Barbara Carrellas's Blog

I invite you to think about your sexual and spiritual freedoms—those freedoms you have, those you’re still fighting for, and those you may lose.

This first weekend in July, and specifically 4 July, is celebrated in the United States as Independence Day. It’s the anniversary of the day back in 1776 when the white founding fathers (there were no founding mothers) signed the Declaration of Independence, thus beginning the American Revolutionary War—a war fought to release Americans from autocratic rule by the English king and to bring all Americans (except women and slaves) countless liberties and freedoms, summarized under the banner of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

In the past week, a big chunk of those liberties, freedoms and happiness went up in smoke at the dumpster fire that is the new radically conservative Supreme Court, a court of nine unelected justices appointed to lifelong terms, three of whom were recently appointed by an autocratic president elected by a minority of Americans. We live in a country where there is plenty of freedom for one select religion, less for other religions and absolutely no freedom FROM religion.

Abortion will now be illegal or severely restricted in half the states in the country. Women in those states will now be forced by the State to stay pregnant, no matter how criminally they were impregnated or how incapable they are of raising a child. It will be legal for teachers and coaches to gather students together for prayer, no matter the religious preferences of their students (I do wonder what the ruling might have been in this decisive case if the coach in question had been conducting a Pagan ritual instead of a leading a Christian prayer.) And the Environmental Protection Agency has been stripped of its authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. (Sorry about that, ecosexuals!)

If you live outside of America, or in U.S. states that have passed local laws to protect your sexual and spiritual orientations and choices, consider yourself lucky. Lucky, but not safe. Over and over again in this past week I have heard people say, “I didn’t think this was possible here. I thought we were better than that—had come farther than that—had already fought and won these battles—etc.

This weekend I invite you to take stock. For many of us, finding sexual freedom has primarily involved inner work. Right now, it demands outer work as well. So…

1. Feel your feelings (if you haven’t already done so.) Mourn, scream, rage. If you’re feeling numb, you’re probably in the grief stage, so honor that. (It took me a solid week to get out of the punched-in-the-gut stage of grief.)

2. Discover and align with your values. What are your deepest core values? What matters most to you? What about what has happened recently is most out of alignment with your values? What will you fight to protect? (If you want help with this, there’s a super-effective exercise in my book Ecstasy is Necessary.)

3. Choose to act. There are so many ways to help: political activism, emotional support, physical support, financial donations. Decide what’s right for you. If you decide to break unjust laws (and I know many of us will) be sure you know the potential consequences for yourself and others.

Here are a few links to help you get started.

A New York Times Article filled with useful resources: Mad About Roe? Here’s What to Do Now. ​

​Shout Your Abortion is all about normalizing abortion and elevating safe paths to access, regardless of legality.

​Freedom From Religion Foundation centers their work around the separation of church and state.

Yours in loving solidarity for the sexual and spiritual liberation of all beings,

Barbara

I’ve got a feeling, that keeps me on my toes
I’ve got a feeling, I think that everybody knows

Everybody had a hard year
Everybody had a good time
Everybody had a wet dream
Everybody saw the sunshine

Everybody had a good year
Everybody let their hair down
Everybody pulled their socks up
Everybody put their foot down

I’ve got a feeling…I’ve got a feeling…

~John Lennon & Paul McCartney
​

These lyrics are really resonating with me this holiday season. I definitely have a feeling. I’ve got lots of feelings. I’ll bet you do, too. Here we are, at Solstice and Yule, feeling like we’re pedaling backwards into the Covid pandemic.

The other day my beloved asked me, “Will we ever be happy again?” That question stopped me in my tracks. Really, it felt like a dagger through the heart.

Yeah, the two of us have had a hard year—a flood, a move from hell, health issues. But all through it we’ve been saying, “We are so lucky. Others have had it so much worse.” And it’s true. But what we have been ignoring when we say that, are two years’ worth of micro-losses.Countless lost visits with family and friends, cancelled holiday plans, no trips to the theatre, no travel, no in-person professional meetups, no in-person workshops. Not to mentions the deaths of several friends and family members who had no funerals. The list of pandemic-related losses goes on and on…

As you know, helping people create ecstatic experiences is the essence of my life’s work. The very nature of ecstasy is the intensity of seemingly opposing emotions occurring simultaneously to produce expansion, transformation and pleasure. But how can we possibly find ecstasy in the midst of endless, grinding micro- (and sometimes macro-) losses and all the accumulated grief they bring?

