Tantra teacher Rupert Alison takes his first steps into Conscious BDSM – and is astonished by the loving compassion of its practitioners and the powerful healing created within its sacred spaces.

What defines a spiritual path? What does it need to include? There’s usually something in there about bringing you into the present moment. Methods for creating altered states of consciousness. Some attempt to answer the question “Who am I?” And above all, something about love, about opening your heart to others. By these criteria, my first experiences of BDSM are that it more than ticks every box.

This is very different from my inexperienced view of BDSM of only a year or two ago. I had assumed it was for people who were so numb and anti-life that the only way they could feel anything was to have a very intense dose of pain – because anything less just wouldn’t register or be relevant. So obviously it wasn’t for sensitive, conscious, ‘spiritual’ people – (such as myself of course). Either that, or else it was just a bizarre hobby, like train spotting or battle re-enactment – harmless enough fun, of course, but only fitting for those who aren’t quite right in the head…

But all that has changed. In the last six months I have been fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of floggings from three very different but all deeply compassionate, authentic, powerful and skillful experts in the field. (And I’ve also received a couple from friends who are still learning how to do it, just as I am. Flogging of course is just one aspect of BDSM – there are many others I haven’t even tasted yet.)

After one flogging, I felt like I’d done 6 months of therapy in 20 minutes. During another I felt myself journey deep into my own underworld, and emerge from the other side, radiant and shining – as powerful a shamanic journey as I have ever encountered. And in another I felt I’d been honoured with a deeply sexual and intimate experience, yet without any sexual contact or crossing of any boundaries.

So what takes place during a flogging – and what do I mean when I describe it as a spiritual experience? Well, here are just ten ways in which for me it qualifies as exactly that:-

1. Receiving unconditional love.
   This certainly wasn’t something I had anticipated. One of the things I have loved about the ritual space which is created when being flogged, is that whatever aspects of myself I reveal – whatever degree of rage or horniness or ecstatic bliss or deep grief I express – the space, and the person flogging me, can and will simply hold all of it. Flogging takes me to a place where all the levels of politeness and cultural conditioning fall away – they have to – there is simply no space for them any more. What is revealed is the raw, animal, fucking-and-fighting, exquisitely vulnerable and powerful sacred human being who lives underneath all that. And all of it, however messy, raw or tender, is lovingly, deeply held. That was my six months of therapy in twenty minutes.
2. Staying open to what is.
   I had one exquisite experience during a flogging where the types of stroke varied a so much that I didn’t know if the next stroke would be a hard, biting one or a soft caressing one. My fear wanted me to contract my body, in case the next stroke would be a hard one. But my aliveness wanted me to stay open, because if the next stroke turned out to be a soft one, I didn’t want to miss the sensation of that lovely softness. It was a fantastic experience of choosing to remain open to either possibility, knowing that if I had closed myself off to one polarity, I would be closed off to both.
3. Surrender.
   Of course, at one level there needs to be deep trust in and surrender to whoever is giving you the flogging. (Though there is no abdication of responsibility here – safe words are used and as the receiver you are responsible throughout for communicating your boundaries, where necessary.) But for me, the more interesting aspect of surrender is within my own mind. The sensations when being flogged are often an intense and rapidly increasing sensation, which drops away again as quickly as it arises. If my mind labels the sensation as ‘pain’, then it tries to control or predict the sensation in some way – but it can’t. The sensation is too fast moving and short-lived for that. Then I can feel powerless, and even like a victim, if I choose to go down that route. However, if I let go of trying to control or predict the sensation, let go of labeling the sensation as ‘pain’, then instead of trying to control my experience, my mind simply surrenders to what actually is. I can then experience the sensation simply as sensation – allow myself to be surprised by it, moved by it, animated by it – and surprisingly enough, even enjoy it.
4. Exploring the shadow side.
   After 20 years of ongoing personal development and spiritual practice, being flogged is the best thing I’ve found yet to help me access, express, surrender to, and play with my shadows and demons. Rage, grief, fear, and all the demons and archetypes which embody and personify them are given active permission and encouragement to emerge into the light of day and be seen more clearly, in a powerful process of feeling a more complete, self-aware, integrated human being.
5. Cultivating presence and loving attention.
   If I am giving someone else a flogging, it is of course imperative that I remain fully present with them and fully holding them in my heart. Because if either of these is absent, the other might get hurt. And so, particularly because someone has put themselves in such a vulnerable position, I am extra vigilant to check my thoughts for any sense of meanness or revenge which might be present in my consciousness (because of course holding a flogger in my hand might well bring up such thoughts). And then I need to be absolutely sure that even if they are there, my actions are nevertheless being guided by my love for that person, rather than the fleeting thoughts of meanness. This in particular, strikes me as a deep and powerful practice of self-awareness.
6. Emotional catharsis.
   I recently spoke to someone who was overjoyed that after 2 years of regular five rhythms practice, they had finally been able to get in touch with and vocally express their rage on the dance floor. Which is great, but I couldn’t help wondering if they might have achieved the same in half an hour of being flogged.
7. Energy work.
   I find being flogged can be a fantastic way of moving energy round the body, releasing blocks and stuck places, leaving me feeling more vibrant and alive. Using breath really helps. Again, you don’t have to do any work to get your energy moving, quite the opposite – you simply have to allow it.
8. Be here now.
   All the spiritual techniques I’ve practiced over the last 20 years or so have been variations on a general theme of how to get you to be more present, conscious, in the moment. To crudely summarise: Buddhism does this in a calm, collected, way: ‘Be here now because it’s good for you in the long run’. Karate: ‘Be here now, because if you don’t you’ll get hit in the face’ (I found that one a good motivation). Tantra: ‘Be here now, because it’s so exquisitely delicious, you really wouldn’t want to miss it!’ And being flogged? “Be here now because there simply is nowhere else you can be”. It takes a lot of work not to be present during a flogging.
9. Suffering as part of the human condition.
   Again, most spiritual paths have a lot of advice about how to live with, or transcend, suffering. Being flogged can be a tough experience (as well as a blissful one), taking you out of your comfort zone, to your edge, and in this process you are learning how to live with yourself when the going is tough, unpredictable, and uncomfortable.
10. Ecstatic states of consciousness.
    As the title of Barbara Carellas’ excellent new book so compellingly asserts: ‘Ecstasy is necessary’. Every spiritual path I’m aware of contains techniques for attaining altered, ecstatic states of consciousness. And without doubt, being skillfully flogged can achieve this in a very short space of time. If you don’t believe me, you’ll simply have to try it…

