Intimacy Surrogacy is the missing piece in the world of sexual healing. But to talk about it, we need to set a historical context.
If, 100 years ago, you had a sexual need, desire or problem, you broadly had two options.
You could consult a doctor if you thought the cause was physical.
Or a psychotherapist of some sort if you thought it was to do with your history, with your functioning, with unhelpful ideas you might have about sex, or if you had shame, trauma, or whatever.
Conversely, if you had a sexual need where you wanted a clear something, you could buy that ‘something’ from a sex worker .
That’s the traditional dichotomy in the sexuality field: Expertise or Body.
You either buy professional expertise, or buy the use of someone’s body.
And that dichotomy, primitive as it sounds, has carried itself forward to the present day. Even though there are now many varieties of people operating in the field of sexuality:
Sexological Bodyworkers like myself. Sexual surrogates, [talking] sex therapists, somatic sex therapists,sex coaches and so on.
The tendency has been to stick to one of these two poles. So Sexological Bodyworkers, for example, have endeavoured to adhere themselves to the pole which is characterised by expertise. And which looks like it.
For instance, there’s a rule that touch is just one way.
And the session takes place in a very structured setting, it’s professional. Like the psychotherapeutic world, there’s often an edifice of supervision, ethical guidelines to be followed, a system of complaints and so on. It’s like psychotherapy, just with touch added.
Sexological Bodyworkers and similar practitioners are doing their best to appear to be like doctors or like psychotherapists: they’re professional people.
.And that model of professionalism implies a number of things. It implies expertise. It implies a clear ethical set of standards. And, critically, it implies a particular way of relating which is, no doubt, warm, which is responsive, but which has a certain distance to it.
It’s professional.
And plainly the purpose of that is to distinguish people like them – like me – quite sharply from sex workers.
And that’s particularly necessary because the bulk of practitioners in this field are women, and the bulk of their clients are men.
So you can see how a sharp distinction comes about.And how those qualities of professionalism, of touch being one way and of the relationship being professional rather than relational characterises everybody working in this field.
So even with sexual surrogates, where touch obviously isn’t one way, where there’s a likelihood of sexual interaction with the client, the attitude is one of professional distance. In spirit.
This clustering around the professional pole creates a real problem.
Which is what?
When you come to see people like me, there’s two ways of working.
One is to just give you a particular physical experience. So if you don’t experience much pleasure in your body: or you’re carrying around a lot of stress, or you’re suspicious,or vigilant so can’t experience pleasure. People like me can really help with that through agreed, consensual touch
Alternatively, you might need other things. You might be lacking in confidence or don’t know how to communicate, or find you are a doormat all the time, or can’t assess your needs, or don’t know what your needs are, all of that sort of thing, then we can give you tools like The Wheel of Consent, or various Sexuality Maps. So we give you tools to navigate the contours of a world where previously there were just dragons.
But the problem with that is, as far as the bodywork is concerned, that it might be very helpful in allowing people to live differently in the world out there but very often it’s seen as a sort of pleasure island. Not right away, because there’s a lovely period when people realise they have a much greater capacity for pleasure and presence than they thought. But there’s a limit to that. And after reaching that limit, people still have a deficiency in their life [a sexless marriage for example] and they can come and have a lovely session and then they feel better.They can go out into the world again, refreshed and revitalised, but that world remains essentially the same. It’s difficult to make a jump from what you can experience in the session to how your world outside can be different. So Pleasure Island is gradually re- located further and further away from the Sea of Tranquility. And rather closer to Shit Creek.
.The problem – and it is a problem that’s hiding in plain sight – is that our sexuality has two aspects to it. It firstly has an experiential aspect:“What do I feel and what can I feel?” [ and we can obviously help you feel a lot more] But it also has a relational aspect:
“ What am I feeling and what do I desire in this connective field with another person?”
And that relational aspect within the professional model is deficient.
In a gradual way, very often working with colleagues rather than with clients, I’ve been exploring ways to address this.
What I would often find, for instance, if I’m having a bodywork session with a client, is that the quality of the touch part of the session would be dramatically enhanced if the client felt safe to fully express themselves and felt received in the conversation we had beforehand. And, building on that, if it felt right, it could be a very good idea, after the conversation but prior to the touch work, to dance with the client, which really helped to build on that initial connection. I’ve written more about this here.
And when we got to the touch part of the session, .rather than inviting the client to simply.lie down on my massage table, as they would on a visit to a doctor or physio or masseur, to perhaps start the session in a position chosen by them, such as sitting on the table or standing up, and then being free to move or sound as the urge took them
And it also felt a very good idea to allow two way touch.
