A Quick Meditation On Balls

The weekly meditation group I have been going to on Sundays is relatively small, but we do have a couple of young guys who show up pretty faithfully. This week, one of them came before the other and was sitting on the couch chatting with us when his friend walked in. I noticed that he immediately rested his hands in his crotch, which was probably a gesture born out of necessity, as his friend tried to punch him in the nuts as he walked over and sat down.

“Does he do that every time you see each other?” I asked the first guy.

He thought about it. “Yeah, pretty much,” he said.

“Does he even know he’s doing it?” I asked.

“It’s pretty automatic,” he said.

This led to a twenty minute discussion of balls, ball-punching, different things testicles have been used for over time (I pointed out that people used to place their hands on testicles to swear in court, and was roundly shouted down for making it up, which I, in fact, did not), and finally circled around to something I never really considered before, and my friend & meditation leader M. pointed out: that, as a woman and a yoga/meditation teacher, when she tells people to be aware of different parts of their body, she can never know what it feels like to centre her attention in her testicles.

It’s really true! Obviously, I can never know what it feels like to be punched in the nuts (and thank god for that), but that is also a whole body part that I can never understand exactly what it feels like to touch, feel from the inside, or focus my attention on. I just CAN’T. Obviously, I have body parts men can’t understand as well, but it had really just never occurred to me in relationship to mindfulness work and yoga practice before.

For someone who spends a lot of time trying to empathize with and understand how someone is feeling and what they are going through, it’s odd to think there’s a whole series of sensations and focus points that I just can’t share, no matter how hard I try!

Review: “Release” at Mainline Theatre

I first saw Cameryn Moore‘s one-woman play “Phone Whore” at Montreal’s Zoofest through a fluke of circumstance; I had a friend of a friend with a comp ticket and she knew I liked hearing people talk, act, and generally obsess about sex, so she offered it to me.

“Phone Whore” is a one-woman play about a phone sex operator. You could argue that it’s also about her clients, since the vast majority of the play is taken up with calls, where Cameryn speaks one-sided fantasies that tell us an awful lot about the person on the other end of the line. However, each client is still being painted in Cameryn’s words, through the eyes of the operator; every sex worker has an idea of what their clients are like that doesn’t actually mesh with how the clients would describe themselves, and this was being filtered through a lens of dramaturgy besides. Basically, it was a great play, but it was all Cameryn.

“Release”, her newest show, playing at Mainline for only one more night, is no Cameryn. A Studs Terkel-like slow wander through the lives of six strangers, “Release” has the power of quiet fascination. You don’t know anything about these people except the details they’re choosing to deliver, in their own very individual ways. We hear their voices, telling their stories. They’re simple stories, occasionally funny, but more often striking the kind of realist poignancy that leaves you sympathetically holding your breath.

Every character, at some point, made my heart ache. It’s not a sad play; far from it. It’s just…a REAL play. It’s immediately captivating. The characters are distinguished from each other by slight shifting of small details: the rotation of a chair, rolling down of coatsleeves, walking across the stage in boots. It’s still all Cameryn, but you barely notice her; you’re so drawn in by the gestures and voice of this new person you want to get to know, and the small segment of their life you get to see.

The segments, naturally, are based around sex and sexuality in one way or another. It’s not a graphic play, especially compared to “Phone Whore”, unless you find raw emotion graphic. There is no sex in “Release”, but it is about the almost unstoppable need to blurt things out, especially with strangers. Each character needs to share something with us, something they may not have ever told anyone else, and, just like sex, when they finish, you can’t always tell if it was good or bad for them.

I was really impressed with this show, and enjoyed not just the acting, but the writing and staging as well. Cameryn has done a great job here; I look forward to her future works.

Unmemorizing “Silence is Sexy”

I found this article in my internet wanderings, and it touches on some really fascinating points.

I really like this part:

But “just say no” isn’t enough.  Imagine this: since men are expected to make the first move in the majority of sexual situations, where does that leave women if they’re not yet sure what they want?  This “sexy silence” standard makes saying “no” or “stop” even harder for women who want to feel sexy but don’t necessarily want to do what their partner wants to do; who want a hug goodnight, but not a kiss; who are excited about kissing, but uncomfortable with petting; who are enthusiastic about making out, but aren’t ready for sex.  Being forced to say “no” or “stop” will invariably make the experience end sooner than it might otherwise, and on a rather negative note, even if it started positively with both people excited.  Come to think of it, I can’t think of anything less sexy or romantic than making an enthusiastic move and being pushed away, or having to tell someone whom I like to stop what they’re doing.

Such a good point. We need to learn to be mindful and active listeners when our partners tell us what they really want. To be good sexual beings, we need to accept that when someone says “I’m really enjoying kissing you, but I’m not in the mood for sex”, that’s okay, they don’t hate us or think we’re ugly, and they’re really telling the truth. The faster and more openly we learn how to listen to our partners and encourage them to speak, the better sexual experiences we will have.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I will be using this as a space to answer questions about sexology, my work, or other human sexuality-related issues, as well as talk about upcoming events I will be attending (or ones that I think readers might find interesting). I will also be posting the 7to13 podcast here when it goes live, shortly. I look forward to hearing from and interacting with you! Thanks for visiting.