I decided to try a simple experiment. What if I could focus on micro-joys? A few tiny moments per day when I could create delight for myself? I tried but at first it didn’t work so well. I realized that I could not find joy unless I could also acknowledge and honor the amount of grief I was feeling. So, me and my grief went out for a walk, looking to see if something joyful would join us.

I started locally and small. Joy was surprisingly easy to find. There was the Christmas tree-lighting ceremony my new neighbors held as they trimmed a tree decorated with kid-made ornaments on the corner. Down the street at a Christmas tree stand I pass when I walk my dogs, there is a persistent and delicious smell of pine and fir that I love. Just two blocks from our new home is a pub with the most delicious food, the friendliest people, and the most beautiful holiday decorations. With a few conscious breaths, focused attention and intent, I am able to turn everyday pleasantries like these into micro joys. Just as the micro-losses have led to real grief, I can feel the micro-joys leading me back to real ecstasy.

This holiday season I invite you grieve your losses—they are real and not to be measured as “less than” by some arbitrary standard—and to find delights in what remains. It’s not hard. The world is still wondrous place. But it does take intention. Do you have an exercise routine? A meditation practice? Some other regular practice that brings you health and well-being? The micro-joy process is like that. It can bring you peace, joy and delight in a holiday season that could otherwise be dominated by fear, loss and bad news.

You can do it. I know you can.

Wishing you delightful moments of micro-ecstasies this holiday season.

Love,
Barbara

P.S. To answer your questions about Urban Tantra Workshops in 2022:

The only in-person workshops I’ve got planned thus far are the two Urban Tantra Professional Training Programs: April in upstate New York, and October in the U.K. We held a super-successful UTPTP this past September. We were able to do the weeklong training safely by making group agreements about health protocols based upon the science available at the time. We will make similar agreements (which always include the possibility of postponement) based upon the conditions at the time of each program. Safety is, as always, our first priority.

I will be holding virtual Urban Tantra workshops which are in the scheduling process now. I’ll keep you posted on dates and times.

Step 3: Find Your Superpower.

     We all have Superpowers. While we can easily name and describe other people’s superpowers, it can be difficult to identify and name our own. That’s partially because we take our superpowers for granted, but it’s also because bragging about how great and talented and kind we are is generally considered an super-uncool thing to do.

     I’ll bet that the pandemic revealed at least one superpower you didn’t know you had. Maybe it was patience, or perseverance, or the ability to give strength and hope to others. This newly recognized superpower can be an important insight in your Post Pandemic Process.

     Let’s have a Brag Festival. In the comments below, please tell us one of your Superpowers. (Extra brag points if you can name one discovered during the pandemic.) If you can’t think of one, ask a friend or family member to tell you the one they see in you. If you can think of several, go for it—brag away!

     Ready, set…..BRAG!

     I’ll go first. Living through this last pandemic reminded me that I am really good at long-haul endurance projects. Linda Montano calls it Art/Life performance art. I excel at it.

Step 2: Forgive Yourself.     I am forgiving myself for everything I did not accomplish last year while everyone else (I imagine) was baking sourdough, remodeling their house, writing a book and learning to speak Italian.     Whatever you and I did or did not do was perfect because we stayed alive. That was our only job. We don’t have to make amends to ourselves or work harder now to make up for all the things we imagine we should have done.     I have am forgiving myself for…not having read all the booksnot having cleaned out the basement, the drawers and the garagenot having prepared a complete archive of my worknot having written an updated version of a previous booknot having driven more rescue dog transportsnot having stayed in touch (or even gotten back to) all the people who reached out to me during the pandemicnot having lost weightnot having worked harder, longer or faster[This list is still in progress…]     How about you? What can you forgive yourself for?

     Fifteen months ago, a client told me that one of their intentions was to get ready for the “Summer of Love” they they suspected would follow all the quarantines, lockdowns and social distancing. Well, for some of us that Summer of Love might be starting now, or will be starting later this summer of 2021. Are you ready?Honestly, I am not sure I am. I don’t want to unconsciously jump back into “life as normal.” I want time to discover who I am and how this pandemic has transformed me.     I am in the process of re-entry. While I am enjoying the summer sun and the possibilities of returning to art and performance and music and group erotics, I want to be mindful. So much has changed. Who am I now and what do I want?

