WHY SEX IS MAGICAL (BECAUSE IT IS)

In the last posts about the intersection of sex and magic I have hinted at why I think sex is magical. Now I will be more explicit. 

All sex is magical. Sex is a spark of magic, a moment, a flicker that vanishes in an instant. Mostly we are unaware of that. All over the world, even as you read this, people are seeking and craving and demanding just that one spark. But they waste it, let it vanish, like the flick of a lighter that doesn't catch. Imagine if we were more conscious about that. Imagine if we used that spark, rode it, controlled it, let it change us. 

Sex is magical for at least four reasons. 

The first is that it is energetic. It is a more or less conscious use of energy, in your own field or a shared field. It is as energetic as any form of bodywork. When you are aware of this you are more able to keep yourself safe and also more able to use the energy to enhance pleasure or pain or power. When I was a sex worker I spent a lot of time in my clients' energetic fields. This had many implications. I would have spontaneous experiences of their psychic lives, their ancestry perhaps, on occasion at the moment of their orgasm. I could become a little mediumistic. Mostly I kept this to myself. At times I used it to my advantage, such as making up some romantic stories about past lives that might keep my clients interested and stroke their egos. Another implication of this kind of energy sharing was that I needed to keep myself clean. I learned to align my own chakras fairly often so that I did not get too tangled up in my clients' motivations and hopes and fears and deceits. I sought the blessing of my Red Goddess at the start of each day of work. I also used my understanding of energy exchange just to keep up heightened interest and arousal. And for vampirism. Of which more later. 

Another reason is that sex is meaningful. It is not like other activities. Other activities can be meaningful of course, but if they are meaningful in the way that sex is, then they are erotic. A foot massage means one thing to me, and one thing to a foot fetishist. For the fetishist, it is erotic. So I am talking about a particular sort of meaning that is emotionally invested, sensually heightened, and redolent with memory. Sex never happens without deep context and this must be respected. This in itself is magical. 

I may distinguish this here from sexual porn. I have no objection to porn and I have used it myself to learn about techniques. I am aware that younger men particularly are very informed by porn and this gives them unrealistic ideas about women. Sex workers themselves notice this issue. The word porn has broadened its meaning in interesting and useful ways. We talk about food porn house porn or ruin porn. C Thi Nguyen and Bekka Williams discuss this in their article on what they call moral outrage porn.

'We offer a definition adapted from earlier accounts of sexual pornography. On our account, a representation is used as generic porn when it is engaged with primarily for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with the represented content.'

They go on to say that 

 'when using porn is wrong, it is often wrong because it instrumentalizes what ought not to be instrumentalized'.

 My hunch is that attempts at freeing sex from the costs and consequences of engagement are also attempts to make it meaningless. This does violence to the nature of sex, even if it is possible at all. I think there is something behind the this apparent to instrumentalize what ought not to be instrumentalized. It is probably fairly desperate, archaic and soaked in guilt and fear. No wonder porn can be arid and disappointing. 

So much for meaning. Sex is also magical because it is about ritual. The obvious ritual is courtship. We get dressed for a date, changing our appearance and looking our best. We attempt a memorable experience. We eat special food and we dance. All of these can be ritual actions. They are formalized and conscious.

Imagine a ritual to the god Cernunnos. I take the skull of a deer and walk into the forest. I place those things on the ground, and scatter nuts and seeds and special flowers for the god. I sprinkle Jagermeister on the ground and drink some. I Speak to the god using poetic language, request his gnosis, and await what comes. I have a relationship with this deity and I trust him.  Now imagine a bedroom scene. I am wearing special clothing, high heeled boots and a red leotard. I restrain my sub to a St Andrews cross with special red leather cuffs I use only for him. I flog him with a cat o nine tails, and I get him to count the lashes. I praise him, tell him he is a good boy and release him. This is deeply meaningful for both of us, as for him he has met my challenge and pushed his boundaries and for me it is both loving service and enormous fun. It's a ritual, right? From a structural functionalist point of view, there are important similarities. 

So sex is magical because it is energetic, meaningful and ritualistic. It is magical also because it changes states of consciousness, but I will discuss that next time. 

