MAY I FEEL YOUR HAND FOR MY OWN PLEASURE? Erotic Intelligence, Consent & Embodied Leadership | 17
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"How do I get where I want to go?" Agenda is the hidden epidemic of high performers. We don't know how to listen without fixing, lead without controlling, love without changing, touch without taking, give without expecting. Our entire lives we've been rewarded for outcome. It started tiny - we received love, affection, attention, for a smile, a word, a drawing, grades, winning prizes. We were trained for transaction since being tiny. We've been rewarded our whole lives for outcome. So, most touch comes with an agenda. Touch to get somewhere. Touch to achieve an outcome. Touch to create a response. Touch to get reassurance. Touch to receive validation. Touch to create arousal. Touch to get love. Most of us have never been taught to notice the agenda underneath the touch, and yet, we can feel it.
You know how gross it feels when we are taken from. When we are being touched to get something from us. When we receive an invitation under the premise of being invited back. Agenda and outcome extinguish intimacy and connection.
The deeper question: Can I be with another human being without needing something from them? Not sexually. Anywhere. What if presence was the point? What if touch was free of achievement? What if relationship was simply togetherness? What if life wasn't a transaction?
This transmission began with touch. It ended somewhere much bigger.
THE STORY
I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have learned in life that touch without taking exists, that being is enough, and to love, invite, give freely and generously simply for the sake of it. I learned about touch as conversation, dance, experience.
The first major portal into the world of receiving and giving without agenda was following my friend Helena's invitation to attend her workshop on Dr. Betty Martin's Wheel of Consent. Helena is an overall wonderful human and an exquisitely skilled facilitator. The memories of this workshop are still so visceral. I am allowed to say no? What? Dr. Betty Martin's work completely changed how I understand intimacy. And life. Learning how much I had endured throughout my life blew my mind and made me really sad. For the first time ever, age 32, I finally understood on a full body level, that I had a right to say no. In my first workshop with Helena, the end of my enduring began. I learned how a no felt in my body, how a yes. I uncovered the felt memory of yes and no, or maybe I never knew. The exercises are so simple and yet profound, eg you ask a partner, "May I feel your hand with my hand for my own pleasure?" It brings in the simple, and yet deeply profound question, Who is it for? Am I touching you for you or for myself? We mostly touch (/live) with agenda, and suddenly I had a say in this. Life changing. The questions: Who is it for? Am I giving? Am I receiving? Am I accepting? Am I allowing? Those marked the end of my enduring era. That end came along with radical clarity and honesty, first and foremost within myself, for myself. It brought the end of manipulation. The end of pretending. Suddenly everyone knows what's happening. How much touch had I endured simply because I thought I was supposed to? How much of my life had been endurance? And then, the revolutionary discovery: I can say no. We practiced that. A lot. I can feel a fuck yes. I can feel a maybe (and a maybe is a no, or requires negotiation). I can notice what is true. Just truth. It is plain and simple and stunningly beautiful and sexy in its simplicity and clarity. I want something. Are you willing? Suddenly everyone knows what game is being played. Clarity creates safety. There are major differences between being touched by someone who wants to feel and being touched by someone who wants something. One comes with curiosity, one with conquest. One offers warmth and nourishment. The other feels invasive and draining. The times you were offered something because ultimately something was wanted from you? That's exactly what feels gross.
The second big lesson in giving and receiving, specifically physical touch, was training in Thai Yoga Massage (Nuad Thai). This experience stretched out over many years. My very first Thai Massage I received at Wat Po in Bangkok in Thailand. Cheesey af, right? After law 1.0, I traveled through South East Asia, and at this ancient temple, the traditional southern style is taught as an ancient temple art. I continued to deeply receive and enjoy this body work where practitioner and recipient are both fully clothed. While I managed the kitchen of a famous yoga retreat centre in the stunning Swedish country side, a Thai Yoga Massage training took place, and I was hooked. Years later, the very same teacher appeared again in my field and I followed the yes to attend his foundational and advanced training in Vienna, of all places. Training in this school of body work taught me so much. I learned about touch as listening. Touch as a conversation between two nervous systems. The giver respecting their own body as much as the receiver. A way of supporting while fully staying within what can genuinely be offered, respecting my own boundaries. A practice of following sensation instead of imposing technique. The foundation for all of this is pure presence. Learning that good touch requires exactly that- presence. Thai Yoga Massage is touch as a conversation between two nervous systems. The giver must respect their own body as much as the receiver. Listening is more important than imposing. Following wins over directing. Responding, communing is the technique.
In the realm of sexual intimacy, so often orgasm is chased as outcome. It is the agenda. But something has shifted for me here in the last couple of years, and that is something that often stops my clients in the tracks. Sure, we love orgasms. And they are so much more than just that. Pleasure moved beyond the performance. The more I tap into the power of my body, the bigger the orgasms get. Everything can be orgasmic and earth shuttering. The lovers I have been blessed with in most recent years are absolutely blowing my mind. It is so beyond the mind. And it is exactly that, touch without agenda. Enjoying the sensation of someones hair under my fingers. Feeling the breath hug their ribs closer to me, their tongue on my neck. A full exhale making a lover quiver and tremble. Enjoying every sensation of connection, and that might no even require physical touch. That can be a glance across a room of partying people (I certainly have a story to tell you there, when I madly fell head over heels last year in February). It can be a shared breath. It can be feeling the warm sunshine on your skin. The options for touch are infinite.
