‘Did you say you’d like to get a dog?’ T asked randomly. But then I looked around and there was a man in a full bodysuit dressed as a dog. On his hands and knees crawling about with groups of other human dogs all doing ‘Puppy play’.
‘They’re human pups,’ said a woman cheerfully, seeing my confused face. ‘Would you like to pat one?’ A man knelt before me in a ‘sit up and beg’ position, panting with his tongue out. ‘Er – good dog,’ I patted him as seemed to be required. T laughed at seeing me utterly confused and went to get tea.
‘I think I’m in the wrong place again,’ I sighed. ‘Look, they even have single-use plastic cups. I can’t handle this.’
‘What – the human dogs?’
I can’t handle the human dogs, the plastic cups or the plastic lids. Our poor oceans. ‘I really don’t need a lid, thanks. I’m going to drink this tea right now,’ I barked, rather grumpily, at the poor girl serving tea.
‘And breathe out.’ T smiled at me getting vexed.
‘Is there anything to do here apart from ogle halfdressed flesh or buy weird stuff for fetishes we don’t have?’ I grumbled.
‘There are some interesting talks. Here’s one called “To Cum or Not to Cum, Is That a Question?” For men? Well, that’s different.’
‘It’s about the male not ejaculating? OK, let’s go and hear what this Drew Lawson has to say’.27
So we went and sat among a small audience that contained some very interestingly-dressed people and listened to the debate about whether the ancient Asian idea that it’s not good for a man to ejaculate too often is true or not.
A lot of the men in the audience were from the ‘I want to ejaculate as often as I possibly can’ school of action. Their reasons included: it feels good, helps me relax, helps me sleep, I feel deeply connected to everything, my mind stops thinking about my job and for a few seconds I become bliss and I feel less tense and more mellow after I ejaculate. Also a woman added that she enjoys making her man ejaculate.
Drew Lawson (tall, good-looking, well-spoken and welldressed) was explaining the alternative perspective while I scribbled notes rapidly. The Indian Vedic teachings suggest that ejaculation drains our ‘Ojas’. Apparently this is some form of our ‘vital essence’ which they say is difficult or impossible to replace – our life energy if you like. As sperm does contain life energy I suppose this makes sense.
The average man (if there is such a man?) lasts under ten minutes during sexual intercourse’. The ‘average woman’ takes more than 30 minutes of sexual intimacy and physical connection to ‘start to move into orgasmic states’. Are you finding this very reassuring, women? I was. I wish I could have given this specific piece of information to a 25-year-old version of me. Once a woman is in an orgasmic state this can continue for hours. This, Drew said, very reasonably, may be ‘reason enough’ for men to learn how to have conscious choice over their ejaculatory response.
Then there is the question of hormones. Scientific studies in animals suggest that ejaculation spikes dopamine, oxytocin and prolactin levels in the body, which then can drop to low levels and take nearly three weeks to return to a normal level. Men who practice non-ejaculation say that after three weeks their bodies feel happier, healthier and that they have more energy and have been able to be more focused on their lovers.
Also, they are still having orgasms (this much I remembered). Practitioners suggest that by not ejaculating they can build a different and deeper orgasmic sensation in their bodies, which have been described, variously, as heart orgasms, spine orgasms, full-body orgasms and pineal orgasms. Oh goodness – yet more names for different types of orgasms. Apparently people report orgasmic sensations in different locations in the body – sometimes called the ‘chakra’ locations, sometimes called ‘energy centres’ in yoga and the location of nerve plexuses in anatomy and physiology.
A couple of men asked if he was talking bullshit. (There is a lot of straight talking at the Sexpo exhibition.) So Drew said,
‘In my personal experience, when I have more than about 15 days of non-ejaculation in my body, I feel more alive, more vital, focused, connected, energized and present.’ He chose his words carefully to describe the sensation.
‘How does this impact on your sex with your women if you don’t cum?’ asked a man sceptically and with a strange degree of antagonism.
