Notes On: Opening Up…
A blog post originally found on my Patreon.
We all have a warm underbelly that we try to protect from the world. We all have vulnerabilities, harboured secrets we vow to never let leave the quietest parts of our hearts. Some call this fear, some call this desire, some can’t put their finger on it, tracing the lines of an intangible feeling that tells them that something doesn’t feel quite right. In a world where we are constantly distracted by duty, consistently taught that to be open to connection, to the world, to others around us, is to open ourselves to hurt. That vulnerability is shameful, weak. That those things that we can’t utter are indeed, the things we shouldn’t utter.
That’s where someone like me comes in.
I consider it an honour to hear from desire-seekers, to learn about their desires that have never been said out loud before (or in this virtual age, never been typed before). It could be couples opening up their relationship to explore their sexuality with a third, exploring their interpersonal dynamic with another; it is men wanting to explore submission, wanting to explore anal pleasure, to cast away the societal stigma that teaches young boys that to like prostate stimulation is to be gay (as if an entire community and lived experience could be reduced to just one single act, as if to be gay is a site of shame to begin with). Or indeed, the secret desire lies in the appropriation of such stigma - to seek pleasure in that feeling of taboo and humiliation, to be degraded.
Opening up looks like the happily married man, who for 90 minutes a week, gets to put down his work phone, take off his family-man hat, and step into silk stockings, lingerie and lipstick, a desire that requires a stranger to fulfil. It is women and non-binary folk reaching out to experience an evening with someone who enjoys all company of all genders, who understands that sex and sexuality goes beyond societal binaries. It’s you, reading this website.
Opening up is a process that requires a lot of navel gazing, a lot of reflection about the ways we move through the world. It is a process that requires trust, courage. After all, isn’t sexuality about our connection with others? To me, that seems like something worth celebrating.