It’s Not About Sex, It’s About Soul

Contents

Prologue -The Edges 

  I - I am Every Woman
Dancing and Stripping 
The Wake-Up Call 
Women's Work 
Spiritual and Sexy 
Following My Art
Giving Into Me
Erotic Jackanory  
Getting Moody in a Good Way 
Crumbling as the Designer Suits fall Away
Born to Boredom 
Insolence and Individuality, Coming Into Myself 
A Tantric Date to Remember 
Opening The Stable Door, Closing my Mother’s Wound
Agony not Ecstasy 
 
  II - The Story Of J
Meeting Shiva 
Namaste In, Namaste Out, Don't Fall in Love
Not Following Teachers Advice 
Saying Goodbye to my Father the Tantric Way
Ignoring Red Flags 
Busted by the Organic Coffee
Yoni Healing 
The Meteorite Hitting the Dinosaur
Sex Bod Rocks 
Tantra Massage Isn’t for Dummies
Self Pleasure. Really? 
Indiscreet in Crete 
Understanding My Erotic Mind 
The Ending of Limerence
Christmas Presence
Not so Fab Swingers
The Best Thing that Ever Happened to me at a Swingers Club
Disagreeable Agreeing
Fainting and Fucking
To Do and Not To Do Lists 
Inside Me with Shivanti 
Like A Pro
Illusions Dropping Away
A Taste of Taking
Wired for Betrayal
Wretched in Wales 
The Erotic Equation  Attraction + Obstacles = Excitement 
There’s Something About Couples 
Three Days in a Dungeon 
The Genius Between Your Legs
The Years of Loving Dangerously
Sexual Potential 
Finding My Leadership Skills with Ruby May 
Another Worst Weekend 

III - Getting Out: Aliveness

Trust and Trauma; Rewiring for Love 
When the Universe sends Lesbians, make Lesbianade. 
Shadow Healing with Seani Love
Guilty Pleasures in Consensual Non-Consent
Needles and A Second Chance at Nothing
Ending Seeking With The Enneagram
Unhappy Ending II
A Cipher 
Frisky Stardust
The Slippery Slope to Erotic Freedom 
Pleasure Island
Why The 3 Minute Game is Better than Date Night
Living from Spirit
Three Little Words
Will there be a Happy Ending?
Making Peace; With A Balinese Priest
A Puppy’s for Life 
Joining The Dots
The Power Now
Epilogue 

Resources

Prologue - The Edges

This is a boredom to glimpses of bliss story. A seven year sexual odyssey, taking in a tantra

journey, karmic entanglement, heart break, a foray into fifty shades, healing heart, body and
psyche. An ordinary woman’s story of an extraordinary time of her life. An exploration into

alternative ways of being, including training as a sex coach. Would I have agreed to any of it

had I known what was in store for me at each stage? Perhaps not. It probably wasn’t safe at

points and success is never guaranteed, yet it offered the emotional edges I was looking for.

Looking back would I have changed anything? There are regrettable and difficult

moments so perhaps. I’d have loved to learn about love the easy way of course but who

wouldn’t? I had no idea about what love really meant and this journey taught me the

importance of it, what it is and, more importantly, what it wasn’t.

At times I wonder what happened to my other life, the one that might have been more

appropriate, the life where I’m married to an accountant with two children at Oxbridge.

Instead what I got was a life of roaming the world in my twenties, I had a big Victorian house

and money from a brainy job in a big corporation, Karen Millen suits, a Saab convertible, a

final earnings salary pension. Yet something inside was stomping her feet and wanting to get

out, bringing a mid-life crisis that seemed to last forever. Though the first three years of that

were the worst, after that it became a discovery, a seeker’s journey. Crises are often the

things which set us free. I had the first one at work which got me to yoga, then a later one of

my heart which sent me to the edges of sanity.

I didn’t just have my ladder up against the wrong wall, it was in the wrong

foundations. It’s said that your personal volcano goes off at fifty at the onset of the 'Chiron

Years’; in year one you can’t see anything for the ash, by the end of year two the dust is

settling and there are some glimmers of light, by the end of year three the ground is fertile

and ready for new growth.

What does sex have to do with it? This book is about getting happy and becoming

self aware, which are not the same thing. Yoga heals, sex enlightens.
 I’d love to say the sexuality journey has been full of divine union, ecstatic love and

superior men. Truthfully it’s been more Bridget Jones than Eat Pray Love, full of mistakes

and changes of direction; a place of exploring boundaries and healing childhood wounds

rather than love, light and white floaty goddess kaftans. Although it starts with sacred

sexuality, there’s not much sex in it. What ensues is a torrid tale at points. There’s only so

many failed relationships we can have before realising the issue isn’t them, it’s us.

Redemption lies in our shadows. Like many people I started with a longing for Mr Right,

though Mr Wrongs were ultimately what I needed, pushing me back to me. It’s about this

search for relationship, not a perfect one but a real one, a really good one. Taking

responsibility for my contribution has been empowering, exciting and, at times, tragic. If

you’re looking for erotic fiction you may find more titillating stories and there’s always a

vibrator. I was looking for an aliveness in me, not restrained by the edge of a plug socket.

Seeing the stark truth of my personality and erotic mind slowly charged and changed me.

This comes at the threshold between the first two-thirds and the final third of my life,

a story of following my soul’s longing and not giving up on my hopes of something more.

Something better. Through Tantra, healing bodywork and wise guides, I’m finding my way

home, healing myself and relationships on the way. There is a kinky thread in the story too,

don’t worry though, it’s all going to be alright in the end, it always is. If it isn’t, it isn’t over.

Our story isn’t over till we take our last breath.

Models of loving relationship can feel in short supply yet I still believe in the

possibility, realising there’s a greater way we can connect. I’m appealing to the disappointed

and the discontented. I’m writing it for all the 48 year old women who are like I was; grumpy

yet idealistic. To the ones who know there’s more to life than porn and gin. Who have what

Krishna Das calls ‘the red jewel of the seeker’ inside; ever hopeful idealists who want a better

life, who will hear and respond to their inner calling. There are so many paths to becoming
happier and I tried a fair few. The research has been worth it. We explore when we have the

desire, the courage or the need. My way won’t be yours so this is an invitation for you to

begin your own. To go beyond what you think might be possible for you, taking the unknown

path.

If a nice girl like me can do it, so can you. Moving beyond a banal middle in search of

my edges, brings a sense of personal empowerment and erotic freedom. I’m not that nice, as

it turns out, yet naughtiness is transformative. If those words make the hairs on the back of

your neck react, then enjoy the parts of the story that resonate, I hope not all of it will. It's

embarrassing and excruciating to write, yet it has been in these vulnerable revelations that’s

there’s hope for redemption, a better life of love. Dive in.

I am Every Woman

“When you have something to share, don’t stop there; share it. Humanity is in need, as it has

never been in need, of people who can create new hope for a new dawn.”

Osho, The New Dawn, Ch 14

Dancing and Stripping

Have you ever tried stripping and dancing in front of a group of cheering women? I’d

managed to get through forty-nine years without doing much of either. Yet here I was with a

‘piece of music I loved, wearing something I felt sexy in’ – Big Time Sensuality by Björk –

except I didn’t feel sexy in tight orange jeans and a oversized statement T-shirt.

I’d watched half the group dance and my heart was pounding with the soon-to-be-

familiar ‘What on earth am I doing here? This is crazy’ thoughts. Except I didn’t want to

leave. It was compelling; watching women dance, be vulnerable, reveal surprising lingerie,

showing hidden aspects of themselves. Shy, sweet, outrageous; music across the genres,

bodies of all shapes. C brought me to tears with soulful dancing to Norah Jones; Come Away

With Me expressing longing and loss in white innocent lace. A pixie-haired woman, a sailor,

had worn her boat gear, oilskins ahoy, bravely casting them overboard to us, her encouraging,

clapping, whooping audience. Another who’d been through the whole programme before,

long hair all the way down her back, had already danced to Björk: uninhibited, wild, joyful.

Others hesitant, reluctant; yet every single woman chose to get up there, dance and go

through it. I loved watching them. It was an insight into a private world of women we rarely

see. In joining a women’s Tantra group, I was in a new realm. The courage to reveal

ourselves is massive. To do it while you’re dancing, well that’s hardcore. Connecting me to

the women, with huge levels of admiration and respect, making me laugh with unexpected

delight, moving me to tears.

Why were we doing it? To create sexual energy, through 'spontaneity, exhibitionism

and voyeurism.' Terrifying. At each turn, saying why we’d picked the track and then begin to
get naked. No stopping when you got to your pants. They’d just play the music on repeat till

you got ‘em off.

When it was my turn, I was terrified, legs trembling as I stepped forward. I love the

Björk song, all innocence and freedom. I’d sung it at the top of my voice driving around for

years, though I doubt I’d ever danced to it. Or stripped to it. When you do, you find out it’s

fast. And interminably long. Especially when you only have four items of clothing on.

Awkward, clumsy, embarrassed, I jerked around amidst a confusion of emotions. I doubt I

breathed for the first verse.

I took my T-shirt off too quickly, then panicked about the buttons on my tight orange

jeans. How do you get these undone, and off, while dancing? Awkwardly, as it turns out, I

pulled open the buttons standing, got to my knees, then pulled them down my thighs as

seductively as I could muster. Then lying on the floor, writhing a bit, with some flourish, I

managed to pull them off my calves, casting them aside with a grin. And then I was down to

my bra and pants, a rather refined boring chocolate colour with little apricot lace flowers and

there was still an age to go.

“It takes courage to enjoy it” Yes, Björk! “The hardcore and the gentle”

Back on my feet, something kicked in; I slowed, looked around, hearing the cheering,

seeing the smiles of the women I’d shared astonishing exercises and conversations with over

the weekend. Then I began to feel the joy of it; slowing down, trying out a few moves, hands

on my hips, shaking my bum, breasts out, eye contact with the women. I was enjoying it!

How could that be? I felt free. Their energy took me, turning my back, I took my bra off like

I’d seen some of the women before me do, playing with the catch, looking back over my

shoulder, trying to hold a gaze. It was all new. With a little tease, smiling, offering, the bra

was off, flung aside and I could dance showing my breasts. Mad really. Powerful in a way;

casting off taboos. Playing with my panty lines next – ‘You want this ladies, don’t you’ –
winking, a slow tease of tiny ups and downs of my knickers before I finally showed, first my

bottom and then Yoni, the final bare denouement. Elated, heart steadying, the track finished

and I could go back to my place.

Apart from learning to drive again at thirty, this was the most challenging thing I’ve

ever done. Heart-burstingly ecstatic in a way I imagine a parachute jump might make you feel

once you’d landed: joyful, satisfied, courageous, alive. When I got home that night I danced

for my lover, sharing my aliveness and sense of fun; it had opened something in me,

emboldened me.

The Wake Up Call

How had I got here? I’d always sensed there was more to life and sex than I’d so far

experienced. Finding myself at forty-eight in a nameless Big Time Dissatisfaction that comes

when there’s no solution to the perceived problem, an answer had appeared in an article about

Tantra, a form of sacred sexuality. It both scared me and drew me in. So I looked on the

website mentioned: Shakti Tantra. There were courses for women, for couples, for mixed

group and then some stand-alone weekend courses.

My innocent prude was shocked, slightly appalled. Some of the workshop titles

mystified me: ‘Women Behaving Badly,’ ‘Standing in the Fire,’ ’Rose and Thorn.’ One of

those Oh Fuck moments of fear; there are the scary things you know you’re never going to

do, like mountain biking or horse-riding, and then the ones you know you need to do,

however scary. This was the latter kind of Oh Fuck moment. I couldn’t forget it. So I tried to

ignore it but it wouldn’t go away and I looked at it, again and again, and again some more. I

asked my partner to join me on their couples Tantra course. It “wasn’t for him.” What are

you going to do? 

 He wouldn’t be persuaded and I didn’t give up looking. When I say partner, that

would be disingenuous. I was the secret lover to a much older man, I’d met through work.

No-one could know we were together. A partially available man, we’d been together for five

years. Him away at weekends, going back to the family home, though he’d been living

separately from his wife for many years before I met him. We’d met when we needed to

negotiate a contract and a mutual admiration had developed. Before we went on our first date,

he’d courted me for a year with beautifully written, fun, intelligent emails. I enjoyed his

northern grammar school chippiness as much as his cleverness: he had a PhD in Philosophy

and a love of Dickens’s punctuation. On the eventual first date when I asked what was

important to him, his thoughtful response was ‘inner peace’. Fifteen years older than me, he

cried the first time we slept together, he’d thought the sexual part of his life was over. He’d

felt what he called ‘worms’ moving up his spine. Later, through Tantra, I learned that was

kundalini energy though I had no idea what he was talking about. At the time I’d wondered

what was making him so emotional. We had a cultured, companionable time together,

although it was a relationship I couldn’t see myself staying in long term, despite the word

mistress having a certain frisson and ease.

A year later, I found myself with twenty-three women in a grim community centre

somewhere near the Wirral, with ‘nest’ materials and the piece of music and the outfit I

turned out not to feel sexy in. We all went through one of the most astonishing weekends,

then transitional periods of our lives. The first weekend I’d turned up in my Saab convertible

in a smart work suit, my heart sinking at the basic shared rooms. I wondered if I could get a

single. C walked in, silver-haired, she’d done this before. We had a brief reassuring chat and

it was time for a non-descript dinner although the women around me got me curious,

wondering who’d be my friends. I liked an Irish woman with silver pixie hair. 
 After dinner, we all sat in a big circle wearing sarongs and introduced ourselves. We

had to share our names, something about us and our intention for the weekend. There was a

‘talking stick’ passed around; if you were holding it everyone listened. When it was

someone’s turn you simply listened; no conversation, no feedback. When someone had

finished speaking they said Aho and we said Aho — ‘I have spoken, You have spoken.’ I was

forty-nine, I’d never been in a women’s circle before. I’d never been asked to state an

intention before. A new word for me. I knew of corporate goals, targets and tedious Key

Performance Indicators. The word intention feels lighter, less onerous. One of the assistants

wrote it down. 

After the circle, we were asked to make our ‘nests’ which involved making a

comfortable bed for ourselves out of the stuff we’d brought, duvets, pillows and materials;

my white cotton duvet seemed a bit plain in comparison to a luxury nest of red satin I caught

a glimpse of. And then we were told we were going to do breast massage, though not why or

for how long or how. Floaty music started, I felt my breasts. That took about two minutes,

now what? The floaty music continued and I was bored. So I felt them some more. Yep, I

have breasts. So what? I wanted to look around but it didn’t seem appropriate. More feeling

around my chest, more boredom, I didn’t know what to do. I could hear the teacher, Hilly,

saying, “If you’re bored with yourself, your lovers will be bored” and something about links

to the cosmos. 

Although I’d been bored with most things for many years, bored with myself wasn’t

even a concept. I tried a bit harder but I didn’t know what to be interested in. I kept fondling

my breasts, a first for me. Forty-five minutes seemed like an age. When we stopped, we went

back into the circle to ‘share’. Nonplussed at how little I’d felt, it was confounding, hearing

the wonder of other women’s cosmic experiences. 

Women's Work

Women generally have such issues around their bodies, though mostly I ignored mine. My

body had carried me and my head around, a bit like my car. In a short period in my twenties,

I’d peer into a mirror at some little raised white dots near my eyes, obsessing over whether

that was the reason the man I liked at the time wasn’t into me. Seriously. After that, I got on

without taking much notice of my body unless it was ill, so rarely had to. I looked in a mirror

to put make up on. I rarely dieted, any gym attendance was patchy, I had no idea if my bum

or breasts were too big or small. My body was neutral, no big deal, no big drama, I didn’t

notice, attend or wonder. Now here I was at a ‘women’s mystery school’, hearing that Tantra

works with the body, to help us recognise and let go of obstacles; opening up our capacity for

healing, pleasure, love and self-awareness. We were going to be learning about the delights

of our bodies and sensuality, to be encouraged to ‘follow the pleasure’.

That first weekend offered self-massage, shame shedding around our bodies and

connecting with my Yoni, the Sanskrit word for the vulva. I was in new territory. I knew I

was home but I didn’t know why. The women’s programme I’d just signed up for was an

eighteen-month series of workshops taking us through a deep life-altering process; hitting

what made a difference to me faster than years of sun salutations or mindfully counting my

breath had ever done. Deep friendships began with amazing women, from now on known as

Shaktis, meaning goddess. Each of us willing to follow our teachers’ guidance in a new

realm. Pleasure was apparently our birthright. I heard my first spiritual ideas about

reincarnation and consciousness, we chanted, got cleansed with smoke from burning sage

bundles called smudge, shook to Osho meditations at 7 am, and took part in Tantric exercises

or ‘structures’. We danced between the exercises. In the sharing circles, we bared our souls to
ourselves and each other, excruciating for a lone wolf like me. We shared ‘melting hugs’ -

endless, close, comforting - extending my capacity to relax and not feel trapped.

All of it was new, fascinating and magical to me. A whole new world, the ‘more’ I’d

sensed, yet never experienced. I softened, understanding myself as a woman for the first time.

Cutting through what could take years in talk therapy, offering new perspectives of what’s

possible, much of it felt like something I’d long been ready for. Learning about my body,

femininity and new ways of being touched, changed me. Tantra is brave soul work with a lot

of fun in the process. Seeing now how it liberated me from my stuckness, I’m so grateful for

the teachers and exercises, showing deeply ingrained fears that were keeping me small. I’m

not going to say any of it wasn’t challenging, especially dancing when I hadn’t done that for

twenty-five years. Learning to move from my pelvis, slowing down, dancing closely to other

soft bodies. Much of my previous social life with women involved glasses of wine, meals, a

bit of moaning about our respective men, book groups and holiday plans. This group was

utterly different, no small talk, all of us understanding we were wanting something deeper

and more meaningful in our lives. We committed to each other and a process. It took over our

lives, in a good way. I saw us all grow in courage and beauty.

Outside the course, I paid for my first private Tantra massage from a female

practitioner. Feeling such soft, nurturing, slow, beautiful touch all over my body —

fingertips, feathers, silk, hair and who knows what else. I got lost in the healing, sensual,

caring sensations enlivening my skin. Being able to receive where nothing was expected of

me in return was profound. No-one waiting for me to have an orgasm, not having to do

anything but stay present, absorb the care and new feelings. I cried at the end, tears for all the

time I hadn’t known this kind of touch was possible.

Spiritual and Sexy

How does something that looks like it’s about sex not look sleazy? How do I explain that this

journey over seven years becomes about getting aware rather than getting it on? Because of

my Catholic background, the Oh Fuck feeling when I first read about Tantra doesn’t surprise

me. I needed a wholesome ‘good’ way into sex. I’d never really had the idea that sex was

okay just for its own sake, for pleasure, for fun, for a good time or a one-night stand. To me,

sex — aka penetration — was something reserved for relationship. Is that rather old

fashioned and innocent? I suspect I’m not alone in wanting it to mean something; for sex to

be special.  

 How did I get into Tantra? At forty-eight my outward, smouldering, subconscious

search for ‘the one’ wasn’t working, my sensuality was spilling out all over the place. My

soft furnishings included opulent velvets and gold silks, the feel of a salon in rooms I’d

decorated. Work was easy, my sales meetings about legal information were enjoyable; I

loved the alpha men and my conversations with barristers. I wasn’t flirting, I didn’t need to,

yet the easy connections helped the sales and the work was freeing and well paid. By

contrast, my intimate relationships so far had been disappointing, lacking in sustained

fulfilling connection and attraction. With the promise of Divine Union, I was sold. 

 I’d had a succession of relationships that had been stable enough but hadn’t worked.

After running around the world in my twenties, I thought I needed to get settled and get a car

and house. Somehow I got a job with a legal publisher despite knowing nothing about law or

sales. I spent my thirties with a sensible man who was fun when we met – a young company

director, though our relationship dulled once he chucked it all in to renovate our house and

discovered mountain biking. His love of his TR6 bored me. Poor thing, being with me. I was

critical and grumpy for the last five years of our ten-year relationship. I had a big house, a big

job, sexy suits, a Saab convertible, we had many friends together and two unsuccessful
pregnancies. We weren’t compatible on so many levels yet I’m now grateful for what we

shared, sorry for myself and him for all the times I spent complaining, thinking it was his

fault. We met years later at a funeral, him in a hand-knitted jersey and woollen tie; he

manages the apple orchards at a farm, now happily married in a cold house in the country.

I’m writing this in Bali. Each to their own.

Back then, in my sales job at the legal publishers, I had high targets, particularly

demanding customers and a particularly unintelligent manager. I wasn’t happy and I was

stuck, ripe for change. Daily badgering calls from a particularly difficult law librarian had

ramped up the stress, and I knew I had to find something more than materialism and shopping

trips for serum at Space NK. Sex and the City talked about having a hot job, a hot lover and a

hot apartment – I’d felt lacking in all three. Complaining daily about the man, the job, the

house, I knew there was more out there than I was experiencing but didn’t know what. By

good fortune I found yoga at the beautiful Buddhist Centre in Manchester; the feeling of the

solid wooden floor holding me up: a refuge. Yoga was a portal into another way of thinking

and being. My yoga teacher read us poems like Wild Geese by Mary Oliver.  

You do not have to be good. 

You do not have to walk on your knees. 

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

  Thus began a double life of being a material girl with the big corporation during the

week and a hippy at the weekends.  The search for a better life began in earnest and I tried

whatever came my way. The first three years of a mid-life crisis are the worst, after that it

gets quite interesting, an ongoing enquiry which feels less like a crisis than the human

predicament. While yoga lifted my heart, the ‘Sangha– the Buddhist community – and

meditation seemed a little too wholesome and the people, dare I say, rather earnest, bordering

on worthy. I enjoyed learning about Buddhist concepts of impermanence, Dukkha –

unsatisfactoriness – the Four Noble Truths, even if I only ever remember the first two. It was

the first time I’d heard such ideas. Going to yoga retreats gave me stillness and goodness, I

practised regularly for many years, never managing the lotus position yet benefiting from

connecting with my body and soul. 

On a yoga retreat in Scotland, at a Buddhist centre called Dhanakhosa, we had a day

of silence. I had never experienced the simplicity of that before. Most Sunday walks in the

country I’d been talking my way around, complaining, spoiling my own experience. In yoga,

I noticed the pause between breaths. There was no coffee at the retreat centre, frankly, the

barley substitutes didn’t cut it, still don’t, registering far too high on my worthy-ometer. So

on a day off, I walked alone in search of my vice, seeing the grass greener and the cows’ big

brown eyes, enjoying noticing the weak sunlight shining through the reeds at the edges of the

loch. At the local hotel, I was offered coffee and two small, freshly baked scones. Utter

heaven after the grey stodge at the retreat centre, it was as if I’d never tasted coffee before; I

noticed everything anew, the delicious smell and strong flavour, my love of coffee deepening.

I sent cards home with the mantra ‘May We be Well, May We be Peaceful and at Ease, May

We be Free from Suffering’. My friends must have thought I was insufferable. 

A level of trust opened up that week, I lent my car to a former traveller and heroin

user, she brought it back. Before I left Dhanakosa, in a life-altering conversation with a

Buddhist monk, he suggested two things that changed me: a different approach to my work

by simply enjoying the conversations with my customers and seeing art in my lunchtime. I

never worried about my targets after that and always made them. And later I exited the ten-

year relationship with grace and the monk’s advice line, “I want to be happy and I want you

to be happy”. 
Following My Art

In my forties, other women my age seemed to have the purpose of motherhood, I needed  an

alternative. After a miscarriage, I’d internally vowed that whether I had kids or not, I’d have

an interesting life. With the freedom of time on my hands, enough money and no kids, I was

lucky and determined.

I’d let go of the big house and boring relationship and moved to hippy Hebden

Bridge. Running to the solitude of a house in the hills, things had changed for the better

though I was still seeking. Via yoga retreats, a career break, a patchy meditation practice, I

was more satisfied. Life coaching and art had helped identify and move life more in line with

emerging core values. It was nothing new to be joining a course, it had often worked in my

search for happiness. I’ve forgotten more than I learned in Spanish and Italian GCSEs, lost

interest in cookery courses, joined and left a women’s reading group. I took on a Buddhist

life coach then trained as one. A life coach that is, not a Buddhist. I travelled to retreats when

I could. I gave up the final-salary pension and future security to train as a journalist for a year

and didn’t like the spin or stressful deadlines. I went back to legal sales as a consultant for a

while until a contract lured me to a sales job with maverick barristers; tied by the blackberry

and expense account, I was a dilettante, too gripped by the golden handcuffs of corporate life

to dive deeper.

Connecting with art and creativity allowed me to see another side of myself that

commercialism had never touched. What first showed me that all was not well emotionally

took place on a yoga and art retreat in an unglamorous barn on the outskirts of Halifax, run

by Heidi Chadwick, now the inimitable Creative Genius. Asked to draw my heart, I met with

incomprehension. Picking up navy and black crayons I scrawled a stone-like dark mass, then

cried at my creation. The simple exercise, seeing the blue-black stone inside me,  touched me

deeply.  I had no idea my heart was a source of wisdom, something to connect to, a guide. I
found a heart-shaped stone by a stream, wrapping it in pink wool to warm me through. Later

we did the Ho’oponopono prayer to our hearts, over and over again, 

“I’m sorry. I love you, Please forgive me. Thank you” 

“I’m sorry. I love you, Please forgive me. Thank you” 

“I’m sorry. I love you, Please forgive me. Thank you” 

“I’m sorry. I love you, Please forgive me. Thank you” 

“I’m sorry. I love you, Please forgive me. Thank you” 

 Art therapy by any other name, over the years working with Heidi, I set intentions,

uncovered sensuality, healed inner splits, visually expressed breathing dripping white paint

with each in- and out-breath. I’ve collaged a future into being, enjoying the random

messiness of what comes through, meeting myself in colour and texture. I still can’t draw or

make anything look like anything and it really doesn’t matter. Emotions aren’t neat like a

sketch or old master. Allowing early glimmers of a renaissance soul, I began to discover what

was inside, through external, visual expression.

I joined an Artist’s Way group, a programme to recover creativity, by Julia Cameron,

a twelve-week process involving excavating creative beliefs, finding what’s holding you

back. Exercises asking what you’re prepared to do to accept innate creativity, writing

Morning Pages every day and taking myself on an Artist’s Date every week. Morning Pages

involves writing three pages of stream of consciousness when you wake up. I wrote Morning

Pages for five years, two pages of “crap out” and by the third page, the gems and germs of

ideas come through. Once a week you read them back to yourself, revealing multiple blocks

and myriad possibilities. Although disturbing, seeing the same old patterns coming through

for years, I got to see the story of my life, and maybe of many women’s lives, that goes

something like this:

 “There’s a boy or a man. I liked him at the beginning. Now it’s all gone wrong and

I’m upset. Why’s he doing this? What can I do?” 

Ad infinitum. Repetitive and boring wouldn’t begin to do it justice, on repeat

probably since I was about seventeen. I could cry at all that wasted focus and energy. Seeing

it was only part of it, changing it is the challenge; old habits take time to break. 

Some grooves are easier to change than others and The Artist’s Way helped ideas

move creatively with dates at art galleries and art supplies shops, loving the paintings, colour,

pencils, oils and papers. I signed up for regular art classes and workshops, beginning with

‘Art for the Terrified’. Realising how creative I was unleashed something delightful,

something I could be absorbed in, seeing how creativity works in serendipitous ways. After

seeing a Klimt exhibition in Liverpool, months later something of the gold of a Klimt bracelet

appeared glinting on a canvas of mine.

The Artist’s Way believes taking inspiration in is your job, how it comes out is God’s.

It hasn’t meant I need to practice drawing, more to practice living: to allow myself beauty

and time out, something inspiring to focus on. Art worked. I reduced my hours at work to live

more creatively, going to art college at fifty.

Giving In To Me

I was an open door for Tantra to come knocking. While I wouldn’t have opened it to the

dowdy Jehovah’s Witnesses, something with more style, exoticism and the promise of

spiritual, sexy meaning had me at Namaste.  The Tantra wake-up call happened ten years on

from the first mid-life crisis. Approaching fifty, here I was again, different man, same

relationship, different person, same dukkha, the enquiry intensifying in equal measures to the

unsatisfactoriness. It wasn’t any of my poor boyfriends’ faults, even though I made it theirs.
It wasn’t even about a lack of self-esteem, I felt confident. I was just running along selling

law books, being a good, successful, busy woman, yet I still knew there was more to a

relationship than I was experiencing. I simply had no idea what else was possible but I knew

there was something I didn’t know.

As for my Tantra course, after the first enlivening weekend, you might think it

couldn’t get any worse. Of course, that depends on what you think of as ‘worse’. Each

weekend got more exhilarating. For my dance at weekend two I’d practised; working out,

very practically, that more layers help. I’d bought new underwear, a Mrs Robinson style

black chemise, stay-up stockings and found unworn heels at the back of the wardrobe. Sultry

and slow, I danced to Faith Hill’s, 'Give In to Me', for the Shaktis, allowing a knowing

sensual seductiveness to emerge, enjoying the effect I was having on the women, their

appreciative looks and supportive clapping and whistles. Years later a Shakti confided,  

“If I’d known what I’d have to do on the first weekend I’d have never gone. If I’d

known what I’d have to do on the second weekend I’d have never gone. If I’d known what I’d

have to do on the third weekend I’d have never gone. It’s absolutely made us.” 

Life in the bland, nice middle was no more, I saw my limits, tested my edges and

went beyond them. In the beginning, I was always nervous about going to the Tantra

weekends as I had no idea what would emerge, about halfway through I learned to look

forward to them. I began to see my pattern; being fearful, meeting the challenge, then

exhilaration.

Many of the women’s unsatisfying relationships dissolved in our journey – mine too.

It was the Saturday nights that got me in the end, I was tired of spending weekends alone

while my so-called partner went home to his ex-wife and their separate rooms. Love wasn’t

the problem, we both still had that. Turning fifty and reaching five years really triggered a

sense of urgency about all the things I wanted to be getting on with. I couldn’t bear the lack
of movement in our relationship much longer. It was my doing too. Early on in our

relationship, in an early evening walk, knees high in ferns, he’d let me know he wanted to

marry me one day. I said yes, then immediately knew I wouldn’t and couldn’t. As he wasn’t

yet divorced it wasn’t an issue. The idea never re-surfaced. Although I’d enjoyed every single

one of our meetings they were no longer enough to sustain me or us. The frisson of being a

mistress running out of steam, we parted amicably one evening over a last elegant dinner,

acknowledging each other for all we’d shared, walking separate ways into the night.

Sometimes it’s simpler that way. A few days later, I came home to a plastic carrier bag left in

the shed, the few things I’d had at his place, a book, a couple of china Panetone mugs,

moisturiser, a toothbrush.

Erotic Jackanory

I want to tell you about one of the pivotal excruciating moments that helped turn a corner

from fear to fun, which has stood me in good stead countless times since. Can you imagine

telling a sexy story to twenty cheering and encouraging women? Back then, I couldn't either.

If dancing and stripping had been terrifying, having to tell an erotic story before dancing

added a new layer of fear to a Saturday evening back in the Shakti fold.

Coming up to the weekend retreat called Women Behaving Badly, devoted to the

Goddess and the Slut, even the word slut scared me. Too harsh, too damning, nothing to be

proud of or go searching for. Shopping without much glee a couple of days before, I’d come

back with an eclectic mix. A bra that cost £3 from Ann Summers. Well, calling it a bra was

ridiculous, it was three pieces of dark red velvet ribbon framed by the usual straps and

underwire, just about covering each nipple; at least if I sat still. For my 34F babies, I usually
like to have a lot more support than that. An ex had once given me a set from Rigby and

Peller, that was more like it, upholstery and embroidery.

I had even more layers on this time, trashy nylon cheap and cheerful red gingham

pants and bra, cherries over the nipples, also from the sale rail. Then a Gap button-down pale

blue shirt, an expensive, fitted, navy blazer with leather under the lapels, stay up

oystercatcher stockings, and more heels – brought out again from the back of the wardrobe –

a gift received years earlier at an illicit guilty afternoon in a hotel with a criminal barrister.

My inner slut was as confused as she was classy.

We shaktis surveyed each other’s outfits approvingly before we sat down, the

cushions now around the edges of the room, a chair in the centre, a spotlight, the fire lit for a

cosy evening. The structure began, each shakti invited to the chair to tell an erotic story

before dancing, the only instructions, “Don’t leave out the detail, we want to be able to feel

the juice.”

Oh, it was delightful and terrifying. The shakti’s stories and outfits beguiling, I heard

stories conveying the eroticism of eating peaches as a teenage girl, early loves, seductions

and stolen lesbian kisses; a woman in a sexy outfit, delicate chains covering her breasts,

recounted stories of outdoor pleasure. Each woman sharing her enjoyment followed the

instructions. At the same time, I wanted to leave, thoughts racing, heart beating madly,

wanting to escape, wanting to be anywhere but here. I didn’t know what story to tell or how I

was going to do it. As the evening got later my fear had grown into a monster; I couldn’t get

up, walk to that chair and sit in that spotlight. Hilly had taught us, “Don’t trash your

experience with your mind”. Conflicted I ruined a wonderful evening, spoiling my own

enjoyment. I didn’t know where my car keys were and yet I wanted to stay, I wanted to be

brave, didn’t I?
 I left it till I was the second to last storyteller. I got up, legs shaking. In the chair,

looking at the shaktis, willing my heart to slow down, telling myself,

‘Breathe Alison. Sit confidently, feet planted, legs apart, look at the women, your

friends’,

And I started telling them a story of going to see one of my customers, a judge. A

silver fox judge in his barristers’ chambers in Wales. To sell him some books. In a demure

dress and cardigan on a sunny day. As I told the story of the judge, making it up as I went

along, I undid a button or two on my shirt, letting a little cleavage show. As I talked about our

latest Common Law Library editions, my jacket slid from my shoulders. My voice slowed,

becoming more breathy as I slowly enunciated the titles in as lascivious a voice as I could

muster, legal double entendres dripping as slowly from my tongue as the juice from the

peaches earlier.

“Archbold on Criminal Proceedings,

Chitty on Contract,

Defamation,

Jones on Extradition and Mutual Assistance,

Arlidge, Eady and Smith on Contempt”

Words poured out easily, none of them true. I told them I’d gone to see the judge not

wearing any pants and how I could feel my dress moving up underneath the old fashioned

desk. Undoing a button as I told them how I’d squirmed, feeling the leather of the chair in the

privacy of the library in chambers. I beguiled them, telling them how I’d blushed as I’d

undone three buttons on my dress, holding the judge’s eye, looking for signs of recognition,

the judge growing complicit in our transaction.

I was enjoying this, my shakes subsiding as I continued,

“Benjamin’s Sale of Goods,

 Bowstead on Agency,

Goff and Jones on the Law of Unjust Enrichment,

Charlesworth and Percy on Professional Negligence.”

I was surprised at how sexy I could make the otherwise boring law texts I’d been

selling for years and never read. Emboldened now, I told them how the judge invited me to

go and look at the first editions of Archbold on the old fashioned library bookshelves.

Leaving the safety of the desk between us, following the judge, disappearing past the leather-

bound editions of Halsbury’s Laws of England.

I moved out of the chair to show the shaktis, how, in the privacy offered between the

narrow shelves, the judge pushed me up against the books, holding my wrists above my head

with a judgely assuredness. My nose inhaling the rich old leather scent, as he raised my dress

and smacked my bottom. Finishing with the line, “I didn’t know who was in charge, he or I,”

I stood against the fireplace, back to the shaktis, arms above my head, turning, then winking,

finally lifting my shirt, giving myself a coy slap. Such relief and delight as I listened to their

applause. I’d met my inner slut. She was smart, funny, wry, sexy and loved telling stories.

There was no time to revel in the exhilaration of my reluctantly coaxed-out, natural

exhibitionism. The music started. My layers coming in handy this time, the slow reveal

getting faster as my country and western track to accessorise the red gingham proved a

mistake. Though the £3 spend on red velvet ridiculous ribbons went down, and off, very well;

teasingly flaunted, cast aside with a flourish. The naked goddess restored.

Getting Moody in a Good Way

Shakti Tantra were putting on one of their standalone mixed workshops called Aspects.

Although I was new, they let me join. There’d be men in the group too, which was nerve-
racking. I signed up and then gave two other participants a lift. It was a fun journey, the

conversations in the car were topics you might wonder about too. How do we explore that

feeling of ‘more’ when we have no idea what’s possible? And how do we vary our

experiences? How do we give sex meaning rather than getting stuck in a mundane conveyor

belt style of sex, usually leading to male ejaculation as the way intimacy ends. How do we

make sex worth turning up for, again and again. I wanted to know all of this, as most of my

life, sex wasn’t something that I talked about, it was still a private subject.

In a group of over twenty in a farmhouse just outside Glastonbury, opening the circle

we started with intentions and sharing. Then our teachers in caps and gowns, like sexy

headmistresses, talked about how we can move and live within different facets of ourselves,

to create different moods of sexual expression. They explained eight different ‘moods’ or

Aspects: Power, Adventure, Convention, Innocence, Ritual, Energy, Transaction and the

Body. We can do this underpinned by ‘Agreements’ for ourselves, with partners and any

people we might ‘play with’ to maintain honesty, choice and openness.

I began to see a way of living that encompassed a variety I hadn’t thought was

possible. An embodied expression of how to live the ‘More’; organised, classified and given

names in a way that made sense to me. I love a good classification. And the idea that this was

possible while being honest about things was mind-blowing. Doing intimate things with

someone other than your partner — it didn’t compute. The next day we formed small groups

to practice embodying some of the Aspects, trying out one of them to demo to the group.

Sharing a little of some of the aspects feels tender and risky, just like taking part was. The

confidentiality I promised means I’m sharing information about only my experiences, from a

place of love. Some I can only explain what I heard about though didn’t get a chance to

practice.
 Power is all about who has it and who surrenders it, how we share it and how it can

play out in all sorts of ways including but not only domination and submission. I worked with

a couple, agreeing to try ‘power under’ and felt a subtle erotic charge as the man slowly

undid three buttons of my dress, looking into my eyes, talking me into submission, his

girlfriend next to us witnessing, a willing contributor to the energy. Later my eyes widened,

watching and taking part in mini role-plays about ‘power over and power under’ where I saw

people spanking each other with something called a paddle.

I was quite excited by the aspect of Transaction but didn’t get a chance to join a

group. I’d enjoyed hearing how exploring this energy makes explicit what is hidden; having a

barter about pleasure helps us understand what we place value on. Negotiation becomes fun

when imbued with erotic meaning. Is a blow job worth a handbag, what price doing your

laundry, what will you swap for a kiss or a massage? What are you worth? What’s the gift of

your time, attention and skill? What do you do for nothing that has devalued you? What are

you withholding as precious that no-one wants anyway? Where will generosity get you

further than meanness? I’m aware that these questions probably sound rather mercenary yet

seeing them as a chance for radical honesty, clarity and creativity help us reach a consensual

agreement of shared value, authenticity and excitement. We learned that this aspect is about

exploring the prostitute archetype, in the light, it’s about understanding our value, in the

darkness, we’re selling our souls.

In the energy of Innocence, we might adopt a mood of childlike discovery, deciding

on something you’d like to try together as if you were kids discovering a new game. It about

being willing to get into the playful energy of it. Imagine discovering your own adult body

and sexuality with an innocent childlike approach. The challenge is dropping into the energy

of play and fun. I definitely didn’t want to be in that group. I felt far too self-conscious, too

grown up for such silliness.

 The aspect of Convention might include making the everyday special, enhancing life

by having domestic routines that can encompass a new sensuality. Everyday intimacy matters

as much as a date night, small expressions of love as something you do; kindness imbuing the

recycling, kissing as you load the dishwasher, making a bed together and rolling around on it.

Love in action, keeping the flames of desire smouldering. I wanted this in my life - frankly

anything to make domesticity more interesting sounded good.

After going back to the circle to share what it had been like to take part and to see

some of the aspects, we had to choose which one we wanted to explore for a longer evening

structure in small groups. It certainly wasn’t the Body group. That’s about finding desire and

lustful energy. Terrifying. When I’d heard it explained it earlier as “You. Naked. Now,” I was

mystified, not something I’d ever felt. As the Body aspect was the one I found the most

challenging, the teachers invited me to explore the reason for my fear. Despite my current

belief that resistance is fertile, back then it was futile. With Hilly’s, ahem, encouragement,

my hesitancy melted, joining four others in a nest, exploring “being in my body”. What I

discovered was that as a Saturday night activity, group massage with presence, love and hot

coconut oil takes some beating. With five people in the group, we each had eight-handed

massages. With gentle encouragement, I enjoyed slowing down, the permission to enjoy

massaging and touch; when it was my turn, feeling the warm oil and tender care. The quality

of this is deeply sensual, losing myself in sensations in my body rather than being in my busy

head. I felt safe doing something new and gentle, my focus completely in our nest, other

people in the room exploring different aspects.

The evening coming to a close, some of our group left so there was just me and a

good-looking young guy. I confess his body and stunning Indian heritage handsomeness had

helped make the massage a pleasure. He asked me if I wanted to sit on his face. My response

was to burst into tears. Maybe the direct request was a little out of context, I was a bit
shocked. Though he was gorgeous and I love oral sex, it didn’t feel right, not because of any

fear about catching anything but I didn’t know him and I just couldn’t move into that.

Embarrassed, I left the nest and went to my room, crying myself to sleep in confusion. Why

couldn’t I allow myself? In an awakening moment in the early hours, I realised I had no

permission for pleasure.

The following morning we did a different aspect, Ritual. Simply sitting opposite

someone for an hour looking into their eyes - a structure called Soul Gazing. Pulling names

out of a bowl, ‘Great Spirit’ gave me a partner I’d chatted to at dinner the previous evening.

Not your everyday man, an art collector who was setting up a gallery in Belize, we’d chatted

art, sculpture, travel and tantra. On my way to meet my body group, we’d exchanged an

innocent kiss, sharing a piece of mango I was carrying. I’d felt an electric shock go through

me at the mango kiss. Now he was sitting in front of me. Sarongs on, soft tantra music in the

background, he gazed at me gently. Still unsettled by the previous night’s revelation about

my lack of permission, I smiled weakly for a few minutes, then dissolved into tears. Not a

classy look; puffy, red-faced, mascara everywhere; love and acceptance in his eyes for all of

it. Crying for all the times I’d said no to things I’d wanted to say yes to because I didn’t think

it was allowed. Tears for all the things I hadn’t known, hadn’t allowed myself. I cried for

myself at a life of achievement but little intimate pleasure. It was the first time I’d ever been

vulnerable like that in front of a man, crying for fifty minutes of the soul gazing hour. I

snivelled and sobbed and he gazed at me with softness, his presence unwavering, occasional

tears in his own eyes. Before he left, he gave me his number.

Crumbling as the Designer Suits Fall Away

The Women’s Tantra programme and my new-found set of Shakti friends started taking

greater precedence and meaning in my life. After initially being in wariness and dread before

each weekend and each structure, I began to relax. I realised my desire to know what would

happen was in fact getting in the way of my enjoyment; my need for control preventing me

from finding out how I was with the unknown. So I simply decided to trust the process. We

did so many exercises over the eighteen months of the women’s programme and I’ll share the

ones that had the greatest effect on me. Otherwise you might think I spend my whole life in

workshops or running around the world. Which to be fair, for a while I wanted to. I’d never

felt more alive than in this year. Life beyond the comfort zone was challenging, yet what I’d

been waiting for on a deeper level. I was learning so many new ways of seeing the world,

more interesting than my hitherto mundane corporate existence. I kissed a girl for the first

time. I liked it. Sweetly removing a taboo, with C, who sent me “a Note,” a structure in

bravery, where we could leave requests for each other in a bowl on the altar with anything we

dared to ask for. Sidling up to the altar to see if I had any notes or been left out, wondering

how and whether to respond yes, no or maybe. I didn’t know what to want or to request.

The language used at the workshops was a whole new realm. We heard that Tantra is

a ‘heart-led’ practice. The teachers “held space,” our partners in the exercises were chosen by

‘Great Spirit’ as names were pulled out of a bowl. We ‘witnessed’ each other by listening.

There were mantras or spiritual songs. I heard about ‘gratitude practices’, chakras, ‘following

the energy’, trusting the universe, ‘being in choice’. We were ‘magnificent co-creators’. After

a weekend we ‘processed’ it and ‘landed’ home. I learned about Shiva, meaning the god,

signifying the masculine, or male energy, Shakti the feminine. We needed to go through life

‘as queens, not beggars.’ I heard the names of ‘gurus’ or teachers, Osho and Ram Dass and

chanted along to Krishna Das. I heard the words vulnerability, compassion, anger, loss and

love; new concepts for my prosaic corporate mind. Words I’d previously only known how to
spell, the feelings vague, not knowing they were desirable, admissible, allowed. Emotions

were scary for me, coming from a family where everything important was hidden and nothing

like this talked about. We saw where we were scared, where we felt excluded, where we felt

joyful, angry, free, weak, powerful, hopeless, disappointed, optimistic, idealistic, blaming and

judgmental. All of it brought back into our circle of listening. We were mirrors for each

other. If one of the Shaktis was in tears, instead of us rushing in with solutions, comfort or

platitudes, we’d sit with her as she absorbed her realisation, someone gently pushing a box of

tissues in her direction. I learned that we feel our own unprocessed emotions in hearing those

of others; in the circle we find permission for the unsayable, knowing we’re not alone, one

day that will be us too.

 We learned the touch women’s bodies need, from yoni healing to whole-body

massage. How as women, we need to soften and relax to let our bodies off high alert; only

then can our natural sexual energy charge, circulate and expand. Rather than going straight

for the T-zone, a female body needs approaching from the outside in, starting with gentle

massage of feet, hands, head. I began to distinguish the feel of pleasure that is nurturing and

relaxing. We were learning about valley rather than peak pleasure, a dropping endless state. It

was early days but I was getting a sense of what might be possible beyond what I knew. The

soft touch was a great contrast to my usual experiences with men, none of which had been

awful but now I was realising there was more to life than everything ending in some version

of intercourse that ended with a man’s orgasm. Yawn.