‘I feel more able to meet her and be in deep intimacy with her. I feel more as if I’m serving and giving her my energy rather than taking or using her to scratch an itch.’
‘I like that description of bad sex …’ said a shapely woman in the back row. ‘It’s honestly felt like that sometimes – as though I’m being used to scratch an itch.’ She made a fast and vigorous scratching movement with her hand. We laughed and sighed.
‘It makes sex much more intimate,’ said another woman. ‘Yes, we felt that when my lover and I did this for a month.’ Drew was just sharing information. ‘After more than 50 or 60 days I feel as if my body is humming with vitality and energy.’
I just went on making notes, interested to see how T would respond. I half expected him to say, ‘No way!’ But as ever he’s full of surprises.
‘I want to try this,’ he said, when the talk had ended.
‘I think it will be interesting.’
‘You do?’
‘It’ll be interesting for me to see how long I can go without ejaculating.’
‘Will this mean less sex or more sex?’
‘I’m just going to ask him some more questions.’ He returned smiling.
‘Neither. It doesn’t mean having sex more or less often, it just means that I don’t ejaculate and also, if I masturbate, I don’t ejaculate. I thought I’d experiment.’
Obviously Drew doesn’t own this practice. No one owns this any more than the OM lot own clitoral stroking – they are both ancient tantric exercises. Just teachers of sexuality like Drew recommend trying them.
So T accepted the challenge and made it past 20 days and I can fill you in a bit on the exercise. Part of the time he was travelling and we weren’t together. I’m not sure whether this made it harder or easier for him but I can report the following: on day nine he sent me a text, ‘I think this is already a record for me since puberty.’
‘You mean if you weren’t doing this you’d be masturbating to ejaculation every day when we’re not together?’
‘Yes. Blokes do that, you know. It feels good and it helps me sleep. Why wouldn’t I?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just that, er, most women I know don’t do it every day. You think most blokes do?’
‘Yes.’
It’s not a question we ever ask really, is it?
On other days he’d just text me, ‘Day 12’ or ‘Day 14’, as if he was notching up some huge accomplishment. ‘Many men don’t make it to this many days,’ he said proudly.
‘Notice anything?’ I asked on Day 16. ‘I have a lot more time on my hands. So to speak. An extra 10–20 minutes a day and when I say “I’m going to my room to read a book,” I’m actually reading a book.’
On the days when we did see each other during this time I really enjoyed our lovemaking. Everything seems to teach slowing down. Be more mindful. Breathe together more. Enjoying subtlety with him focusing on not ejaculating helped this process. It made it more like coasting and less like driving. We had already removed the goal for me and so removing the goal for him too brought us into greater balance. Like a dance that was more in time. It didn’t feel as though he was dancing to one drum and I was dancing to another. Maybe it made him better able to ‘listen’ to my body rather than being overtaken. And of course it meant we could enjoy everything for longer.
On day 18 he said, ‘I feel as if I have more energy and more sexual energy but I don’t know whether I’m imagining it or not.’
‘Are you still sleeping OK?’
‘Yes. It’s good to know I can just get into bed and fall asleep with er … no extra effort.’
On
day 25, which was the target he had set himself, I had a boyfriend who was very keen to see me. [T: ‘You need to write “very” in caps there, Isabel.’ I: ‘It’s OK, they get it.’]
He’s enjoying this year of exploration of all kinds. It’s not always easy for either of us: For him, being anonymous; for me, half wanting to tell you all about him but not being able to because he’s a real person. It’s not easy this journey for either of us – but it has good moments. Velvet moments. Sometimes we may both feel like jumping ship. But neither of us is sorry to be on this journey. If this whole project was a bookable cruise – would you want a ticket?
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
The following morning Alexey rings. He asks how I’m getting on with everything.
I tell him about all the strange evenings I’ve been hearing about and attending. I tell him about the Sexpo exhibition.
