Sexological Bodywork®
Would you like to access the kind of pleasure you seek? Would you like to learn more about your genitals? Does shame, fear, or not feeling enough get in the way of your ability to connect sexually? Would you like to improve your ability to express what you need and your boundaries when it comes to sharing? If you feel that these are some of your questions or you have other questions related to sexuality, you are invited to find out what Sexological Bodywork can do to support you in your search.
What are the general themes of Sexological Bodywork?
What is Sexological Bodywork?
Sexological Bodywork focuses on the sensory aspects of eroticism, pleasure, and touch, contemplating the psychological aspects but not focusing on them. If you are someone who feels very dependent on fantasy or imagery for pleasure, this method can help you expand your sexual arousal by bringing attention back to the sensations in your body or in your partner. Among other possibilities, Sexological Bodywork can improve your communication skills with your partner so that you can relive your desire.
In a Sexological Bodywork session, we listen to your bodily subjectivity, which translates into having an experience rooted in the body and in presence. This is the opposite, in every way, to a dualistic subject-object approach in which we see the body as a “machine” that we can repair to make it work efficiently or as an entity that can be “governed” from the mind.
Due to the deep level of body awareness, regulation of the nervous system and connection with your genitals proposed, a Sexological Bodywork session has the potential to help you resolve anorgasmia, delayed orgasm, vaginismus, premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, hemorrhoids or pelvic floor pain. It can also help you relieve pain or reduce scar tissue restrictions (results of childbirth, infections, surgeries or circumcision). Although Sexological Bodywork is not intended to be a healing practice, it can be a complement from a body experience approach to medical or psychological therapy.
Why is it safe?
Safe items
- Quality lubricants
- Organic massage oils
- Vinyl or nitrile gloves
- Disinfection of utensils and surfaces
- Hand sanitizers
Ethics
I follow the Somatic Sex Educators Association of Australasia (SSEAA) Code of Ethics
What is somatic learning?
Working on the resilient edge of resistance
Body-rooted learning happens when we have experiences at The Resilient Edge of Resistance*.
The resilient edge of resistance is between our comfort zone and our resistance zone. In the realm of our nervous system, it translates into doing that activity that is challenging enough to keep trying, and at the same time, safe enough to not feel overwhelmed and want to quit.
If in the context of a session, you find yourself on the resilient edge of resistance, then:
- You may find another kind of pleasure that you are not used to.
- You learn optimally.
- You feel safe enough to let go.
- Your nervous system remains curious, receptive, and attentive.
- You can go much deeper into body-based learning.
- You can move your boundaries.
- You can always reduce the intensity of the experience and return to a safer zone.
This would not happen if we remain in a comfort zone or if we overflow our boundary. It is good to remember that we need a certain amount of risk to take a step forward; however, without safety and without the possibility of reversibility (resilience), risk becomes reckless.
It is also important to recognize that by working on these edges, strong emotions and experiences that are being experienced in the body can come to the surface.
If those feelings arise, we can create a neutral, non-judgmental space around these experiences and invite what is alive about these feelings and find a safe way to experience them.
In the realm of touch, the resistant edge of resistance is the space where touch pressure is firm enough to feel a presence and influence on the tone and gentle enough to not feel pain or discomfort.
* Barbara Carrellas, in her famous book Urban Tantra, revisited the concept of the Resilient Edge of Resistance coined by anal masseur Chester Mainard. They refer to it as the point at which touch is “okay.”
History
Joseph Kramer, Ph.D. was the founder of this cutting-edge discipline. In 1984, he founded the Body Electric School in Oakland, California, where he trained thousands of professional massage therapists, erotic bodybuilders, and somatic educators. In these classes, people learned to rewire their sexual responses to achieve a more pleasurable erotic life. At its origins, the practices were founded from Taoist traditions and as a way to help HIV-positive men experience safe touch and healing in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
Joseph founded the new legal profession of Sexological Bodywork™ in 2003. In order to be approved by the California State Board of Education as an educational modality, certain limits and safety precautions were added. Current limits of the method include the educator remaining clothed throughout the session, one-way touching from the educator to the student, and the use of gloves during the sexological bodywork session. Sexological bodyworkers generally refer to themselves as somatic sex educators or bodyworkers, as opposed to sexual or intimacy coaches.
Professional training is now offered in California, Europe, Canada, Brazil and Australia.
Sexological Bodywork is a recent discipline, and the state of California has already recognized it as a profession. At the same time, progress is already being made in the same direction in different countries. Behind somatic professionals, associations around the world provide the public with a guarantee of trust, transparency and responsibility.