Sex on Fire

I have a total weakness for flow charts, if you hadn't noticed. I think it's because I'm a visual learner, and pictures make things easier to understand and remember. Or simply because I find them hilarious. 

Anyway, on the topic of lube, this flow chart is pretty brilliant. Also, has anyone else heard that a company dropped a bacon-flavored lube on the market this week? No kidding. Personally, it's not one of my kinks. But if it's yours, then more power to you. 

(This is the incredible aerial view of the city I got as I flew out of SFO to Denver)

I'm back from San Francisco, which I swear is one of the sexiest cities on this planet. I don't say that because I spent most of the weekend at the Center for Sex and Culture or because pretty much everything I did there over the weekend somehow related to sex and sexuality. San Francisco has a unique energy that pulses through the city. I'm not sure what to compare it to. I'd say NOLA's energy is the equivalent of a second line brass band. But damn. Just walking the streets there, it's a bit magical. I've never seen so much public art in my life. San Francisco has the energy of a thousand paintbrushes, of rock bands in underground bars, of streetcars flying down hills, of radical creation and destruction. 

I ate massive amounts of Thai food and soaked in a hot tub and walked the pier in the pouring rain. I slept with the windows open. I witnessed some really transformative conversations, rituals, and actions. I got fucked in a lot of really interesting ways, and I don't just mean in the physical sense. I met some amazing people. I rediscovered the power of building community.

Also, can I just say, I love how people in California, and especially in kinky/queer/poly communities, use safe sex as a default. What a world of difference from Louisiana, where the culture is so anti-safe sex. There's no question there. Everyone just carries (or buys) lube, gloves, condoms and uses them. End of story. 

I expected to come back feeling different. I expected to have my mind and senses exploded. I expected to breathe and to listen and to think differently. But the tricky part of these workshops is, there's no way of knowing what "different" is until you experience it. Even as I'm going through it, I don't realize how incredibly intense and radical everything is. It's an incredible offering, to just let go and act... think later.

I cried saying goodbye to San Francisco. I'll be back, I promised the city and myself. But I have work and a life here in NOLA, a home and friends and two cats whom I missed terribly. A part of me hurts realizing that I probably won't see most of those people again. To have such intense contact for three days, to let people touch you, emotionally and physically, in ways I sometimes won't let friends and lovers touch me... and then to just let go.  I am immensely grateful and thankful for everyone I met, for everything I learned and felt. I still have so much work to do. I realize how closed off I am at times, how much I don't acknowledge my own feelings -- hell, I don't even let myself feel them. Someone asked me, "Where do you feel that in your body?" And I truly couldn't fathom that other people feel emotions physically. I've just shut that possibility out for too long. 

I am in this crazy, energetic, expanded state. I get overstimulated easily, but I'm so fucking happy. I'm like over-the-moon happy. I wish I could bottle this energy and breathe it in whenever I most need it. Instead, I'm just going to ride it. I'm still processing, slowly, but that feels healthy. 

How do I feel? Strong. Beautiful, though very much not in a physical way, but in an energy-glowing-kind-of-way. I feel calm. Scared of the paper I have due. Blessed. Unsure of what comes next. Open to the possibilities. Driven to let myself explore. 

Young Girls, They Do Get Weary

I'm hopping on a plane in seven days for San Francisco, and there's nothing that makes my little heart pound more than a weekend of intense, sex-positive emotional bonding with a bunch of queers in a city like San Francisco. I mean. Talk about a dream weekend. 

Of course, I'm nervous as hell. I build up social anxiety when I think about meeting new people (versus when it's just spontaneous and informal, which helps cull my anxiety). It's also a bit intense to realize that within the span of two and a half days, these people will know me in truly intimate ways. I have a hard time opening up to close friends and partners. There's something different about strangers -- I don't have to see them again, I don't have to let them in on a regular basis -- but I also know that workshops like this are about pushing my boundaries. That, in itself, makes me fucking nervous. And excited. Trepidatious. 

The organizers always ask that we sit and reflect before the workshop. The first day at Easton, we talked about what drove us there -- why we felt called, what made us choose that path, and what drove us to overcome the hurdles to get there. I know that question will arise again. I'm in a much different place than I was a year ago. At that point, I was still very immersed in the pain of my last breakup. I was feeling really lost, and I wanted to reclaim myself, my sexuality, and purge some of the emotional baggage that made getting out of bed on a daily basis very difficult. 

Now, I find I have totally different desires. 