About the human dogs. There’s a pause down the line.
‘Would you like to meet for a coffee?’
‘Yes – I would.’
I tell him all my adventures.
‘These talks, these experiences, seminar introduction nights, exhibitions ... Has anyone mentioned love at all?’
I think about it. ‘Well, er, no. Not specifically.’
‘Very few teachers seem to mention it. I feel as if I’ve invented it.’
I laugh. I’m assuming, in this book, that we are on this journey because there is, or may at some point in the future be, someone that we feel love for … but of course then we have to define what we mean by love. Always a tricky one …
So, with the help of coffee, we consider this topic.
Alexey is in a mild state of shock at my stories.
‘How can any of the organizations or seminars or anyone that teaches sexuality do a whole evening on sex and not mention love? Sex just for pleasure is meaningless. That’s why there are so many couples watching TV.’
‘Surely people are watching TV because they are not having any pleasure?’
‘Even if they’re having pleasure, it has to be about love. The deepest connection is potentially to yourself, your partner and your life. This connection in lovemaking has the power to impact your life in a very deep way. No matter how good a blow job is, it just doesn’t have that impact.’
‘OK, Alexey – but what’s love anyway?’ Always an interesting question I think.
‘Love is energy.’
‘You said last time that sex is energy.’
‘It’s all energy isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how can a woman express love through penetrative sex with, for example, a husband who has annoyed her that day and she’s feeling very little sensation?’
‘That’s a bit like when someone asked Mooji, “How do I learn to trust again? I’m heart-broken.” And he says, “That’s not your heart, that’s just stuff in your head that can’t trust. That’s not the real heart.”’
‘I can see that to an extent. We all listen to our thoughts too much and it is possible to let things go.’
‘In sex we are so obsessed with consuming. Taking turns and doing jobs for each other doesn’t count. That’s like saying, “I’ll be your toy if you’ll be my toy later. You focus on your consumerism and I’ll focus on mine.” But your energy is what comes from you; it’s not about what you receive. What makes you alive, what makes you feel is what comes out of you.’
‘St Francis said that.’
‘What?’
‘Not in a sexual context. Evidently. Sorry … you were saying?’
‘Love in sex is enjoying someone and making someone feel good, wanting to give something to someone. If we are not strangers just working each other there is an energy that comes from our bodies – energy that wants the other to be well. We give energy that is a caring gift. Love in sex is being able to give the energy of your heart with your body – you breathe life into a person and you leave something good with them. They come charged with your love. And then there is the enjoying the aesthetic in sex. Loving can also mean honouring someone very much – touching a body with respect. You have been allowed to touch and so it’s about enjoying all the senses.’
‘You make it sound very beautiful, Alexey.’
‘This is what I teach.’
‘How strange that you should have to teach this.’
‘I teach these two aspects. In the moment of sex itself you need to know how to evoke your own energies and to really appreciate the other person rather than just worrying about making it work.’
‘But say someone has a partner and the main energy that he or she is carrying around is anger, anxiety, sadness, depression, fear, neediness, resentment, pain or any combination of those – then what that person has to share is that troubled energy because that is the main energy that is dominating their mind, body and spirit.’
‘It’s irrelevant.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m talking about what we can express. Love is your energy.’
‘And that can’t be abused? Taken advantage of?’
‘Yes, but I’m assuming a certain amount of common sense. After all we choose who we give our love to. I’m assuming we’re talking about a situation where both partners are choosing to be in the same bed.’
‘OK. That is where I started actually. A couple that just want their sex to be as good as it can be.’
‘The return each partner gets is not what they are given but what they give. The return you get is in the moment of giving. When people talk about sex it’s only relatively recently that the first thing that comes to mind is all the weirdness associated with it. The first context that you associate it with is love.’
‘I think maybe that love used to be the first thing that people associated with sex. Of course in traditional religions the ideal is that you only get to enjoy this with someone when you love them so much you want to spend your whole life with them.’
