Celebrating the Body Erotic
A weekend of erotic massage with 24 other gay men sounds like nothing
but fun, right? Well, it was. But it was also something more, and
that surprised me.
It is a condition of participation in Body Electric workshops that you
describe only your own experiences and not those of your fellow participants.
I guess this is to ensure the privacy of the sessions.
So I will mention only what I noticed in myself and what conclusions I drew
about the effect the workshop had on me.
I have always enjoyed giving and getting a good massage. Several people
have mentioned that I seem to have "the touch." Granted, I am only
interested in massaging men, and for me that means there is always an
erotic component to it. This workshop, focusing on erotic massage,
allowed me to face that component directly and try to understand it.
I was pleased to see the wide variety of men at the workshop. There were
all ages and body types and at least one Hispanic, one Asian, and someone
who looked Native American to me. The youngest man was in his mid-twenties,
the oldest in his late sixties.
Most important to me was how the workshop trained us in attentiveness.
The breathing exercises I was already familiar with (and I found some of
the psuedo-spiritual babble surrounding it boardering on hoopla). But
with each man we massaged, we first concentrated on his breathing and
getting it in synch with our own. We massaged in pairs, so there was
little opportunity to develop the feeling of "this is my man
and he is getting my massage." We rotated to a new table every
ten minutes or so, again breaking the sense of ownership and possessiveness,
and requiring us to refocus our attention on the new man before us on the
table. Because the structure of the event allowed us to discard our
attachments, I quickly overcame my desire to massage only the beautiful
men. In fact, one of the most satisfactory massages I gave was to a
man whom I would find physically uninteresting, yet being able to find
what pleased him was a pleasure in itself.
And since we rotated, I eventually got my hands on all the men, including
the beautiful ones.
When it was my turn to receive massage, I found that I enjoyed it most
with my eyes closed. That made it easier to put aside the distraction
of whom I was letting touch me and concentrate on
just receiving the touch. Some of the
best massage came from a men I found particularly unattractive,
not because of his looks, but because of his attitude.
But a wholly different attitude came through his hands
than through his demeanor and conversation.
Not everyone turned into a saint for the weekend. During one of
the exercises, I was partnered with a guy who couldn't keep his eyes
on me or his mind focused on the conversation we were supposed to
be having. His eyes were roving all over the room,
distracted by the sight of so many naked and aroused men. Had I been
as unfocused as he, I would not have felt the peace and spiritual
uplift that came from the experience. It would
have been merely erotic.
I did not have the great revelations, visions, or almost convulsive
physical reactions that others had during The Big Draw, but I did have
a series of interesting images. Surprisingly, most of them were
female or feminine. To me, the female often seems devouring or
enveloping, drawing me into a womb from which I cannot escape. The
female images I had after The Big Draw were
giving, flowing out into the world, and flowering with radience.
This is perhaps too literal, but there was definitely a life-giving,
not life-swallowing feel to it. It rather surprised me.
The final lasting result of the workshop was to reinforce my interest
in nudism. After spending a mere two days naked, putting clothes on
seemed actually obscene.
I learned that all men have within them the source of joy, and
that we can easily give that gift to each other.
Each man holds an inner beauty; most men are completely
unaware of it. Every man I see I now see through that
realization. Knowing that, whom could I fear? Whom could I
hate?