The Divine Temple of Sensuous Bliss: The Massage Table

Yesterday I went to a breakfast sponsored by Zestra which is a woman's arousal gel that I have written about before. They had all of these sexperts at the breakfast there to talk to us writers, bloggers and reporters about female arousal, sexuality, desire and orgasm. I love that - so I went. During a presentation - one of the sexperts quoted a survey that stated when women were given the choice between sex and a massage - they picked the massage! The study results got the desired response - everyone laughed and groaned. But not me. First of all - I hated the question - I mean why do we have to pick between two incredibly pleasurable activities - and then have the answer be used as a  commentary? But I knew why the study was done - and I knew the answer before it was given that  women would pick the massage over sex - and that the  sexperts were using that answer to show the sorry state of female sexuality. But really - no disrespect intended here - neither the survey makers or the sexperts really got it.  But I did. I don't mean to be bratty here - but I simply didn't draw the same conclusions.

I understood why the women picked massage as their first choice - and it had nothing to do at all with the sorry state of female sexuality.  The answer was all about  being sex positive - not sex negative! We just have to be willing to open up our  minds a little bit about what constitutes a sensuous and satisfying embodied activity! What was missing from the understanding of the survey makers - and perhaps even from the sexperts who used this study as an example of women not wanting sex -  was that massage - even traditional massage - is a very sensuous and pleasurable activity that allows us to feel touch for a very extended amount of time without doing anything back!  The most traditional of massage experiences allows women to go  deeply into their bodies  - and receive  sensuous pleasure - that is all about them!

Most women don't get the opportunity to do this. To simply - get naked,  lie on a table and allow someone to touch them in a non erotic - yet sensuous safe way that gives pleasure for an extended amount of time. It is positively delicious - and for many women - this experience is  not as available as traditional sex.  So of course they picked massage over sex in the ill conceived  survey.  Women are not stupid!

It was a funny coincidence - but yesterday I also received an incredible massage  and I was again reminded of the spectacular  healing and delicious pleasure  that can happen on the massage table.  Yes - pleasure - pure and simple. Healing pleasure. And in my mind - in my experience - pleasure is not only healing - it is  transformational.

It had been a long time since I had climbed aboard a massage table and simply - magnificently - divinely - received one way healing touch. Oh - I have made lots of reasons why I haven't gone. There is the money - the time - and the fact that every once in a while - even I - the great SHAMELESS wonder has moments of body shame. So I deny myself what I know to be one of the most healing, restorative, regenerative , and pleasurable activities that I can think of - and that is receiving a massage.

But John Ellsworth, an old friend and one of the most talented massage therapists I know - offered me a massage as an early birthday present. I almost didn't go - after all - I am a very busy lady! I have so much to do! There are families to build in my fertility work, blogs to write and a book to promote! There are dinners to cook - and an apartment to clean! I could go all day and not finish all of the things that I need to do. But I stopped - and I went after work - and it was such an important reminder that receiving massage is one of the most important things that I can make time for to keep myself ticking.

I know that there can be  a lot of discomfort in recognizing and having a massage - something that we pay for - as something other than a therapeutic activity that we engage in because we have a bad back - or a pulled shoulder - or as a way for us to keep our muscles in shape as athletes.  Not many people are willing to say that they embrace massage as a way to give themselves pleasure. We are a pleasure denied society - that talks about pleasure a lot - and then puts a lot of taboos around it.  And anything that has nudity, touch and possibly money involved in it  - we have to put lots and lots of boundaries around - so that other  people will know that we are engaging in the activity for "medical purposes".

We don't want anyone to think - that possibly we are doing this for pleasure's sake only!

So let me help out on this one.  Pleasure is important. Pleasure can change your life. Sensuous pleasure is healing and feels great! Traditional non-erotic  massage is an incredible tool for getting reconnected with the power of pleasure that we can all have in our own bodies - and yes  - if it helps you justify the experience - it is healing!  And we don't have to do anything to receive this but show up and climb on the table.

I left John's studio feeling transformed after 90 minutes of pure pleasure that didn't involve sex  - but was just as delicious.

Thank you John for the reminder - and the women in the study were no dummies!

More! More! What Happens When We Light the Fire on Sexual Desire!