You can see how, given the majority of clients are men and the majority of practitioners are women, why a rule is there for one way touch only, but that loses a lot of its force when the practitioner is male. If the client is also free to engage in touch as well,that’s often very helpful – because it’s relational – but within certain boundaries. It’s important for me that I do not engage with my client in a directly sexual way, because plainly there’s the possibility of delusion on my part. A failing common to many male practitioners.
So what I can give, which is distinct, is an emotional and relational warmth to the client rather than simply a ‘professional’ warmth.
That emotional, relational and embodied warmth is Intimacy Surrogacy.
And to me, it makes several important things more possible.
The first is that rather than the experience being a sort of pleasure island that you go to, then go back to the world as usual, we are modelling how you would like actual interactions in your world to be. And because the modelling is much closer to your possible interactions with people in the world outside,I think it’s got a much better chance of creating real change
But the second thing is that what we can experience, and I think this particularly applies to women that I’ve worked with, the depth and the vividness of our experience has a connective quality to it.In other words,if we feel connected, we can experience much more
And that experience isn’t just what we might be experiencing in sensory terms, but on the widest range we have.We are experiencing more emotionally. We’re experiencing more in our visual imagination. We’re experiencing more energetically.We’re experiencing more spiritually
[ If you’re interested in exploring the possibility of working with me, just email me at johnwebberfraser@gmail.com or text me on 07545707751 and we’ll get something in the diary]
Intimacy Surrogacy
Intimacy Surrogacy is the missing piece in the world of sexual healing. But to talk about it, we need to set a historical context.
If, 100 years ago, you had a sexual need, desire or problem, you broadly had two options.
You could consult a doctor if you thought the cause was physical.
Or a psychotherapist of some sort if you thought it was to do with your history, with your functioning, with unhelpful ideas you might have about sex, or if you had shame, trauma, or whatever.
Conversely, if you had a sexual need where you wanted a clear something, you could buy that ‘something’ from a sex worker .
That’s the traditional dichotomy in the sexuality field: Expertise or Body.
You either buy professional expertise, or buy the use of someone’s body.
And that dichotomy, primitive as it sounds, has carried itself forward to the present day. Even though there are now many varieties of people operating in the field of sexuality:
Sexological Bodyworkers like myself. Sexual surrogates, [talking] sex therapists, somatic sex therapists,sex coaches and so on.
The tendency has been to stick to one of these two poles. So Sexological Bodyworkers, for example, have endeavoured to adhere themselves to the pole which is characterised by expertise. And which looks like it.
For instance, there’s a rule that touch is just one way.
And the session takes place in a very structured setting, it’s professional. Like the psychotherapeutic world, there’s often an edifice of supervision, ethical guidelines to be followed, a system of complaints and so on. It’s like psychotherapy, just with touch added.
Sexological Bodyworkers and similar practitioners are doing their best to appear to be like doctors or like psychotherapists: they’re professional people.
.And that model of professionalism implies a number of things. It implies expertise. It implies a clear ethical set of standards. And, critically, it implies a particular way of relating which is, no doubt, warm, which is responsive, but which has a certain distance to it.
It’s professional.
And plainly the purpose of that is to distinguish people like them – like me – quite sharply from sex workers.
And that’s particularly necessary because the bulk of practitioners in this field are women, and the bulk of their clients are men.
So you can see how a sharp distinction comes about.And how those qualities of professionalism, of touch being one way and of the relationship being professional rather than relational characterises everybody working in this field.
So even with sexual surrogates, where touch obviously isn’t one way, where there’s a likelihood of sexual interaction with the client, the attitude is one of professional distance. In spirit.
This clustering around the professional pole creates a real problem.
Which is what?
When you come to see people like me, there’s two ways of working.
One is to just give you a particular physical experience. So if you don’t experience much pleasure in your body: or you’re carrying around a lot of stress, or you’re suspicious,or vigilant so can’t experience pleasure. People like me can really help with that through agreed, consensual touch
Alternatively, you might need other things. You might be lacking in confidence or don’t know how to communicate, or find you are a doormat all the time, or can’t assess your needs, or don’t know what your needs are, all of that sort of thing, then we can give you tools like The Wheel of Consent, or various Sexuality Maps. So we give you tools to navigate the contours of a world where previously there were just dragons.
But the problem with that is, as far as the bodywork is concerned, that it might be very helpful in allowing people to live differently in the world out there but very often it’s seen as a sort of pleasure island. Not right away, because there’s a lovely period when people realise they have a much greater capacity for pleasure and presence than they thought. But there’s a limit to that. And after reaching that limit, people still have a deficiency in their life [a sexless marriage for example] and they can come and have a lovely session and then they feel better.They can go out into the world again, refreshed and revitalised, but that world remains essentially the same. It’s difficult to make a jump from what you can experience in the session to how your world outside can be different. So Pleasure Island is gradually re- located further and further away from the Sea of Tranquility. And rather closer to Shit Creek.