The brilliant thing about all of this is that magic is everywhere sex is. You can do magic. I don't use a capital m or spell it with a k because we can all do it. Some of us are better or worse at it, but it is a stream we can all step into. The tools we need are consciousness, empathy, and nerve.  

As always, blessings on you, gentle reader 

SEX WORK IN AOTEAROA: THE LAW AND THE LORE, LESSONS FROM BDSM

 

Whoring taught me about things I would never have learned otherwise. If I was running a course in whoring, say at the local community college, I would teach the following:

-         Legal and ethical issues

-         Basic anatomy, first aid and pharmacology

-         Safety and infection control

-         Counselling and the conscious use of self

-         Theatresports and sexual LARPing

-         Grooming, deportment and physical fitness

-         Sexual techniques, equipment and toys

-         Business management, including taxation and budgeting

-         Self-care, emotional and spiritual safety

I think for certain women, a time in our lives of sex work makes us better lovers and better people. We come out less judgmental and more compassionate. If I were twenty or thirty years younger I would be continuing in this profession.

 

THE LAW AND THE LORE

This section is primarily about paid sex work, but I just think it is bloody interesting and worth knowing about anyway. A lot of it can be transposed into relationships.

I live in Aotearoa/New Zealand where we have the best and safest laws in the world regarding sex work. For this we have to thank Tim Barnett, one of our first openly gay Members of Parliament, who took a punt on a difficult issue. Our system is unique, and in my view should be emulated elsewhere.

Sex work is legal here. Sex workers pay taxes and claim the benefits of running a small business. There are laws governing brothels in order to keep sex work out of sight, but that is probably helpful to clients. What this has meant for sex workers is the Police don’t usually harass them and will even come if called. A client can be prosecuted for removing a condom, and this has actually happened. Violence and extortion from clients is no longer officially tolerated. Most sex work happens in suburban brothels which are ordinary houses, and there is little happening on the streets. Sex work is safer and more accountable. It falls very broadly within the ambit of health services. The founder of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective, Dame Catherine Healy, has recently been honoured by the Queen. The Collective works overground to keep sex workers safe, and occasionally they get reports from clients who are concerned about the welfare of sex workers who appear to be trafficked or abused. There is little evidence of actual trafficking here in Aotearoa, although sex workers can’t get working visas and I have seen some borderline exploitation of Chinese women.

Sex work may well be illegal in your country or state. Look out for support and advocacy groups or unions, and link in with them. There is safety in numbers. Stay clean and safe. Here I could go to my local sexual health clinic and explain I was a sex worker. I would receive no discrimination and free checkups. You may need to look deeper, but it is worth it. Consult as widely as you safely can and stick with someone you trust.

Now that I have talked about the law, I can begin on the lore.

CONSENT – BEYOND THE SAFE WORD

Consent is vital, but it can be complicated. The experts on this dwell within the BDSM scene. Some experienced and wise pro dommes also can advise you. Generally, consent is assumed until otherwise. The client’s presence provides consent.

My own view is that safe words are too limiting. I used a traffic light system, where a client can say ‘orange’ which means they are nearing a hard limit, and ‘red’ which means stop. Talk about this beforehand, as clients with some self-knowledge may understand their soft and hard limits. If they don’t, ‘orange’ is helpful for them. I once dommed a man who wanted to be humiliated by being treated like a dog. He was happy to eat from a bowl and be slapped for misbehaving, but he was appalled when I wiped his cum on his face. He called ‘orange’ for that one. I did not predict that would bother him, and he probably did not predict it himself. Submissive clients often ask for you to ‘push their boundaries’ but they may not know what they mean until it begins to happen for them. Safe words and systems are essential but they are not a substitute for good intuition and communication.

Thoughtful preparation can minimise misunderstandings and also set up scenarios ahead of time. I once did an elaborate prison fantasy that involved a lot of emailing beforehand. The client wanted a two-hour booking in a motel. He was to be in the shower and I was to be an escaped prisoner and break into his room. He would come out of the shower wearing only a towel, and I would grab him by the hair, slam him into the wall and then hood him with a leather gimp hood I own. Then I would restrain him, fuck him with my middle-sized strap-on and torture him, and tell him dirty prison stories. For all of this time he was to remain silent. If he made a sound, I was to punish him. At the end, I was to order him to remain still and silent, pack up my things, free him, and leave while he remained on the bed completely still with his eyes downcast, He was never to look upon me.

