It's my turn - time to tell you about my journey and how I came to dedicating my work to honoring men. This may be a long post.
My father was my first love - and my first heartbreak. From the moment I was born, I bonded with him as my primary parent. (My mother was too depressed, self absorbed and fearful to connect with me.) I was the center of his universe - and he was my center. He adored me, played with me, loved and cherished me - and he violated me. He taught me to equate deep intimate connection with sexual transgression. He also transmitted his deep insecurity as a man into me.
His betrayal ripped the fabric of my being, and severed my trust in men. When he left his marriage (leaving me and my newborn brother with a mother who felt dangerous and untethered), I made an unconscious decision to close my heart to men. My mother's fear and mistrust of men (and her unrelenting criticism of my father), further served to nail shut the door over my heart.
As a child and adolescent, I had crushes on boys who rejected me. If anyone actually approached me, I would physically cringe. In college I had several boyfriends, and could play the part of a girlfriend - until we had intercourse. There I felt nothing, except physical pain. I didn't really like penises, and would give my boyfriend perfunctory blowjobs, doing my best to not taste any semen. My boyfriends called me a frigid cock tease. I was convinced there was something wrong with me... until I fell in love with a woman.
With women, I relaxed and uncovered my sex. With women I also was in charge. Turn on for me came from pleasing my partner, bringing her to climax, and never ever falling into the chasm of raw unleashed out-of-control surrender. I didn't even realize that this world existed - and the door to it was locked shut - until several years ago, when I started a sexuality practice called Orgasmic Meditation (OM).
OM is a sacred and structured practice that cultivates orgasm - the state of total surrender into what we call the involuntary. For 15 minutes a partner, fully clothed, (usually a man) strokes a woman’s clitoris in a very specific way. As the 'strokee' all I have to do is feel the sensation that arises in my body. As the 'stroker' all he has to do is feel that sensation that arises in his body as he strokes me up/down, up/down, up/down. At the end of the OM, I put my pants on and we each share a frame - a sensation each of us felt at one point during the OM. Then we say thank you, and leave. We are both free to go, and neither of us owe the other anything. This is total freedom.
What has this got to do with my metamorphosis? Everything! In this practice I have learned how to let go and completely surrender into the oceanic flow of orgasm, while being touched in the most intimate way possible by a man. The practice is designed to create safety for both partners, so I can totally relax my vigilance center and fall into the unlimited realm of sensation.
OM is teaching me to trust myself, and trust men. Over time the pleasure and loving attention of my strokers has allowed me to re-experience and heal the trauma I experienced with my father. Today I can say unequivocally that I love men. I feel like a teenager who has just discovered boys, and I am thrilled to enter into their world.
One of the unspoken benefits of this practice is that men get to be vulnerable too. As strokers, they are in the more surrendered position. They have to let go of everything they think they know - all the tricks and techniques they've learned to be a man and please a woman. Instead they get to drop into the moment with beginner's mind, and let the magic of orgasm guide them. Men have cried while stroking me, letting go of years of programming they've held inside themselves, and allowed their bodies to melt into new levels of sensation.
While I've been surrendering into the power of my orgasm, the men I know and OM with have been emerging as beautiful, sexy and deeply powerful men. Not surprisingly I have opened up my sex again to men - and found a way to deeply enjoy and be nourished by that connection.
Many of these men I have OMed with have opened up to me outside the OM - communicating their desire to be free, and their deep frustration at how their masculinity is thwarted in our culture. So I decided to start interviewing and listening more closely. It’s amazing what has been revealed to me. Inspired by these men’s passion, and my desire to know them more deeply, I started this blog - to help them reconnect with their masculine energy so they can light up every part of their life.
Thank you beautiful, sexy, tender, and vulnerable men!