.The problem – and it is a problem that’s hiding in plain sight – is that our sexuality has two aspects to it. It firstly has an experiential aspect:“What do I feel and what can I feel?” [ and we can obviously help you feel a lot more] But it also has a relational aspect:
“ What am I feeling and what do I desire in this connective field with another person?”
And that relational aspect within the professional model is deficient.
In a gradual way, very often working with colleagues rather than with clients, I’ve been exploring ways to address this.
What I would often find, for instance, if I’m having a bodywork session with a client, is that the quality of the touch part of the session would be dramatically enhanced if the client felt safe to fully express themselves and felt received in the conversation we had beforehand. And, building on that, if it felt right, it could be a very good idea, after the conversation but prior to the touch work, to dance with the client, which really helped to build on that initial connection. I’ve written more about this here.
And when we got to the touch part of the session, .rather than inviting the client to simply.lie down on my massage table, as they would on a visit to a doctor or physio or masseur, to perhaps start the session in a position chosen by them, such as sitting on the table or standing up, and then being free to move or sound as the urge took them
And it also felt a very good idea to allow two way touch.
You can see how, given the majority of clients are men and the majority of practitioners are women, why a rule is there for one way touch only, but that loses a lot of its force when the practitioner is male. If the client is also free to engage in touch as well,that’s often very helpful – because it’s relational – but within certain boundaries. It’s important for me that I do not engage with my client in a directly sexual way, because plainly there’s the possibility of delusion on my part. A failing common to many male practitioners.
So what I can give, which is distinct, is an emotional and relational warmth to the client rather than simply a ‘professional’ warmth.
That emotional, relational and embodied warmth is Intimacy Surrogacy.
And to me, it makes several important things more possible.
The first is that rather than the experience being a sort of pleasure island that you go to, then go back to the world as usual, we are modelling how you would like actual interactions in your world to be. And because the modelling is much closer to your possible interactions with people in the world outside,I think it’s got a much better chance of creating real change
But the second thing is that what we can experience, and I think this particularly applies to women that I’ve worked with, the depth and the vividness of our experience has a connective quality to it.In other words,if we feel connected, we can experience much more
And that experience isn’t just what we might be experiencing in sensory terms, but on the widest range we have.We are experiencing more emotionally. We’re experiencing more in our visual imagination. We’re experiencing more energetically.We’re experiencing more spiritually
[ If you’re interested in exploring the possibility of working with me, just email me at johnwebberfraser@gmail.com or text me on 07545707751 and we’ll get something in the diary]
Sexual Liberation through Dance
I’ve been dancing all my adult life. I’ve found it invaluable for my personal liberation. Through dance, I discovered tantra, and then became a somatic [body based] sex therapist, helping people discover their capacity for joy, pleasure and connection.
I don’t think I’m unique in this. I’m pretty sure most of the people who do the dance I love – 5 rhythms, contact improvisation, biodanza, tango and kizomba – find it helps them to express and free themselves. One aspect of that freedom is an increased capacity for intimacy, helping them towards their sexual liberation. But alongside that, there can also be a frustrating sense of “What next?”
When we dance, we – sometimes, preciously – are free of the usual constraints of ‘appropriateness’ ‘what will happen next’ and ‘what do I want?’, so we can often dance with a partner in a way which is more liberated and expressive than when we are in actual intimate situations, where we’re often captive to a predictable script, one shaped by our male or female socialisation and coloured by memory, including traumatic memory: all of it conspires to make our sexual lives smaller, quieter and grayer than they could be. All dancers have experienced the bittersweet realisation that often we’re much more our fully embodied, joyful selves when dancing than when we’re making love.
When I started doing bodywork to help people become more free with their sexuality, I didn’t imagine that my dance experience would be connected with that in any way. But gradually, I discovered that for my clients to fundamentally change, it wasn’t enough that they dramatically expanded their sense of their own pleasure, there needed to be a relational and expressive aspect too. If there wasn’t, they would just bank the pleasure of the session and return to a life which was unyieldingly the same.
And so, alongside talking and consensual touch, I started to adapt my work to make it more relational. I would encourage my clients to move freely during the bodywork, to sound, to express themselves. And for some people, generally people who loved dance as I did, I found it really helpful to dance with them before the bodywork. Alongside the talking, which established the safety of being seen, being heard and hence being safe to express who you really are, I found that dancing together took that to another level, because it helped establish relational warmth and connection, which then enabled the bodywork to be much deeper.
And talking to my dancing clients, they’ve pointed out how this work could fit very well with a dance practice. How so?