"If you don't use it...you lose it". Have you ever heard that phrase? How about "The more you get - the more you want?" Have you noticed that the word "insatiable" goes so well with the word "desire"? Almost like peanut butter and jelly! I am starting to feel like sex can be like Chinese food  - you can have a delicious meal -and twenty minutes later you are hungry.

Okay...so maybe I am exaggerating just a little, but I do think that if you do not stir the pot of your sexual being - you can become dormant - like a hibernating bear. And when you wake up and begin to feed yourself you can find that your hunger is extraordinary. And that hunger can be quite unsettling. How do we manage our hunger?

So many of us are like Sleeping Beauty. We are resting - but what happens when Beauty wakes up and the Prince is snoring? Or if there is no Prince? How does Beauty feed herself?

I have been steeped in desire lately, so many people have been writing to me about their desires since I launched "Being Shameless". It has been amazing.  There is a lovely woman who goes by "Jessica".  Jessica is in her forties, a single mother by choice, and she runs her own business.  She is not untypical of women today. Jessica wrote to tell me that about a year ago  she began to work with  a Certified Sexological Bodyworker. And guess what happened? Her inner "Sleeping Beauty" woke up! WoooHoooo! Fantastic!! Right?

Well the truth is that  feeling our newly found sexual awakening can sometimes be uncomfortable!

I love exploring desire.  What we desire - how desire looks for us and how we reach for our desires. Jessica really touched me in her note -

"Speaking of desire I have a subject that I hope to get feedback about. I have a terrible time focusing on the requirements of my daily life. Since I started to work with a Sexological Body Worker  8 months ago - I have become so focused on sex! I have a business to run, friends, kids, parents, etc...

I crave all that goes with this quest. Following this blog - hoping to read your book soon , reading, watching videos, having more experiences, learning, all seem to tug at me when I really should be working or doing the more routine, and often less fulfilling parts of my life. I don't feel comfortable sharing much of this with anyone in my immediate circle, which is obviously a problem I have to work on. I desire comfort in this new found joy. I'm unsettled. Like I'm waiting for something. It's hard to sit with the pleasure and happiness I experience in increasing amounts as I learn and incorporate more of the eroticism and deep excitement I often feel. Maybe that's it. Too much excitement for everyday pursuits.

How do other people deal with this? What do you do with an inability to satisfy yourself, in a complete, overall way? It seems like no matter what I experience I still have insatiable desire for more".

Jessica, I feel your pain! I totally get it. but what I have found is that it comes in waves - this desire...this insatiable need for more. I liken it to survivors of famine who for a while after they are rescued hoard food....or cannot stop eating.

Honey - so many of us are  starving and we simply don't know it. And once we  finally start eating again - the food can taste so sweet. It can feel like our bodies just cannot get enough in the beginning because we went too long without feeding it. My suggestion is to notice your hunger. I am noticing mine simply by talking about this subject!

And here is the biggie - You  can feed yourself. Perhaps you need a little more right now.  That's okay - let your body have it. Reassure your body that you will not take this away from yourself ever again - pleasure is IS available. If you can afford it - have a few extra sessions. Indulge yourself a bit and look for new ways to feed yourself.

Feeding yourself can be buying long black stockings and wearing them just for yourself!  I have begun to buy beautiful bath products. I am addicted at the moment to LUSH.  I give myself special long sexy baths. I acknowledge and feed my desire in different ways.  Sometimes - I journal my desire or reach out and connect with others....all the things that you are doing. Perhaps it may be time for a get away workshop?

The best solution is exactly what you are doing - own your desire and feed it. That is my only solution and if you feed yourself in a way that reassures your body - your mind will be much more free to do what you need to do.  Remember that noticing your desire is different than judging your desire. Please try not to judge it.  Don't  "decide" that it is too much.  Another way of looking at your increasing desire is to view it as an indicator of your vitality!

I believe that once our bodies learn that we will never go to sleep on ourselves again, that we will become less agitated and over time, that we will become more fulfilled.  For now, eat freely and eat often!  I am so glad that you woke up Jessica!

Wanting more isn't always comfortable. But isn't it so much better than being asleep?

Welcome To Being Shameless

I’ve been told that embracing my sexuality is to dance with danger. To talk about it openly is to fall into a bottomless pit where everything I hold dear will go down with me– family, home, God knows what else.  Well, we’ll see. Going public with what polite society says is best left under the covers has its risks and truth to tell, sometimes I am a little nervous. But I am becoming shameless. And I am going to explore what is to become shameless right here - on my new blog.