Well, that all sounds great, but surely there must be some pitfalls, some downsides? On present experience, I would definitely advise the following:

• Breathe.
  The experience will be more enjoyable and powerful, and less painful, if you breathe with awareness to let the energy move in and through you, rather than contracting against the sensations, or holding your breath.
• Stay present.
  If you are prone to leaving your body/disassociating, let your partner know this so they can support you to stay grounded in the experience.
• Create a safe space.
  If you are going to receive a first flogging, receive it from someone who knows what they are doing. Use safe words, and don’t take any alcohol.

So there you have it – breath, presence, and creating a safe space – just as are required in pretty much every other spiritual practice I’ve ever experienced. I rather suspect that’s not a coincidence.

So my heartfelt hope is that, if you are feeling in any way drawn to experience flogging, or any other aspect of conscious BDSM, reading these words may have nudged you a little further in that direction.

If you would like to find out more about how to experience it first hand with some wonderful and highly skilled practitioners, go here >>

Or perhaps you have some experience of Sacred Kink and would like to take it further? If so you might fancy Urban Adventures in the Underworld – our juicy weekend of community, rhythm and shamanic travel through BDSM. Check it out >>

Rupert Alison has been holding sacred space for over twenty years. He teaches tantra, contact yoga and conscious movement, and co-directs The Oxford Tantra Wave. For details of his forthcoming workshops and events, please go here >>

Following the announcement that Sacred Pleasures is leaving The Pot at the end of April, Faerie writes about what happens next.

Over the past month lots of you gorgeous people have asked me what will happen to Sacred Pleasures once we leave The Pot. Will we simply close our doors forever? How will everyone connect with the wonderful sex-positive community that’s emerging here once there’s no venue? In short, what happens next?

You’ve been gorgeously sweet and generous in asking about my personal circumstances, for example where I’m going to live once I move out of The Pot. I am deeply grateful for the offers I’ve had of places to to stay while I sort things out. This has meant a lot to me and has been extremely welcomed at this time of change and uncertainty.

Although I’ve spoken to many of you personally about this, I’d like to take this chance to address people’s questions about the future of Sacred Pleasures.

First of all, the good news. We love what we do and we love you; so whatever happens, Sacred Pleasures will continue in some form in the future. We see this as an opportunity to explore new territories and develop new approaches, and as a transition rather than an ending.

For the first couple of months after we leave The Pot we’ll be exploring what it’s like to be venueless, and offering workshops, events and individual sessions from a variety of spaces in London.

Workshops and Events
We have two weekends lined up before we close for the summer. We are really excited about these two events, which are both taking place at a venue we love in Whitechapel.

Sat 19th & Sun 20th May: Urban Adventures in the Underworld
Claire and I are particularly excited about this brand-new event, a weekend of deep and magical BDSM culminating in a powerful group-created ritual on the Sunday afternoon. This is a great opportunity for us to travel far out, using the power of ecstatic BDSM as rocket fuel. Find out more >>

Sat 9th & Sun 10th June: Pleasure Portals Intensive
Claire and I team up once more with the lovely Rebecca Lowrie to offer an introductory weekend of conscious sexuality. On the Saturday we’ll introduce material to help you bring more awareness to your love life; and on the Sunday we’ll delve deeper and show you some of the places these wonderful practices can take you. Come to one or the other or do both for a powerful and transformative weekend of bliss.

Details of this course will be published soon – if you’re not already on our mailing list, please join it to receive an email when this happens.

Claire & I will also be teaching together at the Osho Leela Festival of Tantra and Conscious Sexuality in August, and we’d love you to join us for that.