A corollary of the freedom of dance, the sense of possibility that it creates, is that often you hit a glass ceiling. When the dance with your partner ends, it’s over. It doesn’t translate into an ongoing intimate connection. There isn’t a way of exploring what you’ve just experienced further, of taking it deeper, of using it as a developing and deepening tool for your sexual liberation.
That’s where my work comes in. I’ve gradually come to think of my work in terms of being an Intimacy Surrogate. That is, I’m not inhabiting that ‘friendly yet distant’ professional mode. I fully bring myself into the relational connection, but I do it in a boundaried way. I’m not sexual with my clients, but am very relational and very sensual, in service to their liberation. I think of it as a form of devotional love.
There are three aspects to this: the initial conversation, the dancing together and the touch work, weaved together in a way chosen by each client, and developing from one session to the next at a pace commensurate with the intimacy created. It is as if the three work together like interconnected wells, replenishing and deepening each other.
The conversation can be easily mis-seen as a preliminary, but it’s essential. I endeavour to receive my clients in whatever is happening for them at an emotional and relational level. It’s not therapy, rather it’s a form of empathy, which enables the body to relax and express in dance and touch because it has already been received, on an emotional plane.
[ If you’re interested in exploring the possibility of working with me, just email me at johnwebberfraser@gmail.com or text me on 07545707751 and we’ll get something in the diary]
To live the life we want
.
When I started contact improvisation dancing, one of my first and best teachers was an Australian dancer and teacher, Janis Claxton. I came across her when she was living in Bristol. And although I was living in Glasgow, I would fly down to Bristol and do her dance workshops. And they were just fantastic.
In 2005 she moved to Edinburgh, enabling me to work with her much more.
Because she was such a skilled teacher and choreographer, as well as a brilliant dancer, the people that she tended to attract were professional dancers.I wasn’t a professional dancer ( I was a litigation lawyer then);I didn’t have any dance training. I hadn’t been to dance school. None of that. I just loved dancing. And I felt quite insecure, among these professional dancers, who had received extensive training and were obviously also a lot younger ( and thinner) than me.
I would express this doubt and uncertainty to Janis, who would say, ‘Nonsense, nonsense. My dancers all love you.’And I would think, sure.
.In the event my doubt got the better of me, I didn’t really throw myself into the dance community that she created in Edinburgh, which, as it turned out,only lasted a few years because her choreography work took her to China, and elsewhere
The opportunity was lost.
And I thought at the time-
“I can pick this up at some future point, when I am a bit more confident or when I am a bit more settled”, or whatever.
Janis got lung cancer,and died at the age of 51.
There was no opportunity for me to dance further with her.
.At her funeral, I came across one of her dancers, She hadn’t seen me for quite a wee while, but was very warm: ‘Oh John, it’s great to see you.’ And then she said,‘You know, whenever you would come along to the workshops, we would say to each other, “hey, there’s John! anything could happen!.’
So sweet. So bittersweet.
.So what lessons to learn?
.The first is that we need to know ourselves. We need to know our own nature, our needs, and our wants and act upon them.Not be deterred by this great ghostly wraith of doubt and fear. Because fear eats the soul.
And a similar resolution to act is very important for questions relating to sexual happiness, which are much more central to the being of all of us than dancing
For a happy and meaningful life we need to understand our own sexual nature. Because when we understand that nature, we can understand what that calls forth in us.What we want to do how we want to connect with people, how we want to feel.
That’s the most important thing,
how we want to feel.
And not do what I did and say, “well, I can do this tomorrow”because there might not be a tomorrow. Fear doesn’t need to say Never. It only needs to say Not Now. We treat time as being of limitless extent, but with each breath
it’s falling away from us.
[ If you’re interested in exploring the possibility of working with me, just email me at johnwebberfraser@gmail.com or text me on 07545707751 and we’ll get something in the diary]
Does Your Sexuality Feed You?
When we think of sexual issues, we tend to think either in terms of sexual services or in terms of fixing a specific problem.
One of the reasons I don’t call myself a tantric practitioner, for instance, although I am, is that the term tantra and particularly tantric massage is often completely misused to mean a cursory erotic massage with a happy ending, usually purchased by men from attractive younger women.
Difficulty explaining what we do extends even to what we call ourselves.
I used to call myself a Sex Coach until I realised that what people thought that meant was that I would help them perform better at sex. When actually the performance idea was the last thing that I want to encourage.
One reason why I now call myself a Somatic Sex Therapist is that, I didn’t think that people would misunderstand me as being a provider of sexual services. So I wouldn’t get pestered by texts from men at 11:00 at night saying “My truck’s nearby.What about it?”