The first day of one of my classes this semester, the professor had us pair off and answer three questions. I don't remember them exactly. But it was something like this... What are your ultimate career goals, Why did you choose this grad program, and What drives you in terms of your career. It's funny, after seventeen years of school, I'm not sure anyone has asked me that outside of an entrance essay. I'm not sure anyone has asked me it outside of school, either. But I found I couldn't even vaguely answer the question. What the fuck do I want? What are my priorities, past finishing school and paying my bills and cooking dinner? Hell, I'm not sure if I cared enough to answer the question, which made me feel even worse.

While I have some strong ideas -- I really want to open a sex shop in NOLA, and I really want to create a queer/trans health clinic -- I also want to make some changes to my life so that there is room for long-term goals and plans. Right now, I can't see past next semester. I don't want to be that short-sighted, and I want to invest in the things that matter to me. School will be ending soon (after I pick out a thesis topic and, you know, write the damn thing). What do I want after that? Why did I put myself through three years and $15K for a grad degree -- what do I want to do with it, with my time, my money, my energy? I don't expect to find an answer next week. But I do want to create space for finding those answers in my life.

I also realize that I need to let go of some of my need and desire for control -- control over my body, over work, over my environment, over what people know and think about me. A lot of the time, that control is an illusion. The rest of the time, it's a way to shield and protect myself or someone else. Either way, it's unhealthy. I don't like to close myself off from people so tightly. I realize that I put off people because I don't give them a chance to get to know me. I short myself by not letting people in, not letting them get close. And when I do invest, I let myself get frustrated or saddened by someone else's actions too easily.   

I remember distinctly the expansive, fragile, and powerful way I felt after the workshop. I remember radiating energy. I remember feeling overstimulated, but if I plugged myself into headphones with a song that I found comforting, then everything was ok. I remember learning to breathe, working toward opening up without getting defensive or scared. I hope to find those feelings, those experiences, again. I hope to find love and life in the city. It's been a long three years since I've been back. A part of me wants to see the Golden Gate bridge since I missed it due to the fog last time. I definitely want to see the bay; I am drawn to water in a peculiar fashion. I want to wander the city at night, stop in small restaurants, blow a kiss to a trolley. I want to connect with queers, I want to talk identity, I want to push the boundaries of how I understand myself. I want to feel the rush of exhilaration that comes from getting on a plane by myself and shooting off to a part of the country that I barely know. I want to take a few days to clear my head, to forget everything I know about my life in NOLA, and to see what sifts out as important after doing so. 

And right now, I want to fall asleep, dreaming of flying over the Sierra Nevada mountains, dreaming of the sun setting over the bay, dreaming of laying hands onto someone else's body in healing, and dreaming of that high, that incredible fucking high, of just really, truly, intensely letting go. 

Goodnight, loves.

Come On Over

Outside the Boxes: Celebrating the Queer Body Erotic

November 11-13, 2011 - San Francisco

Your gender. Your body. Your energy. Your beautiful self. How often has the world tried to force you into the gender binary, asked you to assure it that your pronouns matched what it saw rather than what you felt, required that your genitals conform to expectations, demanded that you deny the complexity of all that is you?

What if you could come into a community in which all expressions were possible? Where gender, sexuality and expression were aligned according to your truth? Where no one assumed what parts would go where? Welcome to Outside the Boxes: Celebrating the Queer Body Erotic!,

Come explore your erotic potential through the mind, the body and the heart using conscious breath, movement, process work and massage. Awaken the erotic energy that lies within all of us. Through a queer tantra lens, explore archetypal masculine and feminine energies and the myriad ways they can be expressed. Break down silos of gender and sexuality.

This workshop focuses on the entire body and is conducted in a container that is playful, safe and reverential. Using carefully designed experiential embodiment practices participants will:

• explore the innate wisdom of your body
• expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath, movement, touch, and communication, where each person's choices and rhythms are honored
• learn how to more deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit
• to receive more fully from yourself and others, and to give without losing yourself
• learn to give and receive full-body massage and to focus on the healing potential of sensual/spiritual energy
• learn from your own and others' unfolding, and feel awed witnessing and supporting our uniqueness and commonalities

Outside the Boxes: Celebrating the Queer Body Erotic is a 2 1/2 day workshop (Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday), often clothing-optional, for those who are ready to vigorously explore new levels of feeling and aliveness, both within themselves and within a community of queers.

*************

I'm heading here in three weeks, and I couldn't be more excited. I went to a similar workshop in upstate New York last November, and it was a life-changing, amazing experience. I haven't seen San Fran in three years, either, so I can't wait to   fall in love with the city again. It's one of the few places I would consider living, other than New Orleans. I know, I know, that sounds like cheating in my head, too. If this interests you at all, check out the website. And hit up the coordinator, Amy, with any questions or concerns. I might can help, too, so feel free to comment here if there's something you'd like to discuss about the workshop. 

A Whirlwind.