I want more of us to know that this life is possible.  I understand how belonging to

something so precious, not knowing what might happen, really fostered a sense of it being

my journey, my secret life, my inner exploration of what else is possible. An amazing way of

doing inner work, it’s not for the faint-hearted. I know so many of us are so bored with

what’s on offer in regular life. It’s not men’s fault: they’re stuck and scared too.
 I had glimmers of how delving into spirituality and sex is vital for connection to

ourselves, each other, the divine and the planet. Though it wasn’t all floating around in

sarongs, being ‘spiritual.’ chanting Om. In fact as the course progressed, there wasn’t much

of that at all. We began to tackle more substantial issues, the unconscious elements of our

personalities, which contribute to limiting beliefs, triggers and blocks. In one structure we got

to look at one of our ‘demons,’ an  unconscious fear pattern that runs us.  Demons are our

teachers to show us where we can heal more. We can treat them and ourselves with

compassion as ultimately they’re just trying to keep us safe and small, born out of a time

when we believed in their voice. Time to meet them, love them, let them move on.

I sat on a cushion opposite a shakti, we namaste’d in. The ritual began by the teachers

asking us to imagine little blue flames around us to burn off anything that no longer served

us, inviting us to call out the words, Shakti voices calling out across the room: Fear. Anxiety.

Loneliness. Worry. Misery. Smallness. Sadness, Isolation. Then, imagining ourselves being

surrounded by golden flames, calling in those qualities that we need to live fully: Grace.

Abundance. Courage, Compassion. Gentleness. Fierceness. Aliveness. Joy.  Beginning in our

pairs, silently witnessed, I invoked my demon to show itself, waiting a few minutes. Then

anxious energy emerged gradually through my body, I felt a younger me, agitated, nervous,

patting girl-guide badges on her upper arms, frowning, fretful. Then energy surging, I was up

on my feet, running around pinning imaginary certificates to the wall, the demon carrying me

around the room, hoping the teachers would see how good I was. Between badges and

certificates, I exhausted myself feeling the busy-ness, the demon energy swirling in my body

as the structure went on, the agitation intensifying; more patting, more pinning, feeling my

struggle. My version of what I thought I had to do to get love. Proving my competence as a

means to get recognition. Back on my cushion, wearily I asked the imaginary demon what

she needed from me; ‘To know you’re lovable without all of this’.
 Sharing in the circle what we‘d learned about ourselves, I vowed I’d take no more

certificates. 

Born to Boredom

What I always wanted was a fabulously interesting life. For as long as I can remember. I

wonder if I came out of the womb rolling my eyes at the gods’ choice for me in this

incarnation? I was born bored, forceps pulling me into this life.

If you had a happy early childhood, that’s really nice. I remember being bored in mine

and little else. I was a sweet, serious little girl; by the age of seven I must have already

worked out that these parents didn’t have much of a clue about how to give me the life I was

here for. We lived above a newsagents shop on one of the main roads in the unlovely

northern town of Bolton, all clothing mills and factories then. I didn’t do much wrong

because there was nothing much wrong to do. One of the times was having a rare visit from

friends and jumping up and down naked on my parents' bed, throwing Liquorice Allsorts out

of the window onto the main road below. It must have been greeted with horror and the game

stopped. A pivotal moment of shutting down joy and a child’s inherent, innocent pleasure.

I lost and found myself in Enid Blyton books of adventures and girls’ boarding

schools. Much about an interesting life I’ve learned from books. I knew there was a bigger

world out there than the back streets of Bolton, my dreary, catholic primary school run by

nuns, mass on a Sunday. People thought I was deaf because I was so quiet. Probably because

there was nothing interesting worth responding to. I was shy and clever, always top of the

class, studious even in primary school. There’s an old photo of me playing with Cuisenaire

counting rods, my heart goes out to that seven-year-old girl, trying so hard, already working

stuff out.
 So much, so 1960s. Don’t worry, it’s not a misery memoir, I haven’t got the patience

for that. I have few childhood memories, not much happened to remember. Trips to

Blackpool or Southport on a Sunday, we had two cute but bitey Yorkshire terriers, Chucky

and Sweep. There were family gatherings centred around Catholic rituals —First Confession

or Holy Communion. My grandparents owned the grocer’s shop across the road, another little

bit of family within a couple of miles of northern terraces. My dad was the quiet, peaceful

type; moon-faced, stoical, contented with his life, running his own shop, golf on Sunday. My

mum often dissatisfied, on the up from a poor childhood, an unmothered child herself, now

materially able to have more yet I doubt this was all she’d hoped for.

For the 1960s, what we had was quite a lot. My dad bought cigarette coupons in the

shop, so we had gifts from the Embassy catalogue; an Etch-a-Sketch when I was young and

later holidays to Spain at the beginning of the package holiday era. One of my memories was

being taken to a, posh for Bolton, clothes shop called Jean Dawson’s. My mum loved clothes,

bought me and my little sister good quality dresses when she could. I remember my parents

being happy and glamorous only on Saturday nights, her in fashionable Crimplene, for the

weekly outing to the working mens’ golf club, the scent of perfume as she kissed us

goodnight.

My parents were anxiously aspirational, the shop doing well, so we had ever-better

cars, including a TR7 and a gold Capri. My mother’s great achievement was to get me out of

the Catholic realm, through entrance exams, then the grand arch of the posh girls’ grammar

school in Bolton. She’d been the headmaster’s secretary in the boys’ division before I was

born and had set her heart on my chances of getting out of Bolton alive, even if she couldn’t.

It was a direct grant then and I had a scholarship. I’m the first person in my family to go to

university, I have my mother to thank for that. Though every time I said anything that

questioned her, I’d be met with tears, my education pushed back at me, silencing me to
teenage insolence with “You went to that good school”. We fought on and off for about thirty

years, I’ve been an impossible daughter since the 11+.

With an overlapping ten-year affair, she’s had two husbands, my dad the first. Both

have loved her, yet, in their traditional northern bluff ways, limited her. She found her way to

a dual life of family and love, in a Catholic world where adultery is a sin. My mother found

her own way of getting what she needed though not in the same place. I learned the value of

secrets early in life. Denied the truth of what was happening, the unconscious message to me

as a teenager was that happiness comes outside marriage, not within. It took me a long time

to see her courage. She’s eighty-three now, a peace I’ll never take for granted has broken out

at last, glimmerings of compassion and admiration, hard-won on both sides.

Insolence and Individuality

On a visit home from teaching in Indonesia in my twenties, an ex-boyfriend that I was trying

to persuade to sleep with me again, asked me, “What did they teach you at that school,

Alison, indomitable spirit?”

Yeah, I guess they did. Once I’d dropped my working-class accent of ‘coooookery

boooooks’ for the more acceptable middle-class ‘cuckery bucks’, I worked out how to fit in

easily enough. The other poor girl from the council estate opposite the shop left after the first

term. I liked it though. The building was impressive, soft red-brick grandeur, all shined

parquet floors and lofty ceilings, Assembly every day in the great hall, sun shining through

mullioned glass. The strange sports like netball and lacrosse nonplussed me, my lack of

sporting interest and prowess revealing an early dislike of being in teams. While I can’t say
any of the subjects like Latin or Physics were useful for how to live well, I liked being in a

girls' school; the expectations were high and I kept up, mostly in the bottom half of the class.

The boys across the arch were a mystery until you got to 6th form. So I had five years of

focus, encouragement and discipline. Going away for geography field trips or Duke of

Edinburgh awards, the road out of Bolton was very appealing: seeing greenery in the Lake

District and going for walks in the countryside was all new to me. The other girls’ lives

amazed me: their big houses with books in them, beautiful wallpaper, dads who were doctors.

I even had one friend whose parents sat close to each other on the sofa, holding hands, talking

to each other, and us, with soft voices and affection. New, prettier, more intelligent worlds

than I was used to.

Going to church, every Sunday evening, was one of the few things we did as a family,

in our best clothes, sitting together, listening to the full Catholic mass, offering the hands of

peace. Knowing, even then, that what I was hearing was arcane make-believe. Like the scent

of incense in the golden crucible, guilt imbuing us with each Holy Communion wafer and

confession. My growing knowledge at school caused upsets at home, studying the

Reformation made me rebel against going to church. Martin Luther’s notice on the door at

Wittenberg declaiming Indulgences, the religious bribery of the time, brought out my

rebellious streak as I saw the parallels at church, the collection plate for trips to Lourdes to

save souls. At fifteen, railing at home about religious corruption and the stupidity of Catholic

beliefs got me nowhere. I was told in no uncertain terms that while I lived at home I’d be

going to church every Sunday. No argument allowed.

These days I like going to church for family rituals. On the rare occasions I’m in

church, I gaze at the art and am charmed by the stories of the hierarchies of angels and

archangels, cherubim and seraphim. Marvelling at the firm belief offered by the priest at

funerals that God will be waiting for you in heaven, alongside all the people you love.
Wouldn’t that be marvellous, your reward for being good in this life as everlasting, eternal

love? Or in my case, more likely, damnation. At my niece’s confirmation, I sat between my

mum and dad for the first time since I was a teenager; it felt precious. For over two decades

my parents had refused to be in the same room or speak to each other since their separation

when I was eighteen.

Escape in my early teens took the form of joining Girl Guides. I loved the new things

to learn: making fires, countryside walks, camping trips, bananas baked in a campfire, getting

all the badges for my uniform. And then boys came in. I met these mysterious creatures

earlier than my school friends, partnered with a Venture Scout group to go to an international

camp in Norway. Apart from Paris with the nuns when I was nine, this was the first time I’d

been away without my family. The long overnight train ride to Norway, sitting opposite the

most handsome Venture Scout filled me with anticipation and longing, though not much

sleep. Once we got to the camp of blonde Scandinavian Guides, the boys were in short

supply, my crush was sweet and occasional meetings by a campfire lit me up. After the camp,

we visited the Arctic Circle! The Arctic Circle! A place I’d heard of in my geography books

and seen on maps. It was cold and grey actually but wondrous all the same. I saw an iceberg

for the first time in my life.

At thirteen I was already ‘cool girl’. Reading Jackie and the girls' magazines from the

shop, full of clothes and music, stuff my classmates didn’t know, gave me something. I had

platforms and flares and Bay City Roller gear before any of them, in their Clark’s shoes and

square clothes. At our teenage parties full of Fleetwood Mac and Motorhead, I brought the

boys along. While the others worked at Prestons of Bolton, a traditional jewellery shop, I got

a job in a record shop. At Tracks, I met my first boyfriend, from the boy’s division, he bought

Japan’s Quiet Life. Suddenly I had what posh teenage girls wanted; clothes, money, make-up

and access to the opposite sex. Life was looking up. Getting good marks was for the top set.
 New Romanticism replaced heavy rock. Me and the boy wore eyeliner and went to

Japan and Echo and the Bunnymen concerts. There was lots of time spent together at each

other’s houses, knowing each other's parents, then, when apart, on the house phone for hours.

It was a perfect first relationship, discovering pleasure with someone who loved me. For two

years, we did lots of kissing, some oral sex; I felt squirmy new feelings. My mother thought I

was doing a lot ‘more’ than we actually were and said as much to my indignant hurt, I felt

guilty about ‘it’ anyway, scared of getting pregnant – I’d stop the boy if anything got too

heavy. Catholics know sex is wrong and I’d been indoctrinated well. And he was simply fine

with it, no pressure or pleading; it was easy, we both knew the rules. I lost my virginity the

summer before we went to university together. Discovering sex and freedom in our university

rooms. I got the pill and escape from home.

I guess that’s why I still enjoy teenage-style making out on the sofa today, it’s hot and

innocent at the same time, full of desire and longing. Conditioning goes deep and is hard to

step out of, for any of us. With Catholics, there’s an imaginary Line, some things that are

okay and don’t mean anything and then the One Thing that means Everything. Playing

around the edges of the imaginary Line is hot. Once you’ve crossed the Line all bets are off,

then it’s a love thing and more is permitted within that. Actually, the line of penetration is

still important. Talking to Tantra people later, the non-Catholics don’t get it and the Catholics

completely get the Line. Catholics know guilt, how it adds to the forbidden pleasure,

excitement and fear of sex. It makes sense why I responded to the rituals of Tantra, the idea

that sexuality is sacred, something of a higher nature.

A Tantric Date to Remember

Remember the art collector, the electric kiss over a bite of mango? The one I cried in front of

for almost an hour soul gazing? We’d swapped numbers after the Aspects Tantra weekend

but hadn’t been in touch since. Three months later I had to go to a sales conference. In a

moment of recklessness, I messaged him from there, realising the conference hotel was

nearby where he’d told me he had a house. In a brief exchange, he said he said he’d be in

touch next time he was in London.

The date set for a few weeks later, I arranged meetings, booking a day off to meet him

for twenty-four hours between customers and a team gathering. He was staying at a hotel in

London. I agreed to meet him there. Why wouldn’t I? The only bit of preparation I did was to

look it up. OMG, the Concordia hotel is swanky! I had a plan B lined up if anything was off,

money for a taxi to C’s house and my own hotel room booked the night after. I wasn’t

nervous at all, I was thrilled, I don’t often meet someone who’s setting up a gallery,

interested in art and Tantra. He was in London as he’d been invited to a private viewing at

Bonham’s art dealers, there was an item he was interested in bidding for. He invited me to

come along with him. For a girl at Todmorden art college that was a pretty seductive offer,

somewhat in a different league, though my inner chippy northern girl was up for it. The other

students were horrified I hadn’t googled the hell out of him.

Slightly miffed he didn’t offer to meet me at the tube or in reception, he’d given me

his room number, 823 and asked me to meet him there. Wandering through the designer-

dressed, glamorous Vogue ladies at afternoon tea, if I hadn’t been nervous before, I was now.

I’ve never felt more like a high class, if somewhat dishevelled, call girl than I did walking

through the lobby and past reception to get to the lift. Leather overnight bag in hand, slightly

hot from the tube, wearing a smart black wool dress, expensive designer coat, good

underwear. Arriving at the room on the eighth, I pressed the bell, heart pounding, breathing

fast, my face flushed. And then, nothing. He didn’t come to the door. Aaaaaaargh.
Humiliation came flooding in. Time to rethink. Remembering a phrase I’d heard on Tantra

workshops, ‘Fear is excitement, without the breath’ smiling at myself, I dropped my bag,

deliberately slowed my breathing, pausing a while before ringing the bell again. This time he

answered, elegant, tanned, sophisticated; he smelt divine. He hadn’t answered the first ring as

he’d been making himself look and smell good obviously. Stylish clothes, a contrast, as last

time I’d seen him, he was in a sarong. There was a bottle of pink champagne chilling in an

ice bucket, he invited me to sit down on a pale green, silk chaise-longue and poured me a

drink.

So began an evening of relaxed pleasure. We talked about art, plans for his gallery,

what he was buying. He explained a bit about his unique approach to venture capitalism, how

he’d moved from shopping centres to smaller ethical investing. I didn’t understand much

about it with my hippy ways, though it’s always curious to see how the rich live. I’m

disparaging of golf too though hearing the idea that it’s ultimately playing against yourself

intrigued me, seeing it in a new light beyond boring men in dodgy sweaters in stuffy

clubhouses, though I’m not going to take it up as a hobby any time soon. He had a house in

Seychelles, travelled the world, a foodie, he told me about the best restaurants he’d eaten at.

He was in a companionate-enough sexless marriage and, not interested in finding escorts,

enjoyed the pleasures of tantric massage as a way of feeling intimacy. We talked about the

weekend we’d met, he shared why he’d not enjoyed his time in the aspect of Transaction. I

liked his conversation, manners, ease and quiet inner drive. We naturally moved closer to

each other as we chatted, him gently tracing lines on my now bare calves and feet. When we

got hungry he ordered room service, a couple of hotel staff appeared, setting up a linen-

covered table at the foot of the bed, seared tuna and delicious white wine arrived as the

conversation continued.
 Erotic tension building, we didn’t finish dessert and it wasn’t far to move to the

luxurious bed. We moved to each other, with slow curious as well as devouring kisses,

pausing, undressing each other slowly and sensually, each button taking an age, smiling all

the while. Soul gazing was where we’d started so it was easy to maintain presence in the new

connection. His touch was exquisite, gentle, undemanding, sensual and turn-taking. Not

trying to get anywhere, he could savour the moment, never pushing towards sex or an

orgasm. His body felt responsive to my touch; I sensed for him to be met in this way was

more an exception than a regularity. Money can buy you whatever you want, yet genuine

connection is rare, we fell asleep together easily.

During the night I realised I had a poorly tummy. It’s embarrassing to have to go to

the bathroom so often on a first date, though he was kind enough not to ask too many

questions, leaving me to sleep in the next morning while he went downstairs to work. Later,

in the art dealers, I wandered around with him as he had the private viewing and the sales

pitches. The art was interesting in parts, the Trechikoff Chinese Girl painting much loved in

1970s homes, was astonishingly vivid, though small; a bit like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, I

expected it to be bigger. I could see the Bonham’s dealers didn’t quite know how to place or

include me, so I drifted off to spend time with the abstract expressionists and the art I liked.

When we left, they invited us to go again, though a bit like a golf club, I don’t feel the pull.

After lunch in an Italian restaurant at Selfridges, we went to the British Museum, my

turn to show him something of beauty - The Room of Enlightenment, with its collections of

leather-bound books, Darwin’s birds, early shoes. Pale yellow walls, high ceilings, sunlight

filtering through the windows, glittering the vitrines, full of their precious first editions and

artefacts. The art collector was enchanted, he’d never been there before. We visited the Asian

collection seeing the beautiful statue of Tara from Sri Lanka and the Shiva-Parvati sculptures

I’d heard about in A History of the World in 100 Objects, my podcast de jour.
 By then we’d decided there was no reason for me to leave that evening so I cancelled

my hotel room near the office in Swiss Cottage, the twenty-four hours turning into thirty-six.

I’d booked Moro in Exmouth Market for us for dinner. It pleased the art collector, with the

exotic decor, the fusion of Spanish and Arabic style dishes, served on gorgeous individual

jewel-coloured plates and bowls. Out of his usual business realm, he noticed and

complimented the thoughtful touches, allowing and enjoying being chosen for. Later, as we

walked to get a cab, a woman stopped us in the street and told us how much in love we

looked. At that moment it did feel like that, eyes shining at each other, thankfully no tears this

time. I am such a closet romantic, another thing I didn’t think I was allowed to admit either.

Back to the Concordia again, the clean white sheets and more sensual touch, made all

the more special knowing that tomorrow I’d leave and who knew if we’d see each other

again. He was a fan of the Line, crossing it meant he’d betray his loyalty, choosing not to

cross it kept us both safe, still merging in an easy, naked soft desire.

It was so much fun turning up at the team meeting the next day exuding an air of

mystery. My male colleagues knew I’d been up to something interesting, yet I didn’t say and

no one asked. In my experience, it’s tricky to both share and to ask about Tantra; the asker is

often curious and questioning yet sharing it often elicits an ‘I could never do that’ response.

Fear, disapproval, ridicule, embarrassment, masking inexperience or inadequacy; shame by

any other name. Shame that we have no idea how to be intimate, that our skills are limited

and our innocence vast. That’s why it’s easier to laugh about sex than to learn about it.

For me obviously, taking sex seriously has been worth it. Think about it, it’s your life,

your body; what love and pleasure you wish to experience is your responsibility. Fortune

favours the bold and the persistent. Showing up for yourself is what’s being asked, not being

a better performance artist. If shy, old catholic, repressed corporate me can do it, anyone can.
 The art collector came to see me next time, meeting again a year later in a suite in the

Lowry Hotel in Manchester. He was sad, going through a quick, generous divorce, wanting to

live more honestly. There’d been no big bust-up, treating his divorce as a business

transaction, coming to some realisations after lack of support following an operation. He

hadn’t been touched for a while and simply wanted to be held.

It felt so tender allowing a grown man to cry, holding him, feeling compassion for all

his disappointment. It takes a lot for men to cry, women dismissing it as weak is helping no

one, it’s a trusting and intimate shared moment. Later we had dinner at a restaurant where I

knew he’d like the exquisite Japanese-style tableware and unusual food; art appreciation

takes many forms. Once he called to see if I’d meet him in Copenhagen as he’d finally scored

a table at Nobu. It was with too little notice so I couldn’t go. I can’t even remember what it

was that I had arranged, probably something that wasn’t as glamorous. I do wish I’d learned

to say Yes to the right things sooner and more easily. I’m open to plans, spontaneity is easier

that way.

Opening The Stable Door, Closing my Mother’s Wound

Single again, for a brief time, I decided to be open to life and try new experiences. I realised

I’d had such a limited sexual existence and I wanted to know what else was out there. I made

a list, small at first, of the things I imagined I’d like to try, and found willing partners to

practice with - the Art Collector, the Girl, the Poet, the Dancer. It was fun transgressing

Catholic sinfulness with people who laughed gently with me at the Line and took me over it

with playful eroticism and encouragement.

After the kindness of the Tantric date with the Art Collector, I had a tantric evening

with a beautiful lesbian who knew the joys of giving oral sex. I understood the starry depths
of goal-free receiving, valuing her patience with my first tentative explorations into her

yoniverse. A poet friend blindfolded and gently flogged me. I met a dancer who lived a few

doors away. In healing and closing of some ancestral wound, one afternoon the poet bathed

me before saying goodbye as I went off to meet the dancer for the evening. As I drove

between them I was in wonder at this permission. I’d stitched a thread my mother couldn’t.

Honesty, openness, an old wound of secrecy closed at last.

The dancer became my boyfriend. He encouraged me to talk about sex. It felt too

private at first, I had no vocabulary, but slowly I opened up. I enjoyed listening to him, not in

a voyeuristic way but it was astonishing to me that sex had played such an important and

pleasurable part in his life. Not my experience at all. He showed me how to communicate

openly and truthfully about everything. When we needed to sort anything tricky out, we’d sit

back to back, taking it in turns to speak, the words going out to the air, blame-free, witnessing

ourselves and each other. Sexually it was the first relationship where I felt I could be

experimental, rather than just respond to a man’s wishes or actions and hope I liked it. We

could make suggestions to each other and say Yes or No or Maybe. He asked me to spank

him into the New Year, to the chimes of midnight. I said Yes, feeding him grapes between

twelve teasing slow slaps. A few minutes of serious, sensual fun to set intentions for an

experimental year ahead.

Agony not Ecstacy

At the end of the women’s programme, the completion of an eighteen-month life-enhancing

journey, the retreat was a week in Cornwall called Ecstasy. It’s a real honour to make it and a

week to meet the shiva within. In a meditation to meet our inner masculine, Rhett Butler

appeared, charming, charismatic and carpetbagging. Not particularly spiritual by comparison

to my friends who were meeting Greek Gods, pirates and rugged men of the woods. All the
same, Gone with the Wind was the first book that had kept me up all night as a teenager. Tess

the next. Rhett Butler a lot more accommodating than Angel Clare.

Besides devotional ceremonial fire meditation rituals, yoni honouring, a vision quest

—a transformational inner journey out in nature—, there were more circles, more hot oil

sensuality, more dancing and stripping. I danced as a sexy secretary, casting aside my

shorthand notepad as well as my tight-fitting low-cut white shirt, pin-striped skirt and sexy

glasses.

In a particularly enlivening structure bringing out our deeply held ideas around

money, I heard the Shakti’s sharings on abundance and lack of it, on risk and debt,

dependency and freedom. I saw the pile of money I’d brought shifting, growing,

disappearing, and felt rising panic. I found judgements about family tax credits which I’d

never heard of but presumably paid towards. Another taboo broached, leading to a major

unravelling around not being a mother and ultimately my life purpose. Even though I’m

happy I don’t have children, it shocked me seeing how deeply ingrained my feeling was of

not having as much value as a woman. I was grateful for my teachers’, “that’s a very old-

fashioned view Ali,” gentle mockery, offering new perspectives of the womb space for a

creative birthing of purpose.

I left Ecstasy in agony, I cried out much of my loss on the long journey away from

Cornwall. In a practical desire to wear more orange to symbolise my creativity chakra, I

bought an eye-wateringly expensive tangerine yoga suit on the way home in Glastonbury.

The clothes helped set the new intentions for creativity, but I wasn’t prepared for The Void;

the time it sunk in, to paraphrase Stephen Covey in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective

People, that I didn’t just have my ladder up against the wrong wall, it was in completely the

wrong foundations. I knew my days in the high paid career were numbered, as with changes

in legal aid, the meteorite had already hit the dinosaur, it would only be a matter of time and
finding the reason. Stunned to inaction, what I learned was that I’d been running my life on

fear rather than love, Hilly’s parting words, “You’ve seen it, now you can do something about

it.”

Post Ecstasy, being in shock didn’t last long, nature abhors a vacuum. I know I’d

vowed no more certificates but when an invitation to train as a Certified Sexological

Bodyworker arrived the next day, I was stunned at the synchronicity.

“Holy shit God, are you asking me to be a professional sex coach? Really? Me? You

must be kidding!”

I read the invitation,

“Consider being of service to the human community. Join a world-wide network of

somatic sex educators committed to evolving erotic embodiment. Sexological Bodyworkers

guide individuals, couples and groups using a variety of instructive modalities, including

breath work, touch, erotic massage, pelvic release bodywork, Orgasmic Yoga coaching, and

conscious placement of attention. The trainings begin with two months of online group study

and end with supervised practice sessions.” 

I felt massive resistance, not feeling up to the task.

That afternoon a swarm of ladybirds flew in from the garden and nested above my

door. Having watched insects racing up a Cornish chimney and making meaning of it earlier

that week in the vision quest, I was already sold on signs and symbols as part of divine

guidance. I looked up the meaning of ladybirds as an animal totem. Ladybirds arrive to tell

you to get out of your own way. So what are you going to do? I looked up what all the

strange words meant, more new vocabulary, more new interesting people. I didn’t take too

long to consider it and weigh up pros and cons, I leapt, I applied and was accepted to train as

a “Sex Bod”, trusting the net would appear in a pioneering new field. I wanted a new
purpose, didn’t I? Saving the world through sexuality had frisson and I was flattered to be

considered, I still felt too new to this world.

At the same time, I signed up for Shakti Tantra’s mixed course. Hilly had once said to

me “Don’t treat men like commodities”. She’d struggled to find the word c-c-c-c-

ccommodity, I was puzzled and slightly hurt. Neither of us understood why she’d said it at

the time but it’d stuck with me. I’d come to realise I held an underlying belief that men were

’just after me for one thing’. Which was probably sex. Of course, I was projecting. I was after

men for one thing, though it wasn’t for sex it was for love.

I was still looking for ‘the one’. The best friend, the partner in crime, a man who’d be

there for me. We’d do interesting stuff together, support each other, get married. Yet, in my

50s, it’d had never worked, no-one had been the right person to think I could grow old with

and stay interested. Though I had good men around me, love was missing. Maybe my inner

masculine was too much in charge. While working in a man’s world helped me be financially

independent, maybe I was missing the fullness of my inner feminine? Completing the

Women’s Tantra programme, realising I’d been running my life on fear rather than love, gave

me another piece of the jigsaw.

It was time to look at my relationships with the opposite sex, work and love. Both

courses started a few months later.

 II

The Story of J

“The inescapable fact is that although the exploration of one’s boundaries is inherently

unsafe, there is no other way to grow.”

Charles Eisenstein, The Ascent of Humanity

Meeting Shiva

In a hotel room with my twice-annual, fifteen-years-younger work-flirtation who’d just won

the main sales prize, I blindfolded him and spanked his cute arse gently before sending him

back into the conference to enjoy his success. It was the only redeeming hour in two days of

corporate boredom and enforced fun, wagging out of the tedious drunken corporate revelries

to spend an illicit hour at what would turn out be my final sales conference.

The next day I began the eighteen month mixed programme, walking into the newly

gathered Tantra group at a new retreat centre, big smiles of relief and melting hugs amongst

us all. Home again. Within a few minutes I met a new Shiva, classic tall, dark, handsome

features, we shared a few words, his clear blue eyes striking, holding each other’s gaze.

Sitting with him at lunch the next day I asked him where he’d worked away and he simply

replied ‘nowhere nice’. Rather reserved, I had him down as a foreign correspondent type and
I was intrigued by his self-contained, observant energy, saying little, listening, taking me in.

As we moved through the varied tantric group structures of the afternoon I realised I was

always scanning for him, aware of his presence.

On Saturday night, our workshop space now transformed, ringing the bell I was

guided into the Temple, incense burning, candles flickering on the altar of our sacred objects.

I was led by the ‘temple guardians’ to a place with two cushions, in a circle of similar nests.

We were in ‘ritual space’ to take The Journey of The Heart, one of the most beautiful Tantra

practices for seeing ourselves and others in our archetypal aspects.

The man from lunch was led to sit opposite me, a Rodin statue in a sarong, I couldn’t

believe my luck. Thank you Great Spirit. Hands in prayer position, bowing, touching

foreheads for our Namaste to open the ritual, soul-gazing to spiritual mantras. A sliding doors

moment, this is how we began the evening and the biggest lesson of my life. Our first

meeting together was as the goddess and the warrior archetypes, I was Shakti, he was Shiva.

As he left our nest, beginning his journey onwards, I felt a strong sense of loss and longing,

my beloved god, leaving me behind to go into battle.

During the ritual, different Shivas would come to the nest - now my goddess temple;

Shiva as a lover, a father, a lost boy, a fool, a playmate. I had a man cry in my arms. I forgave

a man by representing all the people he’d ever hurt. I was accepted by a man for all the

people I’d ever hurt. I met them as the mother, the child, the lover, the goddess, the fool, the

playmate; each meeting exploring the myriad roles of what it means to be a human.

Aware of his progress throughout the exercises, I was reunited with my warrior to end

the ritual in our temple, it felt joyous. With unexpected tears in my eyes, I sang along to a

favourite mantra. ‘May the long time sun shine upon you, all Love surround you, and the

Pure Light within you, Guide your way on’. I have the worst singing voice in the world, yet

something moved me to sing to him. My heart opened to this stranger. I wanted him to feel
this in his life. We were cuddling quietly at the end of the structure when the evening ended

abruptly as the fire alarm went off.

Namaste In, Namaste Out, Don't Fall in Love

A few days later I received an email from the man I’d felt the intense connection with at the

Tantra weekend

“I was absolutely delighted that you joined me for the Sat night structure. I know that

I should talk about energy etc but you are stunningly beautiful and I melted into those eyes of

yours and your love. People talk about that, but I have not experienced it like that before.

And that’s when it hit me. Part of what I have been missing on all those tours away

for the last twenty years. I know that the ritual was staged, no chaos or horrendous journeys

in the back of some cramped, stinking freighter. Though every now and then a semblance of

the experience I shared with you would have made it all worthwhile.

Our experience reinforces my view that there is better than I have previously enjoyed

in life so thank you again for that moment.”

Jx

Exciting. We arranged to meet in London next time I was there. Another note let me know he

wanted to ‘to take me out somewhere, to practice, not clock watch to jump on the last train,

but to spend the night with you in my arms.’ Rather sweetly he asked Hilly’s advice which

was “Namaste in, Namaste out, don’t fall in love”

On the way to London, I was thrilled when he jumped my train. Wearing a pale

yellow floral shirt, wandering into the carriage, here was a man with big presence and ease. I

already liked what little I knew of him, attracted by his charm, intelligence and an underlying
sadness. He’d told me he was in the army though he was an engineer not a killer. After coffee

in the grand surroundings of the refurbished Charing Cross Hotel talking Tantra, bread-

making, motorbiking and life, he came back with me to my hotel room. We decided to do

some Tantra ‘practice’ first before going out for dinner.

I was carrying a mini-temple; candles, incense, sarongs and I set up an altar space on

the hotel room desk, put spiritual music on and lit the incense and candles. We agreed on

‘erotic undressing’. The idea is to awaken all the senses. This involves being blindfolded and

then someone slowly, I mean really slowly, undressing you. Then vice-versa. Discussion

over, intention set, sitting cross-legged, opposite each other on the double bed in the hotel

room, we Namaste’d in to open the sacred space; looking into each other’s eyes, hands to the

symbolic earth, lifting them, bringing them up to our hearts in prayer, bowing to each other,

touching foreheads, saying the words, “Namaste - I honour you as myself”. Meaning we’re

the same, we‘re both divine.

J put my blindfold on and we began with him standing behind me, simply holding me.

His arms circled my waist, breathing together, contained, cared for, I felt his breath on the

back of my neck and then he moved away. I was aware of the distance then enjoyed feeling

fingertips moving slowly down from my head to my feet. Aware of his presence, not

knowing where he was, trusting, moving between subtle anticipation allowing the thrill of

touch, soft and skilled. As each layer of clothing was removed, he’d stroke my skin with his

fingertips or I’d feel his breath. Using each item of clothing to stroke me, he occasionally

kissed me lightly in passing unexpected places, the middle of my back, my heart, my hair.

Unzipping my dress, feeling his fingertips down my back, around my knicker lines, along my

sides, the back of my thighs, - patient, slow attention and finesse. It’s deeply satisfying as the

receiver to simply trust, let go and enjoy it all. Once I was naked he undid my blindfold and

we gazed at each other in appreciation of the mutual gift we’d offered.

 Then it was my turn to blindfold and undress him, a reciprocal pleasure. I’d already

seen him half-naked a couple of weekends earlier and now I was going to see the whole of

him and in my own sweet time. Holding him to begin, letting him know he was safe in my

charge then, stepping back to take in his physique, his beauty, the clothes. Wondering how

I’d begin, I took time to admire him, leaving him waiting.

Taking my fingertips slowly from his hair, down his neck, his back, his legs and up

again, over his head, gradually down his chest, groin, thighs to bare feet which I kissed in

devotion. Touching and pressing into different parts of him, moving around so he wouldn’t

know what was coming next, I kissed his lips occasionally, breathed softly into his ear. I

stayed present with him whether I was close or I’d moved away to increase the distance and

anticipation. Taking off the flowery shirt, I undid each button ever so slowly, sliding it off

over his shoulders, letting it drop, brushing his bare skin as it went.

The wonderful thing about this is the variety of touch, sometimes it’s soft and other

times decisive. Taking off a belt is one of the latter times, undoing the buttons on flies a time

to go enjoyably slowly. Sliding the jeans off his gorgeous bum, letting them drop, helping

him step out of them, placing his hand on my head to steady us. He was wearing sexy, tight,

red boxers. He looked amazing standing there blindfolded wearing only the red pants. I liked

his skin, supple and soft, freckles on his shoulders and upper back, which I kissed

devotionally. I enjoyed taking time playing around the waistline of his boxers and the inside

of his fantastic thighs with strokes and scratches. Touching his back, with stillness, presence

and love, every so often an unexpected little hair pulling. His pleasure was up to me and I

could take my time, always making sure his whole body felt included, not focusing on

anything nor leaving anything out.

Putting my hand on his crotch, at the same time as resting my hand against his heart,

letting it rest there, feeling it pulse before I decided to take off the sexy pants, letting him
know I knew what I was doing, he was safe with me. Slowly, slowly teasing, I pulled down

the pants, gently running my fingertips along his bum cheeks and the sensitive line where the

Rodin thighs met his bum. Tracing my fingers around his balls and cock, not focusing on

anywhere in particular, building the erotic charge and sensuality. I took my time to savour his

body, to be devoted to it. Taking possession of a man is subtle, slow and allows you to fall in

love with all the parts, without having to be obviously sexual. No fast friction, no attempts at

orgasm, no performance. Simply breath, touch and presence.

We offered our Namaste to close the session. Time to go out for dinner. Later we slept

together in each other’s arms all night. It felt easy for me, a coming home. We’d Namaste’d

in and out, ignoring the last bit of teacher’s advice.

Not Following Teacher's Advice

Falling in love with J was simple and didn’t take long. After our meeting in London, he’d

been to my house for dinner and stayed the night, leaving before dawn to go to work four

hours away. We met again at the next Tantra weekend and in the opening circle both of us

were hesitant to share the fact we’d met privately. In a Tantra group, there’s little room or

need for that; often privacy is because you think you’re doing something wrong or something

is not allowed. I was grateful that one of the teachers picked up on my reluctance, asking the

whole circle the rhetorical question of why I might feel ashamed of sharing? She said, “love

was to be celebrated not secretive.” I felt an excruciating relief hearing the revelation. That

weekend J and I spent both nights in the temple together, making up a mattress with all our

nest materials, continuing to explore each other’s bodies, sleeping entwined in front of the

candle-lit altar.
 At the first weekend, the two women I was sharing a room with had also liked J.

Women talk and shaktis share, so we knew he’d been in contact with all three of us. I knew I

didn’t own him, I didn’t know him. I saw and recognised my uncomfortable feelings, wanting

to feel acknowledged, wanting ‘us’ to be recognised. Was it so it’d be a kind of “hands-off

he’s mine?” Maybe. A mixed Tantra workshop isn’t going to give you that security, though

it’ll show you who you are, your hopes, your ‘stuff’, your potential, your triggers, as well as

beautiful healing opportunities. This is “our inner work,” our spiritual path of growth. I was

aware when he was working with other shaktis and feeling insecure when he was in the sauna

with others. Constantly pulled between being with my friends and wanting to sit or be with

him, feeling torn, a new sensation.

That weekend, ‘Discoverings’, focused on the energetic body. We did curious ‘bio-

energetic’ exercises, stressing and releasing different parts of our bodies, our jaws, hips,

sternum where energy blocks are. I felt what’s called ‘streaming’ for the first time; little

internal tremors, shakes and pulses I’d never felt before, an awareness of the energy flowing

within my body. Getting energy moving is part of the shift to having a multi-orgasmic body,

where the focus of pleasure moves from the genitals to circulate new sensations in the whole

body. It adds a new dimension to pleasure, allowing a different focus from trying to ‘turn

someone on,’ moving away from chasing peak orgasm. Mysteriously different, I heard it

called our ‘life force’— our creative energy.

Saying Goodbye to My Father the Tantric Way

During the Discoverings weekend, one of the rituals had involved witnessing another person

lying on the floor as they took an inward shamanic journey. I witnessed my partner, sitting

calmly next to her for over an hour, as she made internal routes of discovery; all I had to do
was offer a silent presence. In my turn it’d been a valuable exercise, I’d seen my internal

vigilance; blue lights like a radar in my skull, always looking for opportunities or danger, on

high alert. I realised how exhausting that hypervigilance had been for me over the years.

The structure showed me how to be for the next week with my father. My dad had

been in the latter stages of terminal cancer for a few months and was in hospital. Visiting him

on my way to the retreat, sitting in bed doing the crossword, he seemed comfortable enough.

Just before I left he told me again about the grey book with all his ‘arrangements’. Though

he’d offered to give it to me earlier that year he hadn’t found it. We talked about the music

for his funeral which I scribbled down on a scrap of paper: Ave Maria, Panis Angelicus.

When I got back to see him on Sunday evening, I found he’d been given The Last Rites, the

Catholic preparation for death. Neither of us had realised he was so close. He was transferred

to the local hospice the next day.

In his last couple of years, our relationship had grown as tantra had softened me. In

much of our lives, we’d not been particularly close, though it was an easy relationship. I

wasn’t so interested in family things, being much more focused on friends and my own life. I

hadn’t been there much for him in the early days of his illness, he didn’t tell me so I didn’t

understand the level of his suffering nor would I have known how to be with it. In the last

year, I’d been to hospital appointments with him and I’d got to know him. He lived in a one-

bedroom housing association flat, crammed with popular books and cheap collectables,

watching TV all day, sport and cooking programmes. He kept cash he won on the horses

stored around the place in socks. Although he trusted the bookies, he didn’t trust the banks.

After my parents divorced, he’d had a few ‘lady-friends’ yet never remarried, preferring his

own space, decisions and charge of the TV remote. Passive, stubborn, peaceful and

undemanding, it had been easy not to take much notice nor expect much of him. I realised

his love for me had been largely unspoken. In one of my earlier women’s Tantra courses
we’d been looking at our childhoods and without mentioning the T word, I’d got my dad

talking on the topic. During that special conversation, he shared how seeing me when I was

first born had made him so proud, how happy he was as a younger man with his family and

his own shop.

I’d known that one of the happiest times of his life had been when he was stationed at

an RAF base on Tiree. When, apart from an incident when Khrushchev’s plane had flown

over, he’d spent most of his time there playing football on the beach. As an older man, his

sadness and guilt about failing in his marriage still weighed heavily. The year before he died,

we’d taken our only holiday together as adults, driving up to Tiree in my car. Although he

was frail by then and could only walk slowly, we managed to have quiet days there, driving

around looking for that beach, sitting in arty cafes and reconnecting quietly, just being in

each other’s company.

We found that beach one day. Though mostly he’d struggled to get in and out of the

car, that morning he was on to the sand as fast as I’d seen him move in years. As he stood

there on the vast beach on the flat, sunny, flower-filled island, I saw a vision of the young

man he’d once been, full of freedom, peace and hope for his future. I sat with him for his last

week. I was struck by his last words as he was admitted, fretting about paying the milk and

paper bills, small amounts of money that seemed hugely significant to him. Typically my

father, not wanting to be a burden to anyone, thinking he had to look after himself right to the

end, not being in anyone’s debt and liking things organised in a certain way. I saw that in me

too and my heart went out to both of us. After the first day, he didn’t speak any more. That

week as I sat in my quiet vigil in Bolton Hospice, I let everything drop. I sat with him,

witnessing him, talking to him about my life, finally letting him know me. Letting him hear

what I appreciated about him, from the teenage taxi rides to the way he loved me in an

accepting, non-judgmental way. I admired his stoicism, the freedom of him not seeming to
need much from me. Both of us calm, I sat by his bedside as a stream of friends and Catholic

priests and nuns I’d known from primary school came to pay last respects. A revisiting of

childhood memories, it was heartening to see how he was loved, how strong his faith had

been. He’d gone to church every Sunday of his life until he was too ill. A priest gave him The

Last Rites again, this time I took part in it. This is when I value the Catholic rituals, making

meaning of a life, giving it a precious quality. During the ritual we were asked to make a

silent confession, causing me a mini inner rebellion. I let go of my irritation quickly, asking

for the forgiveness of all the women I’d hurt unintentionally.

J arrived at my house on Friday night, I asked him why he was here? “To look after

you.” I let him know that I had to get up early as it was likely my father would die the next

day and I had to be there. He slept in the attic that night so I could go early to go to the

hospital. J said he was happy to be left alone, to go running, to cook for me for when I got

back. He’d bought food so I didn’t have to think about anything.

Being with my father in his last few days was one of the most treasured things I’ve

ever committed to. It was when I told my father I loved him for the first time. I was lucky

enough to be there at the moment my father chose to die, just as the doctor was leaving the

room and my attention was elsewhere. At a moment when he thought no-one would notice. I

love to think he chose that moment of peace; in death as in life, he needed to please himself.

My mum told me his funeral music were the pieces played at their wedding. I found unused

tea lights and essential oils while clearing his flat, the hint of a life un-lived. Not often, yet

every so often, I talked aloud to him after he passed, times when I wish I could have phoned

him and connected again, remembering he wasn’t here. My dad as a child appeared in a

visualisation during a Tantra Massage a few months later. Then I knew he’d settled at last.

We’d settled.
Ignoring Red Flags

J was open with me about being polyamorous. He had three or four lovers at the time we met

on the train, all of them married, as he still was, each one chosen as she was in some way

unavailable for full-time love or relationship. It worked well for him, though who knows

about them? As I got to know him better I got the sense that each woman wanted more from

him than was on offer. What J said he had with each of them was a clear appreciation of time

spent together; a clarity about the limits of their long-running and loyal affairs, they’d meet in

hotels, occasionally going swinging together. What he didn’t have was love, and that was

where I came in. He wasn’t looking for it and yet it’d come looking for him. Although I can

be an opportunist when I’m single, when I’m in love I want to be companionable and

devotional, with undivided love and attention. I doubted J wanted that; in fact, he’d said as

much right from the start. I was just beginning to meet people who practised consensual non-

monogamy, it can be a lot like that in Tantra world. I was more familiar with non-ethical non-

consensual non-monogamy also known as unhappy marriages.

When I met J, I already had a boyfriend, the dancer. So it wasn’t an obstacle, the

dancer also had a lover. The three of had met at a Valentine’s party, a difficult evening as it

was already becoming clear I’d choose J.

The evening my dad died the dancer came to see me. The three of us in my living

room, finding our way through the big topics of death and love. Awkward, yet beautiful too,

we handled the time together gracefully, respectful of each other’s feelings. I felt the care of

both of them. The dancer left, walking the short distance to his own house, leaving me to J’s

care. Despite his own sense of loss, it it was the beginning of our lasting platonic friendship.

The following afternoon, J and I made love for the first time, with a timeless quality

that only whole afternoons in bed offer, the taste of loss adding to the preciousness of new
beginnings. For me, before we made love that weekend, I needed the simplicity of one

relationship, for the freedom to be full-hearted with J.

Busted by the Organic Coffee

The next few months were some of the happiest in my life. I loved being in a relationship

with J and our shared Tantra journey being a part of it. Initially, we met at the Tantra retreats

or at my place and after four months he invited me to his house in the countryside.

Significantly, it was the first time he’d ever invited a lover back there; his meetings with his

other girlfriends were in hotels so they could each have the freedom from their respective

homes and partners. He’d sent me photos of the wisteria-covered Cotswold farmhouse, which

he’d spent almost twenty years building. He called it his mistress and I understood he’d spent

more time on that than any woman, including his wife. In their separation they both still lived

there some of the time, their paths rarely crossing or speaking. They’d explored Tantra

together and separately, though it’d become apparent that their future was apart.

The first weekend was a beautiful sunny May bank holiday. He looked after me,

buying herbal teas and coffee specially, bringing us food outside. We ate picnics on the lawn

drinking fizz and getting naked; the neighbours couldn’t hear the noise of my orgasms and it

was liberating to be outside, naughty and free. Later I enjoyed cooking together, watching

rom-coms in front of an open fire. His ardency brought out permission for latent romance that

I hadn’t known was there or more likely not allowed myself. I’m not that sentimental though

it was surprising that this alpha man was: an unexpected sweetness. I liked how I was when I

was with him, I could be more myself than I’d been before. I liked his stature, the way I fitted

into him, he felt my equal and I looked up to him. I enjoyed listening to his ideas, his

intelligence and sense of fun.

