I have yet to write up my experiences at the most recent Body Electric Celebrating the Body Erotic workshop that happened just at the end of March (I’m so behind on my writing), but I cannot recommend these highly enough. If you are in the Bay Area, or Seattle, or have access to those two places, it really is worth it.  Ask me if you have more questions, I’ll tell you all about it.

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JUST ADDED - June 20-22
Seattle Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
We heard your requests for more opportunities to experience this amazing workshop. Please come join a circle of women in a safe, serious and playful space to explore and celebrate empowered sexuality and spiritually integrated eros. Through breath, movement, communication, touch and massage:
* Feel more alive, curious and safe in your body
* Deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit
* Expand awareness, sensation and pleasure
* Receive and give without losing yourself
* Release fear, shame and negative patterns
* Communicate your desires and boundaries more clearly
* Accept yourself just as you are
* Enjoy sex more and have more fun
* Discover the healing potential of sexual/spiritual energy
This workshop starts Friday night and ends Sunday and is for women of all ages and sexual orientations who are open to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sensuality and sexuality. Please share this email with any friends who might be interested.* June 20-22 - Seattle - Led by Lizz Randall - contact Robyn Lynn at 206-579-2603 or robyn@thepresentsense.com
Tuition: $395
Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
1. Pay in full by May 30 and receive $30 off
2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction

Power, Surrender & Intimacy
After an absence of several years this powerful exploration into the nature of trust, exquisite attention and heightened sensations returns. Join with like-minded women who are ready to go beyond the life ordinary. In a grounded, respectful container discover and clarify edges of liberation, empowerment and embodiment. Learn to recognize aspects of yourself that are continually engaged in power dynamics, and hence become more choiceful about how you can share power with compassion and skill. Led by Alex Jade.
  * June 20-22 - New York City - Contact Debi Soler at 212-726-0679 or
  passionjustice@gmail.com
  Tuition: $395
  Prerequisite: Celebrating the Body Erotic
  Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
  1. Pay in full by May 30 and receive $30 off
  2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction

Oakland Celebrating the Body Erotic
 In addition to the upcoming Seattle CBE, you also have the option of attending a CBE in Oakland if that fits your schedule better.
* May 16-18 - Oakland - Led by Lizz Randall - Contact Ursula Goulet at 510-333-4721 or bodyelectricforwomen@yahoo.com
* October 3-5 - Oakland - Led by Elfi Dillon-Shaw - Contact Ursula Goulet at 510-333-4721 or bodyelectricforwomen@yahoo.com
Tuition: $395
Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
1. Pay in full by April 25 (spring) or September 12 (fall) and receive $30 off
2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction

The Body Electric School Website 
Contact Information: 510-653-1594, info@theBodyElectricSchool.com

… that Sinclair is single again, and dating. Spring is hovering just around the corner, and New York as a whole can feel it. The girls are already pulling out their swishy skirts, bouncy hair, strappy sandals. I notice. Man, do I notice. I try not to stare.

All that cliche shit is true about spring - fertility, rebirth, lust. The newness of those baby-green leaves are raw and luscious enough that sometimes I just want to bite them right off the tree. Destroy them with my mouth. Mmm.

At the last minute, I’m going to the Body Electric workshop that starts tomorrow (in fact, I need to leave in about four hours). I have some very particular intentions going into it, especially about the things that I’m holding on to. I want to let go. Leave it all be. Wipe the slate clean. (Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum.) I want to decline politely to the world’s human messes, to learn to say ‘no, thank you.’

My other intention is to bring the masculine butch boyishness again. It was a huge revelation for me last time, especially in a womyn-goddess-yoni kind of sacred sexuality space. But I learned so much. I need to take that with me again.

This is brief, I know; unfortunately, my schedule is only looking to be more packed in the near future. I will do my best to keep updating. Meanwhile, got any more butch eye candy to send me? I’m nearly out. C’mon, you/your girlfriend/your wife/your best friend/your lover/your favorite crush wants to be some Sugarbutch eye candy, I know you do.