‘It has all got a bit dark hasn’t it? And it is possible to have sex without love. You can do it in an S&M way and be beating each other and you may get something enjoyable out of it. But personally I don’t believe that real happiness can be found there.’
‘No? Wouldn’t those who enjoy those expressions of their sexuality say that we have limited understanding of love expressed in that way?’
‘I think it’s unstable.’
‘It’s very different from what you teach.’
‘Love is the core of sex. I’m not saying that I only teach love, but love is the core of the energy and if it’s absent it’s never going to be complete. A lot of things we feel, physically, hinge on that. The happiness that you feel from sex comes from that.’
‘So, maybe I just don’t love my partner enough? Maybe many of us don’t really know how to love our partners enough? How do you “love” all the people that come to you? You don’t love all your clients.’
‘I love them in the sacred space that is created there; I give love with energy and touch. In that space my love is my energy. Out of that space they are just people again but that loving energy stays with them. I don’t need to like them. People don’t need to like their partners in order to love them with a loving sexual energy.’
I can hear some of you readers checking out in that last paragraph. You may be thinking, ‘What is this guy on about?’ Is it easier to love relative strangers for a while than to love the man who hasn’t taken the rubbish out or the woman who has just maxed out the joint credit card? Sorry about the stereotypes there.
‘It’s irrelevant.’
‘Is it? I must be missing something. Please can you go back to your definition of love? You are saying, “Love is the key ingredient in sexuality.” OK, so how are you defining “love” in this context?’
He paused and then reached over and touched my arm.
‘If I put my hand on you I want you to feel that I want you to feel good. I want your body, right now, in that place where I’m touching you to feel happy, to feel c
ared for. I don’t want to just touch your body in a way that will press buttons so that you get a desire in your genitals. At this place in your body where I’m touching you I want you to feel that the sun has come or the rain has come. There is something that brings you alive from this contact with me. I want you to experience that when I take my hand away there will be something that stays there. I really do feel, in my heart, that I want to give something to you that will stay with you. I want you to be well and I want you to be happy afterwards. In this moment I am the only person who can make you feel loved. Right now I am the only source of that unique kind of love that humans have between each other. There may be someone else in your life but right now there is only me.’
‘Simple human warmth?’
‘In a way. I want, through this touching, with all the sensations and pleasure, to share the warmth of my soul. I also want to love the beauty of you. I want to touch you and I want to feel how beautiful this is. How it feels, the curves of it. I’m touching something beautiful and I’m grateful for this opportunity. I just want to explore it and savour every second. I want to deepen more into that. And that makes you feel appreciated and loved. So … that’s the difference compared to someone thinking that maybe if they touch her there, really well, then she’ll get a spark up and then eventually maybe she’ll have an orgasm.’
‘Sex can be exhausting when it becomes about that.’
‘Exactly. That sex is exhausting with an orgasm and this sex is recharging without one. If I touch you well for even five minutes, you’ll feel better than after orgasm-chasing sex. Sometimes you even lose energy and so does the man. All these techniques they speak of, they just fall off. But with love – beauty will awaken inside you, and with that more sensitivity. The giver and the receiver – they don’t exist anymore.’
‘Your words are like poetry, Alexey. But I’m still left asking how is it possible for any woman to give this kind of love to a man who is a criminal, a compulsive addict or even, as I said, a husband who they are usually fond of but who will not take the rubbish out?’
‘I’d say the third of the three is the bigger problem. I mean we mess up in a million ways but we can still go into that energy – she can still be a woman that can enjoy bringing something good to him to counteract the bad. And the chances are that those first two men, even though they have failed, will give her some love too. But the one who hasn’t taken the rubbish out is going to get her really annoyed – at the time itself, so she may be feeling really negative energy in her body, because it feels as though he isn’t respecting her. So that will take her more effort, in that moment, to overcome.’
Sensation Page 21