Buth the problem with ‘somatic sex therapist’is that the onus really is on problems rather than pleasure, when [unlike talking therapy] my whole focus is on creating meaningful change through pleasure.
When we’re confused, it’s often helpful to look for an analogy.
I’ve been a meditation teacher for 36 years.
People tend to come to meditation because they have something that they’re not entirely happy with in their life. They may feel their life lacks purpose or meaning.Or their minds are too busy or too negative, something like that.
So that’s generally what brings them to meditation. Dissatisfaction of some sort.
But once they start meditating, what they realise is that it’s opened a whole door to a new and different and better way of being.
It’s helpful to think of my sexuality work in a similar way:
You’re motivated to contact me because there’s an issue. But hidden underneath that and this is very, very important – there’s a longing, that your soul wants to manifest what’s there as yet unlived and what’s always been there, particular to you, not some general bullshit idea of what your sexuality should be like, but who you are. Who you’ve always been.
My favorite kind of clients aren’t people that come with a specific issue they want to resolve and then go. The people I’m meant to work with want to go on a journey.
Some dissatisfaction is motivating the start of that journey.But once we’re on the journey together, it’s like a miracle.It is like seeing facets of your life which always at some level you knew were there, but you never quite saw.
[if you want to explore the possibility of working with me, either email me johnwebberfraser@gmail.com or text me on 07545707751, and we’ll get something in the diary]
..
How Should You Choose A Sexuality Practitioner?
What’s the best way to choose a sexuality practitioner to work with?
.
The obvious answer is personal recommendation from someone you trust, but often you don’t have that.
So to make an informed decision,you need to ask yourself several questions.
.Firstly, what perspective does this practitioner have? And does that perspective make sense to me? And might it work for me?
Nobody’s for everybody [although some people are for nobody]
On my website, on my social media [Instagram @johnwebberfraser] and elsewhere, I post videos and blogs about my approach to sexuality, which isn’t a mainstream approach.
.
I do that not because I’m trying to sell, but because I’m trying to inform. So you can choose.
Some people will watch my material and say: “This bloke’s bonkers. He’s posting lots of stuff about connection and the holistic nature of sex and nothing about how I can stay hard for 20 hours and drive women wild”. Well indeed.
That’s why my videos aren’t very ‘professional’. Because all I want to do is to give you some sense of who I am, whether or not I might be the guy for you, and whether it makes sense to get in touch to start the ball rolling with an introductory conversation.
.
Second, although people very often describe sexuality work as being professional, by which they mean it’s not dodgy, there are ethics, that they behave properly to you, all that jazz
.But it’s not really professional work. It’s not like seeing an accountant.
.
It’s relational work.
So the question is, do I get on with this person; am I able to go deep with this person?
Is this person likely to understand me and be able to help me? Am I safe?
And again, that means that a practitioner might be fantastic for one person but might just not be the right person for someone else. I work well with mature people who are looking for a richer and more connected life, but am no good for someone looking for a bunch of techniques or a quick fix.
.
It all depends.
.The third thing is you need to have some sense both of what the work will consist of, and where that work’s going to take you.
.
So you need to have at least a rudimentary sense of:
“ This is where I am now”
“This is what I want to change”
“This is where I want to go”
“This is how I’m going to get there”
.
That is, from the get-go, there’s a kind of map. Any responsible practitioner will give you such a map. It shouldn’t be ‘Trust Me’. It shouldn’t be abracadabra.
But [fourth thing] the map isn’t some kind of technique or method that’s applied to everybody, but rather it’s your map. It addresses your specific situation, desires and nature so the way of working is specific to you.
If somebody basically just says, “I’m fantastic and I do this and it sorts everybody’s problems”, these are people to avoid.
And lastly, there shouldn’t be any surprises. Discoveries yes, but no surprises.
If it’s clear what the work is, then it should be clear what’s going to happen at any particular session.
So when I’m doing bodywork – my work isn’t exclusively bodywork – but when I am, I’m very clear to explicitly agree boundaries in advance with you, which can be restricted further [by you], but which can’t be expanded. Which creates safety for both of us. And that safety is an absolute prerequisite for any meaningful change.
And this sort of clarity is good for both of us. I only want to work with you if I’m able to help. And I really don’t want to waste your time, because I know how much effort and courage it’s taken to contact me at all, and you may be able to only go through that once. It’s important.
[if you want to explore the possibility of working with me, just email me at johnwebberfraser@gmail.com, or text me at 07545707751, and we can get something in the diary]
The Blocks To Starting Work With A Sexuality Practitioner
.
Seeking support and guidance for sexuality issues is a big deal. It requires bravery to take the first step.
.In my experience, the maximum points of obstruction don’t occur once the work has actually started, they tend to occur earlier
.
