In my time of giving sensual massage, I've thought a lot about why the subject of sexuality and sexual expression are so emotionally charged, as well as stigmatized. Why do people have such strong feelings around sex? Even the sexual expressions of others? This area of human experience is so charged and sometimes even polarizing. In my opinion, a lot of this is due to the strength of our sexual feelings, and how powerfully transformative sexual experience can be. There is no greater violation of a person's autonomy than to violate them sexually, because in the opposite end of the spectrum, the beauty of connecting deeply with another person sexually can completely alter the way we define ourselves.
But sexuality can only transform us in a positive way if it is infused with sensuality. Sensual expression is an aspect of sexuality, but sexuality isn't always held within the foundation of sensual grace. Sexual activity devoid of sensual intelligence is rugged and functionary, but sexual acts maintained in the light of a connection to the spirit of sensuality are evolving acts of kindness which bring a new life force energy to each person involved.
To define this further, we can think of sexuality like intelligence and sensuality like wisdom. Just all forms of intelligence can function to the exclusion of wisdom, but to develop wisdom we need a foundation of intelligence, we can have a sexual experience devoid of sensuality. But sensuality, like our sexual drive, requires at least a modicum of desire to please one's own senses, and to know the world around the self through a feeling of pleasure. And then, by our intention and the way we surrender to our sexual impulses, we can use our sexual experience as a way to evolve our own sensual nature.
Pleasure is a very powerful motivator in the human psyche. For the feminine within us, sensual pleasure in combination with emotional experience is the pinnacle of good feelings. And not only women have this feminine energy within them- both men and women have a balance of masculine and feminine energy within the both of us, we need this balance to function in our spiritual evolution. When we commit to living sensually, we don't turn away from wanting to understand all expressions of what it means to be alive in a human body.
How does spiritual evolution function within the sacral chakra? When we understand the sacral chakra to be the conductor of the energy moving from one person's body to the other, and the witness of the emotional reaction to the reception and regeneration of this energy, it becomes clear that the way this energy flows is based in our intention. We can experience this pleasure as a self-oriented goal, or we can know it with an intention to give as much or more than what we receive. We can experience pleasure with the intention to deepen our own nature. We can give and receive sensual pleasure with the intention to find out what it feels like to interact with the movement of life force energy as it flows through and within another person's physical being.
When I am with a client, my intention is to keep my heart open, so they have the opportunity to soften into their own experience of a more heart centred feeling of their own sensuality. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. I can say for certain that my intentions don't always connect to my client's experience of our time together. I have clients who have seen me for years, and still seem to have a very surface level sensual experience- in my opinion. In reality, I have no idea of what they are feeling or sensing. I know they feel something uniquely special with me, because regardless of my unwillingness to do more sexual services with them, they still continue to see me. For me, this is an indication that my heart energy, and my heart intention to show them unconditional love and acceptance, does create an elevated sensory experience than they would find with a sexual experience with no warmth of heart.
Often, I notice this heart connection in the quality and intensity of the orgasm a guy experiences with me. I find this fascinating, that without sexual penetration, I can bring a man to a very heightened experience, perhaps even more pleasurable than what he would experience with sex. This is the power of sensuality. It is really an essence of grace, a portal to access a higher and deeper level of esteem and regard for the experience of simple touch.
As is often said, the greatest erogenous zone is the mind. I've always been fascinated with consciousness, and how we can access and develop our conscious understanding of the world around us as well as our own personal influence and sense of agency within it. I am not very interested in politics as much as I am in spirituality, but it seems to me that so many of our political disfunction in the world is at least partially rooted in an inability to be flexible in how the regard other people and their experience of life. This inflexibility indicates a stagnation within sacral chakra energy. Which makes me wonder, why do we have this collective and somewhat pervasive inability to balance our sacral chakra energy, so that we don't always need to be right as much as we need to be curious about the perspective of the other? I can trace this need to have one's way back to an imbalance in sacral chakra energy- specifically, an imbalance in the masculine and feminine energy. The masculine energy initiates and the feminine energy responds. The masculine energy penetrates, (energetically, as exploration, as discovery, as interest) and the feminine energy receives (energetically, as tenderness, as opening, as willingness to be loving). In this way, as one person interacting with another, we can go from two people living in our own complexity to two people in relationship, and growing our own consciousness within the relationship to another.