This is the first in a series of posts that I call the Urban Tantra Post-Pandemic-Process. Basically, it’s my process as I find my way out of the pandemic and into this new chapter of life. I’m sharing it to start a conversation with like-minded folks about how we re-enter the transformed world with love, kindness, sensuality and purpose.

     I discovered Tantra during the AIDS crisis which is the only other pandemic I have lived through. What appealed to me most about Tantra—then and now—is the invitation to experience everything life throws at you—from the ecstatic to the terrifying, as deeply, consciously and fully as possible. When you walk through the fire of a situation and come out the other side, you are transformed, purified and forged into something stronger and finer. Each one of these walks through the fire of earthly existence brings you one more little slice of enlightenment.     Here is Step #1 of the Urban Tantra Post-Pandemic-Process : Reflect/Assess: What did you like (or even love) about the Pandemic Year? What did you loathe?Here are some of my Likes,/Loves and Loathes:I loved how as the world got slower nature seemed to move faster. I loved being in one place for an entire year and observing the minute details of how the seasons changed.I loved that theatres around the world opened their archives and put them online. I saw brilliant pieces of theater that I never would have been able to see in person.I loved the creative challenge of teaching embodied practices online. I loved teaching for audiences from all over the world at the same time.I loved not being in airports.I loved the freedom of not having to dash all over the city. I realized how much time I spent just getting from place to place.I loathed not being able to share smiles with random people on the street.I loathed not being able to go to Camp Crucible and other large erotic events.I loathed masks. They made my nose run and then I would sneeze a lot and that made people really nervous.How about you? What did you like/love and loathe?

It’s been One. Whole. Year. Four seasons have passed. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, and funerals have all gone uncelebrated, or celebrated with a handful of people carefully spaced two metres apart, or alone in front of a screen. We’re tired, worn down, depressed. Even the exceedingly creative ways we’ve discovered to gather together or create some delight in our lives now feels disappointing—kinda like we’re living half-lives. It sucks. But for the friends, families, and colleagues of more than 2.5 million people around the world who have died in this pandemic, these are all mere inconveniences in comparison to their profound grief.

So, how I dare I talk about ecstatic anything, right? It’s like hearing someone rave about the banquet they attended last year while now all the grocery stores are closed and you don’t even have the makings of a sandwich. But stay with me, okay? I want to talk about a particularly timely flavor of ecstatic experience—Ecstatic Resilience.

My concept of an ecstatic life does not demand that I walk around in a constant state of bliss.  My concept of resilience does not mean that I never feel defeated. Ecstatic Resilience means that I have the ability to access ecstatic moments when I want them, and that my regular practice of creating ecstatic experiences makes me more resilient. Even when things are difficult, painful, and upsetting, I know that I will ultimately be able to use the elements of whatever is happening to create an ecstatic experience, if not now, then in the reasonably near future. For me, living an ecstatic life means looking upon ecstasy as a spiritual practice.

The way I see at it, we all have a choice right now. We can tough out the next several months (or more), gritting our teeth and getting more and more numb and resentful. Or we can embrace some tools for ecstatic living that we can use to make life more joyful right now, and prepare ourselves for lives filled with joy, connection and ecstasy when the pandemic has passed.

Here are some tools that have been working for me. I know that some of you are going through extraordinary challenges right now and all of these will not be available/possible for everyone. Just try the ones that feel appropriate or adapt them to suit your circumstances.

Radically accept—everything. Radical acceptance is the practice of accepting things as they are with no expectation that they will ever change. Of course, all things change all the time, but by accepting things as they are with no expectations, and releasing your attempts to change them,  almost any situation can be turned into an experience that—if not ecstatic in itself—can lead to a place of peace and no regrets, both of which contribute to an ecstatic life. Radical acceptance also provides the opportunity to find creative and ecstatic alternatives to the situation, and it paves the way for positive change.

Dissolve the boundary between your body and nature. Whether you live in a big city, a small town, or in the country, take a moment each day to establish a connection to a natural element. This could be as simple as taking a walk in which you lose yourself in the feeling of the sun on your skin, or feel yourself absorbed into the blue of the sky. You could hug a tree, listen intently to the song of a bird, or even spend quality time with your dog. A key aspect of ecstatic resilience is feeling connected to all that is. Consciously practicing this connection on a daily basis keeps that ecstatic channel open, even while isolating.