Individual sessions
Throughout May and June, Claire, Mark and I offer sessions from a range of beautiful spaces across London. We also offer the option of visiting your own home for sessions.

In addition our visiting practitioner Katie will offer sessions in June and July from a beautiful space in north London, and Ruby may also offer sessions in late June (we are still firming this last one up.)

So although the sessions will be offered at different spaces, you will still be able to enjoy the same standard of sacred sexual pleasure and healing that we’ve been offering since we opened in August 2010.

To find out more about our practitioners and the sessions we offer, please go here >>

Looking further forward
From the end of June we’ll be taking a couple of months off to regroup and look at what’s next for Sacred Pleasures. (Katie will offer sessions in July, but otherwise we will be quiet during this time.) We love this work and we want to continue doing it, but we are allowing the possibility of new forms emerging as we let go of The Pot and go freestyle for a while.

Whatever happens, we’ll keep in touch with you to let you know where things go next for us. And you can be sure that we will return with inspiration and fresh energy in the Autumn!

Following his fantastic article about Tantra “King’s Quest” in January, we are delighted to publish some kinky filth from Nigel K.

The light snapped on.

“Flynn!” barked Potts.

A surge of adrenalin coursed through me. The call was no less dreadful for having been anticipated. The fear was no less intense for my having lain awake in the dark for the last half hour waiting for it. A few bodies stirred around me. Mine did not.

“Flynn!” it came again.

Lazily and languidly, I began to stir, pretending I’d been asleep; feigning a nonchalance that had permitted me to sleep despite what was to come. I sat up and wearily opened my eyes. I looked over at the open door and pretended to blink myself awake.

“Potts” I said, with a casualness designed to suggest that I was more concerned with the inconvenience of being woken than with what was coming next.

“Nicholas Edward Flynn?” asked Potts, using the age-old formula.

“Yes.”

“Put your trousers on over your pyjamas, put your dressing gown and slippers on, and follow me.”

All the eyes in the dormitory were on me as I dressed. “When you get back, try not to wake us all up with your blubbing”, offered one of the de Villiers twins helpfully. A couple of the other boys tittered. Friendly voices. Encouraging voices.

Potts waited until I was ready, then snapped the light off, turned on his heel, and strode off down the corridor with me trailing in his wake.

We walked in shadow. Down the corridor. Past the bathroom. Down the spiral staircase. Into the long room corridor. Potts kept up an unseemly pace, like a military march at the double. Down the long-room corridor we marched, with the moonlight casting shadows on the wooden panelling that lined the walls. The wooden panelling displaying the names of centuries of forgotten Bloods and Colours. All the while with Potts’s boots stamping out their rhythm along the stone floor in echo of my heartbeat.

Finally, the games room door appeared in the distance. The door I didn’t want to see, left slightly ajar to reveal the light beyond. The light that lit the room where I knew they were waiting for me. The light whose arrival I would have done anything to delay. The light which was approaching far too quickly, as Potts hurried me briskly in a businesslike manner to my punishment. Potts shoved open the door without breaking stride.

The table tennis tables had been pushed against the wall. At one end of the room were two chairs pushed back to back. The Bloods stood facing me in a V-formation like a flock of geese. At the front of the formation stood Slingsby.

Slingsby. Head of House. Captain of Racquets. Captain of Squash. A boy, or man to be more accurate, who, legend had it, was destined for the England Squash Team within a couple of years. A man who, legend had it, could hit a squash ball so hard against the front wall of the court, that it would hit the back wall and travel back to the front wall again without hitting the ground. A man who, legend had it, saved his hardest blows for his beatings.

Slingsby stood casually rubbing a piece of white chalk along the length of a cane. I kept my gaze on his face, but sneaked a glance at the weapon in his hand. It looked brutal. It didn’t look like any cane I’d ever seen before. Definitely not rattan. Ash, maybe? It was the thickness of a finger, and looked long, stiff and heavy. This was a weapon designed to be painful enough to inflict remember-till-the-day-you-die beatings on sixteen year-old boys already desensitized to pain after a decade of brutality. I was fifteen. I’d had canings before, dozens of them, from teachers, headmasters and housemasters at prep and public school, but a monitors’ beating was an entirely different prospect. My heart was pounding. The adrenaline was pumping. Fight or flight. But flight was not an option.

“You know why you’re here” said Slingsby. It was a statement, not a question.

I did indeed know why I was there. I knew the ostensible reason – some nonsense about failing to sign out properly – and the real reason, which was my refusal to allow Slingsby to slake his lust on me. I looked Slingsby in the eye. His message to me was clear. He and I would have a sexual relationship, which would inevitably involve the infliction of pain on my backside. The choice I had was as to the nature and intensity of that pain.

“Would you be so good as to loosen your trousers to allow Mr Potts to check for padding.”

Potts walked over and slipped his hand onto my bare cheek under my pyjama bottoms, discharging his duty as Junior Blood with a degree of enthusiasm I would have expected more of Slingsby. I detected a frisson of jealousy from Slingsby. That didn’t bode well.