 Meeting at weekends at his house or mine over the next few months was always

brilliant, going for walks, spending afternoons in bed. Sexually he woke something in me that

only love could awaken. I liked his support and encouragement to be riskier as I felt

inexperienced by comparison. We occasionally spent evenings with one of my tantra friends,

setting up a temple in my attic, taking it in turns to ask for what we wanted. With clear

intentions and limits, I felt safe, loved, generous, sensual and connected. Cared for by my

friends and by J, offering the same in return. Skilled, soft, four-hands tantric massage is better

than two. Other Tantrikas liked being with us. To be invited in with a happy loving couple

can be life-affirming, seeing a version of what’s possible for relationships.

His wife quickly moved out after she saw the organic coffee in the cupboard, realising

he’d invited someone there. My instinct is I was the catalyst she’d needed to put a long-held

escape plan into action. She saw the exit window and went for it. I never got any sense of

anger directed towards me. Occasionally I met their grown-up children and liked them. J was

always up to his eyes in paperwork though it was put aside when I was there. I understood

their divorce was going to be acrimonious, he’d show me tedious text exchanges and I’d

suggest ways he could soften his tone. Months later I came across a blog she’d written about

her side of this, her sense of betrayal at him inviting another woman to her home. Reading the

blog made me feel sick, though at the time I was still drunk on new relationship energy and

love. Sharing my find with J, I was surprised when he disinterestedly brushed it off.

Yoni Healing

I’m guessing many of us haven’t taken that much notice of our genitals in a mindful way, I

know I hadn’t until I got to Tantra. We often ignore them, we’ve probably experienced a lack

of true care, they’ve been used for other people’s pleasure and maybe there’s been trauma.

They’re not called ‘privates’ for nothing. To have our genitals witnessed in a new way is a
healing and radical act, connecting us with ourselves and seeing all of our bodies in a new

light. I was beginning to find out that there are so many ways for a woman’s body to be

acknowledged and tended to.

I was familiar with Yoni Healing from the Women’s programme and had done some

practice outside the course. For many women it’s common that we don’t feel pleasure

internally because we hold tension in our vulvas and are unaware of it, Hilly called that

‘armouring’. It can happen because our bodies hold fear. If we’re entered too soon, or if sex

is irregular, Yonis find ways of giving us messages; any pain or numbness is actually trying

to protect us. Mostly we don’t see it like this because, alone in our sexuality, we have little

information until we have ‘problems’ like painful sex, UTIs, womb issues and then it’s seen

through a medical lens. I’m lucky, nothing untoward or unwelcome had happened to me, but

like so many women, nothing to knock my socks off either, nothing lastingly compelling, no

great shakes.

As our shared Tantra course progressed, Great Spirit had a way of putting J and I

together for key structures, always special. J was my Shiva for Yoni Healing, an exercise to

heal shame held in the genitals. This structure allows us to be witnessed in our shyness, pain,

lack of feeling, lack of sensation. It’s not about pleasure but restoring us to wholeness. The

equivalent is Vajra Healing for the men; Vajra is the sacred word for the penis.

Back in the temple, after our Namaste, we were guided through the structure by Hilly.

The exercise requires constant communication between the receiver and giver so we take an

active part in our own healing, rather than handing over responsibility. I felt safe with J

following the instructions. Yoni Healing is in slow stages, first, there’s tension-releasing

belly massage, then getting into the painful bits in the thighs and groin, releasing the fear held

in the muscles. As I was describing my feelings, with him listening, I felt protected with the

patient, caring touch of the structure. The final stages of the exercise involved touching Yoni
gently, outside and in. The numbness was embarrassing, admitting quietly to J how little I

could notice internally, he held the situation with care and presence and no judgement. I felt

profoundly grateful to him.

As you might imagine, the reality of having your lover as a partner for the exercise is

something of a mixed blessing. Having such full attention is in many ways excruciating. We

may all want to be seen but so often we only want the shiny, successful parts of ourselves on

show. In this exercise, there’s no hiding, no way out of admitting the places that are numb,

the places that hurt, the places that bring up sadness, loss, anger, tears. None of us knows this

stuff, so there’s no-one to blame. Yet it is possible to learn to do things differently. We’re

often so badly educated about intimacy and the healing possibilities for sexuality yet

somehow this information becomes rare, mysterious and expensive.

Great Spirit joined me with a different shiva for Vajra Healing and it felt like such a

privilege. Men’s shame around their vajras is equally diminishing for them. Being asked to

touch a male body for healing, instead of trying to turn it on or make someone come, is such

a new experience for women. It’s asking us to be accepting, loving, empathetic. To witness a

man, seeing their sadness and emotion for all the times they haven’t been touched, the times

they’ve felt isolated, felt inadequate, felt there’s something wrong with them. It’s not the

sexiest way to be with a man yet it is intimately connecting and desperately needed. In

acceptance and friendship, ultimately a generous way to be with each other, levelling us as

fellow humans, sharing our losses and building a renewed hope for something better.

The next day in a different structure we could work with partners we chose. An

exercise in making requests and expressing desires, called Yin-Yang. In turn-taking, one

person gets to be in charge for a while and the other, as far as possible, makes their wishes

happen. I worked with J who asked me to take him to a pub in my car with the roof down and

buy him a drink, his wish was ‘to ask me questions, to quiz me about my feelings’. Sitting by
a canal on a sunny afternoon, I felt on a pin. Realising I was holding back, teasing, he pressed

me into admitting I was in love with him, me blushing, him quizzing me on why that was so

hard to voice. Although he didn’t reply in kind that afternoon, I got the impression it was

something he wanted to hear to allow it in himself.

The Meteorite Hitting The Dinosaur

Alongside Tantra I was also studying on the Sexological Bodywork Course. After all my

years in the corporate world, this training felt like an honour. A new profession helping

people deal with sexual problems, learn about their bodies and understand new approaches to

eroticism; I couldn’t quite believe I was training to be a sex educator. My experience in yoga,

tantra and life coaching got me through the interview and now I was up to my eyes in

modules on consent, genital anatomy, breath work, shame, masturbation, pleasure; imposter

syndrome well underway. I’d be helping people with problems like painful sex, body issues,

anxiety, rapid ejaculation, trauma, sexual abuse or simply a lack of experience. How did I get

here? Daunting. Apparently a route to both personal and erotic freedom, I didn’t know what

that meant, but I wanted to.

Waiving my no more certificates vow, I was an innocent abroad with a bunch of

idealists, pioneers of a new approach to a taboo topic. I was enthralled at the openness and

courage of some of the people on the course. The other students were so cool about sex and

all its possibilities for healing and transformation, some had done sex work in the past. The

idea of Sexological Bodywork is ultimately to take us through to a place where we can live

free of past influences and begin to enjoy our unique erotic nature. I had no idea what that

meant either. I found out that it’d emerged from the 1970s in California, in The Body Electric

school set up by Joseph Kramer as his response to finding a place for safe sexual expression
in the AID’s crisis era. Forty years later, Joseph, now in his 70’s was bringing Sexological

Bodywork training to the UK for the first time. In his words, “Sexological Bodyworkers do

not fix people. We don’t do therapy. We help people become more embodied and more aware

of their aliveness. Some of the practices we suggest and offer might assist a client’s problem

therefore we intend to help students/clients have better sex which always means ‘more

embodied sex’.” I was training with one of the world’s greatest sex educators.All new to me,

unlike Tantra, Sex Bod seemed more scientific than spiritual.

J was interested too. Encouraging me in practical ways, he helped me where he could

with the assignments, being a practice body for me, watching the videos about the stages and

strokes of erotic massage — Fire In the Mountain for men and Fire In The Valley for women.

We’d learned the delightful names and feel of strokes like Osho’s Delight, Rock Around The

Cock, Eggs over Easy and the Cherry Blossom caress together. There’s nothing like

practising anal massage on a boyfriend for a bonding experience, his patience and

disappointments all going into the endless reports.

With the Sexological Bodywork residential coming up, I asked my boss to cut

down my hours. He said no and offered to come up to Manchester and ‘take me for lunch’, an

innovational precursor to the chilling option of ‘performance management’. I wrote my

resignation letter. 

Shakti in disguise, I dressed for our meeting in fabulous underwear, stockings and

a green silk button-down dress. I liked my most recent boss, I’d known him for years as a bon

viveur colleague. Fat, epicurean, a maverick sales-support guy made manager. His ambition

walked into the room in front of him, overcoming his fundamental can’t be arsed-unless-it’s-

worth-it-laziness. With intelligent, fun ferocity, he’d supported me to be stronger in the face

of my more difficult customers. We went to Cafe Rouge in the Lowry outlet mall in Salford. I

knew I had an hour and then a month. I might have been overdressed, his eyes widened as I
walked in. Ordering us a glass of red wine and a steak we got the business out of the way

first. I’d never felt I had much power at work in 18 years but this was the hour I did, the

shakti training flooding our conversation with warmth and humour.

After eighteen years, was I ready to go? I couldn’t see a way of staying. My

salary had dropped by thirty grand the year before. I didn’t make my target as barristers

chambers merged and folded, contracts weren’t renewed, their legal aid subsidies dwindled.

The slow convivial sales, smoothed over cups of coffee and minimal price increases, had

changed in the face of American sales directors and a company focus on share prices. What

had been gracious got lost. I’d never been one for hard selling as I honestly didn’t care that

much about winning prizes or a new Porsche. My go to sales line was “we need to think of a

number you like and my company likes and then go for lunch. We can make it harder than

that if you like, but seriously, I wouldn’t bother.” I didn’t want to bore people with sales

features and benefits, I didn’t really know what a statutory instrument was, let alone

pronounce it. I preferred talking to my customers about what made them happy and what

other books they were reading beyond Archbold on Criminal Proceedings. Timing is

everything, they knew who and where I was. When my company decided there’d be no

contract negotiation, just cutting off the services if they didn’t renew, the customers were

disgusted and I couldn’t blame them. They were being screwed both ways.

This year, so far, I was on target to get paid no commission at all, it was time to

go.

“You know I can’t reduce your hours Alison” 

“That’s ok, I’m leaving anyway.”

I pushed the resignation letter over the table and he read it. I continued,
 “So all we have to do now is think of the percentage you’re going to pay me to bring

in the contracts in the next month. Or I don’t do any more work for you. Ever. Oh, and I have

10 days leave.”

We understood each other, sales people are glory seekers. He sat back, eyes

twinkling, smiled, wished me well. I told him about training to be a Sexological Bodyworker,

the Tantra trainings I’d already completed, the hourly rates, ten times what I’d get if I stayed

on with no commission. He understood my maths. We came up with a number on a napkin.

The steak arrived and he asked me more about the new profession, curious without sharing

any of his experience. Leaving Cafe Rouge, I went into the outlet mall, bought new sneakers.

Then into Gap for a last splurge. I changed out of the stockings in a changing room, pulling

off price tags, walking out in a denim dress, bare legs, blue and pink Converse.

I got paid £7k for that last two weeks' work. I haven’t touched a tax bracket since.

A month later I went down to the office to say goodbye, drop off my laptop and blackberry,

released from the golden handcuffs. Pausing before going down into the tube at Swiss

Cottage, looking up at the office, saying a silent prayer of thanks for all the freedoms those

eighteen years offered.

Sex Bod Rocks

In a good relationship, you’re each working on yourself and on the partnership, it’s there to

help you grow; ‘the fastest way to enlightenment along the razor’s edge.’ Despite the highs

of summer, by autumn, it felt like our relationship had changed and was getting difficult. I

was sure I’d found the one I’d been waiting for, J said he thought that too, he’d felt feelings

he’d never felt before. Yet he was also saying he was feeling caged by monogamy, wanting

to live life more freely after being restrained in a twenty-year marriage. Overall these had
been wonderful months for me. I had what I’d longed for and couldn’t really understand why

that wasn’t similarly satisfying for him. I couldn’t understand how a life that included our

joint Tantra course and sensual interludes with friends wasn’t enough. You can see the issue

already, can’t you? I couldn’t.

Part of the problem for J was that before he met me he had three or four girlfriends

who he’d spend regular but occasional time with. They were often in touch but only met

when J’s work, husbands’ absences or travel opportunities allowed. As he was spending more

time with me, it was less with them. I liked that but he was unhappier. I was usually a pain in

the ass when he went off to sleep with them, so he’d given up meeting them with reluctance,

my hurt making his dates less enjoyable. It hadn’t happened often but the nights he was with

them were painful, I had to plan distractions but was often sleepless and anxious, despite his

reassurance. I didn’t want to hear about them, yet he wanted me to be happy for him.

He’d been married for over twenty years so commitment was completely natural to

him, though he was more interested in the freedom to experiment now. Yet after Tantra, I

didn’t have the heart or yoni for polyamory, this new love was too tender. I didn’t understand

what was happening or what to do about it. I was so happy and spending more time at J’s

house. He occasionally asked me to stay, to move in, promising to build me a temple therapy

space to work in. I wanted to live together but was holding back, knowing it was too soon and

not truly believing it. I wanted moving in to matter, not just to turn up with a bag and not go

home again. My life was still in Hebden Bridge; art and yoga classes, work, friends up north,

though changing in ways I hadn’t thought possible. While completing the work for the

Certified Sexological Bodywork course, I was offering Tantra Massage.

Harnessing the energy of Shiva, J had helped me set up my attic as a temple; shifting

and lifting furniture around, hanging a chandelier, me all Shakti energy pinning and draping

silk sarongs. I found a few clients on a site called Tantralink though I wasn’t what you might
call busy. J wanted us to offer work together as wanted the same work for himself in the

future. He was still going to work every day in an institution where this would have been

frowned on. He’d already told me about the idea of ‘conduct unbecoming’ - an armed forces

term for the sort of behaviour that disgraces their reputation. If he picked me up at the station

in his uniform, for example, he couldn’t be seen to hug or kiss me. By now I knew how much

he loved taking risks and of his long-held interest and fascination with sex, so I often teased

him, questioning him about what type of path to self-destruction he was on, even by doing

our Tantra courses. In his previous life, he’d occasionally visited sex workers he’d found on

the website Adult Work. If you too are of an innocent nature, I’d suggest you give it a wide

swerve. When I’d looked, I was dismayed, I found the site sleazy, tacky and distasteful;

setting up a profile I’d have had to fill in tick boxes saying what services I offered. I could

have said whether I was shaved or unshaved, stated my breast size and whether I offered

facials or A-levels, gang bangs, webcams or barebacking. Adult Work felt out of the question

for me. Specifying my ‘services’ felt like the commodity style sex I wanted to avoid. I’m

aware now of how judgemental I sound. I was then; I was scared of it.

Sex Bod with its clothes-on, gloves-on ethics suited me. First I had to get through the

course. In one module on women’s anatomy of pleasure, I’d had to complete a report which

involved seeing my vulva at different stages of arousal. I couldn’t do it, I’d got stuck, I didn’t

want to do it, all my stuff came up, bailing on the assignment and myself in tears. Reading

the other student’s reports, I was so envious of the people who were reporting back with such

positive experiences. The following weekend, J came up with his camera, helping me through

my crisis of confidence, taking photos, his loving gaze through the lens allowing me to see

how I opened as my arousal changed as I followed the exercises, gently learning the names of

my own genital anatomy, feeling my way to me. I was becoming more trusting and
dependent on him; as sexuality had always been complicated for me, his ease with this work

was reassuring and permissive.

Tantra Massage isn't for Dummies

In the meantime I was open for business, my tantric massage ad was up on Tantra Link and

Viva Street. My temple looked beautiful, pink and purple silks, seductive art on the walls,

candlelit altar, incense and sage sticks to smudge the room, leaving a lasting scented aura.

Clients eyes lit up as they walked in. The men came from all walks of life. The best clients

were the few that sent an email, suggested a date and asked how to pay the deposit. Whether

or not they were committed to change, to be open to new ideas, I never knew, I saw them

often only once. I welcomed them in a pretty dress, I lit altar candles, warmed the room and

oil, I showed them how to do melting hugs, we danced to Prince to wake up the energy in

their pelvis before the massage. Or we changed into sarongs, soul gazing into eyes filled with

sadness, longing, innocence, love, hope or hopelessness. Or I blindfolded and undressed

them, letting them know they were safe with me. I took off suits, sweatpants, shirts and socks

from whoever turned up and they loved the eroticism of it

Inviting them to lie facedown on the massage table, I’d cover them in warm silk

and ask their intention, stroking it in, reminding them to breathe and stay present to the touch.

And, not to touch me or it’d interrupt the flow and their drop into sensation. After slowly

pulling off the rippling silk batik cloth, I’d gently follow the energetic circuits of their bodies,

with my fingertips, feathers and a fur glove made from my grandma’s old fur coat.

Whispering, asking them to turn over, to feel my hot and cold breath across the front of their

bodies, my hair, my breasts on their skin. Not lingering anywhere, nor ignoring any part of

them, Tantric massage is a lesson in not grasping as we stay present, focusing on breath and
touch. Then I massaged them with hot oil, I saw the men disappear into soft hazes of

pleasure. Clients knew it was one-way touch and some, but not all, could relax into receiving

pleasure for themselves. Some tried to touch my pussy and I gently pushed their hands away,

or let them rest on my hip; though I understood their longing for connection I didn’t want

their straying fingers, any arousal I felt, I kept to myself as I’d been trained.

Vajras, penises cocks, all their shapes and sizes, soft or erect; some came for the

first time in years, some in seconds, some not at all. A happy ending wasn’t the point but to

be seen without judgement in pleasure, their whole beings touched with presence and skill in

what can be the deepest shameful aspect of men’s lives. Before they left, I asked them what

they’d learned about themselves and they’d open up and not want to go, wanting to have that

moment of intimacy. Smudging the room, picking up the cash on the altar I’d go and buy

flowers and have lunch. All in a days work.

The erotic massage was surprisingly easy. But as a self employed business, it was

a nightmare. I had no shortage of time wasters, wankers and heavy breathers, the man with a

bottom fetish who said he’d come all the way from London to see mine, the Irish man who

wanted me to take notes like a headmistress about his requirements. Another man who had a

medical scene thing going on, for a while I thought the nurse outfit might finally come in

handy. Naive, my earnestness of ‘wanting to be of service’ played right into the fantasists’

hands. One man wanted to come and give me a yoni massage. As I’d just started he wanted to

be the first to pop my tantric masseuse cherry. He couldn’t understand when I got shirty with

him, explaining that no, it wasn’t okay to just call a woman and expect to touch her pussy,

that no, I wasn’t thrilled by some random stranger wanting to do ‘an exchange’ calling from

the M62. I’d see that I was called from withheld numbers at all times of the night, heavy

breathers tried to keep me on till they came. Emails came in with aliases, wanting to know

more about “my services,” calls edging the conversation to what might happen in the second
and third session. They wanted to see if I’d promise sex with them. I got the occasional

unsolicited dick pic, a little abuse, copious apologies when I pushed back, and zero bookings

from these men who wanted attention and thrills for nothing. Occasionally in sessions I’d

have unexpected incidents, my first client couldn’t handle the shame, picked his phone up,

got dressed and couldn’t leave fast enough. Another, mid-massage, came out with Dom-sub

fantasy words before climax, to belittle me without warning. Another straight-laced man,

anxiety bleeding from his highly-strung stiff shirt, came in his pants before getting up the

stairs. Then taking his navy blazer off, blamed me, rushing to the bathroom to wash them. I

was never scared, but I took it all personally. It’s a colossal task, saving the world one body

at a time.

Initially, I was nice about it all, polite to everyone, later I stopped answering the

phone and then stopped advertising. This work might have had purpose but I felt the pressure

on me to be some sort of all-welcoming goddess, working to an invisible big book of tantric

massage rules in the sky. That had no pages for handling the complex desires or behaviours

of these strangers for whom a crude email or an oily rub and tug might have been a salve for

a few minutes or two hours of a captured semblance of beauty and rare kindness. I wanted to

do this work well and graciously but I wasn’t cut out for the patience and kindness required.

Selling legal information was better paid and a lot less complicated.

These days I can spot an hard on text a mile off, I shudder at the thought of being

in someone’s wank bank. And yet there were moments in the erotic massages, that were so

pleasurable; where my busy thoughts calmed: the music soothing, the rhythmic oily strokes

bringing an intense expansive grace in a particular moment, being in my body, with my

breath, of connection with something greater, rare, precious. As a woman feeling confident in

touching a male body is a gift. Getting them to stop wanting to touch mine was the challenge.

Donning the gloves and T-shirt of Sexological Bodywork suited me perfectly.

Self Pleasure - Really?

In the first month of the Sexological Bodywork training, we had a module called Orgasmic

Yoga aka Mindful Masturbation, with the suggestion to practice for 40 days. An

overwhelming task. Every day I had to set aside at least an hour. I’d put it off, eventually

reluctantly picking up my notebook and laying out my nest setting an intention and a timer.

I’d begin to get my pelvic energy moving with ten minutes of Kegels, squeezing and

releasing as if I was stopping mid-pee, all the while dancing and trying out breathing

exercises to learn how to get myself into aroused and relaxed states. Each day I had to choose

from a manual of different OY exercises with names such as Erotic Metta, Heart Pleasuring,

Shake it till you Make It and Erotic Trance Dancing.  I didn’t have a clue about the potential

of this practice. Most of the hours given the choice, I’d rather have been in Cafe Solo with

my friends or with J. Time to spend time on myself. The point was ‘noticing.’ At the

beginning of the forty days I mostly noticed and noted reluctance, aversion, boredom, fleeting

curiosity, escapism, frustration, longing, guilt, impatience, and loss. In the twenty three  days

I lasted, I had two orgasms and didn’t do any downward dog. It might be called Orgasmic

Yoga, but it was very rarely either.

The most powerful experience was a practice called In The Mirror. Standing in

front of the full-length mirror, stroking my body, closing my eyes at times to feel and then

opening them to see. Watching my hands and fingers move across my skin, changing speeds

and touch, seeing myself have an orgasm; something others had seen, but not me, the

sweetness and vulnerability. Then the waves of loss hit. All the days I’d spent working not

wanking, chasing things, seeking outside distractions, thinking my pleasure was someone

else’s responsibility. Lost time. It was humbling. 

 As the days progressed I learned how to breathe to get myself up and off, to be

slow and patient with myself, to recognise subtle pleasure in my whole body, not just my

genitals. How the choice of giving myself what I needed had always been there, softness,

attention, care, time. Kissing my knees, noticing the sensations at the inside of my wrists,

aware of the pleasures of my skin, new sensations in new places. Experimenting, tying

myself up once, once giving myself the tantric touch circuits I gave to others, once

ejaculating to lesbian erotic massage porn. I was dumfounded at that, wondering what the

little wet patch was and whether I needed to change the sheet.

We were doing it to understand our own sexual energy and how to regulate it,

how to find what we like rather than chasing the big O. When a client goes to see a

Sexological Bodyworker the focus has to be on the clients’ issues and learning. The last thing

they need is attraction getting in the way, or a practitioners unmet erotic needs hijacking the

session. It’s the same in relationships, if we can feel complete alone we won’t foist our needs

on our partners, meeting them with equanimity rather than emptiness. I suspected it’s a rather

grand claim for masturbation frankly but what did I know?  

Three months later, once we got to the Sexological Bodywork residential, all the

practices and modules paid off in Three Circles, a group masturbation practice. Joseph had

developed this in response to the Aids crisis, a way of allowing space for safe sexual

expression, initially for gay men. Now we were going to get a chance to take part in a piece

of that erotic history. We set up the room in a circle, each person with a chair and a yoga mat,

space in the middle of the circle. Sitting together, we learned that the outside circle is the

holding space, a place to support the group, to witness with soft eyes, no self-touch. When

ready, we drop to the next stage, moving onto our mats made comfy with throws and sheets.

In this space we build sexual arousal through being absorbed in ourselves, using the breath,

movement and sound techniques to cultivate arousal. We were instructed that this is no place
for voyeurism, the attention firmly remains on ourselves, our own bodies, our inner state of

heightening arousal. The centre is our  place to celebrate and share our aroused states, to

dance, to revel in a shame-free expression of erotic arousal. You might be in the circle alone

or with others, no touching, pure self-expression. Daunting. 

I’ve never had much of a relationship with touching myself. In the barren years in

Indonesia in my twenties, I’d sometime lock the bedroom door, put Prince on and enjoy

myself to orgasm though it was more of a release than a voyage of self discovery. Since then

my focus was definitely outward, towards another, response arousal rather than an inner

drive. When I’d been first introduced to the idea of an afternoon of self-pleasure in the

women’s Tantra course, I’d baulked. I wanted to know when it’d end, how long, what were

we supposed to do. At my question, Hilly smiled and invited me to put my blindfold on.

Taking it off a couple of hours later to a room full of softened, shame-free, peaceful women,

a small wonder. In our mixed tantra group, a different ritual but essentially self pleasure to

raise energy in ourselves and ofter it out in to the world. Such joy and delight in the room,

dancing, breathing as a group in our separate places, J in his nest, next to mine. Moving

musically from spiritual mantras to German heavy rock, I felt the ever-changing nature of

pleasure. Brave spirits, feeling devotional to our bodies, in turns edgy, encouraging lustful,

fun, ecstatic. No touching each other, no mean-eyed voyeurism just delight in shared sexual

energy, in our freedom, in our collective humanity.

Back in the Three Circles at Sex Bod training, Joseph told us of times in San

Francisco in the eighties when his friends were dying, where these groups meant a safe

expression of nurturance, desire, lust, acceptance of death and the exuberance of life. The

ritual is always just an hour. A chance to liberate us from previous patterns, to encourage

personal expression, acceptance. It is possible to spend an hour being peaceful, watching your

breath and holding space for the group, giving attention kindly, unobtrusively; in quiet ways
helping others let go of shame and fear. The absorption of self-pleasure in the second stage

means privacy, a chance to experience what you’re experiencing. I used a Magic Wand,

building arousal through my chakras, aware of the music, the radical nature of what we’re

doing, feeling my erotic excitement build, just before orgasm getting off my mat, dancing in

the centre to Lady Gaga, Born This Way. Returning to my mat, to enjoy the feeling, letting

the joyful energy dissipate around my body, to relax. Then to begin again riding the waves of

extended pleasure or to move back to my chair, grateful, connected. Offering peace, pleasure

and my ecstatic body into the collective.

The most memorable Three Circles Ritual was at Northern Ireland’s first-ever

sexuality festival, Bliss. After giving my workshop on G-Spot Massage, I joined the ritual.

Although there were dour Protestants with placards protesting at the gate as we drove into the

grounds of a castle, there were seventy people in a circle in a tent about to hold space, self-

pleasure, dance. Before the music began, anyone was invited to undress, to walk around the

circle naked. At the last minute, although I hadn’t intended to, something pulled me. I jumped

in with about twenty others, walking around the group, registering eye contact, feeling

people’s love, admiration for my courage. A way to be seen, to take part in the collective

shedding of shame around nudity, to overcome body hangups. It was powerful.

While tantric dancing and stripping had been exhilarating exhibitionism, Three

Circles makes pleasure something we are. This ritual was grounded and wild, ecstatic music

playing, everyone dancing, the group energy growing. A way of feeling orgasmic energy

enliven us rather than deplete us. It’s an internal buzz, a life force fuelling our creativity and

place in the world. With each of us in our place in the circle, there’s space and choice, free of

the intense focus we can often experience if someone wants to turn us on, to see us come, so

they feel good. It’s much less expectant.

 What? Wanking in marquees with other people as part of a spiritual and

professional journey? Yes, I see your point. There are many times I’ve failed to see self-

pleasure as part of self-care. It’s still not my go-to form of pleasure. If I woke up with a hard-

on for many days of my life I might have more a sense of it, of myself as a sexual being, a

source of simple access to pleasure. I still need to remind myself.

Indiscreet in Crete

I’ve always struggled with saying the word ‘we’ when I find myself being part of a

couple. You know how easily some people can say things like “we like France,” I’ve never

been able to do that. I can just about do it for factual things like “we went to see a film” but

when it comes to describing emotional states that express something jointly, it’s never rolled

naturally out of my mouth. Like getting married, it’s something other people seem to find

easy but I’m too scared to assume. 

A few months into the relationship ‘we’ went on a Tantra holiday to Crete. I’d been

touched before we went that J had such a big yes for it and booked the flights for us. No-one

had ever done that for me before. I’d been used to going on holiday alone for the last few

years. I’d had some terrible holidays with exes, so was happy on yoga retreats in exotic

places by myself.  

We were there for two weeks in a little retreat centre, sharing a basic room, the bed

taking up most of it, starting the days with the shaking meditation or mantras and a tantra

structure, then afternoons on a nudist beach. At times it was like being on honeymoon and at

other times I couldn’t understand J’s need to withdraw and took it personally. For me, being

with the the group got suffocating at times and I wanted to be alone with my shiva. The odd

crack appearing between us, especially over J’s ongoing flirtation with the shakti I liked least,
one of those pernickety types who has to understand the ingredients in every dish on a menu.

I was happiest when J and I broke away to have lunch, to the beach or for dinner alone. 

Once on a beach together away from the group, we got a little too sexy. Enjoying

lying close on the beach sarongs, the heat of the sun, J stroking my warm skin, our breath

getting slightly slower and heavier. The subtle risk, his fingers lightly straying to the edges of

my bikini pants occasionally. It took me a while to notice that the shouting by a holiday-

maker on the beach with his family, some distance away, was directed at us. J loves that

public risk, whereas I don’t like putting strangers in embarrassing situations; though as the

shouting was in a foreign language, I hadn’t realised, lost in a warm, albeit brief, haze. The

‘beach of shame’ became another little connecting secret between us. It’s a feeling I’ve long

wanted in a relationship, a partner in crime, an ‘us together in the world’ feeling. I don’t want

us to be against the world as that’s isolating, and though recently I’ve been less bothered

about fitting in with convention or seeking other people’s approval, I like the complicity of

intimacy. 

Midweek, we went off as a group to a small island where there’s an original temple

dedicated to the god of medicine, Asclepius. A couple of little boats took us there, yet amidst

the beautiful Mediterranean blues I was annoyed with J’s continued flirting, the teasing and

bantering, irritating now. Sitting quietly on the boat in a silent, sad mood, I didn’t feel like I

could do much without looking like a killjoy. 

Once on the island of Lissos, we hiked up to the temple for a ritual of healing and

gratitude. The group, silent, bare-chested in sarongs, each of us going up to the ancient altar

in turn, to give thanks for our lives, our teachers and our ancestors who’ve passed on the

lineage of sexual healing. A ceremony of peaceful reflection, offering each of us a new

perspective, a chance to escape my petty thoughts. 

 Later on, after a picnic lunch, we were invited to go off on our own for an hour and a

half, to self-pleasure in whatever form that was for us. A new way of adding to the repertoire

of connecting with ourselves and our bodies through purposeful, heartfelt self-pleasure. We

were invited to raise our sexual energy in nature, give it back to earth and then come back to

the sea to bathe, cleanse and begin anew. To be followed by a group sharing. My twenty-

three days of mindful masturbation handy after all; that day on the island, I at least had the

tools if not the desire. 

Clambering up through the rocks and scrub plants I found myself a private enough

place where I could see across the island but couldn’t be seen. As you might imagine, it’s a

daunting prospect being asked to masturbate outside. I felt hot, still in a sad inner agitation,

not sexy at all. Getting naked seemed a bit exposing so I began with dancing in my bikini;

circling my hips, squeezing my pelvic floor and breathing. Using the ways I’d learned on the

course, generating arousal through fast breaths and squeezing pelvic floor muscles, changing

to slow breaths to let the effects of this charging sexual energy and breath move around my

body. Doing all that for about twenty minutes changed my mood and energy, moving me on

from other people’s behaviour invading my mind or pleasure. Bringing the attention back to

touch, I slipped my hand in my bikini pants and began to stroke my yoni, inner lips, clitoris,

around the entrance to the sacred cave, the tantric term for vagina, the internal vulva. I began

to get into it, enjoying the air and the view and the risk, touching my whole body, feeling the

heat of my skin, taking off my bikini top, feeling my waist as I circled my hips, palm stroking

under my breasts, doing all the things I knew to regulate and enjoy my own arousal, dancing

alone on a hillside, the sea in the distance, free of distracting thoughts. At this point I was

interrupted by a small herd of noisy goats, surprising them, amusing me. Goats gone, I still

had time and could extend the pleasure of building to orgasm. I remember a moment of a new

sensation, pressing the whole of my front against one of the huge rocks, enjoying the solidity
and heat. In this most unlikely island setting, I found what one of my anatomy textbooks calls

the “p spot” by pressing the pad of my left thumb into the soft base of my vagina, the internal

perineum, at at the same time as stroking my clitoris with the flat of three fingers with my

other hand. Whoa, that’s a strong combination of sensations. I finally found my rhythm and

played it, coming quickly and loudly, gloriously, unashamedly, my voice and orgasm ringing

out into the landscape, heard by other members of the group and the goats.

Emboldened by my audacity and having had time for myself, once I got back to the

sharing, I felt self-contained. I was one of the few who’d managed to complete the pleasure

task. At my turn in the sharing I spoke unusually directly; about my change of energy from

sulking and irritation to self-containment. I let it be clear to J and the woman how fucked off

I was with their tedious behaviour, asking them to stop it. Without pausing, I continued

sharing with the group how much I enjoyed finding my wildness. There’s something about

abandoned self-pleasure, which still feels very rare, that brings a much-needed recklessness

to so many other places in life. Still aloof on the boat back, I felt calm and satisfied, enjoying

the light on the water, the darker blues of the late afternoon. I’d honoured myself and my

emotions and come from a place of unusually fierce truth.

A couple of nights later, after escaping a late-night Dionysian style group ritual

involving too much sticky honey and greek yoghurt, J and I ended up sitting on our balcony

looking out into the night and the stars. Talking about the week and the group and how we

were going to manage together. We each had different levels of desire for commitment to

each other alongside connection with others. I’ve no idea how the conversation came around

to this but when he was talking about the future he said he wanted me to be his wife. I simply

hadn’t realised he felt that way. It’s the only marriage conversation, I’ve had, and there’s

been a few, that I’ve whole-heartedly, outwardly and inwardly, said yes to. With any previous

boyfriend, I’d changed my half-hearted mind from yes to no within hours. Unsurprisingly no

one ever actually proposed. Looking back I see how J and I respected each other, both of us

wanting both freedom and security. In the almost-honeymoon-style photos from Crete, the

love shines through us.

Understanding My Erotic Mind

One of the first wake up calls explaining how I was going back into familiar discord

after a relatively short time, came through the first book I read for the course. The Erotic

Mind by Jack Morin is a sex therapy book to understand ourselves in sex; what will turn us

on and why, the habits we get trapped in and the way through these. Morin’s key idea is the

identification of a Core Erotic Theme which we can use to understand our personal erotic

charge. It helps us overcome the limited way we view our sexual world by showing us what

we’re drawn to and what we’re avoiding. Once you know this, you can see what’s

unconsciously pulling your strings. Exploring this allows us to open up to new experiences,

rather than stay fixed in a deep groove of past ones. To meet others in intimacy, free of the

unconscious ties that bind us. Otherwise, unaware yet compelled, we try to make others fit

into our unique core theme or fixation and then get disappointed, dismissive, confused or

cross when they don’t.

To find my Core Erotic Theme, I had to identify and write down four peak erotic

experiences, two real and two fantasy. I’ve never had much of a relationship with sexual

fantasy so identifying two fantasies was tricky for me. I just have those generic everyday

ones, pedalled by the media, of the strong alpha man, who’ll marry me, I won’t have to do

much, we’ll have a lovely house in the country and nice holidays. So far, so banal, yet a

deeply held belief. Though these might be running my mind, I don’t masturbate with them,

they’re more pervasive than pleasurable. I remembered occasional erotic dreams about a
woman friend I worked with years ago where I’d woken aroused but I wouldn’t say my solo

fantasy life has ever been strong. I’d not seen much porn nor self-pleasured to fantasy.

However, the real peak experiences were more telling. The first one that came to mind

was when I was travelling in Cambodia years earlier on a group tour. I only found one fellow

traveller interesting, an architect with a double life as a writer. As the hot bus travelled

through the Cambodian countryside, we sat together on the sticky plastic bus seats, gradually

moving perceptibly closer over the ten days. Sharing stories of travel, art and books, my

interest in this self-assured, thoughtful man grew. An underlying sense of something else

developed as we began to talk about relationships and sexual experiences, the conversation

subtly changing, with a new building sensual charge to them. After the tour finished we spent

three days in Phnom Pen, buzzing around on bikes, seeing temples and sitting in palm-filled

cafes continuing the conversations, enquiring, increasingly revealing, though never touching

each other.

As luck would have it we were on the same flight to Kuala Lumpur and he had a room

booked at the Hilton Hotel for a night. I was going off to stay with a friend so we agreed to

meet later for dinner. Our date was brilliant, a martini in the lobby bar, then going out into the

street markets of KL, wandering, exploring safely, enjoying the company and the food. It was

all so beautifully foreign, faraway and with an intoxicating sense of freedom.

Back in his hotel room on the 8th floor, the writer offered me a glass of red wine. It

was my first glass of wine in two weeks and we sat on the balcony, the air humid and warm,

looking at the velvet-navy night sky, the city lights below. After the basic hotels in

Cambodia, this hotel room was small but stylish with what seemed like luxurious white linen

sheets. Finally, we began to touch and kiss each other, the taste of wine and anticipation

meeting at last, moving to the bed. The peak moment of that evening was being licked,

skilfully and slowly. A slow-building orgasm, time stopped, stillness descended, a quiet bliss.
Being in a state of wonder and rare gratefulness, free, a slightly guilty pleasure at it all, the

beauty and the expansiveness of life; a haze of rapture, looking up at the night sky, feeling

pleasure I hadn’t felt in ages or probably ever.

Once home, we’d met for a weekend in London. He’d sent me erotic stories by email

in the meantime, beautifully written, sensual and tropical. He could really write about sex and

I’d smoulder reading them. What I liked about him was that we were naked within a few

minutes of me arriving in his warehouse-style flat, having oral sex on the soft leather sofas;

like hot teenage naughtiness, the big windows letting in loads of light.

My second peak experience was the third date with the writer. In Morocco. We’d

established a shared love of travelling on the hot bus, so a meeting in Marrakech was

beguiling. He booked a beautiful room in a riad hotel, opulent furnishings, a massive bed

covered in exotic fabrics. One afternoon that feeling of unhurried bliss returned, him going

down on me, me disappearing into another world, beauty all around. Not being rushed to

orgasm, none of the anxiety of trying or wondering if I’d come. Again no-one knew where I

was, abroad in a foreign, mysterious country, there was more spaciousness and the urgency

could fall away.

While I was journalling about my peak experiences, I remembered another earlier

peak experience in Sri Lanka with the charismatic owner of a retreat centre. There’d been an

initial, easy attraction though I wouldn’t have done anything about it if not for the Boxing

Day tsunami. I’d been staying at a nearby hotel at the beach, getting up early to go for yoga at

a magnificent, fadingly-beautiful, traditional villa, fifty meters inland. Yoga saved my life as

the beach hotel was destroyed. I’d lost all my stuff in the wave so had to stay in the retreat

centre. I’d spent my days post tsunami cut off from the news as there was no electricity and

the battery had run out on my phone. I didn’t know what to do to help, other than stay a calm

presence and try not to fuss about getting an earlier flight. I was safe, spending hours in a
hammock, reading A Hundred years of Solitude from the villa library. The now closer

proximity and subtle attraction resulted in a magical encounter the night before I left as the

owner invited me to his private rooms. Outside his balcony, drinking a little wine in the dark

night, the scent of the frangipani tree. I remember his beautiful dark brown skin and the way

he licked me all over with a little cat’s tongue, having to be so quiet so no one would hear me

through the walls of the elegant house.

Peak experiences have three qualities: newness or surprises, a sense of time

expanding or contracting, and an ideal partner or situation; they’re not generally over the

washing up on a weekday night. These were my peak experiences, as in the years before the

writer, I’d been in a relationship where sex was occasional, lacking in much desire or

attraction, with too much resentment or boredom in the way of anything more passionate or

regular. A time when I didn’t have any concept of sex being a realm for intimate exploration.

Identifying the Core Erotic Themes was easy; adventure, risk, exotic beauty, secretive

illicit pleasure, freedom. What was I avoiding? As a child, I must have looked at my parents’

marriage, uncommunicative, boring, distant. My mother seemed eternally dissatisfied. They

were rarely together, not physically affectionate, though I’d only ever heard them argue once.

An uncomfortable feeling had been part of my teenage years, of something kept from me. I’d

felt it even if no-one was speaking about it; dishonesty for a reason, everyone complicit.

The book helped me realise I’d seen a version of marriage that would have trapped

and bored me. I understood about my secrecy; I inherited the unconscious message from my

mum that being happy meant finding something outside of marriage, not in it. Marriage

would stifle me. So I’d run as far as I could, leaving home as soon as possible, spending most

of my twenties running around the world. A bigger, more exciting world than I’d grown up

with in Bolton. My penny dropped. What I was running away from was commitment. No
wonder, if that was the model of what it offered. In previous relationships, I’d always known

they’d end, I always had my eye on the exit.

I knew I needed to feel committed from now on; to a good relationship based on love

and freedom, security and adventure, a man who could love me and never bore me. In this

sort of relationship, I sensed I could be free and be loved. My holy grail.

On the plus side of a Core Erotic Theme, once you know what turns you on, you can use it.

Rather than it pulling your strings, you can play with it. Knowing my core erotic theme made

sense of how much I’d enjoyed my minor flirtations and overnight stays in hotels, even

chosen a career that enabled it. Years earlier I’d attempted an unsuccessful affair with one of

my customers and in small regular ways, I was a hunter. Sometimes on business trips, I’d sit

at a hotel bar, nursing a whiskey with ice. I don’t even like whiskey, but I’d enjoy that feeling

of a potential meeting with a stranger, which occasionally happened. A Private Eye journalist

in a hotel in Carlisle who I went up a hill with, though not to his room. A sexy Irish man in a

hotel in the Isle of Man who sent a waitress over to ask me to join him for dinner, then

bombarded me with suggestive texts when I got home. A handsome man who ran a beautiful

art gallery in Whitby, the Sri Lankan. The list wasn’t long but it was habitual, occasional,

secretive, unconscious.

My hunting wasn’t about sex, it was a search for recognition and possibility,

seduction and newness; creating interest in a domestic life I otherwise considered banal. It

was sort of fun, feeling free and alive though I felt guilty as I had my long term boyfriend at

home. It was about the ability to do it rather than a desire for sex, recognition rather than the

follow-through; a risky thrill, a savage pleasure of the secret life. My core erotic theme

wasn’t just the peak experiences, it was a lifelong habit. Another Oh Fuck moment; seeing
the strings of my past pulling on my present. The fact that the exotic peak moments were far

distant offered the secrecy opportunities for the pleasure I was unknowingly looking for.

Recognising my love of risk, adventure and opportunism was an eye-opener: seeing

the pattern of deceit alongside maintaining the conventional life which allowed me the

semblance of success, the big Victorian house and the cash. I understood why the legal sales

job had suited me for years; a profession of alphas, the freedom of new places every day,

planning my own diary, a boss two hundred miles away and the money to make choices. I

wasn’t flirting with my customers, I was too proud for that, but my sexuality must have been

simmering away for all to see. It wasn’t that recent nonsense of ‘because you’re worth it.’ It

was anything but. I had no sense of looking for flattery or feeling entitled to the attention. It

was compulsive and unconscious; I hadn’t thought about it at all, let alone felt I deserved it.

The Erotic Mind woke me up and it was time to be open and honest, with myself and

others which felt impossibly tricky. Long before J, I was complaining, blaming everyone else

for my dissatisfaction: my bosses, my boyfriends, my mother. I saw my strategy for freedom

and thrills. The duplicity and duality suited me, it was easy, borne of long practice. You don’t

know what you don’t know. When dishonesty is based on an unconscious belief that the

happiness you want isn’t possible, available or allowed, it’s like turning around a personal

titanic.

When we next met, I shared the passages that had moved me with J. Although I’d felt

sick with recognition reading The Erotic Mind, my revelation was met without much interest.

To his credit, he was clear, settling down into more committed monogamy wasn’t really

where he was at. He’d done that for twenty years already. He wanted to open up his sexual

life. As love was growing and enjoyable, he didn’t want to split up, nor did I, yet something

had to change.
The Ending of Limerence

As his solution, J wanted us to make friends in the swinging community as part of a life we

created jointly. The army was his ‘family,’ he felt the tantra group was ‘mine,’ he wanted

something that was ‘ours’. I knew he’d done some swinging in the past and he was clear he

wanted me to join him. I’d no desire for it myself as I was content with the way things were,

but I could see a benefit to be willing to play fair. As I’d never tried it I was faintly curious;

feeling that his view that we should explore sometimes in the company of people he chose

was valid. With all his moving around he didn’t have a social community. He’d enjoyed

swinging with his lovers in the past and thought I might enjoy it, given how much I’d enjoyed

my explorations so far.

I wasn’t convinced. I had my reservations about being on a swingers site, but he

wanted us to have a joint project. That he could have his short-lived adventures seemed a safe

thing and could arguably add to our connection in the sense that the ‘couple that play together

stay together’. On a head level, I got it; I didn’t ask my heart. I knew I was doing it so he’d

want to stay with me.

To see what it could be like he took me to Liberty Elite, an “elite swinging and fetish

club” The first time was a Back to School party, me dressed as a sexy schoolgirl, him in a

headmaster’s gown. While getting dressed up together in front of the mirror was fun, part of

me was nervous. Tight white shirt, wonky school tie, short skirt, dotting on fake freckles,

putting my hair in bunches, I felt ridiculous. Arriving in the car park, pausing to breathe, J

checked again if I was really up for going in. After filling in forms to show we were the ‘right

calibre,’ £20 got us a couples’ membership, then he paid £30 for the evening. J had been

before and showed me the different rooms; we looked into the spa, smelling too strongly of

cleaning products for my liking, the empty jacuzzi bubbling away. I saw little bottles of

sanitiser dotted around. In the main room a bar, tables for four, some comfy sofas. The place
was half empty, some forty-plus men in shorts and satchels, women in tight-fitting blouses.