Of course, this back and forth between individuals requires a mutual respect. These kinds of interactions do not function if one person is respectful and the other is a jerk. (By jerk I mean someone who is carrying a dysfunction in their sacral chakra energy that creates an imbalance within their own masculine and feminine energy and so they feel like they need to control the interaction to compensate for their own lack of internal balance). We'll return to this conversation of the dynamics between the masculine and feminine energy within the sacral chakra a little later. First, I'd like to introduce a historical presence of the sacred divine feminine. She is not who you might expect her to be. Her role in ancient society was as an embodiment of the goddess through her natural feminine grace. But even before knowing more about this aspect of the eternal divine feminine, I'd like to share one experience that illustrates the lack of regard society's perception of sensual energy providers seems to give some people license to overlook my stated boundaries. For me, this is an example of how the collective regard for sensual and sexual expressions have degenerated away from beauty, evolution and healing to coercion and power plays.
At the time I write this, I have been receiving texts from a guy attempting to entice me with money to have sex with him without a condom. I usually block any numbers of guys asking me to have sex, as I state very clearly on my website and in a video description of my service that I do not offer “full service” (the term for sex in the sex work industry). I'll block this guy too for sure, but what I find interesting about this particular guy is that he keeps increasing his offer, thinking that I will do it for the right price, when I mention on my video that I am not really motivated by money. Not in the way a lot of service providers are. Indeed, so many people in society are short sightedly motivated by money.
Years ago I explored the archetypes as defined by medical intuitive Caroline Myss. She says we all have four primary archetypes, the child, the victim, the saboteur, and the prostitute. The prostitute is the aspect of our consciousness that is willing to compromise one's own integrity because of fears relating to our physical survival needs. Essentially, Myss says this archetype shows up all the time in the ways we compromise our ethical standards by through little white lies and deceptions in the workplace.
So let's explore my situation with this guy in the light of how Myss defines the archetype of the prostitute within all of us. What would I be compromising? Well, primarily, my own health. Sex without a condom with a complete stranger?! And yet he thinks that I value myself so little that for now- at his latest offer I would compromise my health for the measly sum of $1000. Ummmm yeah. No thanks dude. And beyond the health risk, how would I feel about myself to know that I could be bought, that my inner standards for myself could be completely overlooked by my own self, for this small amount of money. Or for any amount of money, for that matter. The ethics in question are about how I view myself, and what I see as my value. This is a situation involving not only my body, but also my sense of integrity as an individual. My own personal ethical standards are deeply integrated into how I continue to function in the world as an open hearted individual. To go against myself, and who I believe I am, I would have to shut off an aspect of myself, and my heart space, to allow this person to do something to me that is against my own will for myself in my heart space. And as I just described, my value is not in allowing a guy to penetrate me, my value is how I open my heart to create a space for a man to experience his connection to sensual grace.
When I'm faced with these kinds of situations, it makes me think about the weird dynamics we as a society have with money, and power, and our own sense of self. In western cultures making money with as little effort as possible is such a popular idea right now, but no one is questioning how to account for the value of our contribution to the whole. But at the end of our lives, all we have to take with us is who we have been in this lifetime. Our money means nothing. To believe in any kind of after life, or a continuity to our mental continuum, or soul's evolution, means that we need to account for the continuity of our consciousness into the next aspect of our evolving self. Considering this, no amount of money is worth compromising the expansion of our consciousness.
Having said all of this, as we all know, prostitution is said to be the world's oldest profession. Why is this? Sexual needs are secondary only to our basic survival needs. While traditionally humans believe this to be a male centred need, I don't entirely agree with this. I know that women have strong desire for sexual interaction and fulfillment, we just have different requirements to fill these needs. But this is another conversation. For the sake of what I would like to share right now, we will explore the history of how men have met their needs for sexual fulfillment through prostitution. In particular, I want to share with you the history of the sacred prostitute.
I know that for some people, the idea of a sacred prostitute is an oxy moron. I might have thought the same before I started offering sensual massage, which for those of you who read the first edition of my zine, wasn't because I had a particular interest in advocating for sex work. Although I would say that I was someone who was sex positive, meaning, I didn't judge other people's sexual expressions and was generally non-judgemental regarding sexual preferences and expressions. With the exception of forced sexuality or any kind of coercion of course. But I didn't fully understand the intricacies of the dynamics involved in the client- sex work provider relationship until I began to offer these services, nor did I realize just how much opportunity there is for healing on both sides. Of course, these opportunities are not often realized, as many women who offer these services do so for other reasons than to expand their consciousness and develop greater compassion for others. However, these are the modus operandi for a sacred prostitute.