Slingsby stepped forward and tested the cane in the air with a vicious swing of his squash player’s arm. The cane didn’t so much swish as hum. As I’d thought: stiff and heavy. My heart-rate increased, and the muscles in my legs came close to spasm.

He strolled slowly towards the two chairs at the end of the room, and slapped the length of the cane lightly on the seat of one of them. It was only the lightest of taps from a couple of inches, but the noise was like a pistol shot.

“Would you be so good as to remove your dressing gown, and then kneel on the seat of this chair, facing the other one. Stretch over the chair backs, and lay the top of your head on the seat of the other chair. I would suggest that you reach down and hold on to the legs of the chair for support.”

I slowly clambered into position, pressed my head into the seat of the second chair, and gripped the chair legs for all I was worth. I clamped my teeth together hard. Really hard. Hard enough to damage teeth. I was acutely aware of how stretched and thin the skin of my backside was in that position.

Slingsby walked over towards me, and positioned the cane against me, checking for height and distance. Then he turned, and walked slowly and deliberately away. I counted twelve steps.

Slingsby paused at the end of his run-up, whilst I gritted my teeth and hung on for all I was worth. I waited. Body tense. Breath held. Then Slingsby sprinted towards me like a madman and smashed the cane into me with all his considerable might. The noise of the impact was like a piano lid slamming, and a second later a blinding light flashed through my brain as the pain smashed into me, way, way beyond the surface of the skin and deep, deep into the muscle and soft tissue of my backside. The trousers and pyjamas offered virtually no protection. Despite all my efforts at resistance, a grunt escaped me.

“Shot, Slingsby!” “Terrific!” “Good effort!” called the Bloods. The chalk on the cane would have shown them that the blow had landed at the crease of thigh and buttock, being the tenderest part, and guaranteed to cause maximum discomfort when sitting for the next couple of days.

I took a few deep breaths. Slingsby turned and walked past me slowly again, taking his time to return to the beginning of his run up. His ponderous rhythm, when I was at my most anxious to get my punishment over with as quickly as possible, was a sharp contrast to the haste with which Potts had delivered me to my punishment at a time when I was anxious to delay it as long as possible.

I gritted my teeth as Slingsby turned languidly and hurtled towards me again, smashing the cane into me on exactly the same spot as the first stroke. The blow was pain upon pain, trauma upon trauma, and again, despite my best efforts, a grunt escaped me.

“Great shooting!” “Right on the spot!”

My eyes watered but I blinked back the tears, determined not to cry in front of the Bloods. By now my heart was pounding as if I were at the end of a cross country race. I knew that I’d be able to get through this now though, but at what cost to my rear end? I was desperate to get it over with. If only Slingsby would speed it up a bit. But he was taking his time.

He reached the end of his run up and paused.

“How are your parents, Flynn?”

The bastard was toying with me.

“They’re well, Slingsby. Thank you for asking” I managed to force out, my distress and discomfort obvious to all. I heard a few guffaws from the Bloods.

“I met them at Cowes last year, together with your cousin Sebastian. Please do pass on my best regards to them.”

“Why yes, Slingsby. Certainly -” SLAM!!!

I yelled in pain as the blow caught me by surprise and unprepared, despite the warning of his run-up. The Bloods hooted with laughter. Deep breaths now to try and dissipate the pain. The burning fire on the skin of my backside mixed with the deep bruising of the muscle below in a vicious cocktail of pain.

The next blow was agony. Pain upon pain upon pain. Every single blow aimed to perfection on top of the previous ones. Almost impossible not to squirm in pain. Impossible not to let out a squeal. But I’d got through four. I was over the hump and on the way down.

Slingsby walked to the end of his run up again, and stopped. I waited. And waited. And waited. What was he doing? Chalking the cane again? Psyching himself up for a really big one? Just waiting to see how long I would stay there before I looked round to see what the delay was? I tried to peek behind me without visibly moving my head, but I couldn’t see anything.

At last, after what seemed like an eternity, the running footsteps began, welcome in their relief, but awful in what they heralded, being a blow of unimaginable pain that caused a yelp to escape through my gritted teeth, and which almost caused me to tear my own fingernails out with the intensity of my grip on the chair legs.

The last blow was the most painful of the lot, pain like nothing I’d ever experienced or imagined before, but it was the easiest to deal with for knowing it was the last one.

Gingerly, I stepped down from the chair and stood up. My back was drenched in sweat. My head felt giddy from the blood rushing to my head and from the adrenaline. I thought I felt myself sway, and worried for a moment that I might keel over. My eyes were sweating, and close to tears, but I fought with every ounce of will to keep them back.

Slingsby approached, cane tucked under his left arm, and offered me his hand.

“Thank you, Slingsby.” I croaked. Saying it hurt almost as much as the beating, particularly as, to my shame, I hadn’t been able to stay completely silent. I turned and cautiously walked to the door, my skin feeling like it might split if I walked too fast. My head was swimming, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the door before my legs, trembling now in full spasm, gave way, or I simply fainted from the amount of blood that had rushed to my head. I made it. Just.