The first and most obvious stage is just contacting me at all. I try to help that by being as clear and comprehensive as I can be on my website, on social media and so on, about my approach and about the perspective that I bring to working with sexuality. I’m attempting to be completely transparent about who I am, where I’m coming from, and how I work, so in your research about which practitioners to work with, you can make an informed choice.
The second point of difficulty is that people who have managed to marshal up the courage to send me a text or email me, when I contact them, nothing happens. They don’t respond. That’s not because they’ve lost interest or are pulling my leg in some way.It’s just that it’s too much. [sometimes my response goes into the Junk folder; always worth checking]
And often what conspires to make it ‘too much’ is a kind of fantasy idea about what a session might look like. So to try to get around that, what I offer is to just come and see me [or Zoom or call] and simply have a non chargeable open conversation with me to just get a sense of what it’s like interacting with me, being at my place of practice, and so on.
The third point of obstruction is a curious one. It’s when you’ve contacted me, we’ve had our initial conversation, and it just stops at that point.
Now, it might stop for a very legitimate reason.It might be because I’m not the practitioner for you, [and if so I’m always very happy to refer you to somebody else], but much more often it’s the disjunct between your ordinary life and what the idea of working with me entails.
We can have a conversation, we can talk about your issues and how we might resolve those issues, but somehow it’s as if that’s all on some sort of island,so when you go back into the real world, it’s like it’s just been a dream.
To try and deal with that obstruction, which in a way is the most pernicious one, what I do, at your option, once I have a conversation with you, is that I outline [by email] my understanding of what where you are, where you want to get to, and how we’re going to get there.So there’s something tangible that can act as a bridge between actually working with me and your world as at present,
A bridge between how you are now and how you want to be.
Fear doesn’t require you to say “I’m never going to do this”. It only needs you to say “Not today”. But if not now, when?
[ If you’re interested in exploring the possibility of working with me, just email me at johnwebberfraser@gmail.com or text me on 07545707751 and we’ll get something in the diary]
Sexual Confidence For Men
.
I’ve been working professionally in the sexuality field since 2012,and in that whole time, only one person hasn’t paid me.
.
It happened during Covid, when I was just speaking to people on Zoom. This wee guy from Glasgow, who looked like an office supplies salesman, who contacted me and said something like “John, I’m interested in finding out about edging, it’s what the birds want, how to keep going and that..” [etc]
And I said “well, you know, I’m not really a technical solutions kind of guy, that’s not really my perspective”
.
I gave him the names of some other practitioners. He got back in touch with me about a week later and said , ‘John, I’ve spoken to these other people, but,you’re the man likesey, and you can tell me about all of this edging stuff man”
And I thought oh god I shouldn’t be too harsh on the man. Maybe I’m being snobbish. So I gave him a one hour Zoom session, which we actually overshot by about 30 minutes. And right at the end of the session he says
.
“John it’s great man
I’ll pay you right away.”
And as soon as he said ‘I’ll pay you right away’, he dropped his head. And I said to myself “that guy’s not going to pay me”. And sure enough, he didn’t.
.And obviously I’m slightly caricaturing this person, which I feel entitled to do. But in caricature, he points to something about how sexual confidence for men is generally approached.
If you look at the advertising for this – and there’s massive advertising – Viagra, how to become a tantric master of sexuality, how to drive her crazy in bed and so forth, the core of it is addressing men’s performance anxieties, which tend to be very specific.
.
Men feel under an obligation -which they can’t live up to – to have an erection when they want for as long as they want, to delay ejaculation for however long they want, to give their partner her best orgasm ever, all that sort of stuff.
.And it’s that anxiety which is concealed at the core of a tidal wave of crap, which assumes – but doesn’t say out loud – this insecurity.
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Other people are cashing in as well. For instance, the kind of poisonous bullshit from bad actors like Andrew Tait. Where if you bark loud enough, nobody can see the fear.
I think male sexuality has been very overlooked in contemporary discourse.There’s an unexamined assumption that men are standing there like priapic Neanderthals, nursing a large erection and always just raring to go.
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Men acutely feel that perceived obligation to perform
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So you get this weird thing, endemic in the dating scene, where everybody thinks that they’re doing what the other person wants.
It’s a catastrophe. Which is avoidable.
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From my perspective, this performance focus which afflicts most men is just approaching things from completely the wrong direction. Yet because we take that performance idea as a given and then try to accommodate ourselves within it, we find ourselves with a kind of fake desire, and a curious sort of alienation from our own sexuality, something which is absolutely central to us, or should be.
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In my work, what I’m interested in is asking different questions to “how can I perform better?”
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And that really starts with what’s my nature?