While the origins of the sacred prostitute are unknown, the truth is that prostitution is the oldest profession, and will continue regardless of legality. Recently I had a conversation with a client, in which we both agreed that sex work in general needs to be made legal for many reasons, mainly for regulation of services and to stop human trafficking in the sex trade. Although the services I offer are not illegal like escort, ie full sexual services, still the slide under the radar and so many women are brought to Canada from other countries, and made to do “massage”, which is often much more than just massage. The exploitation of young women in this way is one reason people look down on the people who seek out these services, because they are unaware that some women are offering them of their own free will choice, and not under the influence of outside force or a drug addiction or something else that is keeping them somehow enslaved to the offering of sexual services.
Over the years I've known several women who offer sensual massage, as well as a lovely caring woman who offered sexual surragacy, which is sexual services to people with physical disabilities such as cerebal palsy and other physical impediments that create obstacles to sexual companionship. We do it for many different reasons, but none of us feel bound to it because we have no other choice. Although, having said this, I have seen the stigmatization from outside sources take its toll on the way we relate to the world around us. I am usually quite open about the work I do, as are some other women I have known, but I always expect I will have to to explain myself and my choices when I tell anyone about what I do. Usually I am okay with this, because I am happy to educate others about the nature of my work. I also feel like sensual touch is not always regarded as an essential aspect of the human experience, while in my experience I know how important it is for a person's overall well being. While there are people in society who have strong minds and are able to find fulfillment for this aspect of human experience in other ways- I am thinking of my spiritual teachers who are ordained monks and nuns and who exhibit a level of happiness beyond what I observe in the rest of society- most people require some level of intimate touch to feel mentally balanced.
Taken within the perspective of the whole of humanity, we need to feel the closeness of an intimate witness to our sensual vulnerability. One argument I could make for the role of the “sacred prostitute” in today's world is that the relationship between self and other as observed in the sensual interaction is often fraught with underlying codependent patterning that further entrenches our personal wounding and doesn't allow the healing that is available to us when we engage in unconditionally loving sensual interactions. While there is no reason two people in an intimate relationship cannot discover this level of sophisticated loving intimate dynamic between them, when we begin a relationship with certain expectations of the other person that determine them and their actions toward us to be the source of our happiness, our relationship quickly devolves into codependency and sensual healing potential is basically null and void. I speak from experience in romantic relationships when I say this. I also know from my non-attachment to my clients as a source of my happiness or validation of my own self worth that the way I have been able to transform my idea of self through the interactions with them while engaging my sacral chakra energy is way more powerful than when I have expectations of someone to validate the way I feel about myself.
For my clients too, whether they are in a relationship or not, I can see from their disposition of when they come in and when they leave that they receive a boost in the way they regard their own presence. While everyone comes in for different reasons and intentions, they always leave with a certain level of happiness and ease that I have come to know as the security of connecting to our own innate sense of self awareness, the presence that lies in the depths of our cellular connection to life force energy. This is the gift of connecting to our sacral chakra awareness.
According to Nancy Qualls-Corbett, in her book The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine, the principle function of the sacred prostitute was to illuminate the spiritual connection dwelling within the individual by engaging with her in sexual and sensual activity. She describes the ancient practice of men visiting the sacred prostitute in the chapter titled “The Goddess and Her Virgin”.
“Imagine the sacred prostitute greeting the stranger, a world weary man who has come to the temple to worship the goddess of love. No words are spoken; her outstretched arms and the soft, warm expression of her radiant arms and face say what needs to be said.”
She goes on to describe the setting, the temple room scented with herbs and flowers, how she baths him and offers him balm. They eat fresh dates, nuts and fruit and bread dipped in honey. They drink whine from a single silver cup. Then the sacred prostitute turns her back to him, and, removing her robe, gestures for him to stand in front of the image of Venus, to which he kneels and offers a prayer of supplication that she will receive his offering.
In this context and setting the sexual act fulfills a desire for both inner and outer transformation. Meaning, on the basis of our attitudes toward sexuality and bodily expressions we can transform our consciousness through physical intimacy.