He was nervous about this because he had attempted this fantasy with sex workers before and it had not gone well. I was concerned about the rule of silence because I would not get verbal feedback and had only his body language to go on.

All went as planned. Afterwards, I sat in the car, outside the motel and texted him. I told him I would not leave until he texted me that he was all right. He did so, and I was able to leave with a clear conscience.

Another piece of innovative preparation with another client gave me some certainty. This was a regular client and we did a lot of role play, sexy plumbers and real estate agents and the like. This time I texted him and told him my door was closed and he was to read the typed message taped to the door. If he then entered the room, it meant that he consented to my conditions for what was to follow. The role play was ‘sleeping woman in the wrong room’, or perhaps ‘X rated Goldilocks’.  He would do things to me and I would not wake up until he told me to. My conditions were that he would be respectful, use a condom, and not practise violence or humiliation. Please note that I knew this client well and would not recommend this role play in general, but it illustrates how consent can work. And it is intriguing to discover how clients suspend disbelief, as he talked to me as if I really couldn’t hear him! These were my instructions to him:

So, Gary…….

These are your instructions. Read them all before you proceed further.

You’ve had a very boring day at work; in fact you’ve spent half of it watching porn and now you have arrived home, feeling horny and not quite knowing what to do with yourself. This is your bedroom. You open the door.

There’s a strange woman in your bed. She is all tousled and sweet and warm and fast asleep. She hasn’t even got properly undressed or into the bed; she is clearly so exhausted. She must have got lost and just stumbled into your house. And fallen onto your bed and fallen completely asleep.

She is not going to wake up. That’s a fact. What’s a man to do? He has carte blanche to do anything he likes with her.

Anything.

So, Gary, you can do anything with her. She won’t wake up until you tell her to. And when she does wake up she will be delighted to see you. Of course you are a gentleman so you won’t be violent or degrading to her. But you will, indeed, have your way with her in any sweet way you choose, and she will let you.

If you agree, open the door. Opening the door means you agree with the above game, including ensuring the safety of the woman in your bed.

 

These sorts of fantasies are bedroom fun, good for stable couples. Many good sex work tips work in ordinary bedrooms as well. And take it outside the bedroom. Have that ‘hitch hiker picked up by gorgeous truck driver’ or ‘midnight forest walk’ fantasy. They say the best sex is in your head, and some fantasies are ridiculous in real life or just plain wrong, but if they are safe, sane and consensual, then try them out.

Be an ethical whore. Money is up front, so deliver what you promise. A client  hires you as a sex worker because, unlike his Tinder dates, you won’t phone his  wife or scream at him in the supermarket, and you guarantee safe sex. That is your point of difference, use it wisely.

Regarding the open use of magic, only a few clients will be interested in it, and even fewer will be able to cope with it. So keep it under wraps. You can give off a mystical aura if you like but any more is just too much. If you discover a client is amenable, take it slowly. I once began a booking with a nature ritual with a pagan client. That was fine for him but sex magic as such did not interest him. Keep your woo in your pocket.

Doing magic without a client’s knowledge is a different matter. So of course you will do it. However you need to think about the ethics of at least three issues:

-         The use of body fluids without a client’s consent

-         Glamour

-         Vampirism

I will address these issues gleefully and with alacrity, later on. Because yes I have done them all, although not always with full awareness. And full awareness is always, always best.

INFECTION CONTROL – STILL DEADLY SERIOUS

Please read the earlier post about infection control and safety. Already read it? Good. Read it again.

CLIENT SAFETY – BLISSED OUT AND BLEEDING

Who taught you how to love like that?

It’s a one way ticket to a heart attack

-         King Dude

 My regular client used to say to me ‘If I have a heart attack, just dress me and throw me into the street’. I am not sure how he wanted me to respond, but I was always truthful. If he’d had a heart attack I would leave the scene as it was and call the ambulance. Paramedics need to know what actually happened. They need to see the scene untouched. You can save a life that way.