Out through the door, I leant against the wall for support. Tradition dictated that the Bloods would leave the games room by another exit. My head was swimming so badly now that I really thought my legs would give way if I didn’t lie down. Sitting was not an option. In the shadows, I thought I saw a movement, and suddenly, there were the grinning faces of the de Villiers twin, taking me under the arms and propping me up.

Slowly and silently the three of us crept along the long-room corridor and up the spiral stairs to the bathroom. They helped me to a washbasin, and held my head under the cold tap for a few minutes while I slowly regained my composure.

Back in the dormitory, the others gathered round in the dark with a torch in the traditional manner to inspect the marks. Cautiously, with my legs clamped firmly together, I lay on my front and peeled down my pyjama bottoms to oohs and aahs at the level of damage.

“Blood” confirmed Oxley, though I’d figured that out myself from the fact that my pyjamas had stuck to me when I’d peeled them down. Someone else produced a penny, and it was confirmed that, with Slingsby’s unerring accuracy, he had managed to put all six strokes within its diameter.

“Good set of marks” remarked fforbes. “That bruising’s going to stay for a week or two, if you don’t ice it, and those cuts won’t fade completely for a month.”

Having survived my rite of passage, I now just wanted to lie there and relax in the afterglow while the pain subsided. “All right, that’s your lot”, I told them. I was anxious that their close-quarter investigations of my bottom not disclose my deepest and best-kept secret. Anxious that I preserve the secret of my real gender.

The torch light clicked off, leaving us in darkness.

Fascinated by BDSM and want to find out more? Check out Your Kinky Cherry, our low-key introduction to Sacred Kink on Weds 11th April, or find out more about our Sacred Kink practitioners.

This news is both highly exciting and a little sad. It’s exciting because it heralds a new phase for Sacred Pleasures – an opportunity to free-flow and travel with our magic, a time to expand into new territories and to not be tied to a specific space. We’ve been feeling the excitement of this for some time, and had planned to move out of The Pot in June – the notice just gives us a push to do this a few weeks earlier than expected.

Inevitably there’s some sadness too, as this beautiful space and the beautiful people who have energised it are very dear to us. We are human and there’s some attachment to ‘how things are’ – however, with love and care we know we can gently unstick this attachment without it being painful. We invite you, our beloved constituents, both to support us and to join us in doing this.

Over the next few weeks we invite you to join us in closing the energy of The Pot and celebrating the wonderful times we’ve shared in this magical space.

• On Monday 9th April we are hosting “Death Café” – a relaxed afternoon event for a small group to meet and share feelings about death. This perfectly suits the transition that we find ourselves in, and also marks London Faerie’s mid-life moment. Find out more >>
• On Saturday 28th April we are hosting “Pouring Out The Pot”, an all-day event in which we invite you to share time, space and memories with us about your experiences at The Pot. Find out more >> 

Sacred Pleasures will evolve and grow as we embark on new adventures. We have no doubt that you will continue to be part of those adventures – the end of one phase is also the beginning of another. We hope that you’ll join us in celebrating this transition, and we look forward to sharing magical times with you now and in the future.

You might think, upon reading my earlier article, that this type of thing would be absolutely up my street. Well folks, I have a confession to make. Intimacy terrifies me. Oh, I believe it’s a good thing. Much like team building exercises and vegetarianism, I think ‘intimacy’ is a nice idea if you’re into that sort of thing. I don’t have any problem with taking my clothes off, or even having sex in public. I’ve had experiences which many people would see as deeply intimate, but nearly all of those experiences have been tightly controlled; experiences of primarily physically letting go, often not consciously, rarely mentally, and never, in a month of blue Sundays, emotionally.

So, when London Faerie invited me to attend and review Smörgåsbord, I was filled with both trepidation and astonishment. He’s an astute man, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that he would have guessed that even the thought of attending an event like this would give me the night terrors. But, he promised that I could participate in any way that I felt comfortable, even if ‘exploring my boundaries’ meant sitting out on the balcony looking in at the group through the controlled safety of double glazing. I figured, that terrifying as it may be, it would be good for me, and, the worst that could happen would be that I might experience a little discomfort whilst learning something about myself. But, I wasn’t prepared for quite how much I would learn. Or how good it would feel.

One of the first things my partner said upon arriving was “I can feel the warmth – and it’s not just because it’s hot in here.” He was right. The group, even before we met them, seemed warm, open, curious and overwhelmingly ‘normal’. True to promise, the attendees spanned age groups, genders, sexualities and relationship dynamics from singles to ‘just dating’ to long term relationships, both monogamous and non-monogamous. The reasons for attending varied from “finding something to do on the weekend”, to personal discovery following a period of traumatic illness, to exploring sexualities both within and without the context of a relationship, or, just because someone else in the group had extended an invitation and no reasonable excuse could be found to get out of it.

What I’m not going to do, is tell you exactly what we did over the course of the weekend, because much of the beauty of it lay in the unknowing – in trusting both the facilitators and the group to provide the right environment for learning to take place. Suffice it to say that each new activity followed seamlessly from the last, and even the ‘scarier’ sounding items on the menu were delivered in such a way that by the time we got to them, they didnt seem so scary at all. Over the course of 48 hours, I learned more about where my boundaries really are, and what it feels like to safely test them, than I have learned in probably the last ten years. I had my first experience of non-sexual kink; a taster fireplay session with London Faerie, (a bit like being enveloped in a warm cloud – imagine splicing a hug with a hot oven), and I experienced what it’s like to give and receive touch, when you’re really, truly thinking about it.

