If I say ‘Cheeseburger’, your mind will think of whatever your favourite cheeseburger is. It might be a Big Mac, it might be a gourmet burger, but you have an idea in your mind what it is. (You might guess from this that I like cheeseburgers, I do!).
That’s how the mind works, what we know, what we’ve experienced, what we think something is.
If I say massage, your mind will go somewhere, based on what you’ve experienced, or what you think.
If I say Sensual Massage, Erotic Massage, your mind will go to some interesting places, based on what you think, or what you’ve experienced. And the range of that is so wide. It might go from ‘happy ending massage parlour, ’to ‘I’ve read a little of what Tantric massage is and I want that’, to ’I actually really don’t know what that is, but it sounds exciting and interesting and I’d like to know more.’
Here’s a place for us to begin. All massage is sensual. It involves the sense of touch. It may be deep and hard, it may be gentle and slow, it may be arousing, relaxing, releasing, it may relieve pain, it may reduce tension, it may be impersonal and robotic, it may be caring and connecting. It’s all sensual.
We’ve taken the words sensual and erotic and put them in a space that’s connected to sex in some way. And when it comes to massage we think of it as being about an orgasm, being a prelude to sex.
Let’s add something to these words, and open ourselves to a different experience.
Let’s look at the Erotic as being the connection between the body and the heart. Let’s look at sensual firstly being about all of our senses, and then being about awareness. Let’s look at both of these as being about intimacy. And here’s a thing, a big thing. This is what we’re looking for, longing for, want deep inside. Intimacy, connection. To be seen, heard, felt.
And touch is one of the deepest, most powerful ways for us to experience that. To be touched intimately doesn’t always mean for our genitals to be touched. It means to be touched from the heart, touched with care. Touched with love.
Touch is language of the body that goes deeper than words, it goes to a place of knowing inside of us that has no words, we can’t fully express the feeling. And we can’t fully express what happens to us in that space. But so much does.
Healing, letting go of things, bring things to awareness, relaxing, softening, opening, presence.
And this goes deeper. Because if you’re being touched with care, with love, then the person doing the massage must be feeling that. So it becomes a space for the experience of the sensual, the erotic, the intimate for both of us. Which means that there is as much in the giving as in the receiving. One of the things I do more and more with people on healing journeys is teach them to massage and touch in this way, and so much happens for them, in the doing. It also becomes a way to meditate, through touch, massaging someone, slowly, so slowly. In time there’s no giver or receiver, there’s just sharing.
In a relationship this is such an important thing to learn, and do. Touch is a way of connecting, of being intimate, that can have nothing to do with sex. So often we touch when we have sex, and then the focus is genital. A few minutes of conscious sensual touch is a deep connection, it’s comforting, it’s belonging, it’s connecting. This becomes a lifelong expression of togetherness.
Now let’s talk a little about the sensual and erotic connected to pleasure, maybe even to sex.
Massage with the intention of arousal is an art that can give us experiences of sensation and pleasure that are mind-blowing. It’s a way to experience our sexual energy, it’s a beautiful way to give, and to receive pleasure. It’s a way to explore our bodies, touch and sensation, emotion and energy. The pleasure we can experience in this realm can be exquisite.
We talk about sacred sexual massage. Here’s the thing. The whole body is sacred. Our genitals no more and no less that the rest of us. When we touch with our hearts, this is what we express, this is what we feel.
This massage, sensual, erotic, intimate sacred, in all it’s expressions is a world of possibility, limitless.
There is so much, from a simple and short hand, foot or face massage, to Conscious Sensual Massage, Taoist Massage, Yoni Massage, Lingam Massage, Kashmiri Massage, Massage Dance, Sensual Bondage Massage, Anal Massage and more.
I’ve been doing and teaching this for over 25 years, and still learning and discovering more.
I invite you to share in this journey of heart touch, of body touch, of intimate touch.
Of love, for this, touching from our hearts, learning to put the energy of our heart in our hands, is making love.
This week, Sat 11th Feb, there is a Sensual and Erotic Massage Workshop in Johannesburg, come and explore, come and experience, DM me for info.