Live what you love. This is hardly a new maxim, but it’s essential to an ecstatic life. Do as much of what you love as you possibly can. Do as little as you must of anything you don’t like. The more you commit to what you love, the easier it is to let the rest be handled by someone else who enjoys it more. Pay attention to your intuitive energy meter. Remember to ask yourself: Do I feel an energy gain or an energy drain in this situation, or around this person? Eliminate or minimize your exposure to anything or anyone that drains your energy. Embrace that which feeds you.

Whatever you’re doing—do it whole-heartedly. Do not hold back. Give yourself over completely. Be bigger than you think you are. Be more than you’ve ever been. Be too much. Yes, even on Zoom.

Embrace and celebrate your inner teenager. What was your passion at age 13? Or age 16? How did you pursue that passion? What was your most compelling reason for pursuing this passion? How did you behave if people told you that your passion was wrong, silly, or a waste of time? Revisit your most ecstatic, stubborn, passionate, activist years. Take notes. See your inner teenager as a vital part of your authentic adult self.

Go to the edge. Fall off. See what’s there. Start a love affair with your own fear. Imagine your fear as your best friend. Throw a virtual fear party. Invite all your friends and all their fears. Make a fear playlist and dance with your fears.

Seize the moment—and stay in it. Slow down! Spend as much time in each present moment as you can. Time is such wibbly-wobbly stuff these days. Create meditative moments in varied areas of your life and stretch each one to its fullest. See how much ecstasy you can savor in each moment of the day.

Live in amazement. I am consistently amazed at life in all its weird and wacky permutations. I am amazed by the infinite kindness and courage of humanity. I am amazed by how much I’ve learned over the years. I’m amazed that I’m surviving the second plague of my lifetime. I’m amazed by how little I know and how much I learn every single day.  Make a list of what amazes you.

Would you like some help and support strengthening your Ecstatic Resilience? Would you like to learn some powerful, practical, and fun ecstatic exercises that you can enjoy both now and when we can be with others again? Would you like some techniques to expand your sexual pleasure, even and especially if your only sex partner is yourself? Would you like to sit in a virtual circle with others who want the same things you do? Join me for my four-part series beginning 10 March 2021—Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century—Online via Zoom in partnership with The New York Open Center  You can register for the whole series or take individual classes:
10 March: Ecstatic Breathwork
31 March: Creating Tantric Connections
21 April: Sex Magic
12 May: Taking Erotic Risks

I began my Tantric practice many years ago during the AIDS pandemic. I was looking for a spiritual practice that was body and sex positive, that could support me in the huge emotional shifts I was going through, and that provided a sense of healing, purpose and peace. Urban Tantra was born out of both the times I was living in and what I learned from my own personal Tantric practices in those times. It has continued to grow and evolve over the years as the Urban Tantra community has grown exponentially, both geographically and intersectionally. Each and every person who has a connection to Urban Tantra has contributed to what it is now, and what it will become next.

Like you, I am profoundly affected by the worldwide pandemic that we are all living through. We each have our individual emotional and physical reactions to our new reality. We are also a participant in a global collective human experience.

I have no magic answers for these times. Truthfully, I’m not looking for answers right now—I’m searching for the right questions. For me, answers are useless if they aren’t attached to the right questions. This week, the questions were “How can I help my friends and family who are particularly vulnerable at this time?” and “How can I soothe and center myself while feeling useful?” The answers? I’m sitting at my sewing machine making face masks and preparing them for mailing. And writing this email to you. That’s this week. Next week the questions will be different and so will the answers.

This week I have been inspired, soothed, and motivated by a few resources I think you might find helpful. As the weeks go by, I’ll continue to pass along things that might provide long or short term answers to our unfolding questions.

With Love and Lots of Breath,

Barbara

Thought for the Week:

(Thanks to Shelley Dungan of the Sacred Center in Portsmouth, RI)

Read/Listen:

Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure

… “On the other side of this journey of acceptance are hope and resilience. We will know that we can do this, even if our struggles continue for years. We will be creative and responsive, and will find light in all the nooks and crannies. We will learn new recipes and make unusual friends. We will have projects we cannot imagine today, and will inspire students we have not yet met. And we will help each other. No matter what happens next, together, we will be blessed and ready to serve.”

Pema Chodron’s Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better: Wise Advice for Leaning into the Unknown

Dance/Move:

A free dance class with Debbie Allen.