Each of these things might sound simple in and of itself, perhaps even skating narrowly close to ‘woo’*. If you’re typically sceptical, or perhaps downright terrified, as I am, of any occasion that promises to be open-hearted, and invites you to explore your boundaries, you might think that this type of event isn’t for you. But, think about it – when was the last time that you really connected with someone? That you touched someone you care about, mindfully? That you were honest with your lover, friends or colleagues, or even yourself, about the way that you feel right now?

These are simple things, but much of our happiness, engagement with the world and the success of our relationships is tied to acts like this. We spend so much time building walls to keep our selves and our feelings safe, that we don’t have any space in our lives to let go, or we’re too afraid to. We hold ourselves together, for work, for our relationships, and often only find the freedom to relax our boundaries and ‘let go’, by losing ourselves in the unconscious, often with the aid of alcohol and drugs, or plain everyday distractions like television and social media. But freedom, said London Faerie, is not the absence of boundaries – it’s the existence of them. It’s only when we have a safe place to hold onto, that we can truly let ourselves go. The experienced practitioners at Sacred Pleasures create this space of safety, within defined boundaries, so that participants can consciously, consensually and safely drop some of the barriers to intimacy that we hold, and take away some techniques to apply in everyday life.

To access “Sacred Pleasure”, an open mind and the right intent are good starting points. But the right space, the support of a group, and the guidance of an appropriate practitioner are invaluable. If you want to experience a little consciousness, freedom and energy in your life and your relationships, then give one of the events at Sacred Pleasures a try. Be conscious for 48 hours. Bring a little of the divine into your life.

Sometimes it’s the most beautiful, and the most profound experiences that are the hardest to put into words – and that’s how I feel about Smorgasbord. So,I’ll leave you some lines by one of my favourite poets, which I had ringing in my ears all weekend.

The art of walking upright here,
Is the art of using both feet.

One is for holding on
The other is for letting go.

(Glenn Colquhoun – the trick of walking upright)

* “Woo” – any activity that might be associated with raw food, hemp trousers and the exuberant hugging of trees.

Are you curious to learn more about conscious sexuality and sacred pleasure? Our beautiful introductory four-week course Pleasure Portals starts soon – find our more >>

If you’d like to read more of Vina’s writing, please follow her on her new blog >>

In late November the lovely Vina Green attended Scarlett French‘s erotic writing workshop at The Pot. We were so blown away by the hot story she wrote that we’ve invited her to take up a month-long Guest Writer Residency.

In this first article, Vina explores a question close to our hearts: can pleasure be sacred? Later in the month she will  put her ideas to the test by attending and reviewing Smörgåsbord; in between she’ll create some new erotic stories to titillate and excite us. Enjoy!

“Sacred Pleasure”. Those two words might seem like an anomaly, a contradiction in terms. After all, ‘pleasure’ conjures up images of hedonism, excess and indulgence, whereas ‘sacred’ is often associated with religion, which encourages self-sacrifice, denial and abstinence. But for me, Sacred and Pleasure fit together like a hand in a glove. Here’s why.

My first experiences of sex and sexuality occurred at church. I was raised in one of the more modern, quite Puritan religions, where excess is shunned – greed, lust, and of course, sex before marriage, or even sex within marriage if the sex includes any variation on the bare basics. They don’t call it the ‘missionary position’ for nothing. Although I didn’t take to religion in the way my parents hoped, I did enjoy reading the bible. My favourite chapter was The Song of Solomon, or ‘the Song of Songs’ which contains such beauties as: ‘I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste’ and ‘Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.’ Pornography wasn’t easy to come by when I was growing up. My first experiences of masturbation were aided by the bible. Pleasure doesn’t get any more sacred than that.

But what does “sacred” really mean? When associated with Western religious traditions, “sacred” often refers to a definable place or a thing, such as a church or a relic. Sacred things have common characteristics – they’re precious, they’re considered worthy of veneration, they may be a route to God, and they’re thought to have power, often the power to heal. Sacred can also have a wider meaning – in Australia, it’s one the government have tried to define by law, in relation to Aboriginal ‘sacred sites’. These are places of cultural significance to the indigenous people, often associated with cultural stories (myths and legends). They’re places that are spiritually alive. Places that have energy. Anyone who has visited Uluru (Ayers Rock) has probably felt it, as do many folk who visit Stonehenge.

So, something that is sacred has power and energy, is precious, worthy of respect, and can be a vehicle to a higher place. Can we say those things about sex?

When we think of Sex and power, it’s usually in a negative sense. Rape is about power. Sex is used as a weapon of war. When we think of sex and powerful men, the power is usually associated with ‘misuse’, as in priests and Presidents. Indeed, the power of sex is enough to overthrow an empire (I did not have sexual relations with that woman!) Powerful women are, sadly, often thought of wholly in terms of their sexuality. Back to the bible (or, Dexter season 6), think of the whore of Babylon, the scarlet woman, usually pictured in red, either with blood, wine, or in more modern day versions a flash of red nail polish (particularly on a hand holding aloft a whip) such as Irene Adler in Steven Moffat’s Sherlock.