At the side of the dance floor, I saw, for the first time, black and red kink

furniture, stacked away like unwanted gym equipment. We wandered over, J explaining what

they were, red, low, padded-leather spanking benches and a St Andrew’s Cross for spread-

eagling people on with wrist and ankle cuffs; unavailable for use this evening as a bad

wedding-style school disco was in half-force. I can easily find many things banal and this

club night was no exception. There were a few women dancing, the men occasionally

awkwardly joining in. As I didn’t know what else to do that night, dancing seemed to be the

least nerve-racking thing. It’s been a long time since I danced to school disco music on a half-

empty dance-floor. Thankfully. Dancing with J’s appreciative gaze to Blondie and Kim

Wilde, we had our own bit of voyeurism, exhibitionism and spontaneity though I got off the

floor when Boney M started. Despite the friendly reputation, no-one came to chat with us. I

was daunted by the whole thing while simultaneously not caring either, wondering where the

high calibre people were hiding. We left early, long before midnight, I was so glad to get

home, the first step, mission accomplished.

The second time at ‘Libs’ was on a fetish night. We’d dressed together in clothes

bought in Affleck’s Palace in Manchester, I had £20 tight leather shorts with laces up the

side, a cleavage-enhancing steam-punk basque, fishnets, heeled ankle boots, a heavy silver

chain necklace to complete the look. J looked hot in faux-leather trousers, tight black T-shirt

showing off his body. I could see we looked glamorous together, reflected in the big mirror in

the living room as I applied red lipstick, eyeliner, hair a golden halo.

Libs had more life to it this time, the kink equipment centre stage no bad wedding DJ

music. The dress code “the usual fetish attire, TV, Goth, Fetish, Leather, PVC, Lingerie” was

intriguing. Women in tutus, some in basques and feathers, one flogging a bare-arsed man on

a spanking bench. Past the famed Liberty Elite ‘luxurious buffet’ of white triangle ham
sandwiches scattered with bits of cress, cold sausage rolls and mini pork pies, there was a

side room with an open door. In it a leather swing attached to a metal four-posted frame,

more hand sanitiser, towers of towels. I wanted to try it out as looked exciting and I wanted to

have sex with my boyfriend. By now, leather shorts on the floor, I got to lie in the wide

leather swing while J cuffed my ankles and wrists to the posts. Looking at me, unzipping his

trousers, stroking his cock as I watched, I felt anticipation. Standing he began to fuck me,

holding onto my hips, our eyes connecting, the noise of the metal chains jangling, both of us

smiling, even when one of the metal D hooks on the basque pinged off. Scrabbling around the

very clean floor to find it, still smiling we left, rejoining the main room.

There were people tying each other up by now, men with clips on their nipples and

needle-pierced skin. I was fascinated by an average-looking middle-aged Dominant guy in a

regular suit, doing a demo. He took a small purple feather out his pocket saying it was his

best ever piece of kit. Later I heard women going to him to book time to re-enact fantasies.

We chatted to a couple for a few minutes before we left, the woman topless, tied with a rope

breast-halter, it seemed ever so natural. When we got home, I wanted to finish what we’d

started. I was still buzzing at the thought of the Dom with the feather. J was tired, so being on

top in the dark felt good, a freer position for me than on my back in a moving swing.

After those two visits, it was time to try some private meetings instead. So we spent

an evening taking photos for the Fab Swingers website. J is a fantastic photographer. I

dressed up in various lovely pieces of lingerie; a black chemise, French-style knickers,

stockings, the leather shorts, new expensive red and black suede heels. As he couldn’t have

his face seen, there were fewer photos of him and they had to be suggestively subtle, sexy red

pants, thighs, shadows. Other photos he took of us that night that wouldn’t go on the website

were breathtaking. I’d never seen myself looking like that before. Us together, soft, golden,

loved and in love.

 I can look back now and laugh at my naivety. Honestly, what was I thinking? I had

little concept of swinging and I didn’t do any research, I had no idea what to expect. My new

found love of adventure and an over-idealised view of what might be possible meant I simply

didn’t know what I was getting into. I had no desire to have sex with strangers, nor did I want

my boyfriend to want or do that either. Call me small-minded. I’m sure there are fabulous

swingers, I’ve met a few since but none I’d want to eat or go for dinner with. I wanted

serious, committed relationship-sex with the man I loved. Yet here I was on a swingers site.

The ending of the honeymoon limerent period hit me hard. Sometimes I laugh at the

Bridget Jones nature of how I got myself into all this, with its unfulfilled promises of

pleasure, simply by being open to life. Doing the research into what I like and don’t like for

seven years hasn’t been all sitting around like a glamorous burlesque dancer, nibbling

mangoes, wearing fluffy mules and waiting for some handsome yet inexpressively subtle

warrior to show up. Some of it is more tawdry than that. While it might make for a good

story, mostly I wish I hadn’t had to find out the hard way.

Christmas Presence

Our first Christmas together, we spent at J’s, playing house. Decorating the tree on Christmas

Eve, he told me more about his upbringing, kids and past happy family times. Back in the

UK, after two years duty nowhere nice which turned out to be Afghanistan, this was his first

Christmas alone. On Christmas Day the table looked beautiful with masses of tea lights and

candles, reflecting the crystal glasses, part of his wedding supply. My gifts to him were for

his home, feminine, arty touches to complement the real mistress. His presents to me were

expensive handmade kink equipment: a purple soft suede flogger, a leather blindfold, a

pinwheel, a session with two dominatrices to teach me the skills. The idea was we’d use the

equipment to explore kink together and enjoy adventures. After the pudding, everything got
pushed aside to make love on the table amidst the wrapping paper, pudding-smeared dishes

and glittering decorations. Earlier that morning we’d had anal sex for the first time together;

the only time that’s been part of a Christmas gift stash.

In Sexological Bodywork training, anal healing is part of the curriculum, so I’d had to

get interested. I can’t say approaching that module filled me with any enthusiasm; initially, it

was more fear, another of the Oh Fuck moments. Like many women, I’d tried anal sex once

ten years earlier, didn’t like it much, tried it again just to check and then filed it away in the

‘don’t get why that’s supposed to be nice’ box and hadn’t been asked since. Like anything in

life, we sometimes have a No based on previous disappointing experiences. That’s natural,

yet how do we overcome this fear without anyone to feel safe enough to experiment with? J

had given me a couple of butt plugs soon after we met which I’d looked at with a mixture of

surprise and puzzlement. For me? When I asked him what’d prompted such a gift when I’d

have preferred peonies or well, most things, his curious answer was for ‘training.’ He didn’t

take it well when I sweetly asked his or mine? I tried them a couple of times. Everyone has an

asshole after all. Strangely, being home alone with a butt plug up my ass didn’t hugely appeal

so, alongside the Ann Summers nylon nurses uniform, and the green Christmas elf outfit,

they were a gift I’d firmly left at his place. I wasn’t sure why we needed them. Generally, I’d

never been a regular user of sex toys, as I’d heard they numb potential subtler sensations over

time. Who needs a friend clitoris? I wanted to learn to feel more with what I have, not add to

the plastic problem of unused vibes in my bottom drawer. Scared of my own early purchase

of a big prickly rabbit, I could never work out which bit of the recycling that particular

vibrator needed to go in to.

The training for Sexological Bodywork is thorough, we’d had a lot of ass reading to

do, as well as specific exercises. Learning about the anatomy, healing and potential pleasure

made me realise how limited my view was. Finding how the anus holds tension, how to relax
it, in Jack Morin’s other book, Anal Pleasure and Health was helpful; reading that anal sex

wasn’t supposed to hurt was another revealing paragraph. It’s probably obvious but I didn’t

know. You may be interested to hear that the main point of anal massage is to relax the

nervous system; Yes. Relaxing. It’s beneficial to restore trust and ease, to reduce

‘uptightness.’ I learned that slow internal anal massage allows the body to come off alert, the

fascia to release, soothing our nervous systems, letting us go into relaxing trance states. Only

then can it become an erotically sensual pleasure zone. Bless the people who offered to be my

practice bodies. They let me go through the creatively named external strokes to aid

relaxation:‘waking up the neighbourhood’ (massaging the bottom cheeks), ‘the dolphin,’

(long wavy strokes with the side of the hand down the bum crack), ‘spider fingers,’ (soft

fingertip strokes outward from the rosebud). Of course, I’d had to be practised on and slowly

I’d begun to see the point, if not yet the pleasure. Trust forms, it was calming and relaxing, a

place to be able to go quiet, inwardly focusing on my breathing and feelings. As the receiver,

you focus on your own experience directing the giver, noticing your own sensations. It’s not

a goal-driven practice to attain orgasm, quite the opposite; the aim is foremost to be soothing

and healing.

That summer I’d got curious, asking my friends what they liked about anal sex and

they’d responded with comments about the earthiness of it, the animalistic nature, the

freedom of breaking taboos and the groundedness. An Italian Tantra man on a Greek beach

explained that for women who haven’t done it for years, the fear is overcome by the woman

setting the pace, taking control, guiding the man and his cock at the slowest speed, using lots

of breath. He’d explained to me which positions allowed the woman to do that; slow reverse

cowgirl being one, side-lying another. I was listening and learning, standing in the

Mediterranean shallows.
 So I was keen to begin to try for myself and on one of our autumn weekends I’d had a

surprise anal orgasm from being licked. By Christmas, I’d done my reading and research,

completing the practices for the module. J was delighted when I let him know I was curious.

I’d get to be a sex geek and experiment and J loves anal sex so was supportive, understanding

that I’d want to take my time and move around to find comfortable positions.

So Christmas morning seemed like the time for the gift. He’d been one of my practice

bodies so knew the strokes and would follow my guidance. He began by massaging my bum

with almond oil, following my requests and pace. Following the beach advice, when I felt

ready to try penetration, lying on our sides, I held his cock in a firm and friendly way, resting

it between my cheeks, breathed a lot, waited, breathed some more, slowly moving back on to

him. Millimetres at a time, my body invited him to be inside. Each little movement, we

waited, I relaxed, breathed. I felt close to him, safe, cared for. He was gentle, holding me,

reassuring, looking at me, never pushing. I held him firmly and slowly, allowing his to cock

to move a little deeper in me, past the first sphincter, resting and then further, a few

millimetres at a time. I began to relax and enjoy it, not in terms of reaching excitement but

feeling the love, closeness, increasing fullness and my own courage. Not painful at all, I

could feel myself opening and settling in the loving connection, slowly, slowly, resting at

each stage, till I was comfortable with him fully inside me, his arms around me. I asked him

to be still and simply be there, staying connected with eye contact and reaching to kiss. Safe,

I could move more freely and slowly. I got braver and a bit sexier with it, moving my hips

around on him, he kept still, allowing me to speed up or slow down, sometimes touching my

clitoris at the same time; resting then building arousal, then resting, then building, all the

while breathing deeply, allowing the energy to move around my body. Something different

kicked in and I felt the pleasure of it, powerful, base and wild. I started thrusting back onto

him, feeling the freedom of my movements, not caring what I looked or sounded like as I
came. Noisy, surprised, intense and pleasurable, he did too. Cuddling afterwards was

beautiful, he knew it was a major thing for me and I was grateful to him for his loving

patience and going with me at my pace, his gift of presence to me. We‘d been together almost

a year by then, I was enjoying trusting him more and —although it might sound weird—

beginning to be able to rely on him. That was new to me.

Not So Fab Swingers

After Christmas, so many messages, and so many cock pics on Fab Swingers. Filtering

through the unappealing offers of meetings was unenjoyable. Yet the thing is, on a swingers

site and in the whole scene, the connection is supposed to be “for the women’s pleasure.” I

wasn’t feeling the love, or the pleasure. I swapped messages with one of the few handsome

single men yet his reply saying ‘he’d come over the picture of my cute arse’ repulsed me. It

felt violating, the leather shorts suddenly a disadvantage. J couldn’t understand why I was

offended, suggesting I see it as a compliment. That guy got deleted. As did most, too many

dick pics and too many tattoos, J’s suggestions appalling me. My inner judge had a field day,

he accused me of snobbery. We went out for a drink with a local couple, they were looking

for men for her boy bank. I was indifferent to meeting again to get sexy, although we got and

gave stunning reviews on Fab.

J was honest that he wanted us to have shared adventures in which sex with other

women was included, his desire was clear. I found out that there’s a thing in swinging called

‘full swaps’ where both partners agree before the meeting, that they’re open to swapping

partners, to have sex. You can choose if it’s in the same room or you go to separate rooms. Or

you can stop before that stage and have sex with your own partner, in the company of the

others. Lots of choices; I wasn’t thrilled by any of them. Feeling like a meal ticket, I didn’t

want to agree to anything in advance and said as much.

 What was I thinking? That he’d stop wanting what he wanted?

Luckily I found the couple we’d met briefly at my second visit to Liberty’s, they got

through my filters as they were into swinging and kink. We invited them to the house after

Christmas, J bringing drinks and playing host. Over the Christmas nuts and nibbles, we found

out that the couple were having an affair, I could sense the man’s fear of being caught. Apart

from that, the small talk included ‘which clubs have you been to, where are the best places

etc’. The swinger equivalent of ‘How did you get here?’

So let me spare you the tedium of that and slip straight to the bedroom. The weedy

Dom guy was carrying! Lots of equipment, in a big suitcase! To begin, as I was new, I was

the centre of attention, blindfolded, being stroked with feathers and rabbit fur and spanky bits

for about half an hour. Feeling part of an experiment they all wanted me to like, I was

missing any real sense of connection. It was okay, feeling the new sensations, but I couldn’t

relax. When it was the other woman’s turn, she seemed to like lots of nipple clamps and

shared stories with us of her guy’s skills at her orgasm control. We women didn’t think to

touch the men. It was already understood there’d be no full swaps so once the kit was put

away, we moved to the bed; though not with our own partners. J was inches away kissing the

woman. I wanted to be with him, not the ineffectual, scared guy, yet didn’t feel I could say

so. Eventually, we reached for our own partners and I was home again.

On reflection, I wondered if the substitute for real confidence and intimacy in the

BDSM scene is a big box of kit. With four kinds of paddles, a few crops, a prickly thing, a

spiky thing, you can get your kit out for the girls but you don’t have to reveal anything of

your own vulnerability, connect on an emotional level, or ask for what you want. It was such

contrast to our conscious Tantra world. In the post-match analysis, J revealed he’d not been

touched once and felt he’d spent the whole evening in service. And in the swap bit hadn’t felt

any energetic response from the woman at all. As a first time player, I hadn’t enjoyed much
of what had happened to me in a way I thought I should have. Concerned that my lack of

desire meant I was the one who wasn’t fun or open to something that, on the surface, could

have been a thrilling pleasure but hadn’t been at all. I knew I was doing it to please J, not

committed or bothered either way about doing it again. So even though I had permission and

encouragement, my lack of enjoyment rested not on my guilt but lukewarm interest.

The Best Thing that Ever Happened to me at a Swingers Club

J always used to say you should try everything three times, first to try it, the second time to

see if you like it and by the third time you’ll have a pretty good idea. Later ‘research’ found

us at a swingers club in the rough end of Manchester. Parking in the back streets of Swinton

my heart sank. Oh well, nothing ventured. Up a flight of stairs, paying a tenner for a couple,

though I noticed if you were a single guy it was double. BYOB, our wine passed through a

hatch and then collected behind the busy bar. After the crowded, tiny changing room with

people pulling on stockings and fancy bits of underwear around me, the main room was

surreal. All my posh girl sensibilities left the building as I surveyed the scene, the atmosphere

more jolly working men’s club than sultry paradise. A kinky pub, widescreen TV’s showing

big cock porn, lots of bald British bulldog men in white Calvin Kleins, the women in Anne

Summer’s best.

What I liked about it once I had a chance to settle, was that it felt alive; people

chatting in a bar, smiling and laughing, all ages and shapes, seemingly relaxed. Everyone in

their best underwear. In comparison to Liberty’s with everyone comparing the other places

they’d been to, the people here seem more open and less showy. Of course, I have no idea

what they were talking about over the beer and sausage rolls yet I felt okay here; ready to
explore. A chippy northern girl feeling, most of my contempt thankfully left at home for the

night.

I’m not looking for sex with strangers, but now, knowing about my core erotic theme

of adventure, I was willing to be there. There was a small couples' room but not ready for that

I suggested we go and look around first. Off past the Asda supper spread out on a pool table,

there were stairs down to a corridor, a few rooms on either side with double beds in them but

no people. In the dark, last, empty room a fabric swing, loosely hanging. It’s the first time I’d

seen one and I asked J to help me get into it. Held by legs and arms, wrists and ankles

fastened with velcro straps and supported under my back, J started rocking me in the swing. I

began to enjoy the privacy, being just with him, away from the noise and people upstairs.

Out of the dark, four men appear, Indian or Pakistani origin, three of them handsome

silver foxes. They wait. J is still rocking me and after a while, he says to them

“You can stroke her…very gently”

They step forward and begin softly touching me. No words needed. I’m gazing at J

who’s taking care of me, giving me permission, knowing my predilection for handsome

Indian guys. As I get braver I turn my head and slowly, alternately kiss each of them while

enjoying feeling all their hands on me. The whole scene is gentle, protective, exotic and

sensual.

And then I’ve had enough. Ten minutes or so has passed and I decide I need to stop it

all. My head’s kicked in and we’re all out of the lovely trance state abruptly.

“Thank you that was lovely,” prissy and polite.

All the men disappear back into the shadows apart from one who spoils the mood by

whispering crudely that he’d like to lick me out later. Pffff. I’m all for people asking for

what they want but really… don’t spoil my idea of bliss.

 Seriously I’m such a bad swinger. The myth that’s it’s all about the ‘women

receiving’ in swingers clubs seems to me the lie that everyone’s buying. I don’t get it, I don’t

believe it and I don’t want it. It seems to me that ‘receiving’ is a deceptively loaded term as

it’s pretty much meaning “have anything you want ladies as long as it’s sucking and fucking

strangers. And I’ll just sit by with my pint and watch.” Why’s that ‘all about the women?’

In this case, though, the situation with the four men was beautiful for me. So what is

it? Is it more deeply that I don’t believe I can really have this, that I can’t receive? Earlier the

situation in the dark felt magical, I’m sure no-one wanted it to stop except me. We all have a

pleasure glass ceiling and it seems mine is disappointingly low. I can’t tell if the other women

in the club have a better sense of entitlement than me or lower standards. At least they’re

having fun.

Disagreeable Agreeing

Another weekend, another workshop - Couple’s Valentine’s Tantra, couples’ — counselling

on speed by any other name. Bright light shining on deep problems in our partnership only a

year in. J saying he was fed up of Tantra now, the gap in the bed widening, withholding

communication and affection. He wanted us to be out in the real world, meeting swingers and

kinksters to have fun with. The Tantra structures included expressions of appreciations, touch

exercises, one where we had to wear a blindfold and feel our partner’s body, hear them

breathe, listen to their heartbeat, smell their skin, tenderly falling in love with them bit by bit.

There was a ritual asking us to share our commitments to the relationship, witnessed by the

group. For that, we’d each been asked to bring an object that signified our love. J brought a

couple of the iridescent coppery tiles we’d chosen together for his bathroom, I brought my

Andy Warhol “I wonder if it’s possible to have a love affair that lasts forever” print.
 We’d prepared for the ritual individually, beginning to write lists of what we ‘wanted,

desired and needed for our own lives and in the relationship; what we’d bring and what we

wanted to let go of’. Daunting sitting in a nest in the centre of the room in front of the group,

gazing into each other’s eyes, making a public declaration of commitment. Everything I

feared and longed for combined. We got through the weekend but love felt more fragile now. 

So we asked for support from the teachers in a private session. As part of the

preparation we were asked to consider and write our ‘agreements’ to make explicit what’s

often implied or assumed, offering honesty and clarity around expectations of behaviour.

Something we can hold ourselves accountable for and to, promises to ourselves, each other

and any people we might play with. Often so much is assumed in a relationship yet how

many of us do this formally; taking time to consider how each of us might be happy in

individual ways, that could contribute to the emotional bank balance of the shared

relationship? 

For a few weeks, those lists and our agreements had already been the focus of our

conversations, the idea wasn’t new to either of us, we’d both worked with them before but

now we had a focus. We spent much of March going around in circles with conversations

about bloody lists. Mind-fucking instead of making love, I began to hate the concept. Writing

the agreements was so tedious, weary work-like exchanges of email, my words corrected in

green ink. If some of the language sounds stilted and formal, I probably didn’t write that bit,

we have army protocol to thank for that too.

Agreements with Self

Ali: I will only do what feels good for my heart, body and mind. I’m open to new

ideas and a repertoire of experiences.

J: I will honour my Needs, Wants and Desires.

Agreements with The Beloved

 Loving intention is our motivation for everything. We will make conscious decisions

for our deepening relationship to be a place of love, peace, acceptance, fun and joint

adventure.

We will actively support each other’s Needs, Wants and Desires, remembering that as

individuals we are also responsible for our own pleasures.

We will be transparent between us and communicate honestly. Everything is

acceptable and can be held.

We will avoid discussing tricky issues after 21.30

We will follow our conflict resolution procedures, using safe words and signals to

initiate escape. Afterwards, we will use appropriate forgiveness and effective “punishment”

to move everything along.

We will seek support from people who successfully model the relationship we seek

Agreements with Others

We will be clear when we play with others and have impeccable joint agreements,

based on full consent. We will have clear entry and exit strategy and be safe to play with. We

will jointly let others know our agreements. We will be open, exciting and loving with the

people we invite to play. We will at all times be mindful of the feelings of those that we invite

into our relationship.

We will only play (erotic and sexual contact outside of paid work) when we are

together. If one of us has an individual desire that the other has a Maybe/Wait/No for, we

pause, discuss together and agree how it could happen in a supported way, using loving

damage limitation procedure.

Fainting and Fucking

You come across a lot of people with various pasts when you do professional sexuality

training. I’ve met surrogates, missionaries, goddesses, swingers, chemists, escorts, IT geeks

and self-described former sex addicts in my trainings: wounded healers all, self-aware people

whose transformative experiences in dealing with their pasts allow them to offer non-

judgmental, brave work. My tantra teacher spent some of her early life as a meditation

teacher by day and a streetwalker by night. I have lots of respect for people who offer

conscious sex work, both men and women, it’s so needed. Dealing with clients takes a lot of

generosity, being a happy hooker is hard work.

By now I’d signed up for the second year of Sex Bod, coaching students on the course

I’d done the year before. Another certificate.

One of the other experienced coaches, was also a professional dominatrix. As I’d been

curious about kink after Fifty Shades of Grey and enjoyed a couple of Tantric BDSM courses.

I wondered if it might help us, given the ongoing gridlock. She’d just come back to the UK to

settle and was looking for somewhere to live so I invited her to stay for a weekend, for a

private session to be included in that, though she refused payment. She arranged a couple of

nearby flat viewings, arriving late Saturday afternoon. J was sullen, though spending time in

her company while I cooked, his frustrations around our lists of desires heard, he was willing

to have the session that evening.

I dressed for it in stockings and tottery, red high heels. After discussing it, we agreed

to be tied together. She explained the traffic light system; red to stop, orange if there’s an

issue and green if it’s all good. I was blindfolded and then gagged, with a new thing called a

ball gag, he wasn’t, then she tied ropes securing J and I back to back. The Pro-Domme’s

touch was beautiful and skilled. She moved between the two of us for a few minutes each,

soft fingertip touch on my skin, my face, the insides of my thighs, around my knicker lines.

Then, leaving me, she’d move to J. Then come back to touch me. I liked it. Yet when she
moved away and touched my lover, hearing his murmurs of appreciation and pleasure, a

wariness set in. After three or four turns each, I began to feel nauseous and hot, and called

orange as best as I could through the gag, saying I thought I might faint.

Then I was on the floor.

They were both attentive, they got the ropes off, we were all surprised, we couldn’t

work out what had happened. I’ve only fainted once before in my life when I was about

fifteen. I felt silly for spoiling it but with water and a pause for a rest, I felt better quickly

enough. I didn’t feel I could stop the evening by calling Red. Now I know that fainting is a

‘Trauma with a capital T’ reaction. My body recognised danger and took me out of the

situation. That’s the thing with trauma, it’s often hidden until activated.

Once I’d recovered, we decided to turn the evening into a threesome, the equipment

she’d laid out was covered over. Each taking turns to receive, fun, light, experimental, three

people who all touch well, new friendships being formed. J happy that it was someone new

and not from my women’s circle. I was accepting, interested and curious as there were skill

and trust as we’d done this before with my friends. For that couple of hours in the threesome,

I didn’t feel threatened or left out at any point.

I saw a few things that night I hadn’t seen before: the first was him spitting on her, the

second thing was that I’d never seen so much cellulite on one bottom. It was also the first

time I saw J have penetrative sex with someone else, looking into my eyes as he did it, his

eyes grateful to me for our connection and my acceptance. There’s a polyamory word,

‘compersion’ that means you’re happy for someone else to be happy in their sexual

connection with another. That might be the only five minutes of my life I’ve touched the

edges of it. I could see what was happening in front of me and it didn’t seem that much or for

very long. It sounds stupid now though at the time I felt secure in it. At the end of the

evening, J and I made love while she witnessed us. It felt lovely to be witnessed, to show our
relationship, made deeper by what had happened earlier in the evening, I felt the mutual care

and appreciation. J and I went to bed together, connected by our shared experience.

The three of us spent the next day together, having a pub lunch and hanging out. She

shared some of the stories of her life, working in a brothel, swinging, sex parties, difficult

personal issues, getting tearful towards the end of the night. By now I wanted to have private

time with J but she left after he did on Monday morning. Later J shared how he’d driven to

work with a hard-on that lasted all morning and how if I wanted, he was sure she would

submit to me. I didn’t take much notice, as that wasn’t anything I understood or wanted. For

me, that was that, some professional connections may have emerged or possibly another

similar evening together and a new friendship. I wasn’t looking for anything continuous and

wanted to leave it for a while. I’d hoped it had helped our relationship and I wanted to

connect with him about that together now.

The following day I was at a friend’s birthday evening. I could see I’d been included

in a marathon Messenger sexting conversation between the two of them. My quick reading of

it in a couple of minutes between the spa and the cocktail bar shocked me, so explicit, and

then still going on by the time I left an hour later. God knows how many times she’d come by

then, but it was all there, four or five hours of sexual relationship-building conversation, her

orgasms, intimate details J had shared about me, future meetings fantasised about. Sick in my

chest, mouth dry, I stopped them mid-flow typing RED and walked in quiet shock to get my

car to drive home, the lights on Deansgate blurry.

When Red happens the whole thing has to stop and to find out what’s wrong for the

person who called it. Instead, J was furious with me for stopping it as they were loving it. I

had to beg him to talk to me once he’d calmed down. Reading over it quickly when I got

home, feeling excluded, repulsed, I deleted it. I wanted none of it. That week, reminding me

of our agreements with others, J encouraged the three of us to try to repair the situation in a
group Messenger chat. I didn’t really want to get involved in this airing of feelings, as it

seemed all about making her feel better, and her period pains. Yet I’d fainted and called Red.

I didn’t see why she had a right to feel so upset, she’d come into a couple, caused a lot of

problems, surely you wouldn’t hang around? After the marathon sexting conversation, I

didn’t want anything to continue, I had no vested interest in a repeat or building anything

now. As she’d now moved to a place near me, J encouraged me to go to meet her. She cooked

for me and we talked it over, apologised to each other, said goodbye with a kiss and a hug.

To Do and Not To Do Lists

How do we nurture our relationships, help each other grow and move towards fulfilling our

own dreams rather than shrink or shelve all the things we always wanted to do before we met

this miraculous person that now we’ve fallen in love with? I wonder if we overestimate what

we can do together and underestimate what’s still ours to do separately. Or is love a price or

prize for compromise and sacrifice? Having felt stultified in the past, both of us were smart

enough to see the benefits of sharing our hopes for a relationship that would continue feeling

alive.

Focusing on creating wonderful things had been familiar to me since life coaching, I

know our intentions create our reality, and since Aspects I could see what might be possible

in the erotic realm. Our lists for the joint counselling session were long and included things

we wanted to do together and separately in our own lives; house and family things for J, for

me travel, dance and work ideas. Some of the things on my list had been long intended with
new desires that were specific to J. My list wasn’t exactly tame but it wasn’t enough to bridge

the sex-swaps gap. I’m shy to share my list but in the spirit of full disclosure, here goes.

Deepening relationship

LOVE

To be met in my love and energy

Couples tantra journey

A witness to my life/to be a witness

Reliability, repeated kept agreements

Erotic adventuring/threesomes, group pleasure

Tantra dates

Spend evenings in a nest

Kissing

Tantra massage

Pleasure without anxiety

De-armoring

Learn pleasures of making love slowly

Lie in a hammock

Ecstatic bdsm session

Explore picking up strangers with hotel bar fantasy

Life

Develop Sex Bod practice

Shared home(s)

Commitment ceremony

Building a temple/salon/tantric “brothel”

art galleries

Shibari

weekends/holidays

walking

Tiree/Bali/Laos

Shakti Pleasure Island/kissing girls.

What I’d like more of

To be more relaxed and to laugh more with you

Time with you

To have plans together in both adventure and domesticity

Enthusiasm

To find better ways of learning from each other’s experiences with respect

Tenderness

Hearing you share what’s on your mind

Playing with our bdsm gear together

Sleep and good rest

Yab Yum

New ways of engaging to work tricky stuff out

Hearing more from you about the things you’d like me to do to give you pleasure

Experiences of abandoned connected group experience with you

What I’d like to let go of

Anxiety of not knowing our agreements

Frustration at being in this stuck place

Connecting every day about stuff we don’t want to talk about

Analysis that isn’t helpful

 My fear of losing you

Being tired

Shocks

Your expectations about my pleasure from swinging

You rolling your eyes when we talk …I feel crushed

Seeing J’s list was brutal. His needs, wants and desires in our relationship opened my eyes as

my heart sank. I won’t share the other stuff that was on the list about his personal dreams for

house, family and work after retirement. In our many conversations, I wanted to talk about

the things that we’d create on our own together that would have made it worthwhile. For J,

those were a given, he kept concentrating on the places we couldn’t resolve saying, “the

tricky things are those things that mark us out from the pack. But by their nature - they are

tricky!!”

Love and further deepen my relationship with Ali

Collaborate as equals

Actively manage diaries and commitments to create more time together

Further integrate Ali with my family

Support Ali in her work

Mark our relationship with a public display of commitment

A monthly full swap adventure with my sub/s, a bi-fem or couple to add further

excitement, adventure, learning, fun and juiciness to our relationship

To continue training my subs to serve my pleasure and to serve within my

relationship with Ali

 Learn more by research, learning from others and practising in order to limit

expenditure on workshops: Tantra, BDSM, ropework, SexBod, massage, creating an exciting

and stable relationship

Train Ali to be my sub and to Domme, to serve my subs under my direction, as an

Aspect of our relationship

To attend sex/fetish clubs or venues x 12 to have fun and learn from others

Attend a private party x 2

Together develop a new circle of exciting and fun friends

Create a play party venue and host play party x 3

Europe fun weekend x 2

Holiday in the sun

Swinging holiday in the sun

Work together

Weekend in the Lakes

Conscious Kink workshop

I’d only recently heard of a thing called a play party, I had no experience or real desire to host

one, let alone three. As for twelve full swaps, unthinkable, though given the quality on

swingers sites so far, any number above zero would have been tricky. I know he wanted these

ideas to keep our relationship alive, but the idea of having to ‘play’ aka have sex with a

different man, a bi-fem or submissive every month felt beyond me. And who were these subs

anyway, it sounded like they were already in place, whereas I was thinking we were more in

a space of working things out together, rather than a fait accompli.

I was missing any aspect of J’s list that might have given me more insight into how I

could have changed my behaviour, other than besides shagging or spanking other people,
though I might have had more fun with the latter. The deepening relationship, public display

of commitment, holidays and adventurous life appealed, yet to have more time with J had a

high price tag. Not much of his sexy adventuring felt good for my heart, body or mind.

Inside Me with Shivanti

Looking back, the sexting marathon was the first sign of a kink relationship they shared and

wanted, that I had no knowledge of, nor could understand the strength of what it might

become. For me, our shared threesome night was a one-off. For them, they’d seen something

in each other, a shared desire to dominate and submit. Seeing someone who can, and wants

to, give you exactly what you want is intoxicating and compelling. They wanted something I

didn’t want. I wanted J. So did she. And he wanted us both. He’d wanted a submissive, the

Pro-Domme was a switch and wanted to be his sub. He’d seen it in her eyes when they first

met. He wanted to go deep into kink. I wanted her gone. Bi-sexual, she wanted to be in a

relationship with both of us. I simply wasn’t interested in having another woman, especially a

needy one I wasn’t attracted to, in our relationship permanently.

“Love is the placement of attention” is a phrase I’d learned from Joseph Kramer. J’s

ardency had turned from me as he felt the bars of his cage shrink. As we hadn’t solved the list

stalemate and I didn’t want to meet my colleague again, he decided to honour his agreement

to himself, suddenly cancelling a weekend at my house to go to Scotland where he’d arranged

to spend the weekend with a different submissive he’d met on Fet Life, a version of Facebook

for kinksters. No pause, no discussion, just his decision. So much for that agreement — If

one of us has an individual desire that the other has a Maybe/Wait/No for, we pause, discuss

together and agree on how it could happen in a supported way. So much for the pause, so

much for me saying No.

 Once I’d got over the shock, I had to find a way of being okay with it. Listening as he

told me they’d done, massage, gone swinging, gone to a play party, I didn’t like it but could

handle it as his mood had improved. Scotland seemed far enough away. He said ‘his energy

was brimming now’, he was grateful I’d stayed. Was that the loving damage limitation

procedure? His attention now elsewhere; online calls giving his new sub her daily tasks; to go

for a walk, to read certain things, what to wear. I couldn’t see the point of wanting to be that

responsible for someone else’s behaviour.

The counselling session had been unsurprisingly inconclusive, though we’d each felt

heard. We exchanged so many emails about the bloody lists, exhausting, relentless and

ultimately pointless. His solutions to the lists dilemma was now to simplify everything — we

should stop the tantra dates for now but if I wanted to set up tantra dates in future I was

welcome to arrange all that, he wouldn’t be excited if it was “three-way feather work” but

would come along if that’s what I wanted. In exchange, he’d arrange all the swinging

encounters so we’d only play together in those and he’d choose the couples. The only

exception to always playing together would be in BDSM which he had a lot of energy for

after Scotland. What he suggested now was that he’d have a couple of subs, do some three-

way ‘training’ with them and then when I’d also been trained, he’d invite me in as a sub, for a

group meeting. I’d also do his bidding those evenings. Offering that he’d do all the ‘comms’

which he said would be “cheeky and necessarily sexual” to give him energy that’d he be

bringing back to our relationship. He’d be setting up many pleasurable encounters for me so

we’d have an exciting life. Reminding me that when we’d met he’d enjoyed having many

girlfriends and he was the one who’d made significant life changes for me. He had no regrets,

love has a price. Stressing that my enthusiasm was vital and he wouldn’t ‘let it affect our

relationship’. The man had a plan.

 Emotional fuckwittery at best, how does something like this not affect a relationship?

My choice firmly taken away. It wasn’t as if I was against the idea of exploring kink, I was

curious but I wanted to decide what happened to me and who with. My asking if we might

choose the subs together was ignored. This seemed a critical point for us and our agreements.

For him to say No to things, meaning I had to accept them, didn’t bode well for reciprocity. J

reminding me of my chances for pleasure through friends or work. He didn’t mind that, in

fact, he wanted it so he’d be free to play. He said he wanted a D/s relationship that could be

unemotional, free, sexual, to learn to go deep. Not for love; he received all the love he wanted

from me. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could do kinky sexual things without emotional

connection, and love not be involved. Was I being controlling? He thought so and let me

know it.

Steamrollered, things were moving so fast when I was still bewildered by the fainting.

Wanting to make sense of the unsettling threesome, I booked a session with a healer,

Shivanti. In my new realm so many of my Tantra friends and teachers had recommended her

to me. She’s the “healer’s healer” an extraordinary seer. I’ve never met her in person, yet she

knows me intimately. You meet online, see her face for a minute to say hello and then the

camera goes black and she climbs into your consciousness. She trawls around your inner

system, peering in, clearing and reporting back what she’s seeing under the surface of any

situation. Burping. She’s phenomenal. She expresses what you already knew and can’t see.

She’s become one of my wise advisors.

Feeling like a cosy fireside chat, she explained that they were “like children wanting

to come and warm themselves at my flame. She’s nothing special really, plain, she’s a bit of a

dishcloth and he’s like a teenage boy, bored. She’s not that stable emotionally, she’s looking

for a daddy and he’ll hurt her. She inspires a venom in you - that’s from her. He wants the
fun but feels empty the next day, it’s disrespectful as she’s already half in love with him. She

wants what happens after sex, it’s the care she wants. You can’t help her.

When I asked her about my relationship with J, she said, “our coupledom was what

everyone is looking for, but we needed to protect our connecting force as it was still in

incubation. It’ll take a couple of years to establish this relationship, but he likes you pulling

him back, it makes him feel wanted. Work together for money as you’re potent and can

inflame couples. We should run a ‘sex hotel’ together like a Mr and Mrs Smith place. He will

listen to you of all people Ali. Give it two years, though he’ll lead you a dance”

As for the kink, her view was “you won’t submit Ali, you don’t feel safe in the ‘we’

yet, and he’s not skilled enough to handle your submission, he’d be better being a kindly king

to you”

When I asked about the fainting, Shivanti’s take on it was “Annihilation. She wants

your life. She wants to sit in your chair while you’re away, have your man and your social

circles. She’s like a blow-up sex toy doll, only there for the male gaze, empty. She wants

parenting, to sit by your fire and be looked after by you both. She’s playing him. Don’t go

near her ever again. While the woman in Scotland wants him to change the taps, this one is a

liability. It will turn sour and have consequences. Be wise Ali”

Annihilation is a strong word. I read all my notes from the session to J, who listened

but dismissed it. I left the tedious three-way conversation, now moved on to drinking on St

Patrick’s night, banal flirtation, shamrock emojis, her period pains seem to figure strongly.

My turn to break the agreements, which, to be fair, weren’t going tremendously well so far.

Enough of being mindful of other people’s feelings, all I knew then was that I felt my

relationship under threat and all my thoughts of generosity and friendship evaporated. Via J,

she accused me of being jealous and ‘acting out.’ I hadn’t heard that phrase before and didn’t

even know what it meant. It’s a therapy term for unconsciously acting out negative childhood
situations or ‘core wounds’. She was right though I couldn’t see it at the time. J and I fought

about it for a few weeks, I was adamant. Reluctantly eventually he agreed not to be in touch

with her. I hadn’t been able to avoid her completely, both coaches on the training, we’d had

to be in the same online team meetings.

We all know about red flags in hindsight so why didn’t I see the size of this one and

simply leave? There can be a tendency in the Tantra and kink world to assume that if you

were more enlightened you wouldn’t be jealous, you’d be happy to share your partner, a

sexual non-attachment. I didn’t feel jealous of her. It was different, it looked like

possessiveness, but came from wanting to feel loved and cherished in something that was

mine. I wanted to be securely attached, I wasn’t enlightened enough for non-attachment yet. I

didn’t see the danger. I was ignorant about kink with the naivety and belief my love would

prevail. I couldn’t recognise their attraction, how deeply their shadow sides had connected.

As part of ongoing professional development I was going off for six days to train with

one of the world’s leading sex educators, Betty Martin. Beforehand J suggested, then insisted,

he spent those six days bringing back the Pro-Domme to ‘train’ his Scottish sub. Promising

it’d be their only contact so it’d be fair for him while I was enjoying myself. Finding a way to

make the lists work, I felt I had to allow the intolerable and to try not to mind.

Like A Pro

Given what was about to happen at J’s house, I didn’t turn up to meet the best sex educator in

the world feeling on top of my game. Like a Pro is THE course for professionals to

understand the Wheel of Consent. To begin to understand what it’s like to live it, to model it,

to help our clients find their own sense of empowerment through embodiment. It was the first

time Betty Martin had run this six day course in the UK, gathering us, the newest wave of
sexuality professionals, together. She’s very cool, like a cowboy coming into town, with a

relaxed American drawl y’all and complete mastery of her topic. We were in the presence of

greatness.

Some of my sex bod colleagues from last summer were there too. I turned up looking

like a sleepless wreck, unable to disguise my unhappiness, sharing the shock and

embarrassment of what was happening. They knew the Pro-Domme too as she’d been one of

our coaches last year. Of course, no-one could do much other than empathise, they knew well

enough that stuff around boundaries and agreements can be painful, especially when non-

monogamy is involved. I spent those six days sharing my fears of what was happening with

anyone who’d listen, often in tears.

Sitting in a circle, everyone in the room touched people for a living, whether it was as

masseurs, sex workers or coaches and sacred sexuality teachers. The Wheel of Consent,

Betty’s gift to the world, a method she’s honed over years, allows us to get more conscious

about what’s happening in touch and how to deeply understand the nuances of the terms

Giving and Receiving. In intimacy, there are many unspoken assumptions; the weirdest one

that, as by telepathy, we’ll both want the same thing at the same time. The Wheel of Consent

is a model asking us to consider our assumptions, to learn how to be kind to each other, to

communicate impeccably and be authentic. Inviting us to understand agreements on a deeper

level, what and who is truly giving and receiving. Separating the ideas of touch from sex is

key, as when the two are mixed up together in our minds, we have less room for manoeuvre.

To begin the week, Betty explained that pleasure is a felt sensation in our own bodies.

The Wheel of Consent rests on the concept of direct and indirect pleasure. Direct pleasure is

what you feel in your own body, through your skin. We all have a capacity for this but in

most of us, it has closed down over time. Indirect pleasure is vicarious; feeling good when

someone else is having pleasure. You’re getting off on someone else getting off. It can feel
generous but if your pleasure depends on someone else’s pleasure, or feel you to have to

provide someone else’s pleasure, then this can become a prison rather than an option. Betty

explain we can’t ‘give it’ to or ‘receive it’ from someone else. This course was to enhance

our understanding of feeling direct pleasure. I was already beginning to realise that the clients

I’d met, mostly men so far, hearing their sadness or insistence around how they ‘loved to

give’ are relying on indirect pleasure.

Betty explained that only when we feel we have a choice about touch, can we truly

relax and have real freedom, to be true to ourselves instead of trying to make ourselves enjoy

something we don’t. She makes an important distinction between wanting and willing. If I

want something I can initiate and we know it’s for me, you simply need to consider if you’re

willing to support me to have my experience. If you want to do or feel something you can ask

me so I can choose if I’m willing or wanting to say yes or no.

For our first exercise, Waking Up The Hands, we picked up an object, found a

position to rest our hands comfortably, close our eyes and hold and touch it for 3 minutes. I’d

done this exercise many times to prepare for my interview with Betty. It’s the basis of skilled

conscious touch and direct pleasure. We use an object so we can’t turn it on. Taking my focus

to my hands, noticing the surfaces of the coffee cup on my palm, inside my fingers, under my

fingertips, the coolness, the smoothness. The 3-minute timer went off, we did it again. Sighs

and noises of pleasure in the room, shudders as people moved. The third time I picked up a

different object. Although I didn’t get it at first, my focus built. I let out a sigh, enjoying

noticing the pleasure coming in through my hands and skin.Then I felt the effects in the rest

of my body. I noticed small tremors of energy as my body relaxed. An object is helpful

because you can’t get a reaction from it, it can’t be turned on, so the important thing is that

you begin to notice what’s happening in your body. To take your focus onto the sensations
happening in you, not to rely on the indirect pleasure from the effect you have on someone

else, satisfying though that is.

Waking Up the Hands is the basis of the Take quadrant of the Wheel. To be a good

giver, we learned you have to understand Taking first. To be able to separate and notice

sensation and pleasure. First, you have to find it in a non-erotic way as things get confusing

once you’re naked. Not that we were going to be in this workshop.

Next, we moved on to understanding Betty’s ideas about domains, limits and boundaries. She

opened by saying that we all know what it feels like to be touched in a way we don’t like,

whether it’s from having our hair brushed roughly as a kid, being hit or worse, we get used to

putting up with stuff and over time learn to put up or go along with touch we don’t like. This

can eventually make us feel like there’s something wrong with us, that we don’t like what

we’re supposed to like; we’re trying to fit ourselves to the wrong thing and we have no idea

how to recognise what feels good anymore. Useful to understand, as when things go wrong in

sex and relationships, it can be hard to put a finger on where it began to break down.

It was eye-opening hearing the concept of Domains. Ostensibly simple, the idea asks

and answers two basic questions, ‘What am I responsible for?’ and ‘What do I have a right

to?’ Our Domain includes our own safety, feelings, body, pleasure, health, genitals, desires,

beliefs, emotions, peace of mind, orgasms, self-worth. Simply stated, I take care of my

responsibilities and rights in my domain, you’re similarly responsible for yours. I don’t go

into your Domain thinking that I know what you need nor telling you what you can do with

your body. You get to choose what happens to your body, I get to choose what happens to

mine. If we want our bodies to connect and collide, slip and slide, we simply ask. If I want to

touch you I ask you. If I want you to touch me, I ask. If you want me to touch you, you ask

me, if you want to touch me you ask. In sexuality terms, we’re ultimately each responsible
for our own pleasure. You have the right to pleasure, and so do I but we don’t get to decide

for each other what that might look like. We can’t ‘give’ anyone else an orgasm or pleasure.

Our boundaries are the outside edge of our Domain containing everything we’re

responsible for and have a right to, our limits fluid within those boundaries and can be ever-

changing. This might mean I fancy doing something one day but it doesn’t mean I want to do

that every day. Some things are fine with one person and not another. That’s natural. And it’s

great to change our minds depending on how we feel in any given situation. Consent lies only

where we agree, where my domain meets yours in any encounter. Sex is not a given. This is

tricky in relationships, where there are so many unspoken assumptions at play. It’s tricky in

new situations Recognising that someone else’s pleasure is their bag allows you the freedom

and responsibility for your own.