Debbie Allen was one of the great Broadway dancers, and one of the stars of the TV show Fame in the 1980’s. She’s now a director of Grey’s Anatomy and one of its stars. She also runs a dance academy in Los Angeles. She is teaching a series of dance classes via Instagram. No matter your age or level of fitness, you can dance like a pro with Debbie.

The Radio City Rockettes have just started Instagram dance classes!

Breathe:

This is a great time for a Breath and Energy Orgasm! Download this mp3 and I’ll guide you through one.

Lately I’ve noticed a significant increase in the number of people who contact me to learn about Tantra. Well you might think, is that really so odd? The media, and the culture at large, pretty much demand we focus on love and relationships in the weeks leading up to Valentines Day. But that has definitely not been the flavor of the requests I’ve received. In fact, the majority of people who have contacted me are interested in learning a solo Tantra practice.

Why is developing a Tantra practice—especially a solo Tantra practice—suddenly so appealing?

I thought back to when I first began my study and practice of Tantra. It was in the late 1980’s, just as the AIDS epidemic was reaching its peak. People were dying by the thousands. A couple of hundred of them were my friends and colleagues. Every week brought a new diagnosis, a new symptom, another death. I felt helpless. Overwhelmed. My world was a profoundly unsafe place. I sought out Tantra for inner strength and inner peace, not to enhance a relationship (although it had that effect, later on.)

Today, many of us are living in a world characterized by chaos, uncertainty and fear. A whole lot of people are feeling overwhelmed and unsafe. People tell me they are numb, uninspired, and prone to binging on Netflix rather than pursuing goals that used to seem important and fulfilling. These feelings are reasonable and natural. It’s hard to feel alive, inspired, and empowered when we do not feel safe. Living in a consistently traumatizing world overwhelms our capacity to cope. The antidotes to trauma are choice and agency. When we believe we have the power to change the things that oppress us, we set ourselves free. We discover our resilience.

You are here because you are a descendent of resilient people. If your ancestors had not been resilient, they would not be your ancestors. They would have died off long before the chain formed that that created you. You have inherited your ancestors’ resilience, and you will pass resilience down to the next generations—whether or not you have biological children. (If you don’t believe me, just think of one of the many conversations you’ve had with a younger person that gave them the strength and inspiration to keep going.)

Tantra is a resilience-building practice. Walking the Tantric path can transform any and every experience—no matter how unspiritual it may appear— into a path of fulfillment, and even enlightenment. Tantra harnesses the energy of our human desires and pleasures as fuel for personal and interpersonal transformation. Walking a Tantric path can inspire us to seek out brave spaces instead of simply safe spaces. It teaches us how we can contain bigger emotions, greater energy, more intense physical feelings, and have agency with them.

One of the core principles of Urban Tantra is the Resilient Edge of Resistance, so named by  the endlessly creative Chester Mainard. It may sound obscure, but it’s really very simple. When we apply the Resilient Edge of Resistance to touch, we’re talking about the touch that feels just right. It feels safe and supportive and present. It’s neither too hard nor too soft. It lulls you into a place of deep comfort and surrender. You’re awake and aware, but completely peaceful and relaxed at the same time. You want it to go on forever. The person touching you has found your Resilient Edge of Resistance.

The Resilient Edge of Resistance applies to all parts of our being: physical, emotional, and psychic. When we have too much mental stress in our lives, we shut down, overwhelmed; yet when there is too little stress, we have no energy, no motivation. On the psychic level, the Resilient Edge of Resistance translates into “sufficiently supported to take a risk.” Without risk, there is no growth or energy; however, without support, risk becomes recklessness. In the territory between, we can grow, thrive, and find pleasure. We function optimally at the Resilient Edge of Resistance.

The Resilient Edge of Resistance shifts constantly. When pressure is applied to the edge of resistance—whether that pressure is breath, touch, or tension—you expand a bit. This creates a new edge of resistance. Yoga postures are a good example of this. If you are seated on the floor and bend over to try to touch your forehead to your legs, it may at first seem impossible. Then, with each breath, you relax into the stretch a little bit more. You don’t force it, you just open up a bit more with each breath. Before you know it, your nose is a lot closer to your legs than you ever thought possible. By staying at the Resilient Edge of Resistance, you are able to go much deeper into the pose than if you had not gone to the edge, or if you had pushed past the edge into pain. The Resilient Edge of Resistance is the place where you feel safe enough to surrender and go deeper.