What about the positive power of sex? My personal experience is that sex can be deeply healing. There’s proper, scientific evidence for this. I give you the Marvin Gaye classic:

Baby I got sick this morning
A sea was storming inside of me
Baby I think I’m capsizing
The waves are rising and rising

And when I get that feeling
I want Sexual Healing
Sexual Healing is good for me
Makes me feel so fine, it’s such a rush
Helps to relieve the mind, and it’s good for us
Sexual Healing, it’s good for us

The medical benefits of sex are vast – it reduces blood pressure, burns calories and reduces stress. People who have more orgasms live longer.

Is sex precious? Yes, of course. You wouldn’t be reading this website if it wasn’t. I felt that I had lost my capacity for sexual pleasure for what felt like an age (about five years) after a negative sexual experience, and I can tell you that I mourned the loss of my sexuality like a part of me had died. Sex is a little like faith, precious, and fragile – it can be both the simplest thing in the world, or the most difficult, to find, and it’s easily lost. when you find it, and you’re comfortable in it, it has enormous power.

Is all sex Sacred? What about when it’s less candles and incense and foreplay, and more tits and arse? Here’s where my religious upbringing comes back into force, again, not in the way my mother had in mind. Something that people used to say to me often, when I was going door to door to talk to them about God – “I worship in my own way” or “God is within you”. The same is true, I believe, of Sacred Pleasure. You don’t need your Kundalini, or even your cunt, to be awake. Sacred Pleasure finds you when you’re not looking for it, it exists as a constant in the world. Much as Aboriginal sacred sites don’t become any less sacred when idiots come along and build apartment blocks on them, sacred pleasure is inviolable. So, it makes no difference whether you’re partnered or unpartnered, straight or gay, exhuberantly sexual or asexual, active or celibate, female, transgender, male or somewhere in between – Sacred pleasure is accessible to everyone.

Now, let’s get all fruity and talk about sex and energy. Tantra types will immediately know what I mean. For everyone else – think of chemistry. Pheromones. That moment when you lock eyes with someone across the room and go ‘phwoaar’. Standing near them makes the hair on your arms stand up, the tips of your fingers tingle. You caress them gently (and I’m assuming here that the feeling is mutual and consent has been negotiated) or you get them home and rip their clothes off in a flurry of arms and legs and oh oh Oh! That, that electric tingle, is sexual energy. But. you don’t need to be having sex, feeling sexual, or even feel like you will ever be sexual, to experience the power of sacred pleasure. It’s all just a different manifestation of ‘energy’ which you might find in many other places. I get it from the ocean, mountains, yoga, the endorphins that result from exercise. Many people feel it in art, poetry, music. It’s that little bit of magic that produces a sense of wonder, of connecting with an undefinable something that is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. And, like electricity, it can be felt gently, or channelled in a way that leaves a room full of people buzzing.

All you need is an open mind and the intent to enjoy the pleasures of your senses – and that, my friends, is when the sacred becomes the divine.

Would you like to explore this question experientially through a series of evening classes in March? Join us at Pleasure Portals, our lovely introduction to conscious sexuality. Find out more >>

We are delighted to present this intelligent, thought-provoking article about Tantra written by Nigel K. He wrote it a few years ago, when he was 42 and worked for a corporate law firm. He attends Sacred Pleasures.

I used to own a series of role-playing video games for my computer called King’s Quest. In one of them you controlled a character called Cedric, who had the task of saving the ailing kingdom of Daventry by finding a magic mirror in which one could foresee the future, a magic chest that was always filled with gold coins and a magic shield that would protect the bearer from all harm.

Cedric travelled around exploring the kingdom, meeting mysterious people and creatures who would give him the information, and finding and acquiring the objects, he would require in order to fulfil his task. Quite near Cedric’s starting point, for example, was a piece of ploughed earth which, on further investigation, turned out to be a carrot patch. It was obvious that Cedric was supposed to pick a carrot but less obvious was what he was supposed to do with it. Eating it didn’t seem to achieve anything. But how about eating it in the dark? Would that enable him to see in the dark? You would put the carrot in Cedric’s bag and carry on exploring, waiting for the moment when the carrot might come in useful.

As I eventually discovered, Cedric was supposed to show – but not feed – the carrot to a goat that he would meet elsewhere in Daventry. This would cause the goat to follow Cedric around and, later in the game, Cedric’s goat companion would be critical in his progress when it would help him to cross a bridge that was guarded by a troll. As in the story of Billy Goat Gruff, the goat charged the troll and knocked it into the water. This wouldn’t happen, of course, until after you’d made several frustrated attempts to get across the bridge to the mysterious island that, it was obvious, contained some element essential to your progress. All of these attempts would end with you being unceremoniously thrown into the water by the troll.