This means understanding your body’s arousal, sharing the information with the

person you’re getting up close and personal with. Initially, this might sound a bit mechanical

and lacking ‘magic and chemistry’. Yet once expectations and egos are put aside, it’s

liberating, an understanding which helps sort out underlying issues. Then the real magic of

intimacy can begin; honesty, fun, relaxation, variety, pleasure on a plate. It’s radical, subtle

and revolutionary thinking. As I was listening I was taking it in, realising how much I’d

assumed. I’d invaded J’s domain while not taking enough care of my own. I’d pleaded,

cajoled, shouted, cried, insisted that his body was only mine.

Betty went on to say that we mustn’t think that any particular activity is more

important than the feelings we have about it. The point is to notice, value and trust our

feelings and emotions. As a basis for our empowerment, we need to understand we have a

choice about what happens to us, and that our actions have an effect out in the world. What

was even more important to hear were the words that followed. “Anger can be a sign our

boundaries have been crossed.” My boundaries felt crossed big time. Other reasons for
anger could be that we don’t get what we want, frustration or entitlement. Anger is a natural

response, an emotion asking us to do something.

The great thing about taking a sexuality journey is that you get the same messages

again and again till they sink in. It’s an upward spiral. The first time you hear something the

mind does a little ‘Yeh, yeh, got that’ or No Way or Oh, Really? Often we hear something for

the first time, then blithely continue on with our old ways, habits and expectations of magical

realism. I was in a room, facing up to the reality of what was happening in my relationship.

What I’d been trying to impose on someone else. I didn’t like admitting to myself where I’d

messed up; my collusion in the harsh truth that J had two women at his house, king of his

own domain. Seeing my nemesis on the coaches’ weekly zoom call, at my boyfriend’s house,

shining with orgasmic fullness, was excruciating.

Illusions Dropping Away

The Wheel of Consent asks us to bring all of ourselves to bear in intimacy. It helps us access

our emotions becoming more aware of our bewilderments, fears, anger, loss, grief and joy,

power and trust. Helping us find a level of erotic maturity so we can finally feel autonomy

and freedom in asking for what we want. We understand others and respect their feelings,

limits and needs. Not just in the bedroom but in our whole lives.

Let me begin to explain a complex and wonderful idea which then took years to fully

embody. What does it feel like to be in true consent and agreement? What happens when

you’re outside consent, in the shadows where consent is missing? I had a sense this was what

I needed to know. Imagine The Wheel of Consent as a circle divided into four quarters.

Serving, Accepting, Taking, Allowing. As the week progressed we looked at each of the four
quadrants of the wheel in detail, feeling the implications of each of them. Asking Who is it

for? And Who is taking the action?

The Wheel of Consent breaks Giving and Receiving down. We can Give in two ways:

if someone asks us to do something for them and we agree, that’s called Serving. Or when

someone wants to touch us, we give the gift of our time, body and attention, that’s called

Allowing. There are also two ways to Receive, one by requesting and benefiting from what

someone else is doing for you, called Accepting. The there way to Receive is by Taking,

when you want to touch someone else, to do it for your enjoyment with their agreement. As

the week progressed what I found exciting was the addition of Taking and Allowing into my

sexual lexicon. A few pennies dropped about how people think Taking is the same as Giving.

That’s old skool. Think of the times people want to ‘give’ so they feel good - wanting us to

want what they want us to want or know how to do. We all do it. We can’t help it. We like to

please. Often we ‘offer’ what we want to receive, what we think is valuable. Yet who’s that

really for, if we’re just getting what we wanted all along?

In the talking sessions we heard Betty’s ideas, articulating that we all need physical

and emotional comfort, it’s part of the human experience. That we need ‘learning edges’ to

expand our pleasurable experiences. Life isn’t safe and we need to get over the expectation

that it will be. We will also live through all of the hurts, disappointments and offences till we

die. Life is long. Joy will happen too if we allow it to arise and make the circumstances for it

to flourish. Reminding us that our job as bodyworkers is to help clients find their own

internal sense of safety, to grow it and to trust it.

In a preparation task about Receiving, we had to look at all the ways and reasons we

hold back from asking for what we want. The list is long. Very long: shame, not knowing,

fear of rejection, thinking we’re not good enough, wanting someone else to know, we don’t

have the vocabulary, we’re scared of being condemned, we’d have to take responsibility,
we’re frightened of losing control. We’re scared of being too much, scared of not doing it

right. There’s more, you’ll have felt most if not all of them. It’s tragic.

So what do we do instead of asking? We ‘give’ what we want, we strategise, we

manipulate, we give up, shut down, bargain, we steal touch, we over-give in the hope of

getting reciprocity, we wait for mind readers. We ask for something easier, we go elsewhere,

we get distracted and addicted, we play the victim, we complain, we punish our partners,

blame others, sulk, withhold and withdraw. We sublimate our desires in so many ways we

don’t even know we’re doing it. All the while dimming our spirit and our light. More

tragedy.

The Wheel of Consent is a miraculous aid to getting clear on complex relationship

dynamics, what is in consent and what is outside. I had to face up to the reality that I had

agreed to J having the two women there, but it still didn’t feel consensual, I felt powerless in

it. I’d Allowed it, yet my heart was hurting, so what was wrong? I found my answer when we

looked at the ‘shadows’ of the Wheel, which help us understand what is outside consent. For

example, in the Serving quadrant, you’re in the shadow when you become the martyr or

rescuer, whereas someone who Accepts all the time becomes a freeloader. The person who

Takes with no respect for another’s limits is a perpetrator - whether that’s abuse, people

invading countries, stealing resources or assuming assent in everyday unhappy relationships.

Without expressed ‘enthusiastic consent’ it’s rife for misunderstanding, pain and exploitation.

Conversely in Allowing, the person who allows beyond their boundaries is a doormat, they’re

tolerating or enduring.

There it was. I was way outside the Allowing quadrant. I couldn’t get away from the

truth of recognising that. I was a doormat. I’d gone over my own boundaries big time.

Between the sessions I drank coffee with my friends, piecing together what I was

learning with what was happening at J’s house. Yup, I was doing my fair share of
condemning others, I was in victim mode big time. I was enduring. Tolerating beyond my

consent. I knew what that felt like. I didn’t realise I was allowed to have boundaries. My

anger helped me discover I had a boundary. Now I understood I did, and they’d been

assailed. It reminded me of the Buddhist analogy of anger being like hot coals. You can

chuck them at someone else with no guarantee of hitting them, while all the time it’s your

own hands burning. What was I going to do about it, knowing the only person’s behaviour I

could ever change was my own?

A Taste of Taking

By the end of the course, I was aware of the nuances of giving and receiving in each of the

four quadrants. In receiving, I learned how to Accept, how to listen to my own body and what

it wanted in an exercise called Bossy Massage. We would only be touched if we made a

request. Other than that our givers would wait patiently while we decided if and how we

wanted to be touched. I learned how to scan my body to identify an impulse, what bit of me

wanted what, a soothing palm on my knee, a hand on my back, stillness or movement,

comfort or experiment? By asking my servers the question Will You….? without fear of their

over-generous improvising or mind reading. If you believe it’s for you, you’ll act like it.

In giving I knew how to Serve, to be willing to offer people my full attention, asking

only “How would you like me to touch you?”, waiting until someone made a specific request.

To be quiet and be present until I was asked to do something. Then, and only then, to

consider whether I felt able to offer what I’d been asked to do; was I comfortable, was I

happy to give with a full heart? Only being curious about what the receiver wanted, trusting

them to be the best judge of their experience, so they deeply believe they have a choice in

what happens to them. The Server does this by avoiding the ‘giving trap’ of trying to get a

result.
 I was even more enamoured by the quadrants of Taking and Allowing. Taking is

asking to touch someone for your pleasure, another form of receiving. We learned that there’s

an honesty in Taking, of owning your desire. Taking is a strange word, it’s more of a feeling -

of taking in or noticing sensations in our own bodies - the signs of pleasure within us rather

than scanning for signs of it in someone else.

Allowing is another form of giving, to agree to let someone else find that. In Allowing

I learned to express my limits, to listen to the Taker’s requests and negotiate and maintain my

boundaries while letting my Taker have their own learning. We were told not to respond or

encourage as the Allower, as it’s too easy for the Taker to shift into trying to give if they’re a

natural pleaser. Allowing can be surprising or boring or delightful, it doesn’t matter, it’s not

for you. You only need to be willing to help someone learn, patrol your own boundaries,

trusting the Taker is committed to them too. The great gift of consensual Allowing is

surrender. A word I could spell but had yet to experience.

In Taking I had my great Haha embodied moment. In a moment where what was

going on at J’s house was temporarily put aside, I felt the energy of Taking for real. We were

doing partner work, fully clothed. At my turn to Take, I asked my partner, a sex therapist, if I

could put him up against the wall and feel him. He willingly agreed, stating his boundaries - I

was free to touch him how I wanted, he’d tell me if he didn’t like it. Taking my attention to

my hands, I squeezed his bum, I ran my fingers through his hair. I felt his body with my

hands slowly, with approval. I leaned my body up against his and held him by his hips, I

pressed my whole body into his back. I felt relaxed pleasure easing through my body. Then I

pressed my lips to the back of his neck, noticing that I wanted to take possession, feeling my

desire rising, pulling his hair, my hands feeling him, owning him, I wanted to ravage him. It

was a rush, energy coursing through me, both of us started trembling. I clicked into
something new in me, a raw, ravaging, embodied, desiring, wanting. Lust. Self-generated

lust. One of the many delights of Taking.

When the timer went off and we shared in the circle he said, “I felt used, it was

great.” I blushed, though vestiges of shame dissolved in admitting how powerful and new

that had been. To be allowed to want, to manhandle someone consensually, for it to be

enjoyed. The immediate obvious gift of Taking is the honesty of admitting you want to touch

someone else to find your own pleasure. That honesty can be so liberating for everyone. It’s

the thing we often avoid doing, by offering things instead, saying, “Would you like…?” Yet

if we don’t speak up, touch will happen to us that we’re not even sure whether we like it; so

we’ll be doing it for someone else and they’ll think they’re doing it for us. Ouch. There’s a

saying, ‘women can’t hear what men don’t say.’ In my experience, it works both ways,

especially in bed.

First, we have to want something. Not something massive to start with, maybe simply

the space to notice what we do want. Then ask. ‘May I….?’ It might be sitting next to

someone, or stroking their hair on their forearms. The more subtle nuance and the crux of

Taking lies in being able to notice that your body is actually enjoying it. Noticing what’s

happening to you is key. Can you feel yourself relax and sigh? Can you enjoy what you’ve

asked for? It’s important not to trip back into a pattern of wondering whether your partner is

liking it - old skool giving. Trust them to tell you if not. It’s a game-changer. Being touched

or touching in a way that feels good, allows both safety and excitement. Two key questions to

ask are‘Am I enjoying it?’ and ‘What would make it even nicer?’ instead of ‘Am I doing it

right?’

Betty Martin says the best sexual experiences are when both people know how to

Take. That involves being deeply in and of the sensual interaction, feeling it in our bodies,

trusting the other person to be safe in their own boundaries. Not in your head and out of the
moment, planning your next move, the voyeur spectating on your own experience, cautious

about a partner’s response. Understanding arousal is key. Can you feel the sensation on your

skin, are you present, are you smiling, are you breathing steadily or holding your breath? Are

you tense? Is your mind busy, anxious or relaxed? What else is pleasurable for you beside the

more common signs of a hard-on or feeling nervously excited or on alert?

In my six days, I learned so much, fundamentally that I needed to distinguish my No

from a learning edge. That I could stop beating myself up for not wanting more than I truly

wanted. I needed to trust myself not to abandon myself. I’m responsible for my limits, to ask

for them to be respected. It’s up to the other person to decide if, with a full heart, they can

offer that. A belief that we can set limits which will be respected, allows us to be more

trusting and intimate. Going back out into my relationship armed with new insights, meeting

J again after the course, I hoped we could find a common ground. In his six days, he’d had so

much fun, the women enjoying being in his company and with each other. There were recipes

around, a card for me saying thank you. J mentioned he’d instructed the Pro-Domme to send

me flowers - a woman code - a way to honour each other, acknowledging a gift that’s been

given. I refused them. I didn’t want flowers or notes from those two women. The six days

were for J, he’d initiated them and I’d said yes under duress. If the intended flowers had been

from him, that might have been better. I hadn’t wanted it, flowers didn’t make it alright.

He mentioned smugly that the two women had had over a hundred orgasms between

them, him merely a few. Then I was jealous: all of that attention and pleasure that I didn’t

know. It was extremely painful to hear, to be a witness to J’s life. The six days had

strengthened their sexual connections, learning and respect.

That’s the problem with being reasonable, thinking everyone has to have their

journey.
Wired for Betrayal

Many of us have stayed too long in unhappy relationships, developing a habit of feeling

grateful for what’s offered that contains a little of what we want. Saying no to these

relationships means we don’t even have the little we had. Saying no forces us to aim for

more. I didn’t know how. I doubt I’m alone in trying to make alright what isn’t. We can get

so used to ignoring our feelings, of getting the messages that they’re not valid or important.

So even though I could feel my heart was hurting and my mind crazily all over the place, I

suppose I felt it must show a lack on my part; that if I were more enlightened, or more loving,

I should be okay with the love of my life having submissives.

J lined me up to meet his Scottish sub for a May bank holiday weekend and we

exchanged a few pleasant WhatsApp messages ‘under his direction.’ At short notice as she

couldn’t get childcare, she cancelled, also calling it off with him permanently. J told me it

was because she felt I wasn’t ‘safe,’ he submissive-less again, now my fault. Outwardly

rueful at missing out, privately resentful at being blamed for it, I figured she’d found

someone easier and closer to fix her taps. I breathed a short sigh of relief before J’s

justification came to reconnect with the Pro-Domme. Of course, the six days hadn’t stopped

the connection and now there was a vacancy. J started giving her daily online

Dominant/submissive (D/s) ‘instruction’ instead. I struggled to come to terms with J’s

decision, although he said it would be only six days, she hadn’t disappeared.

We had a brief attempt to try this ourselves at the same time, with him sending me

daily tasks from a new email address; being instructed to self-pleasure in the woods, get my

website finished, find porn I liked from X Hamster, photos of me and a shakti together,

orgasm control - all for ‘my master’s pleasure’. The commanding tone of the instructions

rankled so I found it hard to enjoy the tasks. Though I confess the orgasm control —being
counted down — was fun, even though when we got to zero, we had to go back to three

again. At least till he told me he was in a car park at B & Q, playing it through the car

speakers. With the window open.

He was trying to bring energy back into our relationship. I could see that. If it had just

been an exploration between us I might have responded differently but feeling the black-

widow-spidery subs influence was poisonous, dispiriting. I rarely got any of the rewards that

were supposed to be on offer, the lack of genuine intimacy and encouragement killed the idea

quickly. I didn’t like being told off for narky mistakes when I reported back. Playing a role,

being bossed around online for pointless things didn’t make sense. I wasn’t asked what I

wanted to learn. I lost heart. I was too hurt about the sexual attention and time given to

someone else. My energy dropped while J’s lifted. Anxiety rising, sleep-deprived, drawn,

panicking I threw nuclear bombs, eventually telling our course leaders what was happening.

Effectively questioning her professionalism and spoiling J’s fun, he was furious. During an

online call to sort out the situation, the course leaders took my fainting and my colleague not

recognising as trauma seriously. Trying to reach an agreement, the course leaders held the

zoom space for me and my colleague to talk. Letting me know it might take a lifetime to

explore their connection, “to see how far my submission goes” she let me know she was

going nowhere. It was agreed we couldn’t work together in the residential aspect of the

course.

I stayed with the qualification, she got the guy. A modern-day saviour J stepped in to

rescue her, accusing me of breaking confidentiality on their D/s relationship; moving from

bully to victim in an easy stroke of self-righteous anger. Worse, he moved her into his house

some of the time, building a dungeon for them in the room we’d agreed would be my temple

workspace. It would be easy to dismiss this as a toxic relationship, name-calling J and the

other women, but I wasn’t keen to do so. As I’d learned we’re mirrors for each other, I kept
my counsel until I understood my part in this less than magnificent co-creation. A friend

who’d been through a difficult similar relationship suggested I looked up information on

narcissistic abuse. I did a narcissist quiz, checking my rating first and was no more than

averagely so, though J ignored my suggestion to take it. In researching this possibility, I

learned a lot about how narcissists behave, blaming and twisting behaviour; how they enjoy

being with open, empathic people, as they allow this in through a willingness to believe in

inherent goodness. There’s no point blaming the narcissist, they’re just living out their lives

unconsciously, it’s up to the empaths to stop allowing it to flourish.

More usefully, from a psychological perspective, I discovered that there are five core

wounds; abandonment, rejection, humiliation, powerlessness and betrayal. We all have one or

two from early childhood so inadvertently we’re playing them out in much of our lives.

Betrayal is mine. My subconscious saw any woman coming in would destroy everything, just

like the man my dad thought a friend who’d had a ten-year affair with my mother. So I was

acting out, I recognised that.

Trying to make sense spiritually of what was happening was even more helpful as I

began to see things from a wider perspective. Although it might sound odd, believing that

there could be a ‘gift’ in this, gave me a different way of seeing things. In my sleepless

nights, I listened to podcasts of spiritual teachers Ram Dass and Jack Kornfield to understand

it as part of a human experience, a soul journey. Relationships are rarely random or just

unlucky when there’s such a strong experience. In such ‘karmic relationships’, it’s fair to say

you can’t stop what needs to happen. I heard the idea that before we’re born our souls holds a

big conference, where a soul chooses all the people they’re going to need to learn the lessons

for the incarnation the soul is about to embark on. So in our human experience, we meet the

people who’ll help us and the people who’ll screw us over. Believing this moves us from

victim to creator energy in a blink. It’s a controversial view, close to new age victim blaming,
but as a premise, I found it helpful in my desperation. To believe that if on any spiritual or

existential level I chose this, I could also change it. That choice changed me.

Wretched in Wales

J and I talked about what I’d learned at Like A Pro. It was clear neither of us could, with an

open heart, offer the other what was wanted. He wanted an open relationship. I knew he’d

call our relationship off unless it was on this basis, he was ready to do that. As I got clearer

with my no, the only solution was to separate. As I closed the Fab Swingers account I felt a

huge sigh of relief. As it was the one joint project we’d created together J listed all the other

ways I’d not followed through on his hopes; I didn’t have time for him, I cut sexting

conversations, we hadn’t got an Adult Work website, I’d rejected all the swingers unless they

passed my mythic tests. For a few days, I felt liberated, the weight of impossible problem

solving lifted. Yet love wasn’t as easy to switch off as a swingers account.

I now had another choice to make. Before the unexpected intrusion, we’d booked a

five-day shadow healing retreat to see where exploring kink might help, in Wales with a

BDSM practitioner I’m going to call DX. It was on the lists. We were still in touch about

that. He let me know he was happier now, ‘he’d moved on.’ I wasn’t. Without asking me, J

booked his sub on it, telling me she was happy to sleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. My

fury and disappointment made no difference to J, he was adamant she was coming. So I was

torn about going on the course as we’d booked it to find a way through kink together but now

it was a chance to see if we could reconnect or really split. I couldn’t decide whether to call it

off and spent time talking to both my tantra teacher and the retreat leader DX. Hilly said she

couldn’t have gone, as her heart couldn’t stand it. I wish I’d followed her advice. Instead, I

listened to DX, persuaded that it’d be helpful understanding for me as an individual, whatever

happened in the unwanted threesome.

 Why did I even consider going? I knew if I didn’t, any chance of finding a way of

mending my relationship would be over. Why did we continue to find solutions? I wanted to

be with J. I still wanted to spend as many nights of my life with him as possible. After Crete

last year, we’d had a conversation that we called the Crete Agreement, our understanding that

in any healthy relationship, it’s a fine balance between having our own needs met and

supporting our partner to meet their own. That whatever happened now, in the long term

we’d always come back to each other. I understood that if J had done what I’d wanted he’d

have been selling his own soul. 

As ever he dangled just enough about me being the love relationship though now the

language took on a new polyamorous tone. No longer his tantric “Beloved,” I was now to be

his ‘primary partner’ (the person you fluid bond with and don’t use condoms). J still wanted

me as his ‘primary’ and for me to accept all of his other ‘secondary’ lovers, who’d been

brought back on board now to meet his sub. Even that was hanging in the balance, I could

easily be changed to a ‘secondary’.  It was hard hearing him say he’d moved on, how he was

really enjoying swinging with another person who also loved it. He had his meal ticket, I was

out in the cold.

Wales was another pivotal point for me to say no and I didn’t. Instead, I paid for his

sub to have a separate room. In the run-up to it, J and I continued exchanging tedious emails,

his short and cruel, telling me ‘to get off my fucking pedestal,’ fundamentally always

pointing me back at his list. Mine flowery, loving, condescending, trashing his taste and his

choices while calling him darling. The course we’d booked on is complex work, dealing with

understanding core wounds and transforming them, a conscious version of BDSM. Though

it’s not for the faint-hearted, this type of “shadow” healing can be very effective in seeing

then healing previous trauma. Like Tantra, mentioning BDSM is very controversial, with

people generally wrinkling their noses and recoiling.

 The group was a collection of people committed to kink and self-awareness. I had a

small buddy group that I fell apart in daily with a woman who was a rape survivor and my

wingman, a queer activist, both invaluable allies. It was the first time I’d been in the physical

company of J’s sub since the evening of fainting and fucking five months ago. Early in the

week, there was a dressing up party planned and we’d had to take outfits. That afternoon J

asked me if I’d witness him ‘collaring’ his sub, saying “it’d mean a lot to him.” I didn’t

understand the significance of what I was being asked, J didn’t explain though I saw he

wanted my blessing. I wanted to say No but didn’t feel I could. We all stood outside on a

warm summer evening, DX presiding over the ceremony. J and his sub arrived hand in hand,

in matching tacky nylon red and yellow pirate outfits, happiness radiating. The silver collar

was a more beautiful piece of jewellery than he’d ever given me. A great contrast to the rest

of her, I wanted to take a match to the flammable red nylon ruffles. 

In their ceremony, I watched my boyfriend step forward and place the collar around

her neck, looking into her eyes. I swear J’s sub swooned, their intensity obvious to the

watching group and now to me. I stood next to my wingman grateful for his support as I

witnessed the collaring and the strength of their attraction and connection. Naive and numb, I

knew very little about BDSM or contracts so didn’t understand what I was seeing. Yet I

understood what I was feeling; sick with dismay and bewilderment, powerless to stop any of

it happening. As the ceremony closed, my wingman in a very matter of fact way turned to

me, wisely saying, 

“You’ve just witnessed your liberation, Alison.”  

Well, yes, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted J. I wanted all this to be over. I only

found out afterwards that Collaring sets the stage for the relationship and is a deep

commitment on both sides; a BDSM marriage for as long as the contract lasts. A formal

ceremony between a Dominant and their submissive where a collar is placed around the neck
of the sub to signify ownership, it’s the surrender of control from the submissive to the

Dominant.

Humiliated and lost, nothing I said made any difference, I went quiet, sad and

compliant wanting to get the week over with. J divided his time; we still slept together,

though during the free time he spent more time with his submissive. I avoided speaking to her

as far as possible, though I’d bump into them together in secluded places down by the river,

her topless tied up in a rope chest harness. I was repulsed by her and frightened at the same

time. The other participants could see how I was struggling and were kind, though no-one

intervened; they had no reason to and I guess they liked my enemy too. She was an

experienced Domme, completely at home in the BDSM scene and offered the group extra

sessions on wax play and fisting.

That intolerable week turned into a place where I met my anger in many forms both

privately and in the structured exercises we did called “scenes”. During the week, the overall

process was to examine an unhealthy pattern in our lives that we wanted to work through and

heal. This is where shadow healing really comes into its own. Though it’s extremely hard,

soul-flaying work at times, I have a respect and an instinct that it’s a powerful tool for

transformation. I was working with my themes of secrecy and betrayal. When it was my turn

for my ultimate ‘scene’ or role play, I wanted to examine a past betrayal, my teenage years of

my mother having an affair. I picked two of the people on the course I felt were the kindest.

The three of us went outside to the lawn. I asked the woman to be my mother and the guy to

be her then-lover (now her husband of thirty years). I asked them to play out a scene, where

they’d inhabit roles embodying the secrecy and pleasure of their relationship. We started by

identifying the words that would push my buttons. I asked them to say certain words like

“she’ll never know,” to talk about the teenage me saying things like “she knows I’m sure,”

mixing it with their words of pleasure, love and secret plans like “let’s not get
caught”. Although this might sound cruel, there is a logic. It’s a way of rewriting what’s

happened to us in the past, emotionally taking back control, using the present, distance and

trust to lessen the effects of the past trauma.

I was leading the scene, gauging the intensity. They started saying the words. Where

listening to anymore was unbearable,  using a ‘safe word’, we paused, reminding myself I

was in the here and now, feeling the grass, looking around me. Then we’d start again. I heard

them say the words over and over again, ramping up the volume and intensity. “she’ll never

know,”“let’s not get caught”. With my hands over my ears they continued and ramped it up

again, hearing myself piteously saying No, Please, No, No, Stop. No. Stop, Please stop, No.

We trusted the safe word so my allies continued with the pressure, until my NO came out, a

roar, stopping when we heard my ENOUGH, shouted from the depths of my being. I rarely

get shoutingly angry, it happens every few years, usually borne through long frustration and

tears. I knew from Betty Martin that anger can be a sign our boundaries have been crossed.

What I also knew about anger is that it’s masking hurt and grief.

At that point, they stopped. Out of my mouth spilt all the ways the core wound of

betrayal affected me, in a way I’d never been able to articulate to the real people or myself

before. I railed, shouted, screamed and howled at them, about the effects their affair has had

on my life, the sadness, the lies, being undermined for years as a teenager when I knew what

I knew, the poor choices I’d made, and my own later secrecy. My helpers quietly witnessed

and listened to me, until eventually, I calmed. Only then, snot and tears over could I move to

asking them how they could do that to me, asking them to explain. Then their side of the

story came out: of their love and the sadnesses in their own marriages, what their love meant

to each other and how their betrayal had affected them too. It wasn’t enough, I was still

furious. So in a fluid transformation, I asked my allies in front of me to change into J and his

sub and railed again, this time my rage coming out in sarcastic, cutting digs, pointing out
their faults, uglinesses, the ways they were doing everything WRONG. I held nothing

back. Hearing and seeing my anger was incredible to me, the intelligence, the clarity, the

cruelty, the absolute cold, murderous energy of it. I didn’t want to hit or punish anyone I

wanted to be heard in my heartbreak, to express it and to be witnessed. 

Once I felt that, once I’d felt heard and I’d run out of energy we stopped. I couldn’t

and wouldn’t give it any more of my attention. So as we were only halfway through my

allotted time I changed us again into different roles and we moved to a different place in the

garden. It strikes me now that I didn’t ask for ‘aftercare,’ to be comforted or affirmed or held.

I moved us into a place of pleasure and out of the suffering as quickly as possible. I was

proud of myself for going to my dark places and felt the benefit of it. I’d shocked myself and

we hadn’t considered what support I might need. I simply didn’t realise asking for aftercare

was an option.

In the bigger real-life scenario, by the end of the week, the three of us had worked

nothing out. In one attempt J requested to sit between us at dinner. Me withdrawn, reluctant

on one side, his sub on the other side of him, simpering in a cheap pink tartan kilt and a tight,

greying, white blouse, white knee-high socks, strappy plastic heels, little girl trash. After the

main course, he told her to take both our plates and wash them. She had to do it, masking her

fury, so I made sure to thank her warmly while still feeling murderous. At one point in the

intolerable meal, I wanted to pee, having to squeeze past them to get out of my place. I’ve

never had a stand-up fight in my life but as I got up and stood on my chair to get out, I felt

new fierce energy of how satisfying that might be. I felt like hitting her, pure anger and a

‘c’mon then bitch’ energy rising in me. Although I didn’t do anything, she recoiled. She often

acted like she was scared of me, it was easy to see through, knowing how part of her

domination skills was manipulation. She’d accused me of jealousy of her but I couldn’t allow

myself to admit that. I could imagine being jealous of someone more beautiful or intelligent
but not her. I’m a bit too cool to be jealous or more likely I couldn’t bring myself to name it

that. I’d read that jealousy is a mixture of anger and insecurity, that felt more accurate. What

was more annoying was that I was having to contain my anger with a veneer of

understanding; attempting compassion for myself and for those two and their effing journeys.

J got fed up by our animosity, but he kept trying to find peace as he was really

enjoying being with someone who appreciated him. In comparison to me, his miserable,

stroppy, demanding, tearful, possibly soon-to-be-ex-primary partner, she must have been a

haven of peace and pleasure. We tried short, occasional conversations but as J and his

submissive had what they wanted, time with each other, they had little vested interest in my

desires.

All my work that week had to be internal. Seeing the situation I’d got myself into, my

pride was on the floor. I had to learn humility, recognise my horrible reality, my lack of

bargaining power. Of course, I could have left, but I didn’t even consider it, false pride

keeping me tenacious. At the main play party, after trying out being strapped to a St

Andrew’s Cross and stroked and sensually spanked by a couple of the kind dominant women,

I finally broke, sobbing in DX’s arms, howling for J, yet he was nowhere to be seen.

At dusk on the last evening we were given Chinese lanterns and felt tips to write the

words of our hopes and dreams for our lives. J and his sub next to me scrawling words like

LUST and SEX and ROPES mine tamely tantric, love, peace, devotion. The three of us

walked together to the field we’d light the lanterns into the fading slate blue sky, J holding

out a hand to each of us. Lighting mine took an age messing with the burner, I saw theirs go

up and eventually got mine to life and they both helped me our eyes meeting and looking up.

A procession of little orange lights in the white lanterns of our group, mine faltering and

falling back down at the edge of the field while others soared into the dark. I’d come to

Wales before going to support the residential for the professional training, where I’d first met
J’s sub a year previously. As she’d now lost her place, he’d stepped in to rescue her and was

taking her back to his house for those two weeks. The next morning the three of us finally

found the grace in the car park to say goodbye nicely and hugged. I watched her getting in his

car and they drove away together.

The Erotic Equation: Attraction + Obstacles = Excitement

I couldn’t think of a way to be reconciled to an open relationship but after Wales we tried

again for a while; compartmentalising, making allowances, unhappy, unresolved. I went to

see him to say goodbye. I didn’t want to, I loved him. Meeting at his house after he got back

from work. It was gorgeous being there seeing him come home, relaxed as ever, pale blue

shirt and light grey suit. I rarely saw him in work clothes in the week so it felt special to see

that aspect of his life. As he cooked us dinner, we danced together in the kitchen to a playlist

he’d made me which included Hozier - 'Take Me to Church', Jason Derulo - 'Want To Want

Me', Ellie Goulding - 'Love Me Like You Do'. Over dinner we talked about separating; he

didn’t want that, though, after all that had happened, there wasn’t enough to tip my optimism

scales. I wasn’t shining anymore, my stubborn acceptance of the dance, underpinned by my

belief that one day this would work out well, fading. Though J’s other relationship was

beyond anything I could comprehend and be happy with, I still liked him as a man and a

friend and a lover, we got on, he still felt like what I’d long been looking for. I was happy to

develop and grow with him, it had seemed like we could work it out, we both knew having

successful relationships is a piece of work.

Initially for him loving me was easy, I was loving, attractive, teasing him, challenging

him with interesting questions. I’m naturally harmonious though I tend to idealise. He saw a
greatness in me that I didn’t and he’d enjoyed my sexual awakening as much as I did. At least

at first. I liked being well-fucked and happy. His body was in me and I couldn’t want to let

go. He didn’t want another failure, to lose his ideal of happiness and sexual exploration,

entwined with love. I stayed because he asked me to. At least at first. And then I stayed

because I didn’t want to leave him to be with somebody else. That bit was easy to explain.

The known knowns are easy to recognise. I stayed because I’d read the Erotic Mind. I wanted

to feel what commitment was. I wanted to move beyond my own blind spots, out of my

secrets. Who’d have thought a book would bring out such determination? I stayed because

Shivanti insights told me to give it two years. I wanted J to be happy, to be with me from

choice. I wanted to honour the lists, I could always rationalise his behaviour and mine. For

far too long, not understanding the two couldn’t be mutual made it make sense for me to stay

in the everyday awfulness offset by future promise.

Later that evening we set up a massage table in one of the bedrooms, now converted

to a temple room for his sub. We lit candles and incense, Namaste’d in and massaged each

other in turn, me receiving first, enjoying the physical, caring skilled touch. When it was my

turn to massage J, I held my energy to allow him to have his own sensual, sensory

experience, my hands enjoying nurturing his familiar body with the hot oil and long slow

strokes, relaxing, sensual, erotic, my desire already heightened, enjoying our skin warm

against each other. Eventually, it went off-piste; he pulled me on top of him sliding me

sensually and oily onto him. Already charged, I felt my first internal vaginal orgasm,

animalistic, loud, wild and freeing. I didn’t know that sensation was in me. I found out years

later that was a cervical orgasm. I was enchanted, by me, by him. After the intense

experience, a precious moment of stillness and calm, looking out of the mullioned windows

into the dark garden, smoking, quietly talking about hopes of growing old together even if we

couldn’t work it out now. 

 I  understood what made this relationship compelling by rereading Jack Morin’s

naming of ‘The Erotic Equation,’ Attraction + Obstacles = Excitement. This rests on ‘four

cornerstones of eroticism’: longing and desire, overcoming ambivalence, violating

prohibitions and the search for power. One or more of these cornerstones are present in any

unhealthy relationship pattern. And as so many of us have had these so-called toxic, yet

utterly intoxicating, relationships, they may be familiar to you too.

This erotic equation pretty much summed up my relationship with J. The first

cornerstone of longing was the basis; I always longed for him, he was beautiful to me, utterly

masculine, the body of a Rodin statue, touch as I’d never experienced before. I missed him

when we were apart. Everything about him turned me on, he awakened me sexually, he loved

me, he asked me to marry him twice. When it felt reciprocated, I loved it, who doesn’t love

feeling in love? When it wasn’t, I acted like an obsessed teenager, each horrible twist and

turn ruining my ability to concentrate. Thoughts of him both in the good times and the

heartbreak occupied much of my mental energy. Unfulfilled longing is exhausting. I couldn’t

enjoy novels anymore, think straight or make a success of anything. The sub years unravelled

me. 

Ambivalence surprised me in the erotic equation but it made sense. J’s ambivalence

strangely made me more determined to wait, to be committed, to vanquish. I naively believed

love would conquer all. I was blinded by love; to the other women, to the dark sadistic side

that we didn’t share but I knew was there and to his lack of interest in fulfilling my dreams

any time soon. Yet this relationship fired something in me that I’d not experienced before. In

relationships before this one, I hadn’t truly believed I’d stay, I was the ambivalent one.

Before J, all my boyfriends were more in love with me than I was with them. I didn’t know

what love was. What’s more, I didn’t know I didn’t know. J was the first man I’d loved more

than he loved me. I liked this new, strong feeling in myself. I remembered a Tantra teacher
friend who’d told me that once your heart is opened, the first person you meet is someone

who’s like you used to be; it’s a little test from the universe to see if you got the lesson. 

The third cornerstone was more obvious. I’d loved violating prohibitions or taboos

with J — as long as they were my prohibitions. I was up for trying new things; feeling safe

and encouraged by him. Sex in the car in the woods, the swingers club outings, the tantric

threesomes with my friends. We have to remember I was a repressed catholic girl and it felt

safe, naughty and mostly thrilling as long as we were together and no-one else stayed around

too long. I was more guarded with finding his edges. His taboo-breaking behaviours

generally involved other people then I lost interest and anxiety rather than excitement set in.

One of his favourite things was to begin licking me while I was on the phone. I could never

enjoy it as it felt a bit mean to whoever I was talking to, so he stopped after a few times.

Other people around turned me off, not on. 

And then the final one, the search for power. This was a speciality of mine. Although

Sandhurst had apparently taught him to ‘fuck upwards and not get caught,’ these days J

mainly liked to fuck downwards. My attention was more aspiring. To be fair he only had the

Brigadier above him, though for me, flirting with the most important man in the room was a

familiar pattern, my unconscious predilection for alpha men finally turned against me. 

Longing and desire, overcoming ambivalence, violating prohibitions and the search

for power; all four cornerstones of eroticism were there. J was crack cocaine for me. Our soul

journeys begin in unlikely places. Sometimes we do the wrong thing for the right reasons and

sometimes we try to do the right thing but with the wrong person. Imagining that our soul

needs the lesson by staying could be a kinder way of seeing our inevitable journey. Spiritual

meets practical too; after all, some of the ways our spirit experiences living and love is

through the body and mind it picked for this incarnation.

 This power theme had emerged in the only talking therapy session I ever had. I’d

booked a session that afternoon with a psychotherapist near J’s place where I’d also been

hoping to work one day. J’s sub had also approached the therapy centre saying she was a

friend of mine. As she’d done that before at another healing centre, I’d questioned the single

white female traits to J; that of all the places in all the world she could have worked, she just

happened to have approached the same two centres as me. J didn’t see it. 

Arriving at my appointment I said I needed to download and would the therapist

simply listen to me. I poured out my life story and the current mess including the scary single

white female angle. Bless the therapist, he interrupted me briefly after forty minutes to say, 

“Sounds like you’re very interested in power Alison.” 

I must have given him a look that said, “No shit, Sherlock,” and continued, spilling

out the whole, sorry humiliating mess of the confusing, unwanted ongoing threeway. At the

end of the session, he simply said, 

“Sounds like you’re in a process.”  

I left feeling sane and heard and went to meet J, committed to saying goodbye. She

never worked there. Neither did I.

There’s Something About Couples

We failed to say a final goodbye, we couldn’t cut ties; times together, times apart, no

floorboards, emotional quicksand. I knew something was deeply wrong as an unwanted

energetic threesome established though I didn’t go back on myself about connecting with J’s

sub.

Thankfully the universe always gives you the next lesson when you’re ready, I was

open to that as I began to look outwards. I had to find my own way with this, to look
elsewhere for satisfaction, attraction, eroticism. Overwhelmingly underwhelming, online

dating was pointless, I did a profile asking for someone accomplished, intelligent and

exceptional and daily found twenty banal messages commenting on my eyes and hair;

unnecessary flattery, one word hellos, men telling me that what I wanted didn’t exist. I had

men offering to submit to me or telling me I’d love their apartment in Alicante, one telling

me off for being unclear. I was fishing, it doesn’t work with a begging bowl. I had to stand

my centre, wait to receive. This is what the universe sent.

I met a couple at a sexuality festival called Summerhouse. Though I’d suggested J and

I get tickets to go together, he said no, he’d rather go swinging with his sub. So instead I went

with a Sex Bod friend, presenting a workshop on my favourite topic of Consent, ironic I

know. I wasn’t sure in what direction to take my work but knew I wanted to share what I

found important. Thirty five people turned up and we had them taking part in Yes/No games,

making requests and dancing to get their pelvic energy moving. It’s powerful leading a group,

to see the work working in front of my eyes.

While curious about a festival play party on Saturday night, it felt impossible to find a

way in singly. Going to a first sex party is daunting at the best of times, I didn’t have the

desire, confidence or energy and wandered off alone, the solace of tears in a hot tub instead.

The saving grace of the weekend were the experiential workshops and I joined a two-hour

workshop on Verbal Commands. The first exercise involved walking around the room,

stopping in front of a person, then, looking at each other without words, working out who the

more dominant person was. In my first pair, a man kneeled in front of me. In my second, I

stopped opposite someone I vaguely knew. Looking into each other’s eyes, taking ages, each

other in, realising I wanted to kneel.

With different partners I learned and practised simple D/s commands like Look at me,

don’t look at me. Kneel. Stand, till I felt the peace of willing submission and the acceptance
of realising my instructions were welcome. I liked being the dominant and the sub, one

powerful and creative, one curious and willing. In a longer exercise, I worked again with the

attractive man I’d knelt to, giving each other instructions on what we wanted each other to

do. I was aware his wife was in the tent too. Trusting he was managing his own boundaries I

enjoyed his instructions to lower my eyes, look away or at him, of kneeling down, of

following his wishes. I knew I could say no to anything, I wanted to know where my edges

were. He got me to crawl out of the tent on all fours, moving towards and away from him, to

take my top off. My edges weren’t in anything I was requested of, only noticing my

discomforting thoughts about his partner working a few feet away while we enjoyed building

a light-hearted eroticism.

Over a vegan lunch, the three of us chatted, established an ease. That’s one of the

things I love about Tantra people, there’s no small talk, you’re into the big topics straight

away. No boring explanations of whether you took the A38 or how you got here, you know

the boring conversation men do when they first get together or the fluffing conversation about

children that parents do about Jemima or Jason. With Tantra, it’s a different and direct way of

everyone sussing each other out and we hit the important stuff immediately with tantric

gossip. They offered me a four-handed tantric massage. Fast work in an hour’s conversation

and I accepted and we met again a few weeks later at my place. The silver-haired goddess

could see my hurt and confusion around what was happening with J, offering a healing self-

love visualisation to begin. Connecting to my heart, the depth of unfulfilled longing,

enveloped by a creamy white-chocolate velvety softness that had me in tears. Their touch was

astonishingly loving; there’s something about the gorgeous, layered, unpredictable sensations

of multi-handed massage that allows you to let go eventually, so under their hands even my

busy head switched off. I felt cared for and the combination of the nurturing masculine and
sensual feminine touch allowed the energy in my body to move. I felt waves of sensation

running through me, my own sensuality given expression under their encouragement.

They scooped me up and showed me how to have an easy three-way relationship,

inviting me to visit them when they were on holiday in the Lakes. After dinner, we lit a fire

and spent the evening taking it in turns to massage each other, asking for the touch we each

wanted, lots of hot coconut oil, on a sheet made for the purpose, Tantrikas don’t like to make

a mess. They were looking to bring someone else into their relationship but I wasn’t ever

committed to the idea of being a third. Yet I loved seeing their relationship, they had a pact to

choose each other every day; to recognise the choice, gifts and challenges of a relationship set

for growth and expansion rather than possession, I saw the way they responded to each other,

constantly connected through music, shared history, conversation, ideas, touch. Inspiring to

be with, I enjoyed being swept up by them, all of us equals. It’s probably slightly ridiculous,

but there’s a real charge for me about being with couples. I feel so protective of their

relationship and want to feel the reassurance I’m not crossing any boundaries or upsetting the

woman. With my recent experience and underlying awareness of betrayal, I’m always wary

and slightly nervous about what I’m ‘allowed’ to do with another woman’s man. With these

two and their mature experience, I felt welcomed and safe and began to enjoy my role as the

third person, as a bringer of pleasure, to enjoy a contained experience with them and then go

back to my own space. They came to stay a couple of times. We’d spend the evening in the

temple, they’d go to their bed, me to mine. I’d join them in their bed with coffee in the

morning, it felt fun and alive, welcoming and only slightly transgressive. I knew that the

beautiful goddess would have been fine if I’d made love with her husband, they’d talked

about not owning each other after all. Although I felt safer with this shiva than I’d ever felt,

that line wasn’t crossed though that was the closest I came to feeling like it might have been

possible. I held back. I didn’t allow myself the pleasure that would have been freely given,
yet I couldn’t receive it. I couldn’t drop into a trust that it would be accepted. I was protecting

their boundaries in a way I hadn’t been asked to.

J didn’t like the connection I had with them but there was nothing he could do about

it. For him, it was an example of my disloyalty. For me, it held a vision of how a threesome

based on friendship could ideally operate, with everyone willing, consenting and at the pace

of the slowest. I didn’t feel any pressure, only invitation and mutual gratitude. I was equally

happy when they left and I could go back to my own life and my more tormented

relationship. Between meetings I didn’t feel the need to be in touch, my reserve kicked in

again. And it simply wasn’t what I wanted. I couldn’t even begin to imagine why I’d want

that: to be a part of, yet outside a couple and so the first open dalliance with polyamory

dwindled naturally.

Three Days in a Dungeon

As the summer goodbye with J turned out to be more of an adieu, I was still in it nine months

later, still trying, still unhappy. I wanted to demonstrate commitment but I mistook loyalty for

love. I still wanted to grow old with J, I believed that this man would give me the run around

for two years and love would prevail, I simply wouldn’t believe it would last. So I didn’t

leave the relationship, enduring instead what seemed like a never-ending unwanted

threesome: a Karpman drama triangle where we each took turns to be victim, rescuer and

perpetrator. Pulled by a deeper chord, unknown trauma allowed me to stay as I didn’t realise I

was wired for turning away, for ignoring what was happening. I only understood I was in a

process. The less proud reason I stayed was to be proved right. I was focused on the promised

future land of plenty, I couldn’t understand the waters I was drowning or boiling in. I stayed

because my soul wanted a lesson in love.

 I had no idea of that at the time. In human life no-one acted well including me. I

learned a lot about my own shadow sides, seeing my contempt, working against the truth of

what was happening in front of me, my capacity for both victim and vindictive behaviour. As

time went on J’s sub stayed much of the time unless he sent her away when I visited. She had

a big house, her own dungeon, better living conditions than any other time of her life; still in

the brothel, different pimp. The months of loving dangerously dragged on.

For J’s birthday, I offered three days of submission to him in his dungeon. I wanted to

see it as I’d been excluded. I still thought it might be possible to find a way to enjoy or

connect in some way through kink. I was still curious. There were a few rules for my three

days. I had to call J Master. I was to speak only when I was asked to. If I wanted to leave the

room to go to the bathroom upstairs, I had to make sure the door to the stairs was always

properly closed as it had a wonky handle and door catch. I had to wait to sit down at the table,

letting the Master sit first. He’d be keeping count of the times I broke the rules or made

mistakes. The payoff? Dominance and care. He’d be looking after me in return for the gift of

my willingness and compliance. Bearing in mind what Shivanti had said about me not having

a submissive bone in my body, a book and some socks might have been a better present.

