The Power of Choice: Ask! Tell!

First, I apologize for the lack of postings here. I have six different parts of careers and this part is the easiest to let drop.

I was reminded today by a client about the power of choice - about asking for what you want and wanting what you get. He had come to me two or three times about five years ago. Before making this appointment, he had looked at my webpage again and found the various blog posts that had appeared since his last visit. The one that struck him was Porn vs. Body Work. Specifically,     how he had allowed masseurs masturbate him (or in one case insert his finger with untrimmed fingernail into his anus), not voicing his own discomfort, both emotional and physical, about what was going on. It was a good-looking guy touching him sexually, so it couldn’t be that bad, right? My naming this as an abusive act struck a chord with him.

What my blog post connected for him was this discomfort with certain masseurs and an experience he had as an early teenager: an older cousin told him he didn’t know how to masturbate and had to show him the right way, i.e. jerking him off. Though it may have felt good, he had no choice, no voice, no ability to say no or stop. Luckily, there was no physical harm done to compound his unease and confusion. But unthinking masseurs were reinforcing this unfortunate incident decades later by assuming and not asking important things.

I don’t talk to clients often about the concept of erotic choice. I don’t want people to get stuck in their heads when I’m trying to get them into their bodies. However, it underlies much of what I and other Sacred Intimates do. Even though our boundaries, specialties and comfort zones might be different, true Sacred Intimates share  the understanding of just how important allowing a client his or her erotic choice really is. Cultivating and allowing a space for this choice can bring amazing benefit not only in the bedroom (or wherever you choose to have your erotic play), but out in the world, too. Once we are more certain of our bodies and their worth in one circumstance, once an inner barometer of safety and harmony has been validated, I wager we are less likely to allow that worth and safety to be compromised in others.

So, speak your erotic truth! Speak it with compassion and love and ask those around you to do the same! What a different planet this would be if all of us could do this!