I love the broadest definition of Queer as not straight. Leaving the heteronormative escalator, experimenting with different relationship models and erotic styles, and stopping conforming to unconscious roles, and straight or tantric versions of polarity. Rather than an identity crisis, it’s an invitation to freedom, to possibility, to fluidity beyond the binary ordinary. Allowing that curiosity into being is exciting, wondering who or what will bring out aspects of a soul in waiting? Being intimate, being close, consenting and confident in our connections is of ever greater importance. In finding solace, acceptance, support and pleasure, the erotic matters.

How else but love are we going to change our inner worlds? I met two boyfriends on tantra courses who each taught me about love; one who opened then hurt my heart deeply, and one who healed it lightly with gentleness, a honeymoon suite and kindness. The first opened me up to pleasure and loss, the other encouraged me to write. Love for both prevails.

Each joyful, painful, helpful step of the sexuality journey changed me, woke me up to myself. I used to know how to make a living but not how to live. Or love. I couldn’t have changed without yoga, art, dancing and stripping, chanting, listening to my heart and body, being with the people who hurt or healed, nurturing sensual touch, bodywork and shadow healing. Exploring depths and darker sides to stop avoiding suffering, grow whole and find compassion.

A gift of a pendulum tuned me into Spirit, and a unique path opened up in front of me, holding a place for faith and surrender to life itself. Getting conscious of a divine plan helped me shift from being list-driven to meeting life in the moment, receptive, curious, wondering what each person or happening is here to show me. Asking for trust instead of anxiety. I’m not special. What if that’s how life works? And there’s still a list.

The Wheel of Consent helps me be acutely aware of my agency and every single choice every single day. It’s inner work, enhancing generosity and a compassionate mind. When boundaries are no longer assailed, it’s easier to give and allow, not from obligation but ease. I’m aware the honesty can feel alien at first, but there’s no going back to confusion or telepathy, avoidance or acquiescence. Chosen touch can take you somewhere you didn’t know you wanted till you got there and felt it.

I’ve never understood the interest in sport. Week in, week out, watching other people’s efforts in the hope of a few exciting moments of indirect pleasure. The goal posts are small, the moves are only occasionally virtuous, and belonging to the crowd matters. I see the parallel in the prevailing models for sex. If sexuality is like a creative spaceship, with the potential for traversing galaxies, let’s not use it to go to the corner shop for a white sliced loaf. Or a rugby match.

While libidos, rather than knickers, are hitting the floor, porn usage is hitting the roof. I’m not saying the two are related, but surely, there’s better than this? We can all have greater experiences. If a drop in desire is because there is little sense of agency about what happens to bodies in bedrooms following an outsider's script, that makes sense. It stands to reason not to show up for something unfulfilling, unexciting or repetitive. For anyone.

Why do I expect that everything should go right when I’m careless, hopeful and thoughtless? While deluding myself that I’m careful, moderate and risk averse. Despite experience, I still expect mostly good times and ease, and it’s riotously unsettling when I don’t find smooth passage. With my privilege, I don’t imagine hardship. And suffering, while not unknown, is an immature aversion. My mind likes to see the good, the potential and the upside, and to follow the pleasure. Staying clear and wise to the ways I trick myself into rose-tinted futures is necessary, seeing the balance of probabilities rather than the dream. The future is always better, the now is tricky. That premise is questionably naive given late stage capitalism. Yet I don’t know what to do. Buy canned peaches and start prepping?

Seeing attachment patterns is easy in a relationship. Are you avoidant or anxious, or zig zagging chaotically between the two? I’ve been all of them but fundamentally avoidant. Until I was with someone who was more avoidant than me, then I got anxious. I wonder if learned secure is laughable when single, as the illusion is yet to be tested.

Meeting other people who have taken a sexuality journey reassures me. Of their awareness, dedication and solidity. They know about their shadows and the trials of pursuing pleasure activism. They’ve tackled obstacles to release shame, shyness and manipulation. I find such openness and doubt refreshing. They have clear boundaries, and honesty and bravery in creating connections. In the care to establish consent, I trust their consideration of others and self.

