I will try to be more regular!!!
From the beginning of my training as a Sacred Intimate, our role as mentors was stressed. In my mind I always thought of mentoring as a practice with someone younger than myself, though. That’s the traditional way it is defined - the one who is older, more experienced, more knowledgeable is the one who teaches. However I have found over the years that one of my major roles is as mentor to those older than myself.
It’s an interesting turnaround in mentality. I just assume that those who are older must know more than I do; they should be mentoring me. But recently, I have had several clients a good fifteen or so years older than I am. It just so happens that these men have not had much experience with other men in erotic realms. I am the one introducing them to various aspects of male-male contact.
In most of these cases, the men have been in long-term marriages to women. While harboring wishes to be with men, they have honored their commitments to their wives. At a certain point, through death, divorce or decision, they decide to take a step in the direction of erotic experience with men. I try to honor the momentous nature of their decision to come for a session. For them, it often means the shedding or internal reevaluation of stories that have been the foundation of their many decades of life. These men bring enormous life experience of a certain sort along with an almost blank slate of a different sort.
To see someone at 55, 60 or 65 wake up to their body’s potential is stunning. It has called into question unfortunate concepts of “dirty old man”, “troll”, “lecher” and “predator” that have found their ways into my consciousness. It has shown me forcefully that embodying Eros knows no body type or age.
Seeing these men wake up later in life forces me to breathe into my own potential as I age myself. What kind of older man do I want to be? How will I negotiate the inevitable changes to body? What kinds of stories do I want to embody (literally) and impart to younger men who may be my mentors? Can I challenge myself to remove blinders and armoring and really see all of who is in front of me irrespective of age?