Becoming shameless has been my personal evolutionary process, one that got jump started in early midlife. At the time, I wasn’t all that interested in having sex with my husband of many, many years (the man I met when I was 17 and married at age 20). I enjoyed it when we did make love, but I didn’t actively seek it out. Did that mean I had low libido? Was I physically or psychologically deficient or dysfunctional? Was there something wrong with me?

Was I like millions of other women who successfully severed their sexuality—that most basic of human behaviors—from the rest of who we are?

I was determined to find the answers. No more sublimating, overeating, over-exercising or overworking. I needed to know what was going on. My pursuit of the “truth” turned me into a sexual sleuth launched on an unofficial, unexpected investigation into a subterranean world of sexuality that I never knew existed. Neither had any other person I’d met until that moment. Which is a lot of people.

The first thing I discovered is that I had a robust, juicy, and full sexual self that lives inside. The second thing is that I wasn’t alone in my desire to unearth that part of me. It was that the true nature of female sexuality and desire hadn’t become yet become the near obsession it is these days. I felt like I was wandering in a vast, uncharted wilderness even if everyone secretly wanted to go there, too.

Admittedly, there’s more information out there now. Academics and medical experts compile statistics on female sexual dysfunction –apparently a plague of epic proportions– and how to fix it. Social media sexpot sexperts blog, Twitter and FaceBook their horn-dog diaries, flooding the web with virtual instruction manuals on self-pleasuring, high-tech gadgetry, threesomes, and becoming the ultimate pleasure machine. There are crusaders against the medicalization of female sexuality, including libido pumping drugs and plastic surgery to “rejuvenate” the vagina.

It’s all good. It’s all necessary. But what’s a middle-aged mother, housewife and careerist to do? Where do real people find good role models who help us hang on to the lives and loves we cherish even as we open up our sexual sides? Who’s out shouting that we don’t have to suffer for being sexually alive?

Me. I’m willing to stand up and say, “Screw suffering, it’s highly overrated and completely unnecessary.” I’m willing – and happy –to make my personal, admittedly wonky voyage to self-discovery into a tool everyday women and men can use to pry off the lid of their desires. Because that’s the first step to becoming whole and no doubt the hardest.

But I’m good at stepping up and speaking out. I’m a bred-in-the-bone advocate. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve done for decades as a leading advocate for the infertile starting at a time when infertility was as taboo as, oh, say, female sexual desire. I took my own experience of infertility and went public and fought hard to change the laws to help get people coping with infertility health insurance. I have been outspoken from everything from stem cell research to the rights of egg donors. So why stop now?

And I believe in every person’s right to acknowledge and have their desire when consenting adults are on the same page. The sticky part is when it comes to actually reckoning with the true nature of female desire. The recently published pioneering work of Dr. Meredith Chivers, a noted psychology professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario who specializes in female sexuality, indicates just how complex desire can be. In her own words, Dr. Chivers found that, “Women are apparently disassociated from their bodies and have greater difficulty than men in connecting their own erotic responses to what they are actually feeling or desiring.” In other words, women’s genitals and brains operate on different tracks when it comes to sexuality.

University of Nevada –Las Vegas psychologist, Dr. Marta Meana  rocked Oprah Winfrey’s national television audience when she reported that the evidence is mounting that, “Women want to be thrown up against a wall but not truly endangered. Women want a caveman and caring.”Aha! Without knowing it, I was a human guinea pig outside the lab, trying to reconnect my brain and my sexuality. I didn’t have current science to support me. All I had was the deep hunger for integration. Who knew? I mean, what articulate, savvy, working woman could comfortably admit to that desire? Or any.

Shameless is my memoir about coming to terms with desire.  At first I worried that maybe people were right, that opening up about sexuality would be that dance with danger. I don’t think so any more. And if it is, it’s a risk that I’m willing to take. With my beautiful husband, family and circle of friends at my back, how dangerous can it be? Besides I’m really good about things below the waist, those basic human things that affect the heart and mind in ways we can never expect. After infertility, sex is a logical segue. By looking at me you’d never suspect my own long overdue sexual revolution had turned me from a tremulous explorer into a courageous sex goddess.

Everyone should be so lucky! I hope that you will book mark this site - and join the Shameless! Come on - it's gonna be fun!