Nancy Qualls-Corbett summerizes-
“The woman and the stranger know that through the consummation of the love act is consecrated by the deity though which they are renewed. The ritual itself, through the presence of the divine, (italics mine) is transforming. The sacred prostitute, no longer a maiden, is initiated into the fullness of womanhood, the beauty of her body and her sexuality. Her true feminine nature is awakened to life. The divine element of love resides within her.
The stranger too is transformed. The qualities of the receptive divine nature, so opposite to his own are embedded deep within his soul; the image of the sacred prostitute is viable within him. He is fully aware of the deep emotions within the sanctuary of his heart. He makes no specific claims on the woman herself, but carries her image, the personification of love and sexual joy, into the world. His experience of the mysteries of sex and religion opens the door to the potential of on going life; it accompanies the regeneration of his soul.”
What I offer to my clients is not exactly the same as this. I don't work at a temple- I have a little room down a corridor of a building in the downtown core of the city, with a massage table, a shower, a gas fireplace and some shelving and storage. The shower is very small, I don't bathe them as the sacred prostitute would, they just shower themselves beforehand. We chat, and I make them feel comfortable and welcome. I don't offer them fruit plates or lick the honey from their fingers, or drink spiced wine from a single cup. Sometimes I visit my clients at their homes or hotels, and I used to have a drink with them before the massage, but I don't drink anymore so I just chat with them while they have wine or whatever. And as for requiring them to make prayers to the goddess beforehand, well, those expressions of reverence to the divine are not of today's world. Unfortunately for those of us who adore expressions of reverence! The meaningfulness of creating an intention is lost on most people in today's world. Intention setting is what you do to manifest your best life, from what I have noticed. It is not often used to engage with spiritual principles with the awareness that we are able to access deeper understanding of the trajectory of our consciousness and mental continuum.
But this doesn't mean that my clients don't connect with a deep intention to expand their knowledge of self as a continuum with the ability to evolve. They just don't do it with their mind in a consciously focused way. However, I've noticed that the more emotionally available my clients are when they come to see me, the deeper the experience is for them. When a client is in an emotional and open heart space, they always comment on how unique the experience was for them, and how it altered them in some way. They use different language; some say it was healing, some say my hands and touch are magical, some comment on how deeply they feel connected to me and how much they feel seen by me. Some just thank me with so much appreciation that I can sense they feel a movement in their hearts, a release of something that had been stuck and holding on to their idea of themselves.
Sometimes my clients and myself talk about how unique and experience it is that we can meet as stranger's and still have this profoundly transformative time together. From my perspective, there are a few aspects of the dynamic of the provider-client relationship to facilitate this type of interaction. These aspects also create the safety for me to be able to be open hearted and generous with my emotional warmth while still maintaining my personal autonomy. My autonomy is stated by me right away on my ad and website. I have created a video that I ask all potential clients to watch, in which I clearly state my physical boundaries (no sex, no oral, no kissing- nothing with my mouth) and then describe my services. I communicate what I feel my value is, which is that I am very loving and open hearted and good at connecting with people. I operate in a very open hearted, almost naive way in the world. I've always been naturally receptive to others, and because of this I've learned how to 'shield' myself from the negative projections from other people while maintaining my inner feeling of compassion toward them. As I said in my previous zine, I have a solid screening process for my clients so I don't see creepy guys. The men I see are all very kind and appreciative of me. They are just happy to have someone take the time with them. Because they are clear on what they will receive from me when they come- a receptive and open hearted female who they are attracted to, someone to listen to them if they need to feel seen and understood, someone who will give them loving touch, someone to hug them if they need a hug. Because these boundaries are stated outright, I am able to relax and be open and friendly to the person in front of me. And the guy knows he can relax and have some sweet feminine energy in his life. This creates an atmosphere for both of us to be in our best qualities, with no expectations of each other outside of those agreed upon by social convention, that is, the guy pays for the services and I follow through with what I say I will do. A great massage, a listening ear, interesting conversation if they want it, and most of all, very healing energy.
So because all of this is agreed upon ahead of time, and we both know what to expect, there are no expectations outside of this and the vibe doesn't get weird with codependent dynamics. Sometimes guys who see me regularly start to get a little codependent, at which point we have to deal with it, but this is a whole other conversation. For the most part, it works because the parameters of the interaction are set from the beginning.