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What do I really want?
.What do I want to feel?
.How do I want to be in connection
with other people?
That’s the starting point.
Because once we can clarify these questions ,then we can clarify how to express and communicate that.
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If you choose to work with me, the work is not trying to fix something. It’s trying to uncover you, not what you’re told you should be.
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We can do this by curiosity. We can do this by open inquiry We can do it by exploring things like your fantasy life, which is a wonderful example of where our desire actually is, not in terms of the structure [story] of the fantasy, which is often accidental, but the emotional structure underneath the narrative, which is often of great assistance in illuminating who we really are and what we really want.
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It’s my opinion that the performative idea of sexuality oppresses men and women equally but differently. Once we understand that, we can find a way of expression which is authentic to us. And because that’s real, connection becomes much more natural.
[if you’re interested in having a conversation about the possibility of us working together, email me [johnwebberfraser@gmail.com] or text me [07545707751] and we can get something in the diary.
Tantric Massage For Women
How do you define ‘Tantric Massage’?
Although I have a background in tantra stretching back 20 years, I tend not to talk of my work in terms of tantra. And that’s particularly applicable to tantric massage, for several reasons.
The most obvious one is that ‘tantric massage’ is widely used as a euphemism for a sexual or genital massage, generally offered to men by women, understood as a cursory massage with a happy ending. [To distinguish between the genders, tantric massage for women is sometimes termed ‘yoni massage’]
But the second reason is that in public consciousness, tantric massage is focused primarily on building aroused states, leading to orgasm. And I’ve always been antagonistic to this perspective, as I think it imprisons female sexuality within a body/sensation container which is too small for it. It ignores the heart and the imagination. It falls within the classic patriarchal perspective of seeing female sexuality as like male sexuality, just not as good. But until recently, I’ve not had a language in which I could express an alternative.
Now I do. In my talk at The Manchester Sex Lectures in October 2022, I talked about The Erotic Body and The Sexual Body. The Sexual Body is what we normally think of as sexuality. It’s energetically focused in the genitals. It builds towards orgasm. The Erotic Body is different. Sexual arousal is involved, but it manifests in a different way. Aside from a strong feeling of openness and pleasurable relaxation [within which there is arousal], clients often report unusual experiences: powerful, dream-like visions, seeing colours, experiences of profound connection with the rest of existence, and so forth.
The Erotic Body gave me a language to talk about my work, and my approach to tantra massage. Which is that my focus is on making what is experienced through touch to the body deeper and more vivid. That is, there isn’t an inevitable journey of progressively increasing arousal leading to orgasm. There could be a journey like that, engaging The Sexual Body, but, equally validly, the experience could be an unfolding of The Erotic Body, different in each person, and delineating a sexual identity which is unique to you.
How does it work?
Because the work is a gradual unfolding of your unique sexual nature, the most important thing is to go at a pace which is agreed and which is right for you, because unless there’s trust and safety, nothing of value can be experienced. To establish this foundation, I always suggest a free conversation on Zoom, by phone or [ideally] in my studio in Edinburgh, so you can get more of a concrete sense of me and of what the work entails prior to deciding to do it or not.
With touch, my focus isn’t simply on arousal, it’s about you being able to gradually open up to all aspects of your experience. It’s about you feeling more alive, more vivid. That includes arousal, but it’s not the only thing.
If any of this sparks your curiosity, and you’d like to know more about it, you can contact me here.
Journey to Pleasure: take a break in Edinburgh for in person work tailored for you
If you don’t live in or near Edinburgh, I offer the option of working with me in a focused yet spacious way over a short period. Please note that in the video I talk about you visiting Glasgow, but since filming it, I’ve moved to Edinburgh, where I’m now based.
How does it work?
My first suggestion is that you take a look at my video courses Sexuality Maps and Sexual Confidence For Women, which give a good sense of me and my approach. I’m not for everybody, but I might be a good fit for you. If so, please contact me.
The first step is that we’ll have an initial conversation, either by telephone or Zoom so I can get to know you and get a sense of whether I can help, and what your goals might be for our work together. That call is free.
If you decide to go ahead, we’ll then have a more detailed discussion to go into this in more depth. That may be over one or several calls.
These conversations are important, because they help to establish safety and connection, which is a prerequisite for any real change.
We agree in ballpark terms what sort of work we’ll do, the hours we’ll work together, and the time period within which we’ll work, and I’ll keep that period completely free, so we have maximum flexibility.
I live in the beautiful city of Edinburgh, so you could tie in our work with an exploration of this wonderful city.