I have little  respect for anger. I don’t even acknowledge it in me. What’s the point? It doesn’t change anything and it’s a failure of not having sorted issues out way back down the track. Yet other people see rage as sacred. I’d love to feel sanctimonious about rage, yet I feel indifferent. Anger scares me, yours and mine. I don’t want to be on the receiving end of it and I don’t believe in its effectiveness. When I’ve expressed anger no-one cared, nothing changed. Did I feel better? No, it still felt like failure. So I do low level anger like contempt, irritation or disappearance. Not often. But quiet fury is decisive fuel. The only time anger felt satisfying was when I acted it out with kind people I wasn’t angry with. Seeing the power of it; cold, pure, murderous, cutting. If only I had the courage in real life.

I’ve avoided inner child work. Without trying them so only based on my innate prejudice, I avoid the therapeutic offerings that are supposed to be playful, ergo foolish. I’m too cool for clowning, too grown up to play, and my inner child would rather read a book.

I feel for men, I really do. Women break away sooner, once they realise they’re in chains or oestrogen levels drop. And patriarchy is screwing everyone over. Defensiveness, denial or distraction are futile. Why maintain and uphold a failing system for scraps of male privilege or rapid ejaculation? So if a few minutes of friction, or faction, is all you want, then it’s a miserly interpretation of power. And pleasure.

Seeing friendly couples makes me smile. Seeing them support and enjoy each other is a delight. I often ask what makes it work. Often, besides shared values, it’s the right amount of closeness and distance, space together and apart. Contrastingly, I’ve met functioning couples who want close attention, to witness, share and be emotionally entwined. So if there’s no one right way, you do two.

My nervous system is fine, thanks. I’m not triggered but maybe I am irritated, sad, upset, excited, anticipatory, alive. I’m always curious about what we think might be possible for calmness when living life. Since when did having a soothed nervous system become a status symbol or is it a modern wellness tyranny? Passing on the responsibility for this to the individual, when too many anxieties are societally induced. It’s too much to expect to have permanent Buddha-like zen vibes unless you lie in that mythical cave. Back in the market place, the task is to be aware, and to use that awareness to know when to withdraw, drop out, dodge the bullets of unsuitable relationships, find ways to detach from unnecessary expectations, and ultimately make wiser choices.

Accomplishing sex feats isn’t all about the bucket list. Making up for lost time is one thing, but moving through tick lists without emotion, runs out of velocity. The wonder of encounters is allowing surprise, joy and pleasure. Yet a first meeting is often fraught with telepathy, silently working out what’s expected. It’s not only consent that matters, is there a feeling that any intimacy can be paused, changed, stopped without rancour or wheedling? I’ve had first encounters where I’ve wondered what’s happening? I’m confused, as if some performance objective is going on behind the scenes. The pressure to have an orgasm for someone else’s validation, takes the fun out of it.

I could have paid for a PhD at Harvard with the money I spent on sexuality trainings. I doubt it’d have been so much fun or as useful as the lived experience. Better paid outcomes, perhaps.

While forgiveness is graceful, I wonder if acceptance is enough? Some mistakes are better not forgiven as they prematurely make us or others feel better, while the hurt remains. Forgiveness means one person has the largesse to forgive. Somehow, taking the moral high ground that there’s always a right way to behave. That happens to be theirs.

There’s something about collectively coming together to learn or create that feels more equal than hierarchical. Four decades ago, I trained as a social studies teacher. We chose to teach each other in a democratic cooperative style, with two old hippy course leaders. I loved that style of learning. I was an open door,  influencing my inherent anti-authority beliefs. From an early upbringing of a ‘do as I say’ parent, I’ve been asking Why ever since.

My Tantra teacher used to say to us, “If you can’t play with it, it’s got you.” Later, I delved into, then played with the issues that had got me into a tantric turbulence. So I could own my shadows rather than hide them from myself and others. These days, there’s a wry smile as I confess my control, possessiveness or avoidance issues over dinner.  Best to be upfront.  If I’d never gone there, they’d still be running the shop and relationships. Yet, you never know who’ll appreciate them.