Over the last few years as a client, tantra explorer, practitioner and as a ‘body’ for other trainee practitioners, I’ve had the chance to try out different bodywork modalities for both healing and pleasure. As they say, it's tough work but someone’s gotta do it and it might as well be me.
Since my journey into Sexological Bodywork and Bossy Massage, the quality of choice, presence and touch becomes more paramount than any particular ‘structure ‘in Tantra, healing bodywork or specific massage modality. The more I work with co-created massage, the stronger is my instinct that this is what bodies need.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just ask the physio or masseuse to do just the bits your body needs? However, the irony is, often we don’t know what we need before we book, we just have a vague idea of having a treatment. And also we usually don’t know the whole of what we need, until we feel it. We know we want something but aren’t sure what. Yet the body has a way of recognising that - the first deep sigh; a sign we feel safe, the breath deepens, the touch is congruent. Then we know we’ve found what we came for.
In the past I’ve booked bodywork sessions as I had a ‘problem’. Sometimes because I wanted to be ‘fixed’. That might be called deep tissue massage or sometimes just for relaxation. Skilled ones, some aimed to explore the aches and pains and solve an issue, others pleasurable with nice aromatherapy smells. Modalities like Sacrocranial therapy and Zero Balancing mystify and amaze me. I have no idea how they work yet they do. I’m impressed and pleased with what I’ve gained from them, I really enjoy the practitioner's expertise. So while there may be no need for me to adjust, I can still speak if I want to if I’m curious or uncomfortable.
Other times I’ve had massages where what happened was a bit meh; I was just fitting into some kind of a system yet I didn’t really need the whole body massage that I paid for. Maybe I enjoyed the shoulder and neck massage but I wasn’t bothered about my legs being ‘done’. Or a lomi-lomi massage that was just too intense, and too long. I used to go to one lady who used to check out my chakras with a dowsing pendulum first; her massage was so-so but the chakra balancing intrigued me. These sessions left me feeling rather nonplussed or slightly unsatisfied.
When I’ve been a body for trainee massage practitioners, I’m treading a fine line between encouragement and attention to detail with the feedback. So it’s a trustworthy practitioner who asks me to be a practice body. I’ve been trained in touch by some of the best in the world and I’m aware of my body and emotions on many levels now, aware of what good and necessary touch feels like. So when we learn to co-adjust and share what’s happening, the practitioner and I are co-creating the experience; it’s for their learning, not for me to zone out. I have to be honest and trustworthy too, as the feedback loop allows us to feel and hear the effect the touch is having. I appreciate the skills I don’t know or are new, they value the response. There’s a slowness of pace and communication between the person on the table who’s directing and the practitioner who is following and occasionally suggesting.
I occasionally have massages when I travel, cheap, well-intentioned yet often unlike what I really need, the touch is often too fast or systemic for me. It’s easier to get a facial than endure and keep adjusting throughout an hour of bodywork. However, because I’m tenacious like this and I like the research, I remember the best massages I’ve had. Those with natural ‘thank yous’ and ‘you’re welcome’ rather than ‘sorry,’ to my requests for slowness and changes of pressure. Then I feel safe to relax, my nervous system drops its canny wariness and energy moves within me. I remember a particular one in Bali, it was amazing after so many average to poor ones, I remember being still in a haze of peace and beauty hours later as I watched the rain over the rice fields.
As the masseuse had chatted a bit over my post-massage ginger tea, I asked her how she had trained. During the conversation she said so many of her clients say they don’t feel anything and so they ask for the touch ever stronger. That doesn’t surprise me as tense bodies can’t absorb as much subtle sensation as relaxed ones. Slower massage allows you to notice more of what’s happening and then adjust pressure of touch for different places. But if you’re not used to that, how would you even think to ask for it. And also we’re generally used to trusting the masseur knows the best thing to do.
It got me wondering, what if that’s not actually true? Agreed the masseuse has had the training and might know about anatomy and types of massage, but what if that’s not what your body or emotional psyche actually needs? With co-created massage, bodies learn to express what they deeply long for. The more we can tune in to that, the more satisfied we’ll be.
What do I mean by this?
With Sexological Bodywork, clients are learning the awareness skills of how to listen to their body, aware of signals from inside (interoception), of sensations and emotional responses. Based on the bossy massage by Betty Martin and Taoist Erotic Massage clients slowly identify what part of their body is calling to be touched; noticing, trusting and valuing that. Expressing the requests based on what they notice their body wants in that moment, not the list or idea they came with, nor the experience they might think I want or expect them to have. It’s useful because this skill translates into life outside the therapy room, with awareness of limits and desires, expressing our wants rather than hoping someone will guess, and valuing clear responses and limits. When so much of life happens to us, the ability to begin to change that is vital. Especially in terms of pleasure and having the space to work out what you really want.
Nothing you don’t want to happen will happen, only what you’ve asked for and the giver is willing to do will happen. We learn something new, guided by body and emotion on ever deeper levels. We start here and now with what you want at any given moment. The clear delineation of who something is for and the learning purpose of it stops the confusion of faux giving, tolerating and expectations of telepathy. What doesn’t work in co-created massage is a client saying “I’m in your hands” or expecting to want the practitioner to be turned on or to want to touch or ‘give’ in return. That’s confusing for everyone. In co-created massage, at the beginning there will be times of pauses, frustration, and it’s fine to not want anything or to not know. That’s natural. Finding your somatic ‘I want’ needs space and patience.
Maybe the perfect massage style doesn’t exist, it’s simply the one your body wants at any given time. You choose. With co-created healing sensual or erotic massage, when you don’t know what you need exactly but you want to investigate or learn something, co-creation is a slow and deeply rewarding embodied change. ‘The choosing is more important than the doing.’ It’s not a case of practiced ‘moves’ or aiming for a goal, rather it’s the quality of noticing connection, presence and touch.
There’s no going back to being done to. Freedom lies in being able to discover what’s possible in safety, to understand the skills of interoception, touch, consent, breath, expression and movement. To enjoy finding honesty and confidence in communication, to take responsibility for oneself in the presence of another; to experiment, shift states, expand consciousness moving between emotions; bliss, acceptance, nurturing, not knowing, disappointment, arousal, peace, healing, loss, sensuality, asking for and receiving what you need.
Being with what you learn about yourself in the space changes you outside it. It’s an ongoing practice.