I have explored—and invited others to explore—the Resilient Edge of Resistance in physical touch for many years. Now, my Urban Tantra workshops are expanding to address our need for Tantric techniques which expand our emotional and psychic Resilient Edges of Resistance. With breath, and with a focus toward respecting yet expanding our resilient edges, we will be able to convert all our emotional states and physical desires into fuel to empower us both personally and as human community.

If you’d like to add Tantra to your toolkit of resilience, or you want to deepen your practice to deepen your impact in the world, take a look at my newest workshops, beginning 8 March.

Join me for a workshop specifically devoted to this topic: Urban Tantra: How to Live an Erotic, Ecstatic Life in Challenging Times.

Magic is the art of transformation. It’s the ability to imagine an alternative existence and then create and sustain that existence. Sex is one of the easiest ways to experience magic in action. Sex magic both requires and creates in us the ability to see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and just plain know that there is a fragile yet unbreakable connection that binds us together as humans, and binds us as humans to the rest of creation. When enough of us can imagine an alternative existence we inevitably, collectively, create that reality.

I remember the day I discovered sex magic. Louise Hay, my mentor and friend, had suggested we all send love to a person or a place on the planet that needed it. Always an overachiever, I concluded that if love sent by thought was effective, love delivered via an orgasm might be even more powerful.

There were a lot of people and places that needed love and healing back when I started practicing sex magic in the late 1980’s. I decided to focus on sending individual doses of orgasmic healing energy to my friends with AIDS, and collective orgasmic energy to South Africa, to support the fight to end apartheid.

I learned countless lessons through my sex magic practice.

First off, I learned the unsurprising fact that an erotic connection is a powerful motivator. Unlike other practices that require discipline to practice regularly, it was easy to show up for my sex magic rituals.
Secondly, the results of my sex magic practice appeared in the real world in ways I didn’t expect. Suddenly (magically, you might say) people and events showed up in my life that gave me concrete ways to support my sex magical intentions. This gave me opportunities for real activism.
But the biggest transformation was personal. I felt empowered in ways that felt new. I felt a part of movements that were bigger than me. I felt more connected to the collective power of humanity. I felt like a part of the solution. It was as if the sex magic I was sending out was coming back to me multiplied. It was like I was plugged into a vast network of inspiration and possibilities.

We need the magic of sex and spirit more than ever in these times.

In a world increasingly defined by what we don’t want, by separation and division, by seemingly irreconcilable differences, and a dire disconnection from the earth, we need a road map back to oneness.

That is why I’m so excited to introduce a powerful new book, Igniting Intimacy: Sex Magic Rituals for Radical Living and Loving, by our very own Urban Tantra UK Program Coordinator, Rev. Rowan Bombadil.

This book is for you, whoever you are. The language is inclusive and the content inviting and inspiring. You’ll learn new ways to relate with yourself, beloveds, friends, family and the world. You’ll get to discover and define your own personal meaning and style of intimacy, not only with people, but also with the planet and with divinity. And—whether you identify as straight, queer or something else entirely—you’ll reap the boundless benefits of queering love, sex, ritual, and of course, magic.

Best of all, opening this book invites you into community—a powerful community of people waiting to include you, accept you, empower you, celebrate you, and enfold you in a magical embrace.

So if you’re curious about sex magic, or you’re looking to deepen your practice, I cannot recommend this book enough!

Blessed be,

Barbara

This is the keynote address I gave at the 2019 International Ms Leather/Bootblack weekend, 11 – 14 April 2019.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging that we are standing on the ancestral lands of the Ohlone and Tamyen people. I want to pay respects to their elders past and present. Please take a moment to consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us together here today.

I noticed something recently. Perhaps you’ve noticed it, too. I’ve noticed that with the exception of in this hotel this weekend, that it’s gotten difficult to start a conversation about sex with good news. I realized that the highlights of my TV binge watching this winter featured 6 hours about R Kelly terrorizing young black women, and 2 hours about the emotional agony of two brave young men as they tried to reconcile the love and loyalty they had to Michael Jackson, the artist, with the betrayal they felt by Michael Jackson, the pedophile. And of course all that was preceded in the fall by the televised shitshow of another privileged white male supreme court nominee ducking responsibility for sexual misconduct. And if the video media wasn’t enough, I realized that a really high percentage of my reading list was filled with articles and emails from my students and colleagues on the international devastation being wrought by SESTA/FOSTA. A supposedly anti-sex-trafficking bill sloppily drafted with no input whatsoever from the sex workers whose lives would be irreparably harmed by it’s enforcement.