In 1989, New Zealanders were shocked and titillated by the death of 51 year old Peter Plumley Walker in a BDSM session gone wrong. Peter was an eccentric chap, a cricket umpire with a handlebar moustache and experience with submission. The dominatrix was Renee Chignall, then 18 and fairly new to domming. It was their first session, She restrained Peter against a wall with a collar linked to a chain from the ceiling. She then left the room, and when she came back he had stopped breathing. Renee and her partner were unable to revive him. They drove him to the Huka Falls, a very high waterfall four hours from Auckland, and threw him off. His body was found at the bottom of the falls, and Renee and her partner were charged with his murder. The Police claimed he was alive when he was thrown over the falls. Renee was eventually acquitted of his murder, after three trials.

The case had a big effect on sex workers at the time, and among the vanilla population there was a brief fashion for cricket umpire/dominatrix pairs at dress up parties. Journalists of the time remember having to look up the word ‘dominatrix’.

BDSM deaths are rare. The BDSM scene and the fetish scene in general are safety conscious. But there are risks for clients if sex workers are unwise, inexperienced and in isolated environments.

Where did Renee go wrong?

Chances are, Peter Plumley Walker had a medical condition and Renee didn’t know about it. If your new client or play partner is older, or if you are using restraints or doing some play that involves major physical exertion, ask about their health. Ask:

-         Do you have any health conditions I should know about?

-         Do you have a heart condition?

-         Are you diabetic? Where is your insulin?

-         Do you have high blood pressure? Can you have your hands above your head for any length of time?

-         Do you have asthma? Where is your inhaler?

-         Do you have a medic alert bracelet? What does it indicate?

You will find after a bit of practice, you are able to ask these questions in a way that is not so obtrusive as to interrupt the play. If you are having conversations to set up the scene or booking, you can cover these issues.

If you are restraining someone, I recommend good quality restraints with buckles rather than rope. Rope work, or rigging, is beautiful but it needs to be learned and it takes a long time. Always carry a pair of surgical shears so you can cut restraints if you have to. Have them nearby, not in your bag or a drawer. Never restrain anyone for more than half an hour. If restraints are to be tight, pinch their fingers and watch the colour return. Check this periodically, and if the colour takes longer to return loosen the restraints, gradually if possible.

Never leave a client. That was Renee’s biggest mistake. Submissives often like being left, especially if they are just about to orgasm or if the play is reaching some sort of climax. It’s a kind of psychological edging, like orgasm denial. Pretend to leave by all means, but stand behind the door or make sure you can see them obliquely.

Your submissive’s welfare is entirely your responsibility. That’s what being in charge means. This includes their psychological welfare.

Talk with your sub beforehand about injury. Some cannot be marked, because people would notice. Some enjoy being marked. They wear their stripes proudly. Take photos with clients’ cameras, with permission, so they can see their injuries and know how well they have done. When you are whipping or striking, check often. Monitor the injuries and your sub’s state of mind. Go right up to them and speak to them, and check physically.

Renee’s other mistake was not to call for an ambulance. Her reason was that it would be hard to explain the situation. Believe me, I have worked in a hospital Emergency Department, and paramedics and ED staff have seen it all. Yes they will look at you sideways because you have an electric toothbrush stuck up your ass, and to be honest they will put the x rays up on the screen and laugh like drains, but they will treat you and they will do their best for you. Renee got into far worse trouble trying to hide what had happened. She spent time in prison and became a cause celebre of the worst sort.

Subs can often experience what is called sub space. This is a state of profound regression which is experienced as a sort of transcendence. There, they are completely vulnerable. They may be weeping, curled up, desperately grateful, blissed out and bleeding, and in that state you are their whole world. It is up to you to work with them gently and in their own time to bring them back to their ordinary selves. You take them apart, it’s your job to put them back together.