So far I have tried my best to explain the erotic energy retreat to three people, and though I feel as if I am doing my experience no justice, all the responses have been really positive. I must be doing something right?

Easton is such a jewel in the mountains. It reminded me strongly of summer camp, but the cold breeze whipping through the mountains at all times provided a stark contrast. It was unreal how quiet it was there -- my first day, after setting down my bags, I wandered down to one of the ponds. Two Canadian geese flew over my head, and I could hear the sound of the wind rushing over their wings, simply because there was no other noise. It was surreal.

The workshop, CBE, pushed a lot of my boundaries -- emotional, physical, sexual -- in a place that was both safe and consent-focused. As I explained to a friend, the workshop begins with some basic consent skills and emotional trust exercises, then builds to help participants explore their comfort and knowledge of their physical bodies, leading ultimately to really intense connection with the sexual self. The workshop was structured very specifically to help participants learn their boundaries and connect with themselves and each other, though living in residence with the same group of people really helped me to get to know them in unique ways. I can see how it would be great to not be in residence -- just to go home, chill, and turn off each night. But one of my favorite parts of the weekend was the impromptu -- conversations about gender, sexuality, and identity over dinner, telling stories in the sauna, and late night discussions with the girls I stayed with.

I really enjoyed the chance to get to meet so many amazing women of different ages and backgrounds, each of whom had felt driven to Easton Mountain. How do you explain to friends, family, and others why you would choose to take a weekend and fly, train, or drive to a remote location to an erotic energy retreat? How do you explain that choice to yourself? And on the flip side, how do you go back into the world, having occupied an intensely spiritual, sexual, and emotional safe space, secluded in the mountains, and explain what you experienced? I don't have the answers for this. I know that, as the director of the workshop explained, the experience can leave you feeling expanded, though the world (and us) are constantly expanding and contracting. Pieces of the workshop, for me, will always exist at Easton. Other pieces have threaded so intricately into my life, into my thoughts and actions, my memory and future, that I see this work as a stepping stone at the beginning of a journey, not a door at the end.

CBE was a healing place for me. It was also a reminder that, as hard as it might be, we have the power to heal ourselves. I tend to turn to my friends for healing, which is important in its own right. But sometimes I must learn to turn inward, to listen and not run, to pay attention. CBE was at times, a scary place. Some of the exercises pushed me into emotional and physical places, outside of my boundaries. CBE also brought out a lot of things about myself, and my body, that I had forgotten -- how much dance has disciplined my movements, my own reservations about intimacy and receiving, the pleasure and pain of stretching my body and my mind, and the rawness of sex when it is unexpected and unpredictable.

I'm grateful for the experience. I'm grateful for the women who came to Easton, grateful to those who opened their lives and allowed me to explore in very personal ways. I'm grateful for the friendships and connections I made, and for the chance to walk away from my life for a bit and come back with a complimentary but new perspective. I'm grateful for the tools I learned, and I'm grateful that these places, these spaces, exist. Whether I get the chance again to go back to another workshop or not, I think this is important work. As Sinclair said, there is a connection between workshops like these and other types of sex-positivity, because they share the values and vision of creating a world where sex and sexuality are embraced as a positive force in our lives, a part of life and body to be explored and enjoyed, not a realm of shame, fear, denial, and pain.

The whole weekend, I was reminded of this quote, which is one of my most favorite:

“I am not arguing here for free sex or for more sexual expression, quantitatively speaking. I am arguing for living dangerously, for choosing to take responsibility for working through the possible consequences of sexual feelings rather than repressing sexual feeling and thus feeling more generally. I am arguing that our capacity to transform…the world is rooted in our capacity to be alive to the pain and anger that is caused by relationships of domination, and to the joy that awaits us on the other side [in a relationship of mutuality and equality]. I am arguing that to be alive is to be sexually alive, and that in suppressing one sort of vitality, we suppress the other.” -- Judith Plaskow

Preparation.

I’m hanging out at the house, trying to pack for my trip in three days, but my cat has decided that my lap is decidedly more comfortable than the window seat. If he wasn’t so adorable…

As part of this workshop, I’ve been told to do some preparatory homework – thinking, if you will, about what it is that is driving me to go across the country for a weekend.

I like lists, so it's easy to start there. 

Things I’m bringing: layers of clothes, new comfy yoga pants from Target, two (or more?) books, the remnants of a shattered heart, a whole lot of curiosity, a craving to experience the leaves falling in upstate New York, a lot of confusion about where I am and what I want next, a newfound sense of community and addiction to New Orleans, an irrational fear of losing my luggage or getting mugged, a dream of seeing the Stonewall Inn, a crazy libido, some moneys, two scarves, a lot of indecision, a history of sexual assault, an interest in kink, a body exhausted by work, and my camera and new CF card.