But this goes beyond media. I spent a fair portion of the past year in support of numerous traumatized survivors of a sexual predator within my own Urban Tantra community. I spent hours in closed online support groups and video meetings with attorneys, therapists, event producers, and of course the survivors themselves. Some nights I would crawl out of my office shaking and in tears, and ask Kate, “Is all this really my job?” And Kate, who is usually the first one to tell me to stop working and rest, would say, “This is your most important job.” I knew she was right. But I wondered, what happened to the Pleasure? Where is the love, the ecstasy, the connection, the yum?

I did not realize how out of balance I’d gotten till a friend of mine was astounded that I had not yet even heard of, much less seen the British documentary 100 Vaginas. [Google it.]  I was shocked that I was among the last, instead of one of the first to see this phenomenally beautiful, radically honest film about female pleasure, power and beauty. How long had it been since I’d watched an affirmative, sex positive, shame healing and erotically uplifting film? I was profoundly shocked and sad to think that I’d let the soundtrack of my life become abuse and assault instead of pleasure, and love.

All of this was leaving me with a feeling of deja vu. I had flashbacks to the AIDS epidemic 30 years ago. Back then the meme was SEX = DEATH. Today, it’s SEX = ABUSE, SEX = ASSAULT, SEX = TRAUMA.

So I took a breath and said, okay, so what had I learned 30 years ago that could be applied to today. 1) This is not really about the sex. In the 1980’s the issue was most definitely really about the death—hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by an illness which was caused by the AIDS virus. And okay, it was a bit about the sex—-those deaths were also caused by the refusal of government and institutional leaders to respond in a timely manner because the illness was sexually transmitted and affecting primarily gay men.

Today as well, it’s not all about the sex. Sexual assault and abuse are not about the sex. They are about power. And control. And systemized misogyny. Sexual violence has been the most effective way of wielding that power, exerting that control, and reminding people with less power just who’s in charge here.

In the 80’s many if not most of the people I knew stopped having sex, because sex was a potentially life-threatening activity. Yet, not having sex was really not making anyone feel any safer. Or any healthier or any happier. It was obvious to me (and my erotic co-conspirators Annie Sprinkle and Joseph Kramer) that not only was repressing sex not any kind of permanent solution, it was also a waste of an opportunity. The sexual revolution of the 1970’s was in fact the celebration of gay liberation. The sex was wild, frequent, and often enhanced with drugs. When we were truthful with each other, many of us had explored this particular style of sex to such excess that we were ready to do sex differently. To do that, we had to imagine sex differently. Before we could change our behavior we needed to change our minds about what sex was, and what we wanted from it. In my circles, we wanted emotional and physical healing, we wanted true intimate connection with partners, we wanted a spiritual connection—a connection to something greater than ourselves, and yes, we still wanted mind-blowing orgasms. When we could name what we wanted—name our desires—name our big YESes, we put ourselves on the path to fulfilling them.

The past couple of years seem to offer another loud and insistent invitation to do sex differently. And once again, that involves a change of consciousness. It involves being more thoughtful, more prepared, and more willing and more practiced at having conversations about consent. This is a good thing. It’s not always an easy thing. Our intention is for consensual sex to be as natural and easy as practicing good manners.

We in the leather community are good at this. We have to be good at this. Whether you subscribe to safe sane and consensual, or risk aware consensual kink, we understand that consent is the first step in getting our wild, passionate, deep, sacred, groove on. We know the difference between enthusiasm and encouragement, vs. manipulation and coercion. We know what altered states of erotic consciousness can do to peoples’ desires and how to manage that.

We take risks. Intentionally. We’ve learned by trial and error the level of risk that produces the best sex and the best play for us. When something goes wrong we stop. We fix it. We apologize. We make amends. We do what we need to do to move into more pleasure.

And this is the key—it’s about the pleasure. The new meme can be SEX = PLEASURE. I believe that the leather community—and particularly this leather community can help turn this ship of sex around—away from abuse and toward pleasure. A whole lot of people in this room have known some kind of abuse and thank goddess we are part of a community that knows how to hold us as we heal so that we can return to the pleasure we were seeking in the first place. We know how to do this stuff. We can be of service as leaders for people who are finding this hard.