I do remember, not too long ago, when I felt like I was being touched in order to get something from me. It felt gross. It felt invasive, emptying, draining. As if something was taken from me. As if i only receive this touch in order to get somewhere. It feels like someone is following a step by step program to get somewhere. It lacks presence. Attunement. Conquest is outcome oriented vs communion is a co creation. But it might be everything that is known. This is the way to achieve this thing. Where did the curosity go? Where did the explration go? Where did the intuition go? Where did the real feel good go? The best experiences in life are way beyond result driven, they are moment to moment, listening, learning, noticing.
THE PATTERN
Agenda is everywhere. Most people do not know how to relate without agenda. Everything became transactional. Touch becomes transactional. Sex becomes transactional. Listening becomes transactional. Leadership becomes transactional. Giving becomes transactional. Everything becomes a strategy. There is almost a bit of underlying wariness, what do they want from us? Is everything a hidden negotiation? A subtle (or maybe not so subtle) attempt to get somewhere?
Us high performers got trapped in the achievement culture that rewards outcome. We must bring results. Control, optimization, influence, and success shape us into who we are. So our choices become limited to how do I get what I want? This is the modus operandi. We enter every interaction looking for the outcome. Even intimacy. Especially intimacy. This is a massive gap. It is so confusing to hear one thing and feel another. You are being offered a massage and then it feels yucky because they only offered to fill their own hunger for touch, and are therefore taking. People do not feel your words. They feel your agenda. People do not feel your leadership. They feel your agenda. People do not feel your touch. They feel your agenda. Agenda creates distance. Agenda is armour. Even when the act looks loving, the words sound caring, the touch appears generous. It comes with that gross yuck, the merkiness, the confusion. The one question that brings clarity? Who is it for?
The body knows. The body always knows.
He's spent 40 years becoming exceptional at reading rooms, negotiating outcomes, influencing people, managing perceptions and creating results. His entire nervous system is organized around: "How do I get where I want to go?" Which works brilliantly in business. To some degree. It lacks presence. And when this question, this theme, leads relationships, intimacy, friendships, parenting, and in the relationship with himself, nothing works any longer. Suddenly everyone feels managed. Nobody feels met. Including him. It's a cul de sac. No exit strategy.
Let's be real - hardly anyone gets their needs for physical connection met. It's so easy to touch to take. We are all touch deprived. According to renowned family therapist Virginia Satir's framework, our daily touch needs are the following: 4 hugs a day are needed for basic survival and preventing depression. 8 hugs a day are needed for maintenance, mental stability, and well-being. 12 hugs a day are needed for real psychological growth and thriving. Where do you lay on this? How do we get our basic human need for touch met? No wonder we come up with agenda and strategy to get those needs met, plus we perhaps never learned how to ask for it.
THE INVITATION
It's problematic. We are not only touching this way. We are living this way. Do we listen for the sake of listening and learning? Or do we listen to reply? Lead to control? Give to receive? Help to be needed? Love to avoid abandonment? Perform generosity while secretly hoping for a return? As you can tell, we are moving into deeply philosophical, spiritual layers here. I would not call any of this manipulative, at least not on a conscious level. It's what we were taught. The achievement culture glorifies outcome. Every interaction, every action, should create an outcome. Where does this lead us to? It leads us into a controlled, sterile environment where everyone feels controlled. Everyone feels managed. Nobody feels met, not even yourself. This goes beyond an invitation for better communication. Or better leadership. Or better intimacy. I am inviting you to presence. Can you be with another human being without needing anything from them? Can you listen without fixing? Can you love without changing? Can you touch without taking? Can you lead without controlling? Can you simply be here? Presence is the most revolutionary thing left.
SOCIETAL REFLECTIONS
We live in a culture of outcome where sex became orgasm. Leadership became influence. Relationships became transactions. Productivity became identity. Everything became optimization. It is hollow. Empty. Disconnected. The sense of feeling managed is omnipresent. We feel dehumanized. Human beings are managed, handled, directed, measured, evaluated. Notice the language. All this is common chargon. No wonder nobody feels truly met, seen, appreciated. Nobody feels valued as a human being. The tragedy is that we have become exceptionally skilled at achieving. And increasingly disconnected from relating. It is almost comical how presence is considered inefficient. Curiosity is shamed as slow. When you listen deeply, you might be considered passive. Taking your time is frowned upon. Yet all these qualities are the essence of intimacy. The foundation of trust. The keystones of aliveness. They build true leadership. And this challenge shows up, once again, all over the place: in boardrooms, bedrooms and bodies. What a mess.
EMBODIED INQUIRY
But what if touch had no goal? What if life had no agenda? What if presence was the point?
Where in your life are you trying to get somewhere?
When do people feel your presence? And when do they feel your agenda? What changes in your body when you stop trying to create an outcome?
Can you remember the last interaction where nothing was needed?
What would intimacy feel like if nothing needed to happen?
What would leadership feel like if nobody needed to change?
What would life feel like if presence was enough?