Even outside of the BDSM world, sex can be a powerful experience for a client. I had a client whose wife had died of cancer twenty years previously. He had been celibate since her death. At the end of the booking, he stood at the end of the bed and wept. He told me about her, how she died. He was completely undone by his experience with me and took the next day off work. It was good for him; he became a regular client and began to open up more to life.

.

STARTING OUT IN SEX WORK

I hope this isn’t too obvious, but when I started out I knew none of this so I had to learn it all by myself. Maybe I can save you some trouble.

Begin as you mean to go on, with professionalism and a working attitude. Use a separate phone and keep your social media profile as separate as you can. You do not want to find your clients on your Facebook account as ‘people you may know’. Use another name even for your vanilla activities. Manage your advertising platform carefully. Invest in good photography and keep it updated. You will spend a lot of money on advertising so get everything you can for it.

When you begin to take bookings, decide whether you will accept texts or kik notices or phone calls only. You will need to get a sense of your clients before you allow the booking. Questions about looks and personality and age are fine. They need to know what they are getting. Too many questions and general chatting is a waste of your time, but it might not be a waste of theirs. They might want to chat and flirt but not take a booking. They may want to jerk off to the conversation, as if you were providing free phone sex.  Most importantly, if they treat you disrespectfully or hint at violence, use your intuition. You are not a sex toy. You are not an object. You need never feel uncomfortable. Hang up, block, delete. Your safety is worth everything.

If you do outcalls, in clients’ homes, tell someone safe where you are. Text them when you arrive at the booking, and when you leave. If there is no one you can text, pretend to text someone. Leave the address at your home somewhere it can be found if you don’t return. In the client’s house, note where the exits are. Watch for anything that might stop you leaving or slow you down. Dogs, locked doors, things that could be weapons, difficult access back to your car.

When I was respectable I used to work with the Police a bit and the first time I visited a home with them, to see a young man at about midday, the conversation went like this:

Police: Put down the frying pan. Put down the knife.

Young man: What? No! I’m just making my lunch!

Police: We don’t care. We don’t know you. Put down the frying pan and the knife now.

New to this, I saw a guy making his lunch. The Police officers saw a man with two weapons.

I did an outcall in the home of a client who had seen me previously in my brothel. I had him restrained in a standing position with arms and legs spread over the end of his bed. Then I heard a rustling noise from the wardrobe. I stopped flogging him. ‘What’s in the wardrobe?’ I asked. ‘Nothing’, he replied. I resumed the flogging. The rustling noise from the wardrobe, again. I lost patience. What if there was someone in the wardrobe? What if they were taking photos or planning to attack me? I grabbed my client’s hair and pulled his head back, constricting his breathing. I generally find constricting the breathing gets you what you want. ‘What’s in the fucking wardrobe?’ I hissed at him, very quietly, my lips close to his ear, as if I might bite it off. ‘Uh, clothes?’ he replied, clearly nonplussed. I opened the wardrobe. A tiny cat emerged, not a kitten, just a very small adult tabby cat. Of course I was entranced, as, tail up, it wandered happily through the scene of debauchery and to the door, where I let it out.

I have worked in my home, where I was able to make the environment to my taste, and to incorporate magic more easily, and in brothels, where I had to make do. Working at home has its risks because your clients know where you live. You can find yourself using clients for company, and you have to shut up your legs if you have your mother to stay. However, you can set up a dungeon or a room devoted to sex magic and that is just so empowering. Working in brothels has its problems because you share facilities and each others’ problems. I have worked in a couple of notorious brothels. One ended in a gang fight and one dealt more in drugs than sex. I would find myself saying things like ‘I can’t come to work to find people fighting in the doorway! My clients are respectable gentlemen! This is unprofessional!’ They called me Mary Poppins. I would turn up in my sensible coat with my big bag of toys, take my booking, do extraordinary and dangerous things none of my colleagues quite grasped, and then leave.

 Camaraderie in brothels is a great thing. You can learn a lot in front of a shared mirror, or when waiting for punters. There is a ragged, poignant wisdom among such women. Learn all you can. You will find bright, compassionate, tough minded, generous people who know more about human nature than most.   