The Pro-Domme turned sub had to give J agreement to use the room as it was her

workplace. Really? I was allowed ‘as long as we didn’t use any smudge to cleanse the

energy.’ Waiting at the threshold as the door was unlocked, a ceremony to be invited in, then

to see the breathtaking change. The once shabby yellow room was now very tastefully

decorated, deep purple walls, log-burning fire, tea lights glittering in beautiful Moroccan

lamps, the large gilt-edged mirror once in the kitchen, reflecting the lights. The dungeon was

the room that he’d offered me as a ‘temple’ many lifetimes ago. The furniture had changed

too, now a St Andrew’s Cross, a spanking bench, a dog cage, a chest of drawers, filled with
who knew what and rings in the ceiling. I got the impression the scary stuff and her clothes

had been removed for the weekend.

He’d set up a massage bed in there and the first evening gave me a tantra massage

which was the most beautiful I’ve ever had. With the soft, gentle, rhythmic touch, it’s one of

the few times I’ve gone into the void place, trusting into the starry blackness, feeling loved

and safe enough to let go, aware of J’s presence, briefly going into bliss.

On day two he gave me some gifts, one of which was a short, tight, cheap, black lace

see-through dress. Seeing myself in the mirror, I could see the appeal, it looked good in a

trashy sort of way with stockings and my high-heeled red shoes. As long as no-one set a

match to it, or saw me, I could handle it. As the submissive it wasn’t for me anyway; I was

here to please the Master. Standing me below the ceiling rings, asking me not to speak or

move, he blindfolded me, lifted my arms, tied my wrists and bound me slowly with a chest

harness, the ropes between my breasts, hips and pelvis. After a while I remember him lifting

and suspending me. I felt linked into some sort of pulley system, suspended with ropes, a

couple tightly bound on my pussy, feeling vibrations going along the ropes, probably from a

Hitachi Magic Wand somewhere down the line. If I’d been allowed to speak, I would have

asked for the rope to be adjusted a couple of millimetres to actually hit some clitoral nerve

endings. I wasn’t, so instead of being able to drop into an inevitable orgasmic state that so

much vibration would have practically guaranteed, it was a frustrating time where I was

spectatoring on my own experience. My mind busy, chattering in overdrive.

“Can I speak? Can I ask for the rope to be adjusted?”

“I don’t like it, can I say?”

“Why can’t he get it right? He’s supposed to know”

“God, I hate being in this room”

“I hate that woman”

 “Why am I doing this?”

“I should be enjoying this”

“Is there any chance I’ll come if I just breathe a bit, tense a bit? Nope, tried that,

nope.”

“I can’t fucking move”

“I daren’t speak”

“I’m bored”

“All the other women must like it”

“Why doesn’t he realise it’s not working?”

“This is supposed to be clever and it’s not working, it’s stupid”

“What’s wrong with me?”

On and on the voice in my head was relentless. Sadness descending, aware of whose

room I was in, cursing J inwardly for not knowing how to get it right, worrying I wasn’t

getting it right. A whole confusing mass of thoughts, spoiling a potentially lovely experience.

Why didn’t I speak? Fundamentally I didn’t think I could. I’d been instructed not to. I

thought he knew what he was doing and there was something wrong with me for not enjoying

it.

A few weeks earlier, we’d watched a film called Swingers featuring a ‘Black Room’

scene, a completely dark room where no-one can see anyone, a sexual free for all. He’d

casually mentioned that his sub had organised a black room for him for his birthday.

Imagining how much more aligned they were in their sexual tastes, my three-day gift was

before that and it and I were proving hard work already.

Looking back on it now, I knew what I needed. I needed to know a bit about what his

intention was. I needed the freedom to speak and ask for what would make it pleasurable for
both of us. He was really getting a sweat on, doing all the graft to enjoy my pleasure for his

pleasure. But I couldn’t move and the rope was out. Two millimetres matter.

Disappointing Ordeal number one over, I had some little tasks from my Master later

that day. My first to find some porn we might like to share together. I’m not a user of porn

but I managed to find some tasteful sensual clips amongst the deluge of horror on Porn Hub,

and some fun girl on girl stuff that didn’t make me roll my eyes or scare me, one featuring a

double-ended dildo. I’d seen one in a drawer though I hadn’t known what the dark pink

plastic thing was amidst a nest of ropes. The Master was pleased with my choice, he likes two

girls at once and I at least learned what the dildo was for, looking at the pert little arses. A

relatively redeeming moment that day, justifying my earlier snooping. I hate to admit that -

sickening - though who hasn’t done it in their desperate moments?

I’d made five mistakes so far. I put a stone on my chair to remind me not to sit down

to eat before the Master did. It was the bloody door to the stairs that got me though, and my

hatred of stupid rules built momentum. I didn’t mind so much being quiet as that was

peaceful. Though when I was invited to speak and asked how it was going, I think the Master

was expecting more praise.

The night before he’d taken me out to Wetherspoons wearing my second gift, a small,

remote vibrator in my knickers. So “So far so ho-hum” wasn’t the grateful submissive

response he was expecting. He’d been able to control the vibe from his pocket but I hadn’t

felt anything apart from inadequate for not responding to the faint ineffectual buzz. I’d gone

into comparison imagining how his sub might have responded in a similar situation. Initially,

I’d been glad to get out of the house, being with him, freely talking at last. Though the

surroundings weren’t my idea of a good Saturday night, I’d enjoyed the escape. As I was in

submission, clearly the choice of the pub wasn’t for me, nor the gifts. Though this is the

confusing thing, as Doms believe they’re in your service and want you to be happy doing
their bidding. Seriously, I was doing my best in trying circumstances but I know from

experience if someone wants to make me happy they’re way better off asking me what I want

and need. Not arranging to do something they want, saying it’s for me.

If you want to kill sex and relationship convincingly, comparison, analysis and

perfectionism are great places to start. I was good at all three.

Going back into the dungeon the next morning, J, oops, the Master, suspended me

again; hanging supported by a cradle of coloured ropes, floating freely in the air, starfish

arms and legs, relaxed, no buzzy things involved. Floating in space I felt free, a semblance of

enjoyment and beauty with no pressure to be enjoying it for someone else. The three days

was looking up.

The final day the Master asked what I wanted and gave me some choices. As I’d

never had ‘wax play’ I took him up on that offer and really enjoyed being dripped with warm

red, purple and orange wax. The care with which he scraped it off was so intimate, then

taking me to the nest where we had beautiful connected sex, something that meant something

to me, even if it was his birthday gift.

In total I made seven mistakes and so for the final evening session in the dungeon

they had to be accounted for, I had to receive the punishment. The evening started well

enough with gentle flogging and sensation play though when I was put over the spanking

bench and my wrists and ankles strapped in I began to not like it as he fucked me hard from

behind. I like slow doggy style sex generally, I can find it deep and powerful and exciting but

being strapped in unable to move, killed my energy and without any other touch the in-out,

fast thrusting was boring. I wondered when it’d be over though I didn’t think to call orange or

red and tried to move a bit to make it more comfortable. Mercifully, it didn’t last long. Then

it was time for my punishment. The Master showed me the birch flogger. I’d never seen one

before so I had no idea of the impact of it. I got a mini-lecture about the things I’d done
wrong and was now going to be punished for. Surly, I acceded and he began. Fuck! The first

one stung and after three the pain was horrible. I hated it but didn’t speak, I started crying at

five and when the seven were complete was stunned into silent cold tears. I was instructed to

put my clothes on. Re-dressed in the flammable lace, I briefly looked at J, saying, ‘You’ll

never do that to me again,’ and walked out, going upstairs to cry alone and change, leaving

all the bloody doors wide open.

Composing myself I returned downstairs, quiet and lost for words, the three days of

submission over and dinner due. Talking over the meal about my response, he explained how

if I was a child and he was my father and I’d done something wrong I’d expect to be

punished. That other women he’d done that to orgasmed wildly as the birch hit their ass. He

couldn’t understand why I hadn’t appreciated it or called Red. Defending his choice, saying

as I hadn’t called Red, he couldn’t trust me. None of the mansplaining made me feel better.

Remembering his withdrawal and anger the first time I’d called Red, I hadn’t even seen that

as an option. I’d been hoping for some understanding and warmth, instead, I was left

inconsolable by reason or explanation. Nothing connected us, a horrible ending to what was

supposed to be a three-day birthday gift.

Later, he’s spoken of that weekend as one of the best of our relationship and I can see

why he enjoyed it. He was in charge, I was quiet and compliant, fairly rare, he was doing

what he really enjoyed and wanted to share with me. Some of the time I was happy and in

pleasure in his hands. I’m sure it was how he wanted me to relate to him more of the time. He

wanted love and respect, who doesn’t? My longing for closeness and intimacy was too much;

too demanding, too equal, too suffocating. I thought that was what normal relationships were

supposed to be, you know happy, loving and a bit romantic. Obedience isn’t my bag.

I doubt either of us understood at the time how incompatible, what Jack Morin calls

our emotional aphrodisiacs, were. Painful punishment doesn’t interest me. At least not mine.
After all, if I haven’t done anything wrong why would I need to be punished? Mercifully

shame-free, waiting for daddy to say, “Good Girl” or to be punished for being a bad girl

didn’t push any hot buttons for me. Moreover, it was a mystery to me why anyone would find

pain fun, healing or erotic, when it had had the effect of making me defiant, disappointed and

withdrawn. Yet it was important for J not to have any backchat, no topping from the bottom,

for me to surrender to him completely. I’d make a better bratty sub. I didn’t know that then.

If we’d known more about eroticised trauma in BDSM we might have been able to

experiment, say no, say yes, enjoy trying things out and find roles we’d both find meaningful

and sexy. Without understanding it and just being hit with it in this way as a submissive,

expected to respond in a certain way for the Master’s pleasure, I couldn’t connect with it.

I knew that conscious BDSM is a place of healing but the need for this scene wasn’t

in me, so there was nothing for me to heal in this way; no trigger for frisson, so no real

purpose. He needed to be in control, yet was disappointed when I didn’t find the charge in the

ways he knew into submission. Our shadows in this case confusingly incompatible, neither of

us understood enough to hold my surrender safely. I only understood why by going to a

tantric BDSM workshop later that year when I found MY troublesome turn-ons. And enjoyed

them.

The Genius Between Your Legs

Work as a Sexological Bodyworker wasn’t busy, and my job was to be there for the clients’

discoveries, not to get my kicks. I loved it when clients came to me with a clear ideas of

wanting to understand what their pleasure was all about, to understand how to enjoy sexual

connection again after trauma, boredom or pain; learning to make choices based on touch and
feelings, not expectation and performance. Hands on touch is part of the work, though it’s not

all of it. Talk therapy goes so far and the body has a whole other language.

So if your genitals could talk, what would they say? If this idea either shocks or

surprises you, let me explain why it’s always good to have a chat with your vulva, penis,

pussy or cock, yoni or vajra, and to talk to your partner’s genitals too. I know, I know,

another crazy idea, so let me explain.

If you want a better intimate life, getting intimate with yourself here helps. If you

don’t look at your genitals and have no sense of them, they almost don’t really exist for you.

You have to bring your genitals into being, a coming of age, bringing them into the present.

When we have sensory amnesia about our pussies or penises, psychologically they’re still the

last age they were when you first discovered them which could be in early childhood or

teenage years. Growing up about our genitals adds to the ease around intimacy and gets you

to know about yourself from a different place within. Otherwise, we’re just hoping someone

else might be kind to them and might know what to do. Which isn’t exactly a recipe for

skilled lovemaking or you having varied sexual experiences beyond a friction-based hunt for

orgasm. Often that’s exciting but what I know now is that there’s so much more.

Working with clients, sitting next to them, an encouraging ally, both of us looking

into a mirror between their legs. The tenderness in hearing their genitals have a voice for the

first time. The words coaxed gently, describing their histories of confusion, joy, pleasure or

disappointment. Cocks and pussies are waiting to be asked their desires, ‘don’t push so hard

to enter quickly’, ‘touch me gently,’ ‘wait longer’ ‘take more notice of me’ their requests to

their owners full with innate wisdom

It’s easy to laugh at the first wave of feminism and the women’s consciousness-

raising groups with their mirrors, but they knew what they were doing. It’s a brilliant idea.

Knowing what she looks like and to see this most intimate part of you for the first time is
very tender. To speak to her with love and wonder is key, it’s self-loving and kind,

acknowledging yourself as a woman. She may be unkempt, there may be grey hairs, you may

be bald or have a Brazilian: either way she’s a beautiful part of you.To listen to your vulva is

surprising, sweet and powerful.

Over the years I’ve been in a few different ways of connecting with yoni and heard the

guidance, through yoni talk and yoni art. One time she wanted new red knickers and a

haircut, so I shaved completely for the first time. Other times she’s been practical; she knows

her value. Doing yoni talk once, on the floor of an art studio, this came through

I am the yoni of Ali and this is my story

I’m neat, I’m private, I’ve small inner lips and I think I’m missing out on pleasure.

I’m perfect and it’s a privilege to touch me

I am the yoni of Ali and this is my story

I want to be heard and witnessed.

I’m grumpy

I want to be touched deeply and with presence and not by someone who’s not going to

leave in half an hour

I am the yoni of Ali and this is my story.

Also, I understand that you want to get your needs met,

Have some adventures

Take the car keys

I want sustained deep loving touch

Author: Ali’s yoni.

The one time I didn’t listen to her and didn’t take my car keys, I couldn’t leave a party

when I wanted to and ended up having to stay over with my date, a crossdresser who smelt of
sickly-sweet Avon perfume. Getting dressed together for a party, fastening jewellery, zipping

him in was fun though it was the perfume that stopped me undressing him. I eventually fell

asleep in a glam long red dress, next to a man in full shiny pvc.

I always listen to yoni. She’s always been clear that she’ll never be used for work.

She’s a love-only kinda gal, golden and white, pure and sweet, also wry and funny. In the

letters and art books made from listening to yoni over the years, the message is the same,

innocent, wise, longing, knowing simply what she needs. When we have that she’s happy. I

trust her voice now. I’m sure she’d like more attention from me though my jade egg still sits

in its silk bag untouched.

The Years of Loving Dangerously

I’ve often asked myself what made me settle for scraps of a relationship that had once been

the closest to what I wanted love to be? My belief in a shared future, the understanding that

love unless it’s freely given, isn’t worth anything, that freedom is self-defined. I wasn’t

insecure, at least not at the beginning. It wasn’t that I felt unworthy. Like so many women I

stayed as I didn’t know how to leave, I wasn’t ready. I feel like such a fool telling you this

but on some level I got it and why he needed it. I thought with enough love and soul I could

handle it, that on some level I needed this. I had drama to work out, a problem to solve. The

curse of rationalising, my life was interesting suffering. So I looked away, I pretended it was

okay, my core wounds being poked at, compelling me to stay to heal a bigger picture. J’s

gifts from me started to go missing, the plants I’d taken to his garden died, he said my cards

and love notes didn’t turn up.

Bewildered, I hated it and her. I still loved him, we still talked about the future; most

of conversations now were miserable, about how unhappy I was and how long their contract
would last. He was adamant he wanted her and wanted me. I was assured it wasn’t love

between them; that was purely for us. Their relationship was about him learning BDSM from

an experienced sex industry pro. He needed the money, acrimonious divorce bills were

increasing, the Domme needed somewhere to work. It made sense. Both into swinging and

kink, when she was there they hosted sex parties and he said he was in love with me. Their

attraction and compatible needs were strong, paid Pro-Domme in her sessions, the rest of her

life submissive, calling him Master, cooking him meals, doing the cleaning, her cellulite-

filled arse was his.

In sleepless sad, early hours, with a bit sleuthing I found their site on Adult Work.

It’s a horrible admission. Pictures of them doing ‘submissive training,’ butt plugs aplenty in

the pictures; J under the alias of Steve, his submissive usually on all fours in various outfits,

one in white lace lingerie on her knees, arse amongst the lavender beds. Acknowledging him

on finally getting the site he wanted I couldn’t resist a snide comment about the lack of

photoshopping. Promoted by now to Colonel, by day one of the top ranks in the armed forces,

J became a sex worker at night when they had shared BDSM clients. He said he was learning

what he’d always been interested in and ‘reclaiming his power after the divorce.’ His logic

was pretty difficult to argue with. Knowing how much my freedom mattered to me I could

relate. What I wasn’t relating to were my own needs and my own poor heart. As I’d heard

Ram Dass say many times, ‘the death of a dream hurts.’

J offered to take me to Naples for my birthday. His passport went missing a few days

before, so it was touch and go whether we’d be travelling out together. White leather

furniture in the mezzanine apartment, making love on the sofa, J sitting on the keys of a white

piano, while I went down on him, looking up in adoration. The first night’s Campari-spritz

and pizza with fresh rocket was joyful, we stayed up late, enjoying the Italian renewed

relationship energy. Another tick on our joint list and crosses aplenty. The exquisitely
delicate melting marble statues in the San Severo Chapel and the Caravaggio painting of The

Seven Works of Mercy only fleetingly elevating me from the misery of knowing he’d go

back to his sub. Sitting in a bar or having dinner, each conversation came back to it; me

wanting to know when his contract with her would be over, J unequivocal in refusing to say.

Surrounded by so much beauty, I was deeply troubled, I hate rows.

Behind the massive volcanic stone exterior wall, one evening we stepped into the dark

of Jesus Nuovo cathedral. I love a good Italian church dripping in gold and this one was

breathtaking. Those popes knew a thing or two about more is more. Beneath the vaulted

dome, in front of the magnificent baroque altar, remembering Liz Gilbert’s prayer scene in

Eat Pray Love, I figured as nothing else had worked, it was time to genuinely ask for help

from the big guy upstairs. I hadn’t prayed since I was a kid. I knelt,

“God, I know I don’t talk to you much. But can I ask for help? You can see I’ve tried

all I can and nothing’s working. Whaddyou think?

And I waited. Then I swear I actually heard a voice for the first time, clear and

resonant.

“Eat more ice-cream.”

“That’s it God? “

Silence.

“Thank you”

I bowed my head, got off my knees and went to the nearest ice cream parlour. I think I

ordered something with syrupy black currants, it wasn’t that great but I ate it in a stunned

grateful silence. Even if it didn’t seem much of a practical solution to that particular

problem, I made sure I ate ice cream that summer with friends, God’s message to recover my

joy. The time in Naples had ended with J on the sofa and me in the bed. Another holiday that
would have been better alone. He would have split, occasionally we did. Whenever I

complained he reminded me, “there are no bars on the windows Ali.”

They went on holiday for a week together to a resort in Gran Canaria. When his submissive

apparently needed to move out of her flat, he moved her in permanently. Seeing or speaking

to my boyfriend became ever more tricky as he wouldn’t chat to me when she was in the

room as it upset her. I imagined I was spoiling the cosy or kinky scenes of her sitting at his

feet, or being footstool or an ashtray, watching Ice Road Truckers or Top Gear, the banal TV

programmes he loved, another thing I was sneery about. Though they were probably stripping

wallpaper, apparently she was helpful at that too. She now had everything I’d once been

offered; time with J, the home in the country, a place to work, the shared life. I couldn’t visit

otherwise it broke their D/s agreement.

When we did meet, I noticed he began to avoid letting his cock touch my yoni, subtle

unspoken, the withdrawing of intimacy. When I asked, it was his lack of trust in what I was

doing. I was mystified at the injustice, at sexual health checks I’d had to say I was having

sex with someone who was a sex worker. I didn’t sleep with anyone else. At work I kept my

kit on. Our meetings becoming more occasional, the work on the demanding mistress of the

house taking precedence now, he visited Screwfix more than me. Hopes raised then dashed

with each meeting. We had tears and shouting in an air B and B after J wouldn’t hold me to

fall asleep after having made love that had opened me up again, my longing for comfort

feeling like neediness, J taking a duvet to the floor in the corner of the room leaving me alone

in bed awake and lost. I packed snivelling in the dawn hours of a bank holiday, driving four

hours home in tears. Later only to be told I’d missed a nice breakfast.

I’d never been in a relationship where I’d rowed before, the frequency amplified. On

Valentine's Day my frustration lost to the air and the trees in the 49 Square grove in
Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I hated being one of the resentful couples over a pie in a quiet pub,

the sad red romantic paper hearts on the table, going home alone bursting into tears at a kind

shakti friend’s hug.

I often wondered aloud who was playing who but whenever I raised it, I was

dismissed. Truth is hugely inconvenient when you’re a Dominant and think you’re in charge.

Though it sounded like he was being topped from the bottom to me, I left him to work that

out for himself.

Sexual Potential

In the happy, early days together, the first time we’d experimented swapping being Dominant

and Sub, I’d had such an intense rush. A riding crop in hand, taunting J for his lack of

fidelity, I asked if I could hit him three times; one for each of his other girlfriends, him

jumping around holding his bum to get out of my way. It was a brilliant way of expressing

my hurt, getting my own back, teasing him with mild-humoured vitriol, unrestrained freedom

from having to put up with it and pretend I was ok with it. I admit I was new, unskilful and

probably hit too hard. Standing out in the shed in the rain afterwards while he had a cigarette,

I remember tingling with excitement, thinking we were on to something, something profound

that would connect us and right the wrongs in a playful way. I was mistaken. He never let me

top him again.

While we don’t have to try everything, I’m with the view that sex and pleasure

are a place for connection, a place to meet ourselves and our lovers for healing, intimacy and

learning. Sexuality as an expression of love, play, or connection in embodied form. When it’s
purely about performance, some perceived societal norm, or genital orgasms, we’ll tire of

these limitations, get bored and switch off without understanding why. One of the most

influential articles I’d read in Sex Bod was a piece of research into ‘sexual potential’ which

named three main sexual styles, known as ‘erotic realms’ of Partner Engagement, Trance and

Play. To be able to move in all three realms is how we get to be in the ‘blessed few’ who do

create wonderful sexual experiences, across our whole lives.

I’m guessing that for many of us, we have no idea what our sexual potential is or

how exploring sexuality could be used to help us create fulfilling lives? I’d got interested in

this article as I sense it’s fundamental sex education that if more of us knew about would

clear up a lot of our confusions. This might help us develop an interest in exploring our erotic

potential rather than thinking we’d rather have a cup of tea or join the Ramblers. Scenery is

nice, don’t get me wrong, but there’s hidden landscapes within us beyond ageing ten years in

a pair of waterproofs with an elastic waist. Comfy ain’t going to cut it in the realm of

expanding pleasure.

In society, there’s often an expectation that partner engagement is the modus

operandi. In the realm of ‘partner engagement’ the emotional connection between people is

the important thing, the focus on intimacy, turning each other on, romance, eye gazing, being

in the experience together, being affirmed, the potential of experiencing union. However, this

may not be a natural style for everyone and it can become a prison to assumed expectations

of what sex is. By contrast, in the realm of trance-like states, we’re allowed to go into an

inner world, without much partner connection, rhythmic soothing touch to take us into

altered states where the body’s natural energy kicks in, a pleasure haze enabling us to access

deeper levels of consciousness. The third realm is Play. The focus here is on getting to

understand yourself psychologically as well as sexually, using creativity and playing roles.

Play is a wide field whether compulsive or conscious, it allows people to step outside the
everyday vanilla to hidden aspects of themselves, explore their sexual nature in a vast

territory of tastes, sensations, fetishes, preferences and predilections, offering a sense of

acceptance and fulfilment of a great range of sexual expression. BDSM often belongs in this

third category.

Exploring what’s possible for each realm, makes the conveyor belt of hetero PIV

(penis-in-vagina) sex seem rather limiting. You know that one, a bit of kissing, some breast

fondling, a bit of oral sex, then fucking, orgasm an endgame. It’s now thought that 70% of

women don’t come from penetration, so when we’re on the PIV conveyor belt, it can be a bit

of a road to nowhere, especially in search of the holy grail of simultaneous orgasm; feeling

unsatisfied with ourselves and our partners when it’s not happening, though gold-star

fantastic when it does. As a focus on it as the ‘right way to do sex’, it can make so much else,

and us, wrong. Moving in each of these realms we’ll not only have a more varied sex life,

but all of life will get correspondingly more expansive and intriguing.

From the reading, I learned I’m naturally, or socialised, into partner engagement,

interested in romantic love, mutual affection, using sexuality to deepen bonding. Learning

about erotic trance states in Sexological Bodywork was a big learning. I’d never experienced

that before. A faith that someone else would be able to allow me to attain deep relaxed states,

to go into a haze of erotic bliss, without me feeling the need to respond in kind

immediately.  I came to realise that one - of the many - reasons the karmic entanglement

relationship with J had foundered, was because of our two different sexual styles, an

incompatibility in where our natural realms lay. J had always been kinky and was

predominantly interested in play as an expression, seeking new experiences, loving the

outfits, paraphernalia, and exhibitionism of it. I was nervous and curious; how could I want

something, when I didn’t know why to want it or what was possible? Or which bit of it might

a good idea for me?

 As Shivanti had said, play was a mystery to me. If I wanted to be one of the blessed

few, I needed to learn to play. First I needed to find what I wanted to explore, what hidden

aspects might have an erotic charge for me. A kinky priest helped. Wait.

Finding my Leadership Skills with Ruby May

Yoni pulsed seeing the advertising for a weekend workshop called In Love and Service. Ruby

May winking over her shoulder —innocent, natural, the leather harness of a strap-on over her

perfect bottom—an attractive man between her legs. Yoni said Yes. I paid the deposit

immediately.

A generous shiva found us a plush city apartment overlooking the Thames for the

weekend, three women and him. We started the leadership there, he was in our service for the

weekend. Making the coffee machine work was his first task. It’s worthwhile to explain the

difference between a ‘man in service’ and a man in submission. I’d take the former any day.

A man in service is there to do what I want, with a man in submission it’s the opposite; I’m

nominally the Domme but ultimately the sub has the power so I’m in service to them. It looks

like you’re in charge either way but there’s a subtle and vital difference. It’s the key question,

“Who is it for?” With a man in service, it’s for me, with a man in submission, it’s for them.

At the workshop, in the opening structure, a long line of men knelt before the women,

committing to the female leadership for the weekend. A couple of guys who were more

obviously subs looked like they were in the wrong place. Oh well, everything is ‘a learning

experience’, even submissives being in the wrong place. Confidentiality means I can’t tell

you everything that went on that weekend. So I’m sharing the things that worked for me to
learn about creativity, spontaneity and power plus the thrill of finding and enjoying my

natural dominance. All with my clothes on.

The first evening the women sat in a wide circle, and for a short period of time, a

different man would walk towards each of us. Without words, we’d show them what we

wanted. The most erotic brief encounter was with a cute man with a beard, I beckoned him to

come closer and wait while I decided what made me curious about him; looking him up and

down, how did I want to touch him or what did I want him to do for me? I wanted to feel his

beard against my face. I motioned him to come closer and slowly stroke my face with his,

soft and sensual, I felt a charge of attraction. Then he moved on. The next man was taller and

bigger. I signalled for him to follow me and press me up against the wall with his whole

body, protective and sexy. I creatively adjusted us so as he ran his fingers through my hair I

could also feel his hard-on. I altered him as I wished, his whole body wrapped around me at

times, changing my mind when I wanted to, he followed my gestures willingly. Next was one

of the sub guys with a florid face. I made him stand a couple of feet behind me and ignored

him. I had no desire to be in close contact with his unattractive, sleepy energy, I enjoyed

watching what was going on in the room instead. In a couple of hours, I met six men in

service, each experience different. This is how I learned to respond to each individual,

following the unique energy between us.

Why is this worth telling you about? The thing about being in charge is that it’s a

brilliant way to break a man-pleasing habit; that subtle thing we do as women to work out

whether we can make a guy like us. It moves us from wondering if they like us, to how we

desire them? As long as there’s a trust that a partner will say no to any request unless they

want to do it, a level of safety is established for both of you to relax into. This exercise cuts

through man-luring, asking us to come back to our own desire each time. When we can have

what we want, what are we doing to do with the power?

 The next day, we women had a go at consciously ‘objectifying’ men: It’s edgy, we

usually think of objectification as a negative thing so it was challenging to even have to

consider it. I struggled at the beginning to think of things to get my partner to do. Once I got

into the energy of it, telling him to dance provocatively, to touch himself, to strip at my

instructions, his willingness to explore what that was like for him was interesting. To be on

the other side of this as an alpha man is rare. He loved the attention. Few men get enough

because their conditioning means they’re the ones often orchestrating sex, having to focus on

a partner to subtly make their own desire acceptable. Objectifying this man helped me get to

know him, give attention on my terms and have fun playing with him, testing him and me.

How do any of us know how to express a desire of someone else, when we don’t

know what’s possible to want? Having the power to consciously dominate a man is tricky if

you don’t have the words and are ashamed of saying things like 'cock' or 'fuck' or 'pussy'.

After all, if you can’t imagine it, you can’t want it or ask for it. Because of my training, I

could now say cock and other anatomical words with less embarrassment than most, though I

still lack explicit fantasy imagination. Ruby led a shame-busting exercise in saying the rude,

sexy words and phrases that make us blush, relaxing us before we started the next exercise,

which, for propriety let’s call Erotic Whispering.

The men sat in chairs around the room and we blindfolded them. The women were

invited to take the initiative to go to each man and whisper something in his ear about what

we’d like to do to, or with them, something specific to each of them, erotic suggestions, sweet

ideas, personal compliments: Fuck Talk. Damn, wash my mouth out, I lost the propriety

already.

It was fun sensually leaning into them, my breasts brushing their faces, using breathy

words, whispering,
 “I’m gonna take you outside where your girlfriend won’t see us and put my hands

down your pants. Don’t worry, you’ll like it”

“I’m going to put you naked over my knee and spank you slowly”,

“I’m going to kiss the back of your neck a hundred times,”

“Let me pull your hair and scratch the back of your thighs”

“I want you to take me to a hotel tonight and take me out for dinner, you wearing no

underwear”.

Words to that effect had amazing effects on the men. Between whispers, seeing the

men’s reactions was wonderful: we could see orgasmic shudders, mouths dropping open in

surprise, gasps at the waves of attention they received, their enthusiasm revealing their

delight, they’re so unused to women taking the initiative like this.

When the women were asked if we wanted to experience it, we all nodded. To be on

the receiving end was a mixed pleasure. The best fuck talk came from the men who’d been

paying attention to each woman’s uniqueness. Hearing something that I really wanted to

happen and not have to do anything about it was fun - inspiring longing and a sense of

freedom; no need to act on each impulse but simply enjoy the erotic charge of someone

noticing us. The best one I heard was “Your mouth is beautiful, I really want to kiss it.” A

couple of the whispers that were too porn speak were a real turn off, borrowed, unimaginative

and banal, seriously, let’s not bother with the gang bang or worshipping me guys. Articulate

men talk sex well when they have the right vocabulary and put their mind to the task of being

in my service. I liked it, the eroticism, attention, care and imagination. Specificity is

surprisingly sexy. I left the workshop on a high.

Travelling home that night, the train passed the stop J first jumped my train. He was

having one of his marathon ‘working’ aka swinging weekends with his sub. I wanted to go

and see my boyfriend, for him to pick me up from the station, to sleep with him, share what
I’d learned. I felt like I understood some of the lure of dominance now. After the weekend

with the men supporting me in all my aspects, not being able to get off the train and go to be

with him, the one who was supposed to love me, was sad. Pure loss descending, my heart

having to close again, heading back into the reality of my own complex, deeply unsupportive

relationship.

Another Worst Weekend

Going round in ever-decreasing circles of possibility, to break the deadlock J suggested the

idea of the three of us living together, where we could all heal, forgive each other and we’d

all get what we wanted. The new idea was that he and I would share his room and his

submissive would be in the attic rooms. I was invited to a trial weekend of how things might

be. As preparation for the idea, J sent me a gift, a book about polyamory called More Than

Two. Another gift that wasn’t for me. I read a few chapters and gave it away to a friend who

had an agreement about opening up her marriage. Saying I was open to the possibility, I went

to meet them together at the house for a weekend. Not because I had realistic hopes of

anything working out but to see their connection. It might sound crazy but I needed to see

what was happening to break the chain of a promised future together.

Coincidentally that week, I worked out I’d spent ten years with unavailable men. Ten

years! The pivotal point I admitted it wasn’t the men, it was me.

If the three days in the dungeon were bad, it had nothing on this last-ditch relationship

meeting. We started the weekend with a healing ceremony, the three of us in sarongs in a

candle-lit temple space expressing our hurts, apologies and gratitude for the gifts of this

situation; self-awareness, acceptance and communication. Genuine enough in the moment, I

wonder if any of us really meant it. J had cooked dinner the first time he’d ever cooked for
his sub. She was allowed to use his real name that evening for the first time too. I saw their

familiarity and ease, how close they were, getting glimmers of their understanding and

mutual support. Avoiding anything personal, the pleasant conversation guarded, none of us

giving much away or wanting to spoil the peace from the earlier forgiveness ritual. And I

went to bed with J. We made love gratefully, I cried and didn’t sleep. He did, peaceful at

coming closer to his ideal situation.

The next morning his wretched-looking sub cooked us breakfast, frying bacon and

tomatoes, from now on calling him Master. On an energetic level, I was repulsed by her. I

saw she knew how to get a man who likes rescuing to step into the protector hero role playing

helpless; a skill I’ve always lacked. As she made scrambled egg, ironed his shirts, in a

scraggy purple dressing gown I witnessed deep mutual appreciation and knowledge of each

other, in their eyes, in their hugs, in their responsiveness to each others’ needs. I saw what I’d

come for, what had been long hidden from me, a level of care missing in our relationship.

Love was present. She desperately wanted to be invited into our relationship.

I was having none of it. After a Saturday of joyless house tasks, going to the tip,

waiting for J to have a hair cut, tiredly crying in a coffee shop, I’d had enough misery. My

superiority survival complex kicked in by Saturday night as she wanted to be invited for

dinner again. J hinted that would be kind. Divesting her of any notion I’d be generous about

that, while J was out of the room, I smiled, friendly enough, weary,

“I’ll tell J what I want and your Master will tell you what you’re going to do. Please

leave me alone”

So she spent Saturday night in the attic watching TV, while we had time together

watching a rom-com in front of the fire. Hard to enjoy, yet useful to experience what living

there might be like; intolerable already. Too sad and disturbed to make love, I didn’t sleep.

There was no empathy, hope or reassurance offered that our relationship was any more
important to him than this D/s one. By the bed I noticed the morning’s empty cup of tea, the

housekeeper let off the task of clearing up after him for the day.

By Sunday any of J’s hoped for affectionate bonding between his women was failing

miserably. Pleasantness was needed if we were going to salvage anything, so when J’s sub

made a roast, I helped peel the parsnips and carrots and we chatted with kindness finding

shared neutral work interests, recognising the situation was difficult for both of us. After

lunch, the conversation about potential arrangements began in earnest.

I wanted three things, time alone in the house with J, continuing condom-free sex and

his sub’s contract end date. Who says romance is dead? Once we got down to it, I realised

how long-held this idea had been building between them, it wasn’t J’s new idea at all. Poly

ideas were floated from the book I’d not read, could they have the Vee model, J in

relationship with both of us, or if I didn’t want her, the N model and find a woman in another

couple? A version of commodity poly, I was interchangeable, if I wasn’t up for it, they’d find

someone else as J’s girlfriend, his sub looked after by J or by both of them. As far as I could

see it, this was polyamory at its worst, a power-fuck game; love and intimacy traded for

spread betting to prop up insecurities and unhealed wounds. I wasn’t sure either of them had

read the warnings in book about avoiding forcing poly on anyone or going into a couple who

haven’t both got clear about wanting polyamory.

Watching their discussion, realising neither of them was interested in me having any

of my desires met, eventually I asked what they thought was in it for me, if those three things

I wanted weren’t on offer?

“Safety, new swinger friends, a nice house, sex parties, therapy space, her company

so I wouldn’t be lonely while he was away.”

Don’t you hate when you ask what’s in it for you, to be given what’s in it for them? J

was offended at my disinterest, his perfect idea falling away, the grand plan for harmony
disrespected. The conversation went on and on and eventually, as nothing agreed or agreeable

emerged, we called it a day. J’s sub left to tidy the kitchen, we went outside together. In the

late afternoon sun, sitting on a garden bench overlooking the lavender borders, he turned on

me, shouting, red-faced, implying that in my work I was betraying him, that he didn’t know

what I was up to with my clients, me pleading with him to stop yelling. Given that he was the

sex worker I couldn’t understand the hypocrisy. No softening, later turning away from me in

bed, not speaking to me before he went to work in uniform. I left on Monday, a mess of pots

in the sink and an unmade bed, the hollow gestures belying my loss of something I’d wanted

so much. That week he couldn’t speak as he was busy, out for tapas with a couple of new

dates.

Sense finally prevailed, in a brief snatched call a few days later I said I couldn’t do it,

to little apparent regret on J’s part; almost two and half years over in almost as many minutes.

Coincidentally in divine timing, I was booked to assist on a Shakti Tantra course. The Crying

began then, going back in tears to my tantra school in shame, in a worse state than I’d been

when I’d joined. I danced to Madonna’s The Power of Goodbye for the new shaktis. I spilt

my sob story of J and the hateful submissive to Hilly. In a great piece of truth, one of those

someone says when you most need to hear it, her response, so matter of fact,

“Well, you don’t have to like everyone, Alison.”

III

Getting Out; Aliveness

The journey is yours to take. It won’t look like mine or anyone else’s. And if you don’t take

your journey no one will.

Each of us has the power and responsibility to heal ourselves, to be our own medicine

man or woman. Awakening our innate powers of being, loving, knowing, seeing and healing

involves ongoing work at all levels and in all dimensions of our self.

Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy

Trust and Trauma; Rewiring for Love 

In fitting together the pieces of my shattered hopes, ego and worldview, I tracked more clues

about my fuck ups, conscious or otherwise, sleuthing around my inner workings, wondering

what it might be possible to salvage from the fragments. In a period of retreat from my old

ways of doing things, I had to be ready to mourn my losses before risking the unfamiliar. 

In a book about how to be an adult in relationships by David Richo, I learned

about the five A’s - appreciation, affection, attention, acceptance, with these four in place we

can have the fifth of allowing the object of our desire to leave our presence without feeling

like catastrophe beckons. Even better to we find ourselves in a place in our lives where the

five A’s are present from multiple sources so we’re not so dependent on one mere human to

contribute to our sense of being loved and free. I could only ever remember three A’s at once.

I had Post It notes in my glasses cases for a while then gave up. I’m not very good at long
traffic directions either, remembering anatomy, my friends’ kids birthdays or the astrological

houses. Whether it’s carelessness or menopause, detail is a bit beyond me at times. Though I

admire a good classification, I usually forget it. Buddhists are great at lists. Four Noble

Truths, Twelve Principles of Forgiveness, an Eightfold path, six of this, three of that. No

wonder I couldn’t cut it in a sangha. 

J and I’s trust severed, the same author’s later book, Daring to Trust, offered insight.

In any exploration of how to open ourselves to real love and intimacy, trust is in four

directions: trust in oneself, trust in others, trust in the circumstances of your life and trust in

the universe. I always remembered these four. I was beginning to understand the universe

being on my side in a greater unfolding, I still had money, though increasingly less, in the

bank and a roof over my head. For their own good reasons, someone had to let me down,

that’s been fortunately rare in my life. All the directions pointed back to the gap. Me. I had to

regain trust in myself. I’d gone over so many of my own boundaries, I didn’t know where to

begin. I didn’t know who I was anymore, I’d lost myself in the pursuit of another; the bars of

my cage had shrunk, I’d locked myself in. 

Staring into morning pages, pen stilled into blankness I shocked myself, I didn’t know

what I loved anymore or how to rebuild what I’d lost in my period of boy-prison self-

confinement. I had a compassionate word with myself and remembered I used to love culture

and meeting friends and accepted an invitation to Manchester International Festival to see a

play. So now we need the last bit of Sex School for Grown-Ups, trauma for beginners and

how it played out in me. Here goes.

Choosing happiness is a radical act. I was a a mess as a pleasure revolutionary. After

the breakup, I was free and had to get my happiness back. A summer of crying ensued, utter

grief and heartbreak. I was fifty-three. For a woman who’d rarely cried in life, it felt

humiliating, I finally understood about vulnerability, I cried everywhere and with everyone,
strangers, family and friends, making up for years of loss and grief in about four months.

Sobs emerging where I least expected them, in my car, on my yoga mat, when I woke up,

assassin grief. I let the tears come as I knew it meant I was getting somewhere, crying for all

of us who’ve loved and lost. I cried for three more days in spectacular company with Betty

Martin and a gathering of the best sex educators in the world, this time less gossip, pure

vulnerability. As someone who’d have rather stuck pins in her eyes than be seen like this, I

was in the right place. All my tears were met with compassion and kindness, no-one told me

to pull myself together or get over it. That’s when I knew I belonged in this world. I learned

how much I was loved and my capacity for love, keeping my heart open while I healed it. I

cried for four days of a dancing retreat in Portugal. That week it’d had been a year since

Summerhouse where, in a group hand-fasting ceremony, red ropes encircling our wrists, I’d

silently pledged loyalty to J for a year and a day, bound to my commitment. I wrote a letter

I’d never send, throwing it into a fire.

Unbound.

The shame and sadness of years of tears. I wanted to get happy again yet I was still

thinking and talking about J all the time. With my other relationships when they were over, I

felt ready and something of a relief. But this was different, bordering on obsessive; repetitive

thoughts filling my head. Sensibly you’d think that would be the end of the story but some

things have a timing of their own and this was unfinished karmic business. So while I was

proud of myself for not getting in touch, I still felt love and connection, regret and longing.

Something wasn’t finished.

Watching the repetitive thoughts in meditation didn’t help much, though I cried

sitting on my purple cushion. Insomniac, I drowned out the voices in my head with Jack

Kornfield and Ram Dass, understanding human life is full of the contrasts of pain and

pleasure, loss and joy, suffering and goodness were new to me, I’d been expecting a one-way
trip to happiness. Cuddle Parties offered comfort, dancing kept me moving every Sunday on a

dance floor, in a room with seventy people. I danced sensuality, anger, ecstasy, despair,

connection. I rolled around with boys and girls half my age, I cried and crawled into friends

arms and comforted other people. I switched the blue lights of my radar off; all without

speaking, accompanied to the 5 Rhythms of flow, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness;

Dancing was so much easier than Tantra, I kept my clothes on. No one got confused. I met

two beautiful lesbians. We’ll come to them next.

I listened to late-night tarot, read angel cards, I was in a mess and conventional

medicine was useful up to a point, sleeping tablets for a month and the doctor raising the idea

of peri-menopause for the interruption of concentration. As I’d only ever had two hot flushes,

it was the doctor’s affirmation that I had a right to be angry that helped more than the promise

of HRT. I saw alternative practitioners; a homoeopath gave me remedies for shock and to

‘separate what’s mine from someone else’s’, a Cranio-sacral therapist soothed my nervous

system, another healer took forty years of betrayal energy out of my body. She said I’d feel it

go within a few days. That’s when I contacted J for the first time in three months, checking if

I was crazy still feeling the ties that bound us? Reading his reply saying ‘yes he felt it too’,

my body shuddered, followed by brief spontaneous tears as the old betrayal energy left. If it

sounds ‘woo woo’, I don’t care; by now I’d learned to trust in the body’s wisdom. Something

had shifted, I knew the story wasn’t done. Though I didn’t need to do anything about it

immediately, I wanted to be completely released of the ties that bound us. And more

importantly, understand about the strings pulling me unconsciously. I was tired of acting out.

I knew the volume had been turned up to max so there’d be no repeating it, time to explore

and heal it.

When the Universe sends Lesbians, Make Lesbianade

There was a phase, once I stopped crying, that beautiful soft women crossed my path. The

first in Portugal, a beautiful Italian Tantrika. The last evening we stayed up late in front of the

log fire long into the night, sitting closer and closer until we kissed, both our bodies vibrating

after a week of dancing, slowly rolling around each other, her matching slow sensuality

beguiling. We met again when she came to visit; massaging each other, her caring touch felt

safe and spacious, she was beautiful in spirit and soul. Visiting Tate Liverpool, looking at the

Chagall paintings, holding hands in public felt bold to me. Later we went to dance 5 Rhythms

together. We were companionable, similar, how I imagine going out with me might be. She

was smart, sexy, compassionate and I loved hearing her ideas, of her healing work and

relationships with women.

We faded apart, easily, the distance between us asking more than I was ready for. She

gave me a new understanding of men and their patience with the depth of a woman’s

pleasure, no wonder they have to get off on giving. It must be hard not to feel left out when

all you’ve got is an ejaculation to head for. Women go on and on; even when you’re hungry

and done, they’re just warming up, still spinning in the stars.

Then a young dancer I knew hit on me after a build-up of sensuality on the dance

floor which lasted for weeks. She had a gorgeous body, a willingness to please and an older

woman thing going on. We spent a couple of evenings together playing three-minute games

with the wheel of consent, both of us innocent in different ways, asking for what you want

when you don’t really know takes time and courage. When I wanted to take it back to

friendship, for the inescapable reason I’m a fundamentally vanilla hetero at heart, wanting to

be free to meet a life partner, she cried. An inordinate amount for a couple of dates. She said I

wasn’t honouring her, there were tears, disappointment, the mother wound, the insistence on

being seen and heard. On it went. My inner masculine Rhett Butler, curling his lip, wanted to
get off FaceTime. Disbelieving what I was hearing, stunned into dismissive avoidance again,

I listened till I could leave, yet frighteningly seeing myself and how I’d used the same

strategies. A male friend made me feel much better by wryly saying that men put up with this

stuff as they know they’ll get laid at the end of it.

We know women can be more emotionally intelligent in relationships, though a part

of me is wary of the cloying nature of that. With a woman, there are no cute tricks to get you

out of standing in the fire with them. Long may that be so. Yet I’m so bored of menstruation

and menopause as the prevailing narrative of women’s lives, I want to feel the erotic body as

a source of power not pain. With my previous avoidance-anxious-back-to-avoidant

attachment history, there’s undoubtedly reserve about true intimacy. I’m working on it, but

I’m not going to settle for the wrong thing again. With men, there can be a straightforward

simplicity of feeding, fucking and friendliness. I wonder if I’m an effete gay man in drag?

