identities are more likely to be targeted online, and have their platforms hacked, frozen, or banned. Not to mention experiencing deep and real harm in the process. This is one of many ways in which marginal bodies are experiencing violent and systemic erasure from landscapes and being denied access to the resources needed to survive and thrive.

As a Somatic Sex Educator my work is in supporting people deepening experiences of safety, connection, and pleasure, and while in this article I’m certainly not interested in wrapping up by saying “So, you see, social media is BAD and WRONG and STAY AWAY!” because it is definitely a part of life that is often also unavoidable, educational, or inspiring. Instead, I feel a calling to ensure we’re complexifying and bringing to consciousness some of the issues of how it social media affects the individual, and how it affects the collective when it comes to mental health, community building, and each person’s fundamental right to feel sexually free and respected.

If you would like to learn more about the effects of social media, check out this helpful research article: “The ‘online brain’: how the Internet may be changing our cognition”.