And once you get the idea of physical distance out of the way, and think in terms of time distance, it’s eminently do-able. The chances are high that there’s frequent and cheap flights from an airport near you direct to Edinburgh. It will take less than an hour. That’s less time than it takes to get across London. And I’m only a few miles from the airport, with a direct bus link. And if there isn’t a flight, but you’re in Birmingham say, or Manchester, or Newcastle, there’s very likely to be a direct train, which won’t take that long [and we can tailor the time to match up with your best travel options].
After our work, we’d then have a further, detailed call in the following week, to help with integration.
There are big advantages to working this way. There is enough time to go quite deep, but -crucially – enough time and space so we can go at the right pace and not rush things, with enough flexibility to slow or quicken the pace, or take breaks, as the work between us develops. It’s helpful to think in terms of spaciousness, rather than intensity.
Obviously, the cost isn’t insignificant. You can see details of costs on my Contact Page [which are flexible, depending on your income], but because I like working in this way, I’d give you a quarter off my applicable rate.
If you’re interested in exploring the possibility, let’s chat. You can either email me at johnwebberfraser@gmail.com, or text me on 07545707751, and we’ll get something in the diary.
Why isn’t self pleasure more pleasurable?
One of the many innovations in Sexological Bodywork training is a focus on how we might teach our clients to masturbate in a way which is more embodied, more pleasurable and less formulaic.
To this end, Joseph Kramer, the creator of Sexological Bodywork, invented something called ‘Orgasmic Yoga’.
This is a series of practices to get people to masturbate differently. But to understand these practices, we need to understand where they came from.
From Joseph’s perspective, working largely with men, there were four issues, which had been around for a long time, which more recently had been amplified by something else.
What were the four? They’re familiar:
Firstly, people tended to stumble across masturbation as children, when they carried out the act quickly and furtively and alone. So there was the issue of shame.
Second, once they had learnt how to masturbate, they kept doing the same thing, which over time meant they had to progressively turn the dial up. And the repetition would tend to make it compulsive rather than relaxed and pleasurable.
Third, they tended to be pretty disembodied while they were doing it. They would lose awareness of the rest of their body, or certainly sensations and emotions which weren’t part of their arousal.
Fourthly, they tended to be very focused on the outcome, orgasm, which they would tend to want to reach as quickly as possible.
The newer factor was the ubiquity of internet porn. He would see a lot of men who said they had a porn addiction, spending a lot of time every day watching their computer or phone screen; completely disembodied.
Orgasmic yoga was the cure for both this porn addiction, and for unsatisfying and repetitive -and generally male – masturbation generally. It was based on embodiment rather than based on fantasy porn.
Who it didn’t address was people who had issues with arousal, because that wasn’t the problem he was trying to remedy. But if we forget the problem that Orgasmic Yoga was meant to solve, and blithely universalise it, taking arousal as a given, we risk pathologising those people.
This was an issue Kat and I had to look at when creating our School Of Conscious Touch training programme.
We thought that the assumption that self arousal was straightforward and easy risked shaming and marginalising those students – and future clients of those students – whose sexuality wasn’t like that. So we needed something to go alongside Orgasmic Yoga.
But how could we conceptualise what that might be?
The famously intellectual Taoiseach, Dr Garret Fitzgerald, once said “That’s all very well in practice, but how does it work in theory?”
But that’s the thing: there’s nothing as practical as a good theory, because it helps us constellate our experience differently. It makes us see disparate shapes as parts of the one structure. Patterns appear.
And it’s like that with our innovation of distinguishing two different aspects of our sexuality, The Sexual Body and The Erotic Body, [which I describe in more detail elsewhere],because if we just shoehorn embodiment into our existing perspective on sexuality, embodied masturbation practices come with the same limitations that sensate focus exercises do. And like sensate focus, if all that’s missing is a bit more presence, space and length of time, then orgasmic yoga is ideal. For porn guys, or people with straightforward arousal, it’s ideal. For others, not so much.
For these people, we felt two things were important. First, we had to get them in touch with their Erotic Body, and we worked out several ways to do this. Our identification of The Erotic Body was the theoretical game-changer, because it was it, rather than The Sexual Body, that these people required to engage with first, because the former was much more inclusive of all experience, and far less likely than the latter to provoke feelings of performance anxiety.
Once they were in touch with The Erotic Body, we would then let them wonder creatively in fantasy and memory, noticing what triggered interest, and they could then start to picture -not, at least at first, enact – what an erotic practice authentic to them might look like.
What we’re trying to create with The School is a perspective on sexuality which, while remaining embodied, moves away from the traditional language of needs and drives, and pays much more attention to how each individual constellates their sexuality, which is almost always revealed at the level of fantasy, providing we neither get stuck at the narrative level, either of the fantasy itself, or a general story of what sexuality is.
If you’re interested in working with me, you can contact me here