My cock preference is obvious, being non-binary sometimes seems only a pronoun away.

Shadow Healing with Seani Love

‘If you can’t play with it, it’s got you,’ Hilly’s words stuck, though I was at the point of

hanging up my flogger. This sacred sexuality malarkey all seemed so stupid and hurtful by

now. Yet a part of me that doesn’t give up really wanted to understand how I’d got caught up

in my situation and what it was here to teach me. I felt excluded and bewildered by BDSM. I

wanted to be free of myself and my old patterns. I had to go find out why it’d found me. It’d

got me. Was it time to play with it?

Anything with such a strong reaction is worth investigating, I felt so contemptuous,

superior and sneery about BDSM yet was limited in my experiences and ignorant about its

potential. I couldn’t go back to DX after the Wales wretchedness, yet I needed to understand
more about shadow healing to see what could be useful in it. And let’s face it, you don’t get a

sexy colonel and a dominatrix in your life for nothing. Existence doesn’t make mistakes.

Everything is a gift; even if flowers or moisturiser would have been kinder.

I’d gone back to reading The Erotic Mind out of curiosity. Jack Morin talks about

‘troublesome turn-ons’ - emotional aphrodisiacs that we might not imagine - guilt, fear and

anger, unlikely bedfellows with intimacy on first glance. They’re emotions that we might

label as negative yet are likely to be present in our compelling erotic patterns. Instead of

judging them, it’s useful to befriend them.

If you’ve ever had an affair then you might know the feeling of guilt nagging away,

assuaged and temporarily put aside in the company of our heart’s desire. “Guilt is not the

price paid for being bad but the price paid for the privilege of continuing to be bad.” I knew

this one. When I’d been trying to have an unsuccessful affair in my late thirties I’d be excited

and guilty at the same time. I remember one evening when I lived in the big house, going up

to my office, saying I was working, to have a sexy text message conversation with a naughty

barrister. Then having to go back downstairs and pretend I wasn’t flushed from a heightened

state. I didn’t do that again, it felt too deceitful. Morin says the antidote to guilt is

naughtiness, a passage to transformation.

Courage comes from transforming the aphrodisiac of anxiety. I was on with that one

through all the exercises we’d done at the tantra courses. I understood the exhilaration of

facing my fears and doing it anyway. Dancing and stripping embodied this for me, story

telling too. Actually just simply turning up to anything at the beginning felt brave. The

rewards of losing my fears already apparent; my nose no longer pressed to the glass of other

people’s lives. Safe risk had become inviting for me, seeing my edges, going beyond them

and life getting accordingly fuller.

 We might know the rush of make-up sex after a row; the expression of anger passed,

the gratitude that Armageddon didn’t happen, the relief our partner still wants to be with us.

Expressing anger releases passion, the passion to fight for what you want can become

transformed through sex. We can express our truth, show ourselves at our worst and feel

scared we might lose each other. It’s all just energy. The thing is, healthy anger isn’t bad, but

why not use the energy to create something else? Of course, the hurt may be remembered

later and frankly, it’s not healthy staying with someone who’s routinely angry and blaming,

that’s just tedious. I knew that. I was glad to be free of the hurtful inconclusive rows. Anger

switched me off not on. I’d not been in a relationship before where shouting and rows were

an all too regular happening and I’d never been as mean about anyone in my life as I was

about J’s sub.

Relationship expert, John Gottman, talks about the key indicators of a relationship

that will fail as ‘The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse’— Criticism, Contempt,

Defensiveness, and Stonewalling. I was guilty of the first and second, J skilled in the latter

two. I figured contempt could be my sublimated form of anger. Although mine had the

potential to be more wryly amusing than snitty passive aggression, sarcasm is still not clever

or kind. Well maybe it was a bit clever but definitely unkind. I prefer harmony. J had liked

my positive, optimistic, charisma originally yet I’d changed; under the threat of annihilation,

my contempt had grown like knotweed. I didn’t want it to poison my future life.

All of which I mentioned when I approached conscious kink teacher Seani Love for help. He

listened to me recount my familiar story of heartbreak, confusion, blame and loss.

Empathetic, approachable, he simply told me to bring my Contempt along with me. I booked

his Shadow Healing for Tantra Practitioners course, five days of Conscious BDSM to identify

and heal old patterns. Working alongside Rosie Heart, they’re superstars in this realm,
Conscious Kink teachers and Sexual Freedom Award winners, the Oscars of sex work. In a

dance studio in south London, Seani opened with the protocols for safety and care for the

group. We had a mix of backgrounds, some with experience of kink, some at the beginning of

their professional journey. In a room full of Tantrikas, kinksters and healers there’s very little

PVC. All of us wanted to explore the kind of healing avoided by the love and light brigade.

There’s no spiritual bypassing allowed in shadow work.

Sitting around in comfy clothes in a circle, sharing our intentions for the course, mine

sounded more worthy than sexy, ‘to explore my contempt, to get a better sense of conscious

BDSM and the potential for transformation.’ The first exercise full of noise and riotous sexy

Play-fighting in small groups was fun at first. Fifteen minutes in, I suddenly felt

overwhelmed and wanted to stop. I called Red. We stopped. Immediately. The guy I was

working with sat quietly with me. I burst into tears amidst the noise and exuberance still

around us, a wave of embodied gratitude and sorrow washed through me. All the sadness for

the Nos I hadn’t expressed, hadn’t been welcome and that hadn’t changed anything, finally

respected and witnessed by a stranger. And, more movingly, by me. What was different about

this time was that my partner stayed with me while I cried; Expressing No and someone

staying, thanking me for it and staying, this was new. Previously, expressing No, it’d been

ignored or used against me.

I’d stayed in a bad relationship too long. Walking away I’d done, alone. A dawning

realisation that my Yes had been implicit as I’d never actually listened to my own No. Not

until the worst weekend of my life. I’d done what many of us do; problem-solve, give way,

tolerate, endure, blame, collude, be understanding, hope or want the other person to change.

All the while our boundaries and our sanity, chipped away, arrogant or misguided that our

style of love will prevail.

Mistaking loyalty for love, I’d betrayed myself. Why?

Back to exploring Archetypes, Seani led us in a meditation designed to bring them to the

surface. The meditation led me into a deep mossy cave and I was met immediately by a

Queen, haughty, unpleasant, contemptuous yet undoubtedly magnificent under that. One of

the questions I heard during the meditation was “And what makes this aspect of you

tolerable?” The answer followed quickly — ‘a loving King’. In a role-play to explore and

embody this, a handsome builder agreed to be my king and a quiet tantric masseuse my

servant girl. Imperious, bossy, cruel and kind, I strutted around the room, a riding crop in

hand, enjoying giving orders. My King following along responded to my every creative idea

with affectionate “Yes Dears.” I lined up and dismissed imaginary knights and ladies-in-

waiting for my husband, knowing if he was happy the kingdom would be full of pleasure and

peace. And I would be the power behind the throne. And if I chose, I could also play with

anyone in court. The servant girl was pretty and I enjoyed playing with my power over her, I

kissed her, toyed with her, banished her to sit and watch while We, the royal couple, paraded.

When I asked her to suck the royal cock she demurred. Thanking her for her No, I got her to

kneel in front of the King and simply wait. She did as she was told, later saying how peaceful

it was. Intoxicated by my own power, I was joyful and devoted to my king. Apparently, it

was mesmerising, fun and exciting being in my court.

I remember Shivanti later saying, “When you’re having a good time, everyone’s

having a good time.” Being generous, kind and inclusive suits me. And of course, if you

cross me I’ll chop off your head. As for my contempt, well that was short-lived. Having it

seen and accepted, dissolved it. When there was no need for it any more, my shadow energy

was more productively used for pleasure. Being told it was captivating was a relief beyond

measure, revealing contempt merely as one of the many strategies of a poor, defended heart.
Guilty Pleasures in Consensual Non-Consent

I wanted redemption. Remembering the unexpected aphrodisiacs of anger, guilt and fear, I

was realising that so much of my lack of permission for pleasure rests heavily with my

Catholic upbringing. I made my First Confession at seven and was Confirmed a couple of

years later; typical rituals of Catholicism in the 1960s. When I was younger I hadn’t seen

physical affection between my parents or in my family. Like many people of my age, when

there was something intimate on the TV, there’d be an uncomfortable atmosphere. I’d

rebelled at sixteen, realising what I was told didn’t make any sense; an all-seeing God, the

devil, heaven waiting after you die, hierarchies of angels, making children confess petty sins

and do penance, it’s powerfully insidious. I’d had to go to Mass every Sunday until I left

home. Original Sin, not pleasure, the catholic birthright.

Yet leaving the church must have left a gap that agnosticism couldn’t replace and it

was the idea of sexuality being sacred that had pulled me into Tantra: the holiness of sex if

you will. My idealism for a better way of seeing and being found a home in Tantra. I loved

the rituals, and the idea that we’re divine beings; incarnated souls having a human

experience. From ignoring religion for thirty years, the opening to something called

‘spiritual’ was gradually infusing me with a sense of connection to something greater than

me. Spirituality becoming expressed as a grounded everyday kindness, a sense of wonder,

understanding my life as part of a divine plan.

I digress. Back to the guilt. Playing consensual non-consent is like a kinky version of

taking and allowing. I paired with a handsome Asian guy for my scene and we discussed a

broad idea of what I wanted to explore - guilt and power dynamics. We agreed he’d be my

priest and I was going to confess, we each committed to trusting our own boundaries. The
wonderful thing about working like this is the spontaneity and creativity. I didn’t know what I

was going to say or do before I began.

Kneeling in front of the imaginary priest, I intoned some words I vaguely remembered

from the confessional boxes of my childhood,

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

The eroticism of what followed next took me by surprise and makes me blush to share

it with you.

Yes, my child, would you like to make your confession?

I think I’ve upset my best friend father.

Why’s that my child?

Her boyfriend did some things to me at school at lunchtime and I think she’s going to

be upset.

What happened my child?

Well, I can’t really say Father.

Tentatively now, looking into the priest’s eyes, I feel the beginnings of a blush on my

face,

“Please continue my child.

Well, her boyfriend met me behind the bike sheds at school and when we were

chatting he got closer to me and pulled me into a place no-one could see us, up against the

wall.

And then what happened?

I can’t really say Father because….

Yes..

Well,…he pushed me up against the wall and kissed me. I’ve not been kissed before

and it felt wrong, because he’s my friend’s boyfriend. I liked it though. Is that a sin father?
 And then what happened?

Well, we kissed for a bit. And then he put his hand up my skirt.

Really my child? How did he do that?

Oh, Father, first he touched my thigh, quite softly and then squeezed it a bit.”

At which point I reached for the hand of my priest, placing it on my inner thigh. He

rested there, asking “Like this?“

“No, a bit more like this Father.”

I adjusted his hand to a more comfortable position and his fingers slowly began to

stroke the inside of my thigh.

Sigh, intake of breath, eyes conveying willing.

“Yes, like that Father.”

“And then what happened my child?”

“Well, he moved his hand further up my leg and squeezed my bottom a little bit.”

“Didn’t you try to stop him, my child?”

“A little bit, but it was nice Father. It was a bit more like this though.”

I moved the priests hand higher to squeeze my bum gently, enjoying the feel of his

hot hand on my warming skin.

“And then what happened my child?”

The other people in the room faded. We’d dropped into a private world, me leading,

him following, both of us knowing either of us could stop at any time, my voice full of

sixteen-year-old tremulous innocence, his reassuringly reverent.

“Well, Father, then he moved his fingers around the edge of my knickers… it was

nice though.” My mouth gasping open a little as the priest’s fingers follow my cue. The

priest’s voice softening,

“Did he put his fingers inside you?”

 “Oh no father, just inside my knickers a little bit, it felt nice. No one’s ever done that

before father, is it a sin?”

“Did you like it my child?”

Blushing, “Yes father.”

My breathing heavier, I’m trying to stay calm, but my erotic pulse has gone from zero

to hot in ten minutes, I have no idea why this is so erotic but I’m really enjoying it. I can feel

that I’m a bit wet and the priest’s fingers slip into my knickers and onto my pussy, very

slowly and smoothly, running his fingers along my outer lips, occasionally touching my

clitoris in passing.

“Like this?”

“Oh Father we can’t do this, it feels wrong.”

The kindly priest stops and we look at each other, smiling, maintaining eye contact.

This is where consensual non-consent comes in. We wait. I’m giving him permission to take

me through my faux-innocent hesitancy. The fingers stay still where they are. I don’t need to

call orange as I like his responsiveness to my cues. I nod and we begin again, fingers

resuming the gentle movement.

“And then what happened next, my child?”

“Well, Father, it’s a bit embarrassing to say.”

“Go on my child, make your confession.”

“Well, next Father, my best friend’s boyfriend took my hand and put it on the front of

his trousers, I was so shocked Father!”

My eyes widening and my voice wavering at this point with teenage confusion.

“Why my child?”

“Well, I could feel something and I didn’t know what it was.”

“What did it feel like my child?”

 “Well, I don’t really know, like there was something in his trousers. I could feel it, it

seemed warm and er, I don’t really know father but it seemed to get a bit bigger when I

touched it.”

“I see my child. Was it like this? ”

At which point the now exciting, slightly dodgy priest reached for my hand and

placed it on his crotch, and I could feel the bulge of a sacred holy cock. We both breathed

together and I felt it twitch slightly as it changed and moved under my hand.

“And then what happened my child?”

“Oh, Father, my friend’s boyfriend moved my hand and looked at me and asked me if

I wanted to see what it was. I was a little bit scared and said, “what if my friend finds out?’”

He said he wasn’t going to tell her and then moved my fingers to the zip of his trousers. I

didn’t really want to do it though he told me that there’s nothing to be scared of and he

helped me pull down the zip. I was a bit frightened a teacher would catch us though.”

The priest asked slowly, ‘Was it like this?’ as he firmly moved my hand to the buttons

of his pants.

Often tantric people go commando and it was a lovely feeling. His hand still in my

pants. I was looking into his eyes, undoing the buttons slowly, feeling the semi-erect cock in

the palm of my hand. Knowing the next move was mine. Knowing every move was mine. My

fantasy, him in support, playing with authority, guilt and transgression. Violating taboos, one

of the four cornerstones of eroticism, unlocking my troublesome turn on of guilt; switching it

to naughtiness and pleasure, beginning to allow long-held unconscious restrictions to

dissolve.

The joy of consensual non-consent is that eventually, the lines can blur a little about

who’s in charge. In a room full of people I ended up slowly and deliciously sinfully sucking

the priest’s sacred cock for a while. Maybe that was my penance. I don’t remember now. Any
inhibitions melted away, it felt glorious, free, sheer naughty pleasure. Perfect contrition,

absolved of my sin and that seemed a devotional enough way to pray, on my knees, in front

of a priest. In all the workshops in the seven years of a sexuality journey, this stands out as

the clearest, highly arousing, immediately erotic moment. Guilt got me, this time in a

compelling way.

Needles and A Second Chance at Nothing

And then..duh…J and I met again. This time needles were involved. Wait.

All new to me, in BDSM, needles are used for many things and at the end of the

shadow healing week, we used them for intention setting in a ritual. Heartbreak can make us

heartless if we let it. I didn’t want that to happen to me. Overcoming my nervousness, I chose

to have two needle piercings: one over my heart to clear my illusions and one at the back of

my heart to keep it open. My king from earlier in the week offered to be my partner in our

ceremony and despite the initial fear, the piercing was easy, painless. In deep trust, being

witnessed in a promise to myself, I watched the small surgical needle go in above my left

breast, a small trickle of blood. The intensity calming, I felt at ease, my heart relaxing with

the one at my back. I knew clearing illusions was vital, to live in reality, rather than, as

Shivanti once eloquently put it “that nasty little fucker, Hope”.

More powerful than the piercing itself, the effect motivated me to get in touch with J

asking to meet me on my way home. Clearing my illusions, to ask if he thought we were

done, and if not, to see what might be explored. He agreed and we met at a pub for a drink

and walked around pretty countryside. He told me that the D/s sexual relationship was

finished, though his (now ex-) submissive still lived and worked at the house, behind with the

rent, refusing to leave. The other girlfriends were still around though none of them would go
to his home. So they met in hotels and he was paying for the privilege. By this time he’d lost

a second passport, and told me his hoover and precious camera had both mysteriously been

ruined by water. I tried not to smile, at least not too widely. A man doesn’t like to be

disrespected after all.

When we got to why I’d asked to meet, J’s view was Yes, our bond was still there,

he’d missed me. He said, ‘his heart was still mine.’ Meeting over the next four months our

occasional reconnections seemed promising. Sex was off the cards for me. I didn’t want the

energy of J’s other women in my body; love, rediscovery of trust and friendship were higher

priorities. Though the familiar pulls of eroticism and attraction remained, both of us were

wary J, non-committal as ever, unfulfilled longing lodged in its familiar cornerstone. In our

gap, I’d taken part in a purification ritual involving drinking litres of water, before three tiny

points of frog medicine were dotted into the skin at my solar plexus. I’d felt the warming

sensations of the frog’s spirit moving through my energy system, looking for what needed to

be gone. I imagined little green amazon healers scouting my system, nausea rose quickly. In

the fastest vomit of my life, I threw up a half a bucket of deep-brown bile. The ‘venom that

wasn’t mine’ out of my body at last.

Ending Seeking With The Enneagram

Have you ever read something with a sinking heart as it completely describes you? All your

habits and patterns, great and awful and you know you’ve been busted. That’d be your

Enneagram moment then. In your moment of crisis, it finds you when you need it. In trying to

understand how I’d got into such a mess in my life, the Enneagram was the final important

missing piece. I could enthuse about The Enneagram for hours now but at first reading, it was

another of the ‘Oh Fuck has it really got to this? moments’, the moment I admitted defeat
with all my try-hard ways. The Enneagram gently and forcefully got me to realise that love

wouldn’t be enough.

As you know I like a good classification and this is a sophisticated spiritual and

psychological tool, profiling nine Types of personality or ‘fixation.’ We all develop a

personality style depending on our particular form of childhood situation then throughout our

lives, we’ll unconsciously see through this distorted lens. It means we respond and

compensate to experiences in later life with behaviours, both healthy and unhealthy from that

place. If we’re lucky (or unlucky) we eventually hit a point of defeat with ourselves, where

we grasp, on some level, that our reactive behaviour is an act of desperation. The Nine Types

are The Perfectionist, The Helper, The Achiever, The Individualist, The Observer, The

Loyalist, The Enthusiast, The Challenger, The Peace-Maker. Each personality at its best has

so much to offer. We all need each other. The Enneagram is clear on that.

Identifying myself as a Type 7, The Enthusiast or Renaissance Soul and J as a Type 8,

The Challenger, I read that Type 7’s at their best exemplify joy and freedom, Type 8’s, vision

and leadership. Yet at unhealthy levels, the free spirit of a 7 was incompatible with the rules

and control both desired and flaunted by 8’s. The underlying anxiety of 7’s can’t take the

bullying harder nature of 8’s. Our relationship of continued and insoluble conflict made

sense. The Wisdom of the Enneagram was compelling reading, full of ouch moments the

‘tables of health’ a life raft. Unhealthy Type 7’s are scattered, fearful, seeking pleasurable

distraction to avoid recognising their own suffering. Ouch. They find it difficult to connect

with their hearts as they’re always in their heads. Ouch. Their love of problem-solving, being

right and ability to synthesise information allows them to see future solutions thrilling their

busy minds. Yep. But the focus is all external and they don’t look inside for answers. Yep.

They struggle to know they exist. Yep. They always look youthful. Well yes! They’re

naturally loving but can have a nasty streak. Ouch, double ouch. I learned that storytelling is
their discourse style and when unhealthy they take on the role of the ‘ebullient entertainer.’

Their deadly sin is gluttony for experiences which means they don’t absorb anything fully. I

knew that one. Type 7’s ‘missing childhood message’ is “You will be taken care of.” How I

long to feel that. In good news, gratitude will be their saving grace, joy their essence. The

pennies dropped faster than a tart’s drawers and I felt sick.

If being a Type 7 was tough, it was worse to be a Type 8. Reading the information

about Type 8’s nailed J to a tee. Righteous anger, a need to control, motivated by justice,

quick to turn from bully to victim, the great protector, stepping into rescue. They have both a

grand vision and an ability to deal with detail. The Type 8’s are the people on the Enneagram

that have explosive tempers, they run countries and corporations. Outlaws, with hides like

rhinos, out of touch with their own emotions, ignoring everyone else’s too; emotions are in

the way of them getting what they want. Feeling rejection in childhood, their greatest fear is

of being violated and betrayed. 8’s deadly sin is Lust. Scanning the tables of health in the

book, I found that at lower levels when 8’s are unhealthy they’re ruthless, dictatorial,

confrontational, intimidating. I didn’t even realise such horrible sounding people existed.

Naively I’d just thought everyone was pretty much the same really, you know, human beings

all running along a similar track of wanting to have pleasant lives and if everyone did the

right thing we’d all be happy. Yet there’s a sweetness in an 8 buried under the armour. At

their best, they’re protective, resilient, loyal. Their discourse style is blame and their lost

childhood message is “You will not be betrayed”. Vulnerability through connecting with

their hearts is their path and their natural essence is Innocence.

I learned Type 7 style reasoning doesn’t work with Type 8’s who are driven by their

gut instinct; standing toe to toe with them is best. I’d had enough of that by now as well as

sleeplessness and sadness. I was almost ready to give up, though I didn’t know how. I

mainlined Enneagram on YouTube, Eli Jackson Bear and Richard Rohr my nighttime
companions now. I learned that Type 7’s greatest fear is of deprivation and suffering.

Perceiving a lack of nurturing in childhood, they become capably self-reliant, hiding

underlying anxiety. Scared of their neediness, 7s don’t even recognise their basic needs are

valid, they’re usually avoiding pain at all costs, by seeking fun. They’re unconsciously

looking for someone to take care of them yet unable to recognise what secure love feels like,

as peace can feel like boredom.

Adding to my understanding of my love of being a self-reliant lone-wolf,

acknowledging the hitherto unknown mean streak, my pre-heartbreak lack of compassion,

then why I’d felt so threatened, my unconscious search for a powerful man to look after me

made sense. I was simply a mass of habits and patterns, a personality playing out. We all are.

Recognising that in ourselves and others, we can stop taking things personally, have

compassion for ourselves and each other and move up the tables of health in a way that’ll

support us. Type 7’s at their best embody joyful productivity and freedom. I’ve been

working on building up to that ever since. There’s a grace and spiritual dimension to The

Enneagram, a wisdom that encompasses wings and instincts, my enthusiasm runneth over but

let’s get back to the story of J.

Unhappy Ending II

For my birthday J took us away for the weekend to Ilkley. We couldn’t go to his house still, it

was his ex sub’s home and that agreement was still in place. So much for the Dom, it seemed

obvious to me who was really controlling who. I barely spoke on a long green walk in the

Dales; there wasn’t much to say, I was out of inspiration and solutions. I took the Enneagram

book by Riso and Hudson and showed him the relevant bits; the explanation of our

differences was there in the tables of health for each type. He got it. He admitted he’d
recognised our incompatibility for how we wanted to conduct relationships long before I had,

though he enjoyed my 7 spirit and open-hearted love. The Enneagram showed us a possible

way through, a path to a better version of ourselves. Though a way out might have been

wiser, I felt hopeful enough. We made love for the first time again that weekend.

A few weeks later J bought us annual joint National Trust membership and an

invitation to spend the weekend at his home. Let me say that again - a year’s joint National

Trust membership! He said his ex-sub had agreed to go to a B and B for the weekend. He

suggested we meet as a role-play, to pretending we were on a blind date, offering a chance to

meet each other anew. I liked this creativity, J is a considered man, it was one of the many

things I respected about him. We met at Hidcote, wandering the gardens, asking first date

questions, in each of the gardens designed as outdoor rooms, seducing anew in herbaceous

borders, reinventing our cosmology. I was invited back to the house, empty for the first time

in months. Once home our newly invented realm faded into sweet familiarity, the usual

cooking and talking together, log fires and his bed. I love J’s body, touch tender and exciting

in equal measures, natural and sexy, with the now longed-for-closeness of penetrative sex

included in our fantasy first date.

Outside in the sun with him the next day, his garden was looking as untended and

overgrown as ever. Amidst the weeds, the shrubs I’d given him were dead. Maybe they didn’t

survive climate change in the move south? I knew as part of their agreement she wasn’t

allowed to plant in the main flower bed, though there were now more pots on the gravel by

the back door. I confess I did a bit of guerrilla gardening, weeding where I could, blithely

moving things around. In tidying up maybe I moved J’s former subs pots and plants around, I

couldn’t possibly say. I left with plans to continue meeting, warily optimistic for renewed

love, liking the changes so far. The next day, friends phoned me to ask if I’d seen J’s ex-sub

posting on Facebook about being in an abusive relationship for two years. Of course I hadn’t
as I’d blocked her after I’d fainted. A still connected friend showed me the post with over

fifty sympathetic responses. That afternoon I asked J if he was aware, if he realised the

enormity of the accusation? He hadn’t seen it. The post disappeared. I don’t want to doubt the

truth of her post, though found the timing of it telling. She’d obviously seen how far her

submission would go. I’d often wondered why she hadn’t moved out? J’s ex-sub denied the

FB public post to him. So he had a chance to make a choice about who to believe. He hedged

it, ‘not having seen the evidence.’ A gaslighting knife to my heart, I felt the same familiar

dull betrayal, truth not recognised, not being backed up.

In another timely conversation with Shivanti, the crux came when she touched on the nature

of our sexual connection. ‘J had the keys to my energetic chastity belt.’ She gave me the keys

back. Also, softness around J, we should work out as we’re so much alike, but he’s ‘so

bloody unconscious’. “You could be his jail breaker Ali, but with no idea of how long the

sentence. There’s nothing there for you now.” Her words honed, “You’re like your dad

waiting till it’s all over and your mum wanting to be claimed. All the while missing your own

aliveness.”

How had I not seen that? By now I’d read enough therapy books to know that we

recreate situations stemming from our family of origin until we find the way to break the

pattern. First, you have to see it, then you can do something about it. I wasn’t being drawn

into the energetic threesome again. We ended by text, he couldn’t speak to end it properly as

he was looking for his passport for a ten-day work trip; ranks of brass, soldiers, Gurkhas, in

five countries, all waiting for the colonel.

Shivanti was specific about the crying which she said would eventually begin again:

it’d be for “eleven days, pain at the front of my chest like leaning against a wall.” Numb, I

went to ground. Needing to pick up a soft knitted heart I’d left behind, we met a few weeks
later on a journey down to Brighton. More tears, another goodbye. A dance weekend about

Love had started the crying again the day before, hearing the teacher’s closing words, “love is

nurturing and warm.” Why had no-one ever told me that? Slow tears of generic loss on the

journey, not about J, that type of non-committal love wasn’t worth much anymore. A few

more surfaced over the coffee. J, reading a newspaper, unmoved by my reluctant emotion.

Yet in a rare moment of introspection, he revealed he’d wondered how he’d ended up with a

mad woman smashing the attic, yet he’d shrugged off the unusual moment of doubt in his

own judgement and got on with pointing the golden brickwork. Still sharing a house they

rarely spoke now. He handed over my indigo mohair heart, we had a brief hug and I said

goodbye, crying my way to Brighton. The National Trust pass came in use at Sissinghurst,

where, in the famed White Garden enchanted by delphiniums, alliums and echinacea, I felt

gratitude for the gift that was finally for me.

Out of the blue, J sent two pictures after she left, taking all the dungeon furniture with

her. The first of all the arty gifts and cards I’d made him, found in a stash of ripped up pulp in

the attic. The second photo of four empty bottles of weedkiller. No words or apologies with

the pictures. Isn’t that the bugger about exes, they never come back and say those three little

words we long to hear, ‘You were right’.

A Cipher

Schadenfreude only goes so far. I’ve never named J’s sub. I didn’t know her. I only met her

four times. The first two times with interest, after that aversion. We scared each other,

imagining superpowers way beyond our pay grades. Much of what I thought, believed and
railed about could have been true. I could have been intuitively on the mark, piecing together

things she’d told me, clues from my sessions with Shivanti, J’s comments, seeing stuff at the

house. They screwed each other over and hurt each other. Yet  I do get it though. Who hasn’t

had fantasies of someone else taking responsibility for our lives, for knowing what we want

better than we do? So much easier than having to think for ourselves, to take the steps of

really connecting with our own needs and desires: of doing the inner work to believe we

could have connection and support anyway. Imagining, if someone was kind enough to help

us, to give us the love, pleasure and attention that kink might be asking for, without having to

jump through hoops, wear a tutu, be a sadist, or a masochist. 

My imagination ran riot, I created my own suffering and some of hers. Don’t believe

everything you think. J’s sub could have been anyone. If it hadn’t been this woman, there

would have been a queue of others holding a mirror. Maybe most of the time she pottered

around the kitchen being a 1950’s housewife, watering the plants, cleaning out cupboards.

Unlikely. I was scared of her, her extremes, her power. Of the world of sexuality she was so

at home in, the kit, the skills, dungeons and brothels, the stories of swinging and what I

imagined J did with and to her. She was a canvas for all my insecurities to surface on. And

ultimately to bring my inherent inner authority out. I’m a stronger person for meeting her,

going through what I went through. Sometimes for closure for this book, I wondered if I

should look at Adult Work and see if she’s advertising but those days of insomniac sleuthing

are gone. Mercifully I don’t need to have an opinion on it or her any more. I’d rather be

happy than right. Keeping her in the dark cave is no good for anyone, least of all me. She can

do what she likes. We all can.

I have cellulite. We all do after a certain age. Thumbing through You Can Heal Your

Life by Louise Hay, in search of the emotional reasons for cystitis—you’re pissed off—no

shit, Hay attributes cellulite to stored anger. Well, yes, that makes sense. The greater question
is how we use anger as fuel for change? I wonder if sitting on a meditation cushion just

makes our arses and anger bigger. I’m being flippant of course, it’s good to see it, to feel

emotions come and go; then we’ve got a chance to DO something about it. Moving, shouting,

acting it out, it’s all energy that needs to shift to transform. Anger is an emotional

aphrodisiac. Transforming it into passion is art. Doing is the new being. Passion for

ourselves, for life itself. In sharing my sometimes salacious, humbling, spirited story, I’m

allowing all of us to admit that we’re not that good and we’ve contributed to all that’s not

well. Taking responsibility for toxic relationships is tough liberation. Maybe I didn’t know J

either. I wanted him to be what I dreamed of, to match a feeling I wanted to feel. His core

erotic theme was complexity. I fitted the bill. I was a moving part in his core wounds too. J

wanted a more interesting life than being an ordinary guy in a pretty village going to work

for the big bad institution too. His vision was greater than that. The illusion of a better life

confounds us all.

The last thing I want to do is kink shame, I’d alienate half my friends and some of

you. I know the value of Play for using fetish and fantasy to express parts of us we feel

unacceptable. It’s expansive to try things on for size, to find out who we are and who we

might be. Yet what if we didn’t have to suffer or inflict pain for a fantasy version of love,

surrender or devotion? What if handing over the decisions for your life to another person isn’t

only kinky expression but instead is glamorising self-neglect or addiction, based on the

wrong information? There are so many ways we sabotage ourselves, so many ladders in

wrong foundations. We’ve all done it in some form or another. What if we didn’t glamourise

BDSM but instead viewed some of it through a lens of eroticised trauma; as a gift or a

signpost to our soul’s deeper longing for wholeness? I don’t want to make anyone wrong for

enjoying alternative lifestyles, it’s clear I enjoy a few myself. I don’t want to yuck anyone’s
yum; whatever tricks turn you on, enjoy them. Till you don’t, then you may have erotic

problems. Then it’s time to switch.

I’m fascinated by what fetishes mean. While twenty-four-seven servitude isn’t my

idea of fun, nor is 24/7 dominance. I can’t be arsed, I don’t like housework, nor being

responsible. But when I’m asked by another, when I’m curious, without imposition, I can step

in. Kink’s not a slippery slope, often it’s specific and discerningly particular; a deep groove

in the psyche, longing for expression through eroticism. Dismissing such a powerful drive

would be dim. There is the question of finding our true nature and living it.I didn’t have

enough positive experiences of a dominant genuinely in my service, but finding my own

power beyond my no and finer people to play with, have been great healers.

I met a kink professional recently, a silver-backed gorilla of a man, who introduced

himself as a dominant sadist. It was refreshing, he knew who he was, truly deeply. His work

is to help people peel back the layers of conditioning to be able to be in their true nature with

openness. We discussed how it is for people if they do just want the ‘one thing,’ be it riding

boots, cuckolding, treated like a dog, dressing as a baby or any of the myriad of fetishes out

there. He gently challenged me on our work which helps people understand a wider repertoire

of embodied possibilities and pleasure. He’s right. Until we deal with the crocodiles nearest

the boat to get what we truly need, we’re always longing to be met, to be understood, to be

recognised for our otherwise hidden aspects; to live freely and love fully without restriction,

restraints optional. 

Frisky Stardust

Does getting happy matter? It can feel frivolous. My yoga teacher used to say we’re

all bits of frisky stardust, starting the week’s yoga class with a nod to our insignificance.
More recently, I met an Osho ex rocket scientist who said this is true, the material of our

bodies all comes from exploding stars. That’s phenomenal.

After J and I split for the second time, I cried for the eleven days Shivanti predicted

and then I was done, I wanted it to be over, a sad relief. I picked up a talisman stone from

Brighton beach, imbuing it with a determination to recover my joy. And myself. I was

ashamed of my appalling lack of judgment and sadness, sure I was supposed to be more

sorted at my age.I didn’t really know who I was or what I liked anymore. I had a little

compassionate word with myself. From the blank morning pages came a list of the thing I

used to like doing, I remembered I used to have an interesting social life, I used to like culture

and films and I used to love art and read novels. A friend invited me to a play at Manchester

International Festival and I made myself go. I met friends and enjoyed the sun. I went to

dance to move and shout my loss and anger out. I had my practices, doing them worked, up

to a point but magic helps too. After Shivanti, I’d realised wise advisors might have more of a

clue about me than I did and threw some money at a healing session with an astrologer. A bit

like my YouTube tarot phase, I’ve drifted in and out of astrology, I can never remember what

the houses are, the numbers, planets and nodes confuse me. My confusion doesn’t stop my

curiosity, but like Reiki, I’m not convinced.

Yet who’d have thought destiny was so detailed? Starman gave me a multitude of

nuggets about my health, heart, future love and work. Without knowing anything about what

had happened, he told me I was burnt out. That I needed to be really relaxed and to learn to

let go. To be fussy about who I want to be with. He told me my soul was dominated by

grieving, I needed heart therapy advising me to find someone to talk to about my heart being

hurt. When I mentioned what had happened his response was to keep away from J, ‘there’s

only another set of pain with that’. Shamed by the character-pounding nature of my bad

mistakes, alongside J’s criticism, Starman’s descriptions of my nature touched me; driven,
independent, sexy, romantic, a healer, psychic, cuddly, substantial, arty, grounded, stubborn.

I go the distance, I stand up for rights, I’m tomboyish, passionate, headstrong, sensitive. I’m

aloof with expressions of my heart. He told me there’s lots of good karma coming back to me,

as long as I stayed away from toxic relationships; that I needed to focus on me, I needed to

connect with my younger child, rebuild my confidence, happiness and protect my boundaries.

I was less excited by blessing my food. He suggested eating more cleanly, lentils and

vegetable soups, doing cleansing rituals, moving to the sea, singing to heal my heart. I bought

lentils, got a veg box, chanted to Krishna Das and Dave Stringer. I’m drawing the line at

singing lessons.

Starman laughed when I told him I was a bodyworker. That’s not my bag at all. I’m

here to help lots of people heal. He told me I ought to be running a healing sanctuary, helping

people who’ve been emotionally damaged as kids work through abuse of all kinds. I’m here

to be helping people in relationships. I’d do this by showing people how to connect with their

intuition. How ironic when it’s taken so long to connect to mine.

‘Humility and humbleness need to come through Alison. You’re an inventor,’ urging

me to put my knowledge together, to work with people who compliment me, getting help to

have a wider audience. He advised me to have connections abroad for work and pleasure. He

told me to become an authority in my work, combining the spiritual and material, relying

more on my sensitivity, going with deeper feelings I sense are good. ‘People are willing to

support you, Ali. Ask for more help from the people you know with influence, see your clients

as associates and allies.’ So much for all the certificates and training, professional ethics and

the right way to do things. It sounded like I just had to make it up using what I’ve got. ‘Love

needs to work well so work goes well’.

In love, he told me to follow my intuition, to look for a feeling of similarity when I

find a new partner. ‘You’re looking for a soulmate for marriage, someone like you, high
calibre.’ I was liking the sound of a high calibre lover better than lentils. He said a new

person would arrive in the springtime, someone on a similar wavelength to ‘spark with at

every level’. A friend, handsome, intelligent with good manners who’d wine and dine me, it’d

be a long term commitment. That we’d have joint tastes, lots of touch and romance and I’d

feel vulnerable. He advised me to trust my instincts in love.

The Slippery Slope to Erotic Freedom

“Maybe. That’s not the point. I have no idea”.

Not the best sales pitch in response to enquiries about lingham massage, happy

endings and what I’d be wearing? Transitioning from Tantra massage to Sexological

Bodywork, I was even less busy. It’s a new area and let’s face it, healing your deep hurts

through interoception isn’t quite as beguiling as an erotic massage. Though I think Consent is

super sexy, it wasn’t a bestseller. I needed a sideline. Betty Martin had commented that she

could see me in smart hotels teaching men about intimacy. She had a point and I had a

dilemma. My great fear and occasional fantasy is of being a high-class hooker. Except in

reality, I didn’t want to have to have sex with strangers for money. That’s a bit of a flaw in a

sacred whore’s business plan. I envy the people who can enjoy one night stands. That’s rarely

happened with me, I won’t allow myself, there’s an inner puritan at play. Besides my latent

moral policing, I’m scared the sex might hurt yoni.

What’s a brainy bodywork girl to do? Make life as art darling. After the priest, I was

on a bit of a trip with The Erotic Mind again, I wanted to transform more guilt into more

naughtiness. And if possible get paid and enjoy it. So I put an ad out on Viva St, a ‘no-sex
tantric escort,’ a sweet picture of me in white. I offered to meet and chat for £100 an hour and

if I liked the connection, people were invited to book a tantra massage.

It started well, a company director asked to meet for lunch in Albert’s Shed in

Didsbury. He asked if I’d meet wearing no knickers. Pushing it back, I said I might, if he’d

arrive commando too. I chose a dark-green silk shirt-dress, bare legs, strappy red wedges;

more ladies-who-lunch than obvious seductress. Pulling up in the car park, pausing to steady

my breath and heartbeat, I left my pants under the driver’s seat and walked in. The good

looking silver-haired man in a navy linen jacket seemed delighted, ordered me a negroni and

we eased into conversation. He’d asked to meet me as I was safe, ‘classy’. He wanted, like so

many of us, to feel the part of himself again that wasn’t the responsible provider, partner,

boss. Like many men, he loved his wife but their erotic life had faded into friendship and

mutual respect. It’s the modern curse, marriage and domesticity, stifling the force that drew

you together in the first place. Chores play only goes so far. Over steak frites he casually

handed over an envelope and I put it in my bag.

After lunch I gave him a lift back to work, dropping him off in a supermarket car park

near his office. He asked if he could touch me. It was a hot day, we had the roof off the car,

he tremblingly leaned over and gently put his hand on my thigh, gradually moving the silk

higher, gauging my response; I don’t know who was the more nervous. His fingers felt soft

on the inside of my thigh, the car leather seat warm beneath me; an unlikely erotic moment at

Tesco, before he respectfully stopped short of checking if I’d fulfilled his request.

No-sex tantric escorting felt like dating to me, easy, natural. The boundaries were

clear, I preferred going out for lunch or meeting for a drink to the longer sessions. I only did

it for a short time and met half a dozen decent men including a couple of slightly too

attractive ones. It was refreshing to be out in the world again, since leaving legal publishing

I’d been in my little tantric bubble of love and heartbreak. Having a cocktail at the Palace
Hotel in Manchester felt exciting to me now. What I wanted to feel was the enjoyment of

mens’ care and company again; I hadn’t lost my faith in men, just one of them.

Fundamentally the men I met were looking for intimacy but didn’t want to see a sex worker.

Some told me of the cheap rooms, feeling used, chucked out after the paid-for-sex in the

allotted time, how disconnected it made them feel. But talking to me wasn’t what they

wanted or needed either. They wanted to touch, to feel the warmth and intimate

responsiveness of another body, show me what they could do for me to give me pleasure;

they wanted to be wanted. As one said, “You’re nice to look at Ali but I’m looking for

more.” Whereas, I wanted to be paid for not having sex. Purely an erotic confidante, the cash

in envelopes appealed to my inner madame.

I could have liked it too much. I stopped because I met someone and didn’t want to do

it anymore. The last time I did it, I went to meet a guy in a hotel room for a second meeting.

The first lunchtime conversation with him had been compelling, We’d shared peak

experience stories and the vibes came over as an accomplished lover, a magnetism and sexual

intelligence. Had I not been in my role, I’d have been drawn in by him, willingly. We met

again as he was interested to add the Wheel of Consent to his repertoire. That afternoon in a

hotel in south Manchester, I felt the edge and energy of my fantasy. It was the only time.

Turning up to check into a hotel room in someone else’s name, at two in the afternoon, gave

me a guilty frisson. By the last exercise of the session, attraction building, playing the three-

minute game, I could see he wasn’t as interested in learning the Taking quadrant, ie to touch

me for his own pleasure, as I’d hoped. I could sense the energy shift as he started looking for

ways I’d respond to him, trying to turn me on instead of focusing on whether he was enjoying

the sensations in his own body. It was working too, I could have gone with it, though that

wasn’t what I was here for. I followed my own instructions of staying neutral when

Allowing, simply noticing my own sensations quietly, enjoying arousal. Saved by the three-
minute timer going off, bringing our session to a longing, knowing close, walking back out

into the car park, naughty, flushed, free.

Why is this? Why couldn’t I allow myself this exploration of the upsides of my core

erotic theme, and followed my arousal? I’d looked into my shadows, and now was a time to

delve into the untold benefits of my CET, just as The Erotic Mind intends. I was out of the

grey zone and could have had meaningful pleasure playing with it. I hear people have dates

all the time and end up in hotel rooms for lust or love-filled sexy encounters. It’s fine, it’s

allowed. Sex isn’t sinful, even though I’d been told it was. Maybe I could have made money

and had some wonderful sexual experiences. As long as they weren’t expected or demanded

of me, I could have been morally creative in crossing The Line with the right high calibre

clients for cash. I knew how to be a mistress, I understood discretion and attraction. I could

have capitalised on my freedom, to seduce and be seduced, to explore my emotional

aphrodisiacs outside a book or workshop. My own glass pleasure ceiling, still firmly in place.

I didn’t want to do it. I’m too prissy to be a sacred prostitute, another career change cul-de-

sac.

Pleasure Island

Shivanti presaged the meeting of the healing relationship I needed. As she was rewiring my

heart to understand the difference between “what love is - and isn’t,” in the process she felt

herself doing it for someone else at the same time. She described him as “debonair, slightly

flirtatious but would know where home was” and told me to look out for him as he’d be along

soon. “He’ll be nowhere . then he’ll be everywhere.”

It didn’t take long. Life changed on its axis in Stillness. Ten minutes before the end of

the dance class, we’d moved together after I offered him my hand, wearing my t-shirt that

says Dance with Me. By the last track, I was being held beautifully, tears in my eyes, a tantra
friend had come over and pushed us closer together. I’d never seen this man at 5 Rhythms

before yet something clicked and I worked out who this dancer was. We were about to go on

holiday together.

Apparently, one of the things about people you have a soul contract with, is that you

meet them before you meet them or there are close chances. I’d almost met this man three

times before yet he’d never materialised in person until now. The year previously he’d

emailed me to ask if he and his wife could work with me. I’d talked to his wife to check me

out and arranged to go for a walk with them, though he didn’t show and they never booked.

He’d been invited to the birthday gathering of the tantra friend who’d pushed us together and

yet again he didn’t show.

I’d been offered a chance to go to Crete again as they were short of shaktis. A shiva

had paid my tuition and one of the teachers my flight. At the departure gate at dawn, I met the

holding man from the dance floor. Although it’s long been a traveller fantasy of mine, I’ve

never scored on a plane before. Sometimes the universe gives you a hand, we were glued for

the whole of the flight. We shared stories and cuddled. Divorcing now, he was going to Crete

to meet, and break up with his girlfriend though I’m not sure he’d let her know that. The

indulgent cabin crew thought we knew each other, closely intimate as if we were going on

holiday together. I suppose we were. We unglued as the flight landed, he went off to meet his

girlfriend and I went my own way to meet a shiva friend. I met mr b and the girlfriend at the

Tantra holiday a couple of days later, I kept my distance though worked with each of them at

different times, feeling for their innocence and inexperience. Although her Chinese

queenliness was childlike and spoilt, I liked her sweetness. I could see what she saw in him, a

combination of material success and a gentle spirituality and kindness towards her.

Me and mr b didn’t get a chance to speak much during the first week though Hilly

picked up on something. Wise all-seeing crone that she is, she asked me why I wasn’t making
a move. Damn, just as I thought I was hiding my interest well; centred, not rushing, she’s

taught me well, listening, waiting to be invited. Being in Crete wasn’t as difficult as I’d

thought it might be, I was even in the same room where I was proposed to three years earlier.

Sitting on the same balcony with my new shakti roommate was easy. I’d got over J and was

free. I’d broken those binds.

