In this workshop we will do paired practices that will involve touch, but it will be clothes-on touch, such as cuddling and touching each other's arm or back.

A core element of Erotic Wholeness is that as a sexual being it is unwise to suppress or compartmentalize the sexual energy in your body. In this workshop, you will be invited to welcome the fact that you're turned on, fully experience how wonderful the turn on feels, and to practice skills for how to include the full-scope view of your wisdom and ethics in the actions you choose to pursue from that energy.

• There isn't an objective right or wrong way to engage in sexual acts. You can look inside at your own present right-here-right-now desires, and be in open communication with your partner to learn their present desires, to discover what is truly wanted (not what you've been taught you should want.)
  
  
• Consent is a conversation of discovery, including both of you sharing what it's like that you want something. As the continuous curiosity brings you closer to realizing what you mutually want with each other, the process can feel like foreplay, lighting up your nerve endings and sexual energy. By staying attuned to each other you can perceive and pivot when elements on non-consent or unsureness arises.
  
  
• There are multiple realms of sexual experience:
  
  
  • You’re probably already experienced with the sensations of sex, but there is so so much more to explore than only being goal-oriented toward orgasm.
  • Mental sexuality is probably familiar in the form of fantasizing or verbal flirting, but much more can be happening to discover.
  • There is an energetic realm in connection, where we can experience and interact with highly pleasurable energies without moving or touching each other physically.

There will be two exercises; "What's in the way?" and "Touch as the Focusee," which are designed to slowly, lovingly, invite you to see where the sexual repression from culture, religion, etc may not be true to your nature, and where you can experience your sexual energy as sacred and wonderful.

• It's not actually possible for us to create a "safe container." If we claimed we could, that would create an environment where people don't stay attentive to their own needs and boundaries, which is a much less safe space for them.
  
  
• In Biosphere 2, the experimental enclosed ecosystem in Arizona, some relevant observations were made: Inside, trees grew rapidly in ideal conditions — but because there was no wind, they failed to develop what's known as stress wood (also called reaction wood). Without that strengthening adaptation, the trees toppled as they matured. Like these trees, when learners are overly protected or framed as being kept in a “safe space,” they don’t build necessary internal structural strength — their own self-responsibility.
  
  
• Just as wind stimulates trees to grow strong, attentive discomfort (the gentle challenge of staying present to one’s boundaries, voice, and desires) cultivates resilience, clarity, and integrity in sexual energy.
  
  
• In your container, rather than promising protection (and thus encouraging passivity) you offer active engagement and self-responsibility. That invites participants to stay embodied, stay discerning, and grow trusting in their ability to choose moment-to-moment.