What motivates me to do this:

Good question.

Renaissance. I’m in a very pivotal place in my life, and though at times it feels like I’m free floating and directionless in a terrifying manner, I am forcing myself to dream and jump in and play with new experiences. I’ve never been to upstate New York, I’ve never been to a workshop/retreat with a group of strangers, and it’s been years since I’ve had to do the kind of emotional and introspective work these workshops require. Plus I’ve never done this kind of “work” in a way which embraces eroticism and sexuality. Yet, all of these things interest me intently. There’s a national (and maybe international?) network of people who are playing with sexuality and queerness in ways I’m fascinated by. I’ve let this part of my life wane in the last few years, and I want to reconnect with my interests and what other people are doing with sex education, kink, sexuality discussions, conferences, readings and workshops, erotica, and other venues.

Intertwined into this mess is a need for healing. I’m still reeling from the pain and chaos of ending a relationship over the last few months and all the insanity in between. I wish I could simply go to Albany and leave all of that pain there, but I know better. Healing is a slow and intensive process. I’m moving through it – I went from miserable, to functional, to ok, and now I’m grateful that the bad days are fewer and further between. But I still have those days, and I will have them after I get back. I do think having to really put myself in a place to work through that anger and pain and frustration, to face it when I’m sad instead of brushing those feelings aside, will be a big step in this process. I need to find places where I don’t feel the need to be a hard ass, where I feel safe enough that I don’t shut off, where I’m challenged to move past the protective defenses and into confrontation. So that’s what I hope to achieve: movement forward.

I’d love to say that maybe I could come back from Albany and know where to go next. I have some big decisions to make – to go to nursing school or not, to finish this degree at UNO or transfer, to to stay in NOLA or move, to apply for new jobs or take out loans, how much I need to or want to work, etc. I have some minor decisions, too, which don’t always feel so minor – what to do about Elles, whether to walk away from a potentially sticky situation, whether to go home for Thanksgiving, etc. I don’t know if I’ll find the answers to any of these questions in New York, but I think emotional, physical, and psychological journeys can coincide. At the least, I’d love to have some clarity – or blind confidence that things will be ok. Heh. Those aren’t the same thing, but really, I’ll take either at this point.

What else do I want from this workshop? To become more comfortable with my body. To find the drive to rediscover horseback riding, yoga, painting, and other interests I have let slide. To start exploring tantric, or at least, get some foundation for doing so. To relax. To meet new people. To check out of my daily life for a bit. To start investing in this blog more, writing more, exploring erotica more. 

On that note, this is my second day off in three weeks, so I don't want to spend the time writing. And it’s fucking Halloween! So I’m off to start packing, go watch the Saints game, and hopefully wash my costume in time for tonight. :)

These Lights Will Inspire You

Taking a leap of faith. Going to upstate New York for a workshop. Hoping this experience is worth the time and money and effort it will take to go. I'm not sure what to expect, other than the usual butterflies mixed with excitement that punctuate any new experience. But I do know (more or less) what I am looking to find. Plus I'll most likely fly into New York City for a day or two before the workshop, and fly out a day after. I miss New York City constantly; it's been seven years too long since I've been there. Life has changed so drastically since 2003 that I know I'll be seeing the city from a radically different viewpoint. But I can't wait. I have so many great memories from our trip, and now I have good friends to visit there, too. I love, love, love New York City. Almost as much as I love New Orleans, though there are more differences than similarities, so I suppose it's a pointless comparison. 

Anyhoo, this is the workshop I'm attending...

From http://thebodyelectricschool.net/celebrateEASTON.php

Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women - a residential workshop

Easton Mountain, upstate New York near Albany - Nov. 5-7, 2010
With Lizz Randall
Live in community with like-minded women in a safe, serious and playful space that respects boundaries. Embrace pleasure and experience your body as powerful, expressive and sacred. The class expands awareness and sensation through a process of breath, movement and touch. Each woman’s choices and rhythms are honored and celebrated. This workshop is for women of all sexual orientations and ages who are ready to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sexuality and sensuality.
During the program of carefully designed embodiment practices women will:

• explore the innate wisdom of the body
• expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath, movement, touch, and communication, where each woman's choices and rhythms are honored
• learn how to more deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit: to receive more fully from yourself and others, and to give without losing yourself
• learn to give and receive full-body massage and to focus on the healing potential of sensual/spiritual energy
• learn from your own and others' unfolding, and feel awed witnessing and supporting our uniqueness and commonalities

The program begins on Friday evening 6:30PM with dinner, runs 9AM-6PM Saturday, and 9AM Sunday ending at 6PM.