Once again I’m grateful to Great Spirit for moving things along as me and mr b were

finally drawn to work together in an evening dedicated to pleasure. Hallelujah. Sarongs on,

soft, sacred music in the background, four of us in a group namaste’d in and set our intentions

in a structure called Pleasure Island. I’d enjoyed this exercise many times before, basically

turn-taking for twenty-five minutes each. In these exercises you can always say no to

requests, for whatever reason you want to, something you don’t fancy doing or maybe your

back hurts; the point is to be brave and wise enough to say no, to learn limits. And learning to

say yes to doing something new for another human being, who’s also nervous at asking, also

tentatively showing their desires, we learn to be generous.We were all willing to speak up

and ask when it was our turn to receive, only to offer what we were happy to do when we

were giving.

mr b went first, asking to be tied up as he’d never had that done before. Imho when

you’ve got six hands at your service and some warm oil, being tied, not being able to move is

a bit of wasteful choice. Not my turn. We witnessed the other shiva who’s great at Shibari

slowly bind him. Fortunately, after a while, mr b changed his mind and asked to be untied, so

we massaged him. I think it’s fair to say, it was in this structure that I saw his cock (or should

I say vajra as we’re on a tantra holiday) for the first time and something in me did a cartoon-

like double take. Yoni noticed it might come in handy.

Our group was brilliant at asking for what we wanted, at each turn the four of us

deepened the connection and trust. My turn was last, by then we were all covered in oil. What
I wanted was for us to drop into a sensual, close, rhythmic haze. So I got brave. I asked the

other shiva to sit behind me to lean on him and mr b to be close in front, me sandwiched

between them. The other shakti at my side, our four bodies all pressed close. I loved that

feeling, so contained, safe, slightly taboo. I asked everyone to slowly slide, move and grind

against each other in a sensual, earthy, grounded, oily way to the buddha beats music. In all

my years of tantra, it’s the riskiest thing I’ve asked for. The emotional risk. I was aware of

the room and I had a flash of a dilemma about being seen by mr b’s soon to be ex. I wasn’t

here to protect his boundaries, he’d had the chance to say no, the dilemma disappeared. He

seemed pretty keen to be in service, he held me and pressed into me, dropping into the

rhythm with us all. Sensual, slow, grinding is sexy. I asked if I could kiss them all in turn.

Let’s remember my catholic repressed past for a moment, here I am naked in a

mountain village in Crete sitting between two men, feeling two vajras, kissing a girl. I had

one of those “you’ve come a long way baby” rushes of freedom and exhilaration; the pleasure

of the heat, our slow, pulsing, oily bodies, my courage; gratitude for life at that moment,

soulful rather than sexual. I went to bed that night feeling caring, fulfilled, cared for. Thank

you universe.

As you can imagine, my request had had reverbs and shone a light on other people’s

relationships. That’s the brilliant and awful thing about tantra, everything gets illuminated

and redrawn. I can’t write about others’ experiences but suffice to say mr b and the Chinese

queen needed some time to regroup after that so I kept my distance and equanimity. I longed

to hug him but now wasn’t the time. I liked him, there was time to wait. She left at the end of

her holiday. Within an hour of their goodbye, we met in his room, where we hugged, clothed

this time, spending a dreamlike afternoon listening to meditation music, holding and gently

feeling each other’s bodies in a slow trance state, calm, innocent, resting together.
 The rest of the group were there for a few more days, me and mr b on the same flight

back. Those few days were friendly and easy, apart from the group and within it, we could

meditate, go for lunch, go to the beach, drink cocktails. Nothing much was said, we didn’t

touch much or spend the nights together. I was interested in him, he had the quality of

sadness again as he’d spent a year crying after leaving his family, estranged from one of his

children. We could hold each other’s heartbreak in a measured, compassionate way, with

respect and understanding about the levels of hurt we’d each been through.

I tentatively suggested we left the group for the last night and stay in Chania to catch

the plane the next day. He booked us a boutique hotel and dinner at a beautiful rooftop

restaurant. Our first date. His taste was impeccable. The hotel was beautiful, stylish, cool, a

big comfortable bed with gorgeous white sheets. After the basic retreat centre, it felt such a

luxury. The rooftop restaurant was stunning, he chose the best view, looking out over the

Venetian harbour at sunset. I had no idea if this would come to anything when we got home

and had no expectations of much beyond a friendship, so allowed myself to enjoy everything

for what it was in that moment. Rum cocktails, baked fish, chilled white wine, served by

attractive staff, the wine waiter even joined us for a drink, sharing his enthusiasm. I was in

complete bliss that evening, surrounded by beauty, both of us appreciating each other’s

kindness and insightful conversation. I do know when I’m happy and truly joyful; this

evening I was in it when I was in it.

When we got back to the hotel we undressed each other at and began to touch. On the

beach, I’d sometimes rubbed suntan lotion in but I hadn’t had the time or space to touch him

or kiss him as I wanted until now. Lithe and tanned, he and I could both touch with tantric

skill, softly and slowly, no pushing, pure presence. We hadn’t discussed sex though it felt

natural when the moment came, lots of deep breath to welcome the vajra. I was surprised
when it happened, yet without many words, it was easy and still. I cried briefly with the

tenderness and happiness of it all. I had a deep longing to be held by this man.

When we flew back the next day, he invited me to stay the night at his place. I

accepted, still free of needing it to become anything and with joy at the simplicity of it all.

Work took him away a few days after we got back from Crete and on his return, he came to

my house for a three-day love-in in the hills. We spent much of that time naked, close in my

bed getting to know each other in a relaxed, generous, innocent, easy way, going out for

walks in the woods, cooking together. He revealed he was scared of sex having avoided it for

over a decade in his unhappy marriage. I loved that innocence after what I’d been through.

Soon we spent most nights together. I loved staying at his little place where he’d been living

since he’d abruptly left his marriage without a plan B. A place he’d cried alone for a year, a

monkish life, finding yoga and meditation to get him through. Neither of us self-pitying, there

was a healthy recognition of how something breaking us, opens us up to a new possibility. As

Shivanti said, from being nowhere he was suddenly everywhere in my life.

He told me that when he first held me on the dance floor, he’d heard a voice ‘this

woman needs holding’ and he did that. His room was a love cocoon for me. As there was no

kitchen or living room, we had to go out to eat and he took me to all sorts of places from

swanky to simple. He called me an awakener, his bestie, AliPots. When either of us went into

being triggered by things that happened, we found a way, with the help of the Enneagram, to

understand each other. For all of it to be understood, recognising and allowing for each others

differences and similarities. With him, I learned about encouragement, creativity, and

compatibility and what a healthy, supportive relationship looks and feels like. I was more

contented than I’ve ever been. He believed in me and cared for me, that was what I needed.

His business was doing well and he treated us in so many ways, as he wanted to be happy and

enjoy the love he’d unexpectedly found. Time doesn’t heal trauma, love does. Although it
was clear he had other more pressing things like finalising his divorce and finding a home of

his own, I don’t regret any of that time we spent together. Our mutual harmony and kindness

were healing us both.

On a mini holiday, he took us to stay in a honeymoon suite in a beautiful riad in

Morocco. Privately discovering how my work works to overcome fears in intimacy, we

played many versions of the three-minute game. There was an easy naturalness and we

followed the arousal; shifting shame his confidence grew. Another hotel room, no secrecy on

my part any more, little fear on his; the healthier aphrodisiac of the risk of revealing

ourselves, finally held in the safety of love. Since embodiment training, I’d been dismissive

of using erotic fantasy though we moved into trying fun little role plays, big cock training

school, dodgy doctor b with his healing fingers to help prickly yoni syndrome, verbal

commands. This wasn’t fantasy, it was grounded in the reality of what we each could respond

to, a little bit of personal conscious kinkiness overcoming shyness. We didn’t know enough

to apply ourselves to BDSM scenes, to be prison guards or pirates and he didn’t want me

dressed up in stockings, my full sexuality bewildered him.

mr b and I talked to each other’s genitals. Tears roll down my cheeks at the memories.

He called her Yones and told her how much he loved her and wanted to fall into her. I was

magnetised to his cock who spoke to me in a deep Eastern European accent. Sometimes we’d

speak to each other through our genitals to express our hopes and love, shames and sorrows;

surprising, touching and tender, intimate and deeply knowing. When he left he didn’t say

goodbye to Yones and she felt a depth of abandonment in a way I hadn’t expected or felt

before.

I don’t want to write about him too much because it’s too precious. He cut me like he

did the Chinese queen. I heard he’s engaged to someone who wasn’t that wild about his ex-

girlfriend who’s a sex coach so we don’t speak anymore. Our friendship lost. He was
nowhere, then everywhere then nowhere again. Yet the time together still feels magical, a

soul connection; a harbinger of accepting what’s possible when the universe gives you what

you need for the next stage of healing and growth.

Why the 3 Minute Game is better than Date Night.

We all want something to be different but how to do that is a mystery. I don’t know about

you but there’s a stash of once worn dressing up stuff, though few opportunities to wear it.

The idea is nice, the reality somewhat ridiculous, how to move from Netflix to negligee

mentality in one easy move is tricky. This is where the genius of the Wheel of Consent and 3

Minute Game comes in, one of the greatest ways I recovered my trust in myself, restored my

power, learned to initiate and found relaxed arousal. Pleasure in a timer rather than a vibrator.

As a woman it’s a key to having more agency in what happens to you, though true for

all humans what ever your genital configuration. Once you know the basics of the Wheel of

Consent and have done the exercises about learning how it feels in taking, allowing, giving

and receiving, your 3-minute oyster awaits. 3 minutes is a wonderful amount of time to not

get stuck in anything, to try something, to focus on you without it feeling selfish. It feels like

freedom. For both players. We become generous, brave and trusting in ourselves and each

other.

It’s subtle, radical genius. The 3 Minute Game breaks through any notion that you

would know as if by telepathy what someone else wants, taking the guessing out of giving. It

stops the deeply conditioned ‘giving to get’ or someone pretending it’s for you when it’s for

them, bringing an honesty to desire. It breaks the passivity of not taking responsibility for

your pleasure and your life. You finally begin to learn what you really want in any precious 3

minutes. You learn to value hearing no and hearing yes. You learn to own and value the
messages from your body. You stop doing what you’ve always done and realise how varied

sensual pleasure is. It becomes very clear who wants something, so who it’s for. And how

changeable we are. Becoming askers, not guessers, receiving not tolerating, we can all relax

into pleasure. And it can be played at any time, it’s so much less pressure than date night.

I’ve played it for years to integrate it.

It’s allowed me to feel good about getting off the conveyor belt of sex. In one of my

defining habit-breaking moments for one of mr b’s 3 minutes of Taking he’d ask to lick me. I

was up for allowing that and said yes. We were clear who it was for as he’d made the request

and I was willing to help him out. It was gorgeous for me as the Allower and when the timer

finished it would have been so easy to stay and choose the same thing for my 3 minutes. My

breakthrough moment came in the stopping when the timer went off, him saying thank you,

me saying you’re welcome and taking the essential pause.

At that point I noticed the sun shining through the window and for my turn asked him

if he’d come and stand behind me in the sunshine and just hold me, kissing the back of my

neck. As the sun streamed in on us both naked and connected from the last turn, that pleasure

was a delight. My choice. In breaking that old habit of just following what was always there,

gorgeous as it was, I found a sense of freedom and power to follow an impulse and ask for

something equally intimate and incredibly sensual. mr b may be gone and sometimes I miss

what we had, that feeling of a best friend most of all. What we learned together in the 3-

minute game remains within each of us.

Living from Spirit

“How is it that we begin to live from spirit, connecting to our true self or higher nature? If

we follow the body, that can take us into all sorts of places of addictions, over-eating,
drinking too much as we indulge ourselves. And following the mind will lead us a merry

dance; don’t believe everything you think”

These were Tantra teacher John Hawken’s words that came after my turn speaking in

a sharing circle in the last workshop I went to before stopping seeking answers outside of

myself. Here was the father of Tantra in the UK asking a question close to my heart after I’d

revealed I’d been using a dowsing pendulum to make my decisions for three years. I know, it

probably sounds bonkers. A sexual intellectual using a dowsing pendulum. Since Tantra, I

knew the expression, “feel into it,” meaning listening to signals from the body and heart. I

didn’t find that easy, not fully realising just how much emotions matter. Before that, I’d had a

rational, heady approach to decision making; lists, goals, plusses and minuses. Frankly, that’d

had limited results so by now, I was more familiar with trusting my instinct. Yet until I used a

pendulum, I didn’t really have a way of sensing direction from spirit, from a higher self.

John’s discourse affirmed something I’d felt but didn’t have words for.

It’d all started when I was given a dowsing pendulum in mysterious circumstances. A

seemingly crank potential client had emailed me to ask to work with me for free. He couldn’t

pay but told me I had breast cancer the size of three grains of rice in my left breast, “Would I

be interested in exchanging sessions?” A bit like the man offering yoni healing from the

M62, most people might sensibly ignore such a message though as one of my friends was

healing herself from stage four cancer, I was actually interested. Aside from my mother who

survived breast cancer in her fifties, all the other women in my family have died from it. I

was on an early screening programme so I wasn’t going to dismiss this. The man sent long

rambling emails of how sex and love might be, our connection in previous lives, stories of

healing pyramids; speed-reading the intrusive well-meaning fantasy, he just wanted noticing.

Yet he did say he’d heal me. I was curious, if a little wary, so I accepted the distance healing
he offered. As I went about my Saturday chores, I felt currents, energy, pressure, hot and

tingling in my breast for an hour. He said he’d cured me and I chose to believe it.

He never came to see me for a session but I went to meet him one day when I was in

his nearby town to say thank you and buy him coffee. A sweet, polite, odd character;

someone I sensed was a genius or fantasist, probably both. Like many men, frustrated with

his sexless yet functional, friendly marriage, his natural sexual curiosity having little or no

expression. During coffee he brought out a gift for me, an amethyst dowsing pendulum. He

taught me to use it; by saying, “May I speak to my higher self please?” then using fact

questions to show Yes and No answers; seeing the pendulum circle anti-clockwise for Yes

and move backwards and forwards for No, my response was strong from the start. Using a

pendulum has given me a sense of bringing myself into existence, learning how life works

synchronously when I let go.

I’ve booked flights, managed my diary, decluttered my house, chosen clothes, decided

what to eat, who to meet, said yes and no to clients and decided the dates to go to Bali to see

if I could write. Using the pendulum helps me make decisions about the smaller and larger

details of my life. It’s my inner authority, it helps me write, adjust paragraph structure and

word choice, decide when and if to go for coffee. I ask the pendulum questions a hundred

times a day and follow the guidance. I let things go more easily, working with this gift has

been the biggest form of surrender. Getting to the heart of what’s going on has been a daily

practice of letting go and letting go of the fear of letting go. Deepening the feeling I’m being

taken care of by something bigger; by life itself. It doesn’t matter how a pendulum works,

I’ve no idea how electricity or an iron or my brain works either, I’m not hugely interested.

What I’m truly interested in is how to live with a sense of aliveness, purpose and awe. I want

to be aware of how spirit makes itself known in everyday life, how to live in my true nature.
 ‘You’ll be taken care of’ is the missing childhood message of a Type 7.

Understanding there’s something higher than my vexatious petty mind, decision making is

fast with a pendulum. No more lists of pros and cons and inner dialogues. It’s been a practice

to take all my anxieties to. I see the repetition of my endless thoughts and have compassion

for myself. I may not be on a meditation cushion looking spiritual in white but being willing

to accept the ever-changing nature of life and go with the flow is vital for a recovering

control-freak. Without boring my friends, or myself, or another five years of morning pages,

there’s an acceptance that I knew nothing about how life really works. That there’s a greater

force at play. A wise Enneagram person told me that Type 7’s don’t really know they exist

and it makes sense. Connecting to my inner self instead of external seeking, pressing pause

on the gluttony of the new has been a turnaround, a turning inwards, the biggest act of trust

and surrender, committing to depth.

Eventually, I cancelled the annual mammogram screenings much to the dismay of the

system. I have them when it feels right now. I still think about him, the strange man with the

pendulum, who wanted to hold my hand, very briefly, at the end of our coffee meeting. There

was a sweetness and innocence in him and I hope he found what he was looking for. His gift

has contributed so much to my steadiness and peace of mind. And to find the work I’ve never

been trained for and was born to do.

Three Little Words

I had an idea, the pendulum said Yes.

“Three little words. That’s all I’ve got.”

“The Sex Lectures”

 “Sounds like the Reith Lectures, Ali” was my artist friend Roger’s response when I

approached him with the three little words.

“Let’s do it.”

It wasn’t much to go on but we did it anyway.

Beginning the conversation for people, reducing our collective shame and ignorance,

we wanted to offer something that wasn’t too spiritual, sleazy or scary. Though having tried

all of those, I wouldn’t rule them out. We gathered together sex professionals and creatives

with cutting-edge, inspiring ideas about sex, relationships, love, art. Less mechanics and

orgasms, what we had in mind was the potential of what sex can do for us. How it can be part

of our unfolding life, a path to self-discovery; better relationships contributing to a better

world. While delaying and multiplying orgasm are undoubtedly fascinating, we changed the

focus of sex to it’s wider context. Speakers responded willingly, so did a cool Manchester

venue, the Anthony Burgess Centre. We filled the room. With love, with anticipation, with

variety and energy, sharing sexy education around consent, cuddles, tantra, kink, Osho,

vaginas, art, dating, long term relationships, grief, porn addiction and anal pleasure.

We wanted to make something cool, inviting and edgy. The acceptable face of the

unacceptable. Creating and hosting The Sex Lectures was daring, original, personal

expression. Standing up on stage explaining why this matters, matters to me. Although it’s

nerve-wracking, it was another time I was grateful for erotic jackanory and my shame-free

inner slut. We need sex education as adults. While libidos, rather than knickers, are hitting

the floor, porn usage is hitting the roof. I’m not saying the two are related but surely, we can

do better than this? Only 48% of women report satisfaction with their sex lives, while 80+%

of men report positively. I’m not buying that figure for men. Surely we can all have better

experiences, but how? If the drop in women’s desire is because they feel no sense of agency

about what happens to their bodies in their bedrooms, that makes sense. It stands to reason
you don’t show up for something unfulfilling, unexciting or repetitive. Though I guess I’ve

never understood the interest in sport either. Week in, week out, watching other people’s

efforts in the hope of a few exciting moments of indirect pleasure. I’m beginning to see the

parallel in the prevailing models for sex. If our sexuality is like a spaceship, with the potential

for traversing galaxies, let’s not use it to go to the corner shop for a white sliced loaf.

I’d love to be telling you about my successful busy sex coaching practice that soared

after this, but it’s not like that. I’d love to tell you I’ve helped thousands of men and women

find mind-blowing relationships and made a fabulous living helping people have more and

better orgasms. It’s not like that either. It’s been a me change not a career change. Over this

long journey, I’ve found my agency and my desire, the two are inextricably linked. I can ask

for what I want from a place of safety and felt experience. It’s powerful and vulnerable. I

have choices. It’s made me bold and shy. This work is compelling not because it’s ‘good’

nor to spiritualise some conditioned cis heteronormative ideal of masculine and feminine. I’m

done with that. Pleasure for it’s own sake is enlivening and empowering relationships are in

too short supply. As society changes in the next few years, being intimate, being close,

consenting and confident in our connections will be of even greater importance. Being

personal, finding solace, acceptance, support and pleasure - the erotic matters. So do you.

Will there be a Happy Ending?

J appeared again. I hear you think Nooooooo. Really, she tried again? No and Yes. Karmic

entanglements crisscross your life like a DNA strand. J is surprisingly a fan of Christmas

cards. We’d written them once from both of us and it was quite a delight given my aversion

to the assumptive We-ness of relationships. What if you’re not together next Christmas?

We’d been in touch occasionally meeting once as friends the Christmas after we split on a
snowy day for lunch. Although it wasn’t a spectacular, it was good to meet when I was

contented with mr b. I hadn’t felt any attraction, J still grumpy and closed, but the beginnings

of an entente cordiale.

I sent J a Christmas card just before I came to Bali to write this. On the same day as

dropping it in the post, an email arrived, asking if I was at the same address. The ties that

bind, loose yet still there. We decided to meet and he offered to bring a Boxing Day meal and

cook for us. I was still sad over the recent loss of the magical times with mr b; the previous

year I’d been holed up in a country hotel for Christmas together and I’d loved it. J’s arrival

was like old times, hugging in the kitchen, the same melting hugs, I’d always loved. The fire

lit, we lay together on the sofa for the afternoon, catching up since the last time we’d met. He

told me how he’d decided to live more openly and it had been working. He’d fallen in love

with someone younger but it had just ended. About to retire, I was touched by the change in

him, “I’ve been in love twice in my life Ali, with you and this last year.” sad it was over, he

still loved her.

He listened to me talk about mr b, my tears wetting his chest, sharing how I couldn’t

take another disappointment. I shared a later experience of the Journey of the Heart ritual

where a man had forgiven me for all the people I’d ever hurt; how as I’d looked into his eyes,

I’d realised I’d needed acceptance not forgiveness. That’s how it is, we’re all doing the best

we can, with what we’ve got at the time. As it was where we’d met J understood. I asked him

to let me know how I’d hurt him though he didn’t specify, just held me tight. He’d come with

no expectations of staying overnight, so at dinner, we had to decide if he was going to drive

home or have a drink. I was fine with him staying up in the spare room, the temple space he’d

helped create. I had no desire to sleep with him again, I didn’t want to give that part of

myself. I was enjoying being with him, our sombre mood of quiet acceptance and listening

felt caring and easy; acceptance, recognition friendship.

 As we were going to bed he asked if we could undress each other. Just like our first

meeting. Just like our every meeting. mr b used to fold his clothes up; me and J always used

to wake up amongst discarded mixed up jeans, underwear and shirt scattered on the floor.

Things change in an instant. From no intention of being intimate to an implicit yes, tentative

at first, nurturing familiarity flooding me with ease and openness as we fell into our familiar

rolling-around smiling desire. That way of making love that I haven’t felt enough that feels

like the fuck I’ve been waiting for all of my life, a slow, deep missionary position, that makes

me weep for lost time. Love and care resurfaced with a gracefulness I couldn’t have

imagined, sleeping together was precious.

He left the next day with a plan to meet again on the evening of the 1st of January. I

was sleeping when he arrived, Sufi music playing, my room dark. He quietly undressed and

got into bed with me. With minimal talking he followed the mood, the sensual Arabic music

on repeat; the experience taking me over, feeling his skin, being stroked, enjoying the

closeness in the candlelight, the weight, mass and breath in the dark. A few days later he

came back to take me to the airport.

Making Peace; With A Balinese Priest

More priests. I managed to upset a healer, a priest, during a chakra massage. After opening

the treatment with a chant, he started rubbing ointments fast and hard into my skin, a lot of

pressure that had my nervous system back on high alert. It hurt. A lot. I stopped him a couple

of times and tried to explain. His English better than my non-existent Balinese, the responses

‘be quiet,’ ‘be still,’ ‘relax,’ while he went off into a chanting trance. So I stopped him again.

And again. And again. I don’t think he could quite believe it. Each time his voice shriller,

telling me I needed to relax, to do more yoga, more pranayama. A bit like drinking more
water, it’s not the first time I’ve heard this. Being told to relax while someone else knows

best. I used to say it in my tantra massage days too.

All my authority stuff kicked in, the teachers and men, that with good intention,

wanted me to do what worked for them. The times I’ve been told it was ‘just my mind’,

preached at, patronised or mansplained. I don’t doubt that all of those things may have been

true for them and that I’m not yet enlightened. Fuck it though. It’s my body. What all of my

wonderful teachers have done is shown me to listen to it, to value it, trust it and to express

myself. Listening to Betty Martin ask how far we’ll go to get exactly what we need even

when it makes us unpopular, wrong or rejected; how long will we accept resignation or

defeat, learning to make it not matter?

I didn’t know who would leave the session first, me or the priest, I’d stopped the

massage five times, by now sitting up, ready to get off the table, we had a mini standoff,

when he said, “I think you not comfortable with me,” I simply repeated, “I think you not

comfortable with me.” With that, he stopped shouting at me to relax, explained a bit about his

massage being energising not relaxing. So, stroking my arm with my palm in a way that

soothes the nervous system I showed him what I needed in terms of slowness. It wasn’t his

usual style but when he did that he could see my energy flow in the gaps between his

invigorating moves.

I stayed because he shifted. I could let the healing in. Later in the session, he touched

some deep place in my sacral chakra where he moved something old and ouchy around my

left fallopian tube. I’d had an ectopic pregnancy years ago when it had been removed. A deep

discomfort for a few minutes, our earlier broken English chat and his adjustment meant my

trust could allow it. I believed him when he said energy was stuck there, I’d felt it. Maybe

technically it’s scar tissue, I’ll never know, yet we both knew we touched on something

significant. Later, that week he blessed me at a crowded, vibrant Hindu ceremony at the
village temple, teaching me to pray the Balinese way, sprinkling me with sacred water,

pressing three rice grains to my forehead.

Even when what I’m saying doesn’t fit or contradicts the wisdom, I know there’s no

way out of honouring myself. Leaving a guru, guide or lover with gratitude is part of the

Tantric path. Leaving the room or the relationship is up to you. Upsetting, then making peace,

with a holy priest may be one of the perfections.

A Puppy’s for Life

A puppy might not be for Christmas, but I intended my polyamorous ex to be. It was great to

connect but not to be continued though he’d be welcome to visit me in Bali, I wasn’t signing

up to be part of any polycule he was re-forming. Non-Monogamy suits him but knew myself

better than to think I would be content with emotional rations.

I was in Bali to have thinking space of my own, to see if I could write. Day in day out,

getting up at dawn, making lemongrass tea, looking at the volcano, chatting to my pendulum,

feeling the sun rise, enjoying the humidity. Then the words came. In no order, spilling out,

random, starting a jigsaw from the middle, nothing connected, writing an octopus. I knew

how I was supposed to write a book, I had a PDF; start with a plan, decide what’s going in it,

start at page 1. My muse had no respect for rules. Out the words poured, I wrote for three lots

of 25 mins each day with a pause for breakfast - a plate of pineapple, dragon fruit and

watermelon, banana pancakes, black coffee. I gave up dairy and shampoo unintentionally.

My word count went up by the day, it was thrilling. I’ve never been on a creative writing

course, yet the story wanted to be told. Satisfaction descending in the peace, a hermit in her

tropical cave; no distractions, just me.

 J, retired now, was going to Japan to deepen his work with Shibari, Japanese rope

bondage. We stayed in touch occasionally. He asked if he could come and visit me; he was in

my part of the world. Sort of. I was open to a honeymoon-style ending to complete my three-

month trip. I’d hardly left the village amidst rice-fields two months. For my last few days,

I’d planned a trip to one of my favourite places in Bali, a water temple called Tirta Empul. I’d

been there twice before to take part in letting go ceremonies. Then I’d planned to go to the

West coast’s unspoilt beaches. J and I made a new agreement. If it wasn’t working after four

days he’d go.

Meeting him at the airport with melting hugs in the melting heat, meters of rope

taking up most of his bags. He’d had a wild time in Tokyo, staying up late, tying up teeny

beautiful women who dropped into submission at a glance. I don’t think he was expecting the

stillness and the absence of anything to do. My quiet routine was upset by the ball of energy

smoking on my terrace with a view of Mount Batur. After twenty-four hours, I wanted to give

the puppy back. He didn’t want to tie me up, he ‘didn’t feel like being intimate.’ His lack of

presence, wanting to be in touch with his ex and his women spoiled the honeymoon idea.

He reminded me he’d caught three planes to see me. I know it’s good for all of us to

have long-term supportive friendships and I want that for J too, I don’t own him, nor want to

and I see how his loyalty to women friends has sustained him. I know enough about J and

consent not to force anything, so we adjusted, walked and hung out by pools, surrounded by

the rice fields, separate rooms coming in handy. I sent him to the priest and he loved the

massage, we drank coffee martinis overlooking the rice fields in beauty and friendliness. Yet

unexpectedly I was in tears on day two and again on day three when he mentioned something

in defence of his ex sub. Yet when the feelings calmed, which they did, after a couple of

hours, I regained my equanimity. Three years later, surprisingly the minor comments still
hurt, a sharp knife to my heart, the echo chamber of betrayal still affecting the present. What

was going on?

By now we also knew how not to tolerate. I didn’t need him spoiling my haven. Our

agreement was brilliant, he left for Ubud for four days and I breathed a large sigh of only

slightly disappointed relief and carried on editing. I had something to let go of in the pool at

Tirta Empul, splashing the cold water over my head, letting go any resurgent squeaks of

romantic dreaming about reconciliation. Out at the wild beach of Balian, we met again,

separate places to stay. Going over to meet him, he said we were going out with people at his

homestay for lunch. Tears rose quickly again, I didn’t want to go out with other people, not

even for baked fish on a deserted secret beach yet I’d have loved that normally. Cancelling

the well-intended plans, he took me for lunch at a shack overlooking the empty, grey surf

beach. That was when I finally sat down and told him I’d figured out how trauma worked in

me. I was familiar with it now. The feeling of betrayal each time he made a choice that

wasn’t me. Not fainting anymore but the wounding echoes wiping out in an instant joy in the

present moment.

He listened intently as I simplified the complexities of trauma as I understood them.

Explaining the natural cycle, stemming from childhood adverse experiences. ‘You repeat

until you complete,’ piecing the story together for him with the information I’ve discovered

through Sexological Bodywork and conscious kink. I’m ‘trauma-informed’ rather than a

specialist but sharing my awareness of how the body remembers and responds from early

experiences, ‘if it’s hysterical it’s historical’. I knew enough to explain how I‘d regained my

emotional ground. I explained J was my trigger, not my trauma. Trauma heals not with time,

but with love and recognition. He got it.

In a telling moment, I asked him, if in the light of that, he could understand why I’d

struggled so much and behaved as I had. Pushing my luck, I asked if he could say the words,
“That must have been hard for you Ali.” He couldn’t do it initially, brushing them away with,

“we’ve been through all this forgiveness stuff before.” I know from the Enneagram that

empathy is hard for Type 8’s. Accepting other people’s vulnerability means acknowledging

their own and that’s uncomfortable if not impossible. I asked him again to say it, “that must

have been hard for you,” To J’s credit after about three goes he managed to stutter out the

words, somewhat half-heartedly, like they were new words forming in his mouth.

“That must have been hard for you, Ali.”

I’m grateful for that small, massive moment. That must have been hard for him.

In the same conversation, he asked me to teach him how to be my friend. Touching,

but for now, I can’t. We don’t need to be witnesses to each others’ lives. He knows how to do

it, I spent years trying to explain. I want to be happy, I want him to be happy. Although the

story of J is supposed to end in Bali, the last time I saw him was when he came to one of The

Sex Lectures, with his new girlfriend he’d met in Ubud. I was proud and glowing after

hosting the evening, of magical transcendent talks, J overflowing with praise, enjoying being

back in the fold. They looked good together, she graceful in declining my offer of a hug,

“Not this time.”

I know I didn’t need to go back and sort this out. It’s amazing I did. Breaking a

trauma cycle is something most people never get to do, it’s been the hardest thing I ever did.

Our karmic entanglement completed.

Joining The Dots

How do we decide to heal, to stop making the mistakes, repeating unconscious behaviours,

having different relationships each with the same outcome? Recognising our patterns isn’t

easy, once we see them, how do we change? Slowly. There is no short cut, no instant

anything. Looking back what I see is that after each major aha moment, a solution rapidly
followed, showing me a better way. Type 7’s are good at synthesising information and you

know I love a list, so here’s the last one.

Tantra taught me about connecting to the heart and showed me how to love and I’m

deeply grateful to my teachers and all the people I’ve met in what has become a lasting living

community of kindness around me. Tantra was the beginning of something, stepping through

the portal into getting conscious. How else do you ever get to dance naked, meet your tantric

parents, honour the divine in yourself and each other, understand your sacred body or listen

to your yoni talk? Where else can you reveal yourself to yourself in a room full of people

who love you? How else do you feel true presence, skilled touch and learn about your

shadows through tantric BDSM or meet a shiva who breaks your heart and teaches you the

lesson of your life? I’d recommend anyone to take a Tantra journey. A more heartful version

of yourself that your soul knows is possible

On any spiritual path, you have to fall out with your guru for a while and question the

wisdom. The Wheel of Consent helped. My body said No on a Tantra weekend. I ignored it,

following through on an structure I didn’t want to do; being a good little Tantrika. I’d done

the structure twice previously and knew my body didn’t want to this time, my neck hurt, I

was in tears, my skin felt shivery before we started. Although it’s always an invitation, you’re

strongly encouraged to ‘work through the resistance’. I did, and cried. It was another time I

didn’t feel I could opt out, causing Hilly and I’s only major rift. It’s healed now but at the

time I was furious at being told ‘Tantra was deep work that I didn’t understand, that I needed

to learn to surrender and go deeper’. Alchemy as the great cop out. I know now it’s

impossible to surrender to the wrong thing. Hilly taught me well.

The Tantric Guru and Great Spirit aren’t always the answer. Some people need a

Master, I’d had enough of that. I needed to find and follow through on an inner authority.

That’s inside each of us, waiting to be heard in any given moment. Not one thing works for
everybody and you don’t have to like everything after all. Instinctively I need to trust myself,

I knew I wanted to explore more than Tantra and I needed to find my own way. There is no

Line. Nor a big tantric rule book in the sky.

The Erotic Mind was the best book to see where I unknowingly screwed myself over.

Time and time again. Revealing patterns through sexual peak experiences, I see how I called

in a betrayal to heal the early childhood wound. There’s nothing like a difficult relationship to

teach you what a better one could be; to show up for yourself, to switch the focus to self

rather than other-validation. The mindful Sexological Bodywork changed my ability to notice

more, feel more, value and trust what I needed, to tune into my body, breath and skin.

The Wheel of Consent helps me be acutely aware of my agency and every single

choice. It’s inner work enhancing generosity and a compassionate mind. When our

boundaries are no longer assailed, we give and allow, not from obligation but ease. It offers

subtle, radical honesty. Of course I’m aware it can feel alien but there’s no going back to

confusion, telepathy, avoidance or acquiescence. It can get you somewhere you didn’t know

you wanted till you got there and felt it. Sigh.

A gift of a pendulum tuned me into Spirit and a unique path opened up in front of me,

holding a place for my faith and surrender to life itself. I’m not special, that’s how life really

works. Getting conscious of a divine plan helped me move from being list-driven to meeting

life in the moment, receptive, curious, wondering what each person is here to show me? The

wise advisors helped me understand what’s really going on. Without Shivanti and the many

other healers, I’d have been more bewildered and blaming.

Play was a mystery and now I can play with it. My contempt used to go into a room

before me. Acting it out dissolved it. I saw my patterns, never easy, that’s the point. Playing

consensual non-consent is like a kinky version of Taking and Allowing. Sensual dominance

involves presence, love and control. You can get a man to do what you like when you tie him
to a chair with a ribbon attached to his cock. Who’d have guessed? Well, for a while at least.

Knowing why you’re doing something means the erotic effect is a greater healer as long as

you take it out, rippling through into life. You do kink to touch something in you, not

because Ann Summers has a kit. I didn’t get stuck in a label or cheap pvc, I felt ridiculous in

a nurses uniform though when you’re ill I might send you the fabulous photo. Healing core

wounds takes time, care and skill, not a Fifty Shades branded riding crop.

The Enneagram stopped me in my tracks. Stopped my relentless seeking, holding my

crisis in front of my eyes, showing me the way out and up. Once I met the Enneagram I

understood external seeking wasn’t working anymore. Although digging into my shadows

had been helpful, eventually, it raised questions about where I might be willingly re-

traumatising myself? We each get to decide when enough is enough. I’ll always have to work

on focus when there are so many calls on the placement of my renaissance soul’s attention.

The Enneagram helps me understand other people’s personalities, to cut us some slack, a way

to be smart and kind.

Type 7’s it turns out usually have to learn the hard way. I’m so grateful, deeply

appreciative of all my teachers who’ve taught me so much. The healing powers of Tantra,

conscious kink and Sexological Bodywork are all pieces of gold, allowing me to connect with

my heart, body, mind and spirit: throw in the Enneagram and it’s a potent mix. Each joyful,

painful, helpful step changed me, woke me up: I used to know how to make a living but not

how to live. Or love. I couldn’t have changed without yoga, art, stripping and dancing,

chanting, listening to my heart and body, being with J, playing pleasure island or exploring

shadow healing. Exploring depth and the dark side is what an avoidant Type 7 needs, to stop

avoiding suffering, grow whole and find compassion.

As Ram Dass would say “We’re all taking each other home.” How else but love are

we going to change the world? I met two boyfriends on tantra courses who taught me about
love; one who opened then hurt my heart deeply and one who healed it lightly with

gentleness, a honeymoon suite and supportive kindness. One opening me up about sex the

other encouraging me to write. Love prevails.

The Power Now

Where does all this learning leave me? I’m beginning again from a secure base — learned

secure attachment. In Quodoushka, a shamanic approach to sacred sexuality, there are five

relationship choices: monogamy, the group, polyamory, celibacy and the free dancer. It feels

like I’ve been in all of them in the last few years, some, my enthusiastic choice, others with

massive reluctance. I can handle myself in all of them now and that’s an achievement I

wasn’t expecting to appreciate or need when I first stepped into this scary new world seven

years ago.

Monogamy feels like a natural realm, someone to spend time with, to have a focus for

my love and devotion, a best friend who’ll have my back. I enjoy all that goes with

relationship; the regular intimacy, shared responsibility, the deeper discovery of safety,

including the satisfaction of working through the hard bits. It’d be the greatest act of

commitment. Having unconsciously avoided it, to be able to say the words ‘we’ or ‘my

husband,’ would be a big deal for me every time. I’d love a hand fasting ceremony;

committing to a year and a day. Repeatedly.

Being part of a sexuality community has had the benefits of group support and the

kindness of friendships, skilled touch and spontaneous happenings. Knowing the group is part

of me and I’m part of it, has brought so much joy into my life, whether it’s from workshops,

shakti circles, partners for practice, a conscious play party or being on a dance floor: it’s a

place for intimacy, a place I’ve grown and got to know myself in the company of others. In
the current trend of increasing isolation and touch deprivation, it’s a saviour. We all benefit

from belonging and a place for sexual self expression that isn’t dependent on one person.

I’ve had my reservations about polyamory for so long. My heart can’t handle it

despite my head recognising the useful idea. I don’t want to let my poor experiences affect

possibilities for love in the future. So I wonder if my current reservations are about the label

or that it’s an excuse for intimacy avoidance: a way of getting basic needs met rather than

creating something extraordinary. I’m bored of it being a place of secure ambivalence, a cop

out from what can be created by going deeper with one person instead of wider with a few.

Mind you, it could be wonderful to be loved by a few people! I can see if I was at the centre

of choosing it that’s a very different experience to feeling rationed by it. Let’s not rule it out,

the stable may reopen.

There’s the great revelation that you get loads done in a period of intentional celibacy.

My swivelly head has a rest and there’s peace of mind, a hugely creative time to focus on

projects and individual desire. My intellect is freer, a cut glass vase returned from anxious

mush. There’s a simplicity of body and mind being my own. It’s a compelling choice from a

place of satisfaction and purpose rather than lack and longing.

For now, I’m sticking being a ‘free dancer’ as I’m confident enough to respond to

who and what comes my way, to feel strong and vulnerable enough to enjoy conscious

encounters with the opportunity for meaningful connection. I’m too lazy to maintain a

complicated poly diary and a submissive would be too time-consuming. Being clear in my

intentions makes it easier for everyone, I can make better choices without needing to know,

nailing things down or labelling myself. There’s steady freedom, personal and erotic, no more

acting out.

It’s powerful to know I’m free for now and when love comes I can change my mind.

Not looking for sex or a partner helps, I trust the universe has that covered. Trying to fit into
a classification, whether it’s the societal prevalence of monogamy, some different rules or a

label may be destining us to failure. The more we’re in comparison, analysis and perfection

the less we’re in the reality of the moment, our bodies and inner knowing. Better to respond

to who and what comes towards us, creating something unique with each person.

I made so many mistakes in relationships, fundamentally stemming from the idea that

someone else was responsible for making me happy. I demanded, cajoled, seduced, colluded,

sulked, denied, rebelled, withdrew; all the strategies of a confused and defended heart.

Knowing now that principally I’m here to love and be loved changes things. Through the

journey to acknowledging I’m also bit poly and a bit kinky, somewhere on a non-binary

spectrum, I can hold that with another and use the awareness. Slowly letting go of fixed

ideas, clearer on what supports me and what I have to offer.

Heartbreak and tantra chipped away my brittle edges, leaving me tender and softer,

showing more vulnerability. Did I make J’s love up? It’d be easy to doubt myself. When I

look back at all the precious moments I missed where he was offering a long-range love,

being invited to move in early on, signing the next-of-kin army form, being with him after his

divorce hearing, the gift of a celery jar, his steady patience over a long period, the attraction,

the skilled touch massage, the time we devoted to each other, it’s hard not to wonder what

might have been. Whether we could actually grow old together, having seen and accepted our

differences. We got each other in so many ways, yet for the immediate needs, the crocodiles

nearest the boat, we couldn’t do it. We joked about him being my second husband. I trust not.

While my explorations in naughtiness are fun, I want to be with someone who knows

goodness. There must be a resting place for the duality of the femme fatale and the innocent

reconciling ‘the tension of opposites,’ two seemingly opposing ideas eventually giving way

to creating something greater than either. A way of living with nuance, apparent

contradictions and greater possibility.

 I can be challenging, I know that, and fortunately not to everyone’s taste. I remember

choosing an Osho Tarot card, The Miser, asking ‘What are you holding on to that is so

precious that wouldn’t be better for sharing?’ Maybe it’s time to go out into the world again,

open to life as it comes to me. Shivanti says there’ll be someone along shortly, ‘we’ll have

an easy relationship which will be based on adventures and discovery and the suitcases will

be in the hall’. I’m looking forward to meeting this person, there’s no rush. The universe

likes to surprise me by sending me partners in unlikely places. I have choices and it’s time to

follow what pleases me, my heart in charge at last. Yes, I’m ready to share, my body, my

thoughts, my experience. With someone who’ll value it, who’ll bring different experiences

and ideas, offer their body to me as a gift. To create something sexy and sacred, experimental

and fun together. Someone I can drop safely into, to be wild and innocent, sweet and

seductive. A relationship as a discovery of another human with all their hurts and hopes.

Someone else’s life I can feel as precious.

For all of us, taking responsibility for the sex, relationships and connections we have

is a big ask. Yet what other choice do we have? We have so many ways we push love and

connection away without even realising we’re doing it. If you’re in a bad relationship, it’s

unlikely to get better unless both people are willing to change a lot. And most people aren’t.

Generally, we want others to change. Getting conscious with all this by becoming aware of

our contribution and impact in any unhappy equation, is where we begin. For many,

exploring sexuality in depth is a scary bridge to cross. Me too. Finding the time to do a whole

inventory of who were are and how we’ve created the choices we’ve made is overwhelming.

Sex remains a place where we unhelpfully think life should be natural, perfect, spontaneous

and telepathic. And yet is it? Who’s in the blessed few? It doesn’t matter how or why you

begin, whether it’s a longing for love, bad dates, kink, women’s circles, tantra or trauma; if

you need it, this work finds you.

 What makes it worth it? Love. Better relationships. More connected sexual

experiences. People in our lives who encourage and support us. Greater trust in ourselves and

others. More optimism based in reality rather than false hope or what we think is true. More

essence of who you really are and can be; more aliveness and choice. Once we let other

people’s opinions about how we should be running our lives drop away, we begin to break

free. Stopping criticising other people and ourselves and a fuck you to the media diet of news,

clothes, makeup, perfect Instagrammed lives. Stopping zoning out on wine we don’t really

want and dates we don’t really like. It’s great to be inspired to better ourselves and it’s easy

to be overwhelmed by the choice of teachings. Your life is yours and you’ll be pulled by the

direction of your soul’s longing. I got pulled into deeply exploring sexuality. If you can sort

that out, you can pretty much sort anything out. Sex grew me up. It seemed like a hard lesson,

though I’m grateful for it now; I see how even my noble adversaries were a gift.

I’m surrounded by brilliant kind men. I was probably on a road to a somewhat

disappointed middle age and I ducked it. Life has a way of giving you what you need, not

what you want. Heartbreak can make us heartless if we let it. Let’s not. Meeting each other

with kindness and compassion in the messy business of being human seems key. As a

woman, if you want great intimacy, it’s really powerful to step up to taking responsibility for

that. I honestly think if men know how tedious conventional male desire is they’d step up too.

What are you waiting for? Take a risk, take your first step, be curious. Find out if what you

imagined is possible. Do it for you. It’s not easy though it’s probably your best chance unless

you know where the knights in shining armour live.

Stepping into this journey of sex as a soul path, I found my heart and my body, I

sorted out my core wounding. I found sisterhood and community. I’ve been through three

divorces, none of them mine. I found men as allies, lovers, friends. I found dancing. I found a

variety in pleasure and pleasure in variety. I am beginning to live from my true nature. I’d
like to say I found lasting love though who knows what life is yet to be lived. I found some of

what’s worth wanting and how to value it, it doesn’t mean I’ll have immediate gratification.

The sense of being part of a divine plan is the lasting love; seeing beauty in the ordinary

moves me. I’ve found wonder.

Resources

There are so many resources and wonderful teachers who can take you on your own

daring original personal path to expressing all of who you are. Here are the ones that I refer to

and infer from as well as some more wise guides.

Books

Sacred Contracts - Carolyn Myss

Attached - Heller & Levine

How to be an Adult in Relationships - David Richo

Daring to Trust - David Richo

The Erotic Mind - Jack Morin

Mating in Captivity - Esther Perel

A Passionate Marriage - David Schnarch

How to Be an Adult in Relationships -David Richo

The Sexual Practices of Quodouska - Amara Charles

Come As You Are - Emily Nagoski

 The Wisdom of the Enneagram - Riso and Hudson

Sexual Intelligence - Marti Klein

The Ascent of Humanity- Charles Eisenstein

Websites

https://shaktitantra.co.uk/

https://bettymartin.org/videos/

https://www.morethantwo.com/

https://www.5rhythms.com/

http://www.seanilove.com/shadow-tantra-sacred-sexuality-practitioner-training/

https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test