I want to highlight the importance of both people involved being clear on the intentions and expectations of the other. To me, this is what makes the interaction clean and resilient to degrading into something that could be spiritual or emotionally harmful to one or both people. We can have emotional responses to each other, but they don't have to get messy and devolve our potential for personal growth and transformation. Our own spiritual growth and transformation depends on our inner balance. With interpersonal dynamics, the inner masculine and feminine energy within our own energy is always fluctuating and finding ways to resolve this fluctuation within the interaction with the other person. Our own personal mastery is the way we resolve this inner balancing. We can always find balance, regardless of how the other person is responding to us. It's when we are looking for a certain response from the other person to create this balance within ourselves that codependency finds a foothold in our energy.
I feel the primary energy centres engaged in sensual interactions as the sacral chakra energy moving into the heart chakra to find balance and then to be expressed through the solar plexus chakra. The sacral chakra energy gauges pleasure in response to witnessing the flow of energy from the other, which then opens the heart chakra. This opening creates a feeling of caring for the other, and the impetus to respond with an equal or more offering of pleasure. The response to the other isn't necessarily the same kind of pleasurable offering, for instance, touch might be responded to with an affirmation of the voice, words or sounds of happiness. And as this response is delivered through the solar plexus, the reception of this energy by the other person, the person who initiated giving pleasure, their solar plexus, which is the feeling of their self worth, is also activated.
So the sacral is the witness to the pleasure; the solar plexus reflects the pleasure of the other; and the heart is the mediator, it is the centre through which we find the humanity in the other, where we feel like we want to care for the person we are interacting with and though. In essence, the heart is where we integrate and balance our inner masculine and feminine energy.
Remembering Nancy Qualls-Corbett description of the sacred prostitute and how the man finds his own connection to the unexpressed but inherent compassion that is within him, and considering the way sensual energy flows within our energy system, we can begin to realize how important it is to allow this unfolding to happen in our personal relationships. The sacred prostitute is the reflection of the divine, but she doesn't create expectations of the masculine energy to show up with anything but reverence to the divine. By doing this, she opens a portal for him to find the divine within his own energy. The sacred connection she helps him to discover is a doorway to his own transformation. But again, she only shows him the doorway. She doesn't admonish him for not keeping the doorway open, or lecture him when the experience is over to remember to keep the divine in his heart. She allows him his own experience.
I think an interesting aspect of the sacred prostitute is this fluidity within their personal experience, allowing whatever comes to be present without judgment or pretense. The sacred prostitute was also referred to as the vestal virgin. Virgin, in this context, doesn't mean she never had sex. It means that she was her own autonomous person, not owned by a husband or father (as in those times, women were under the ownership of the most senior or relevant man in their lives). To me, this autonomy speaks of the inner authority to direct her own life path, in a way that gave her the potential to fulfill her highest spiritual attainment. Because of her connection to her own inner autonomy and spiritual authority, she doesn't look to her counterpart or any sexual partner to fulfill her desire for spiritual transformation. She looks to her own spiritual compass, and follows the path of her own spiritual connection. Codependency is a hinderance to her spiritual growth, and so she travels the ground that will bring her the highest attainment in accord with the connection to the path her inner divinity has the grace to provide.
Is it really possible that coming into balance within our own sacral chakra energy could create more harmony in the world we occupy? I think it would. I absolutely regard positively integrated expressions of energy as healing to not only ourselves but also to the people around us, and this harmony does ripple outward from us. It draws to us more opportunities to express this balance and harmony within the world. As only a little candle can illuminate a dark room, a little bit of balance within our own energy illuminates the aspects of ourself that is out of balance, so that gradually we begin to come back to our own centre.
It can be overwhelming to think about how we can be helpful to a world where so much destruction, violence and hatred seems to be pervasive and out of control. But imagine the contagious power of masses of people coming into balance in their own lives. When we think about the effect love has on the people around us, we can begin to find hope in our hearts that the world could be a better place by our own personal accountability to being one who loves.
Globally, times are very dark. But lately, I've been wondering what it would take to turn the tides collectively to make the soldiers involved in the conflicts throughout the world decide to not fight. If the war machine cannot be supplied by people willing to take violent action against other people, then what power does it have? This might seem like a naive thought. Like I said earlier, I often have a naive way of operating in the world. But I don't see why this is without merit. I feel like innocence is an overlooked virtue. Innocence is a non-destructive influence.
I dedicate any good feelings I have inspired though the reading of this to the end of all suffering in the world. Not only for humans but for all living beings. May everyone be happy.