The Pleasure For Health Podcast

Cinderella Syndrome

How many of you dreamed of being Cinderella when you were little? Come on, admit it...you secretly dressed up in your prettiest party outfit with a crown made from your Mom’s brooch or something like that. You danced your way around the living room, sashaying and curtsying to an imaginary court. The ultimate goal of the entire story was to attract the handsome Prince and then live happily ever after in wedded bliss.

The True Challenge of Equality

A passion of mine is to work towards true equality and understanding between people of different gender, sexuality, race, financial means, ability. This may seem like a big dream, and it is, but it is also possible if we change a few beliefs. Our culture is built on inequality, and competition feeds the feeling that only one side can win, and if you’re not winning then you are losing.

Every body is unique

I wanted to touch on something that really stuck in my mind from recent teachings...

“There is often more difference between people’s genitals that are the same gender than there are between people of different genders.”

So what does that mean? Well, to put it simply, it means we are all different. No surprise there in our heads, but then, Why do we insist on ‘teaching’ about sex, as if we are all the same?

Prioritizing Pleasure

I have decided to take the month of April and describe a little bit of my journey as I begin my advanced training in Somatic Sex Education. After my first week of exploring gender, I peeked ahead to look at our next assignment. My first thought was.... AWESOME!

 

The task was to make time for four personal erotic exploration sessions within a week.

 

Best homework ever, right?

 

My body was excited, I was excited. It was permission to spend time pleasuring myself! I’m really not sure why I needed permission, but it felt fun and liberating to have it ‘assigned’ as homework.

 

Then I looked at my schedule for the coming week. (For those of you who don’t know me personally, I’m kind of a workaholic. Plus I singlehandedly nurture and support four young women, my daughters). This was going to be impossible!!

Fortunately, my stubbornness kicked in at this point, and I began to secretly plan all the moments that I could get away on my own, or at least think my own thoughts, in the coming week. I blocked off an hour at work here, I carved out a half hour there. I was determined to get my four sessions in! I decided my intention could be to explore how to make time for my sexual self, as a busy, single, working mom.

 

The first time slot came, I had just managed to get two kids off to school, and a third off to work. The oldest had gone back to her apartment for the week. I had an hour before I had to leave for work. Perfect!

 

I finished the last dregs of coffee, left the dirty dishes on the counter, and ran downstairs to my room. I could feel my excitement mounting with the thought of what was to come. I found a recording of Rumi poetry I had decided to listen to as I love the idea of spirituality and sexuality coming together. I stripped off and climbed under the covers as it was kind of chilly. Ahhh.... nice.

 

Then, my phone beeped a text message. Ugh, I picked it up, wondering who DARED to interrupt my precious alone time. It was the landlord, saying he would be over in 10 minutes to look at the furnace.

 

Ten minutes!! That was not long. I was disappointed that my first session was to be curtailed already, but I was far enough along that I decided to complete my ‘exploration’. I can’t say that there wasn’t some added intensity, knowing that I could be interrupted by the landlord at any minute.

 

I pulled on my clothes and slightly out of breath ran up to answer the door a few seconds later. I had to chuckle inside at the way the universe had such a twisted sense of humour. Was it too much to ask, for a brief time to enjoy myself? I shook my head, and carried on with my day. I did feel a low-level buzz from the whole thing, which was kind of cool in its own way. And hey, this is the reality of modern-day life!

 

The rest of my week was not much better. Although after learning from my first escapade, I booked an entire morning off work one day and made up for lost time. It was extremely hard to fit in four sessions in a week, even for me, a dedicated sexual enthusiast! I did, at least, have direct experience of how our sex lives can be derailed so easily. Without commitment and perseverance and a good sense of humour, life can get in the way for all of us.

 

And this, I decided laughingly, was my lesson for week two. Making time for sex and pleasure takes making it a priority!

So, you know what to do (wink) Prioritize!

 

With pleasure,

Ailsa

So, What does being a Somatic Sex Educator mean, really?

For a start, this field, as a profession, is relatively new. The importance of somatic or bodywork training in conjunction with traditional sex therapy or coaching has only recently begun to be explored. As well, the idea that sex therapy could be something positive, something other than the old paradigm of ‘sexual dysfunctions’ and ‘problems’ is a modern idea.  What if we just want to explore our own unique desire map? Or how to feel more pleasure with our partners. What if we want the connection to our own body before we are ready to connect physically with others? Where do these questions fit in our model of Sex therapy?

The Surprising Benefits Of Empowering Choice And Voice Around Sex

Empowerment!

I know that’s a word that gets thrown around a lot these days, and even I, roll my eyes when I see another slogan with the message of ‘empower yourself’ written blithely on a landing page for another coaching course. So, here’s the thing, empowerment is possible. It isn’t something you always get in ‘three easy steps’, but it is possible to live into, in your body. I’ll tell you how I found this out for myself.

Do We Want A Future With Replaceable Bodies?

I am a bodyworker. Every day I work with people’s relationships to their body. It constantly amazes me how disconnected most of us have become, from our ‘physicalness’. When was the last time you really connected with your earlobe? Or more practically, when was the last time you really sent gratitude to your feet for carrying you around all day? When was the last time you allowed yourself to feel?

I'm A Guy - Not A Mind Reader!

So I have spent the last week or two having some really great talks with my guy friends, and to say its been eye-opening is an understatement! I have been blown away by the openness, the caring, and the vulnerability I have witnessed in men. I also see how confused and helpless they feel in the shifting social culture of our times, characterized by the media #metoo campaign.

I Just Want To Please Her!

I hear this from so many men, this desire to please their female partners. Often they laugh and say they wish there was a manual that went with the woman. I mean women are complex, right? We are notoriously hard to read, and we seem to have a penchant for changing our minds right when things are going well. I mean what is a guy to do?

Exploring Sensational Play

So this week I thought I’d give a taste of what is possible when you expand your ideas around play in the bedroom. Maybe you feel like you’ve gotten in a rut, performing the same few things with the same partner, and finding yourself becoming bored with the predictability. You may find yourself sighing and wishing things were more exciting, or worse, blaming your partner for not being more ‘romantic’.