Finding and collecting the items and information that you’d need, and piecing together the clues that enabled you to solve the puzzle, would take hours of game play over the course of weeks, and sometimes months. Periods of frustration, where you seemed to have exhausted all your exploration possibilities and couldn’t figure out what you were supposed to do with the items in your bag and the information you’d acquired, would be followed by the joy and excitement of making a breakthrough.

Sometimes a breakthrough would open out whole new areas of the game to explore, such as when you overcame the troll and crossed the bridge to the previously inaccessible island. Sometimes, the seemingly unrelated items in your bag would all suddenly turn out to be connected. For example, you might have been re-exploring a room in a castle for the umpteenth time when you discovered a catch that caused a secret panel to slide open and reveal a hidden door. The mysterious gold key that had been given to you earlier by an elf would turn out to open that door, and the matches that you’d bought from the shopkeeper and the candle that you’d picked up in a deserted house would enable you to illuminate and explore the darkened passage beyond. The purpose of the hunk of ham that the farmer’s wife had given you would then be revealed – you’d use it to distract the lion that was guarding the door at the end of the passage – a door that could be opened by the silver key you’d found under Dracula’s pillow. In the room beyond lay a beautiful sleeping princess. Oh yes, you’d plucked a red rose from the flower bed outside the house..…

I used to think that the search for spiritual enlightenment was like a journey on a path or, more particularly, along a series of interconnected paths which all ultimately led to the same place. Thus, someone pursuing spiritual enlightenment might start off on the path of one of the established Western religions, switch at some stage in their life to one of the Eastern religions and, from there, into one of the more New Age “Mind Body Spirit” practices that abound nowadays. Ultimately though, I felt that the person who pursued the yogic path would end up in the same place as the Tai Chi devotee or the person who pursued the path taught by Christ. The important things, I felt, were to find a path that suited and attracted you, to stick to that path in a disciplined manner to the exclusion of other possible paths that might distract you (“one deep well is better than twenty shallow ones”) and that it be, as Don Juan told Carlos Castaneda, “a path with heart”.

In recent days, I have changed my view on the search for spiritual enlightenment. I now think it is more like a role-playing video game than a path or series of paths. Over the course of our lives, I believe, we move about picking up clues, information and tools. We may not even be aware that these items are clues, information or tools, let alone useful ones. Then later on, when we have forgotten that we are even carrying them, and the possibility that they are in any way related hasn’t even crossed our minds, they combine together to enable us overcome a barrier, or series of barriers, at which we have been stuck for some time.

My change in view has come about as a result of personal experience. At the beginning of 2002 my girlfriend Sophie and I embarked on a year-long Tantra course for couples. It comprised five residential blocks of five days each spread over the year, with “homeplay” exercises for the couples to practise between blocks. A couple of weeks before the fourth block of the course, I began to get the feeling that several rather disparate areas of my life were coming together at a meeting point.

<< Click here to read the rest >>

Anna Winstanley

Debs G

Belle

From January to September 2011 we invited different writers each month to write about their areas of interest and expertise. To look through these sets of articles, please visit the 2011 Guest Writer Archive.

Going forward we are delighted to publish articles and stories on a more fluid schedule. If there’s something you’d like to write about, please email info @ sacredpleasures . co . uk to propose it to us.

On the 20th November we held Pleasure Parlour No. 5 “Arousing Words” – a sensual afternoon of erotic writing led by the marvellous Scarlett French. During this workshop one of the participants – the talented Vina Green – wrote this erotic mini-masterpiece.

Drip

It was the dripping that really got to me. It seemed to follow me everywhere. I heard it in the kitchen, in the living room, even in the bathroom, behind the spurts of the power shower and the scrub of my teeth, rustling of hands into drawers and slathering of face cream, closing of curtains and shutting of doors, behind it all there was the steady drip, drip, drip, drip, drip of my leaky kitchen tap.

It was the slow shudder of the thing, as if it was trying desperately to hold back, and with each drip I thought, this will be the last. Then the pressure building again, the wetness coming to a gradual, resistant head before being squeezed forcefully through the rusty faucet. My mind could taste it, the sharp metallic tang of water that has sat too long in a pipe. I could smell it, the scent of a damp penny picked up from the street.

Of course, I could fix it. All it needed was a new washer. Just turning the existing washer over would probably do it. But there was something about the holding on and then the letting go that I found both so tantalising and so frustrating at the same time. It was like walking the knife edge between nothing and something, dryness and wetness, quiet and sound, stillness and movement.

I once lay in a yoga studio, for 90 minutes, beneath a slow, but steady drip. I arrived late, and took the last spot in the room, wall to wall with perspiring bodies, inches between mats. Directly in front of the mirror I lay, with a body that I couldn’t see to my left, one to my right, one at my feet. Between every posture, in Savassanah, the drip would fall. I lay and watched the wetness grow, gather, and finally form a droplet as if it were desperate to keep a hold on the ceiling, then splosh, it fell, directly onto the middle of my forehead, right between my eyes. Drip, drip, drip.

I could have moved, just a few inches, to my left or to my right. But I enjoyed the relentlessness of it, the loss of control, the holding on, and then the letting go.