It’s difficult for people to change a lifetime of habits about how they do something. It can be exhausting and confusing and frustrating. And rightly so. When people begin to upend a system that has been upside down for so long it’s hard for them to know what right side up feels like. So they make mistakes. They often over correct, making something like safer sex (in the 80s) and consent (today) so tedious that people wind up more angry and frustrated than turned on. All of this is a normal part of the process. This is the stage we’re at now. It will go on for a while longer. However, I think we can help insure that the temporary over-corrections don’t become the permanent new normal.

When all our focus is on preventing something bad from happening, we have forgotten the point of why we are practicing safer sex, or getting consent in the first place. We are living in a time when entire cultures at home and abroad are being driven solely by NO—opposition to what they don’t want. No is important. Learning to hear and understand NO is important. But what about our YES? Yes to pleasure, yes to intimacy, yes to surrender, to spiritual realization or whatever your deep ecstatic YES is. We do not have to sacrifice our deep, erotic, ecstatic YESes to achieve consent. Quite the opposite. We need to prioritize them.

It all comes back to intention. What is our intention? Why do you do sex? What’s the big payoff—the reason why some of us have spent weeks or months organizing the scenes that are happening here this weekend? Clearly you have some pretty intense commitments to your orgasmic YESes. The world needs you now.

What the world needs is practice at identifying its individual and collective orgasmic YESes and then using all our skills to make those YESes happen.

The world need to understand that hard limits are not the focus of the journey. Hard limits are simply the things we avoid crashing into so that we can happily and safely arrive at the ecstatic. 

The world need to understand nuance and the hierarchy of harm. As we know, all mistakes, miscalculations and fuck-ups are not created equal and should not be responded to equally. Some people simply need better mentoring by a more experienced top. Others require a jail sentence. We can help people learn the difference.

The world needs to understand that pleasure—not just trauma—requires aftercare. Aftercare is that sweet space where you get to integrate your ecstatic experience. The time when you can let it sink in and notice how you’re a little bit or a lot transformed by the pleasure. We will all have found our balance again when people can spend twice as much time savoring their pleasure as they did negotiating the agreement that led to that pleasure.

Our brains are wired to alert us to danger. This ancient wiring keeps potential threats and tragedies up front in our awareness as a survival mechanism. However, our present and future reality is shaped by our desires and our pleasures. You can’t repress pleasure, yet expect liberation, satisfaction and joy.

Is there an enthusiastic, orgasmic YES at the center of our work? Hell yes there is. This is a community that was built on YES, that thrives on YES. We are a community who knows how to teach YES to generations coming up behind us. We can get out into the world and remind people—especially college-age people—that safety and consent are so important, but on the pleasure scale, safety for it’s own sake is a very low bar. Pleasure is so much bigger than that. And pleasure is power.

What would we all be doing with our time and energy if we all made decisions based on a feeling of deep orgasmic erotic YES?

How would we organize and support our communities if we shifted our focus to what we long for and love rather than what we hate?

How many times have I heard a sex and pleasure positive person say “The reason sex is so feared by the establishment is that they know how powerful it is, and how impossible it would be to control a truly sexually empowered group of people.” I ask you then—why are we not using our superpowers?

Yes, being a out and proud sex and pleasure positive person can be scary right now. It’s kind of like taking a night stroll in Coober Pedy. Coober Pedy is an opal mining town in the Australian outback. You might remember it from the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Anyway, the mining laws are kinda loose in Coober Pedy. You can pretty much drill straight down for many feet anywhere you want and when you’re done, you just pop a little warning flag next to hole and the pile of dirt you’ve dug out and walk away. There are signs all over Coober Pedy that warn you that even a moment of inattention to where you’re walking could land you at the bottom of one of these mines. That’s kinda what it’s like talking about sex from a sex positive, pleasure activist point of view these days.

People are highly sensitized and reactive. There are generational divides and all sorts of opinions among different communities on how to name and deal with past sexual conduct, and what the protocol should be moving forward.

It’s important to remember that although it might seem to look like these arguments among well meaning people are solely about harm reduction, the bottom line is that people are just trying to get back to being able to have some fun, some pleasure and some hot sex.

What’s your specific superpower? How can you use it to guide people back to pleasure? In your leather life? In the other lives you lead?

As Sharrin said on Friday night, all acts of sex and pleasure in these times are political acts—revolutionary acts. How can you serve the sex and pleasure revolution? How can you—as Toni Cade Bambara said—make the revolution irresistible?