A word about money. Whoring money is like drug money or the proceeds of crime. It’s bad money. You wake up in the morning and you have ten dollars. By midday you have seven hundred. What are you going to do with it? Invest it? No, you are going straight to the pub via the KFC. It’s the wrong amount. You can blow it in a day. It’s too much for groceries and not enough to invest. Bad money. Have a system. Collect a set amount and bank it. Pay your bills with cash if you can. Don’t let the bad money burn you. Finally, be ordinary sometimes. Value your family and your vanilla friendships. Put your hiking boots on and go out in nature. Have a make-up free day. Study something unrelated. Sex work is as complex as any work with people. I used to say it was a cross between social work and theatre sports. You can burn out quickly and end up with something like compassion fatigue unless you look after yourself. Stop trying, say no to that booking and go spin on a beach.

And, blessings on you, gentle reader. 

GHOSTS IN THE BEDROOM

Last post I mentioned ghosts in the bedroom or dungeon. This is a fairly direct rip from Selma Fraiberg's metaphor 'ghosts in the nursery'. Selma talked about how early childhood experiences affect parenting styles, especially if they were harsh or traumatic. 

This post contains an extra trigger warning of sorts. Although there is no mention of violence the content may disturb you as it did me. This is a true story.  

CONFESSIONAL

Clio is asked to the home of a regular client, for what he calls a ‘breakfast fantasy’.  The house is old and was once beautiful. It is the family seat, and strongly Catholic. A small shrine marks the entrance. Inside, the hallway walls are crowded darkly with pictures of saints and family members who have taken the cloth. This is a family Clio thinks of as Socialist Catholic – unions, justice, cradle to grave welfare, good works, socially liberal, morally conservative.

He installs her in the guest bedroom. The bed is large, old and soft. The sheets are winter weight. Breakfast is on the table. There are croissants, strawberries, yoghurt, and wine. He gives her to wear a full length long sleeved brushed cotton nightie, white, buttoned to the neck. As she puts it on, she notices a photo frame turned face downwards on the dresser.  Who is that, she wonders, who must be present, but is not allowed to see what is about to happen here?

He is wracked by her. He has been planning this for days. He feeds her and gets her to feed him. A patina of yoghurt and strawberry coats them both. Passion fruit pips nest in his pubic hairs. Chocolate streaks her leg. He is intense. He sounds desperate. Talk dirty to me, he begs. You filthy fucking whore, he says. I love you, you’re beautiful, tell me you love me.

Clio has treated with some dark powers and whoring is not the strangest of her practices. But this is the darkest and strangest place she has been for a while. She is unusually silent. 

At the end her leaves her briefly, and she wants to know. Whose face is it that is turned downwards, powerfully here but blind, pressed down onto the wooden dresser? She expects a woman. She turns it over. It is his grandfather. It is the old patriarch who must be present but must not see.  

In some Australian Aboriginal nations, women must never know what men do. During male initiation rites, the women are present but hooded or required to turn their backs. This sacred ceremony is a reminder that women once held the power - and if the men let them see, they will take it back. And the women need to be present to be reminded too, of their present lesser state. What point is power if no one knows you have it? Show it, but do not allow the ones who once had the power to see it. Flaunt it, deny it, hint at it, hide it. It’s a threat, it’s a fearful thing. It’s power.  In that very traditional society such power threatens to be destabilising and destructive, but the way it is handled keeps it bound, keeps the status quo.

Clio thinks of the importance of being present, but not allowed to see. Her client had the photo in the guest bedroom, unusually for a precious memento. He could have removed it. Did he want her to see it? The grandfather had to be present, had to be shown but not actually bear witness to activities Clio’s client considers shameful.

What is flowing here in the psychic ancestral stream? Layers of desperation and pain, and more than a hint of abuse. Unslaked lust is only the top layer. Grandfather, what have I become? Whatever it is, you know why. Tell the story here, to someone long passed, who could never listen, who is now not allowed to listen. Redefining shame and pleasure, actualising it, and then denying it.

Later in the day, the sheets are washed and the wife comes home from work. Does he meet her eyes at dinner? Later in the week he goes to Mass. Clio wonders if he will brave the confessional. 

As always, blessings on you, gentle reader.