Regular Sugarbutch writings will resume on Monday.

I love heels. Stilettos, kitten heels, boots, even wedge heels. I love how they enhance the S-shape of a woman’s body.

Growing up in a feminist household, it was ingrained in me early on that high heels are bad for women’s feet and hips, that they cause shinsplints and hip problems and weak knees and all sorts of things. It took me a long time to come to my own acceptance of liking high heels on femmes … even having a bit of a strappy sandal fetish, I might say.

Diana Cage and I were talking last night on her radio show about my turn-ons, and I mentioned heels, though not without the caveat of the feminist knowledge of how damaging they can be to a woman’s body.

But, Diana told me about a recent study where wearing high heels actually improves the muscles on a woman’s pelvic floor, thus making her, you know, tighter.

I looked it up. From the BBC - High heels “may improve sex life”: An Italian urologist and “lover of the sexy shoe” did a recent study which showed that women who wore a 2″ heel or higher had as good posture as those who wore flat shoes, and also showed “less electrical activity” in their pelvic muscles, which are not just useful in the organs of the body (like the bladder) but also in increased sexual satisfaction and performance. “This suggested the muscles were at an optimum position, which could well improve their strength and ability to contract. The pelvic floor muscles are an essential component of the female body.”

Probably most of us have heard of PC muscle exercises, “Kegels,” as they’re called, to strengthen the pelvic floor - same idea. It makes sense that heels would improve these muscles, when I think about it … and I think it’s another subconscious way that heels sexualize a woman’s body.

This also reminds me of an exercise we did in the Body Electric Celebrating the Body Erotic workshop last fall, the mulabhanda pelvic lock, or root lock, in which you keep your pelvic muscles tightened and breathe in a particular pattern. It was surprisingly difficult and incredibly hot.

I’m sure it’s still possible to damage your body by wearing heels constantly, this can’t undo all the other potential damage. But I’m also glad to know that there is some physical good that comes from wearing heels.

I’ve been to many of these Body Electric workshops for women over the past 8 years or so, and I can’t recommend them highly enough. They’re terrifying, and life-changing, and amazing. I recommended last year’s CBE here and wrote about some of my revelations and experiences after the workshop as well.Two workshops for were just announced for the 2008 schedule. Highly, highly recommended, I can’t say that enough.

Safe, playful and profound workshops for women of all ages and sexual orientations
Taught by two very gifted teachers

Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
March 29-30, NYC, Sat-Sunday 9am-7pm
with Isa Magdalena
(back teaching at Body Electric after many years)

• Feel comfortable in your body
• Improve your body image and self-esteem
• Expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath,
movement, touch, and communication
• Release fear, shame and old patterns that hold you back
• Communicate your desires and boundaries more clearly
• Learn to give and receive without losing yourself
• Explore the power of sexual energy / ibido / life force / kundalini
• Learn from your own and others’ experience
• Enjoy sex more
• Have more fun

Isa Magdalena was the first woman teacher at Body Electric (1993-98). She teaches sexological bodywork at the Institute of Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, is author of Libido: Where Sex, Science Spirit Meet (2006). Isa is featured in several sex education videos from the New School of Erotic Touch, is a practitioner and leads classes in Taos, New Mexico. For fuller information, visit www.xtasia.info

*

first time in many years!

Power, Surrender and Intimacy for Women
June 20-22, NYC, Friday 7-10pm, Sat-Sunday 9am-7pm
with Alex Jade

* Learn BDSM techniques and develop skills
* Discover and clarify issues of empowerment and liberation
* Recognize how you engage in power dynamics in your everyday life and exercise more conscious choice
* Heighten awareness of your body’s capacity for sensation
* Explore power and sensation games for fun and healing
* Experience the joy of surrender and trust

Presequisite for this workshop is Celebrating the Body Erotic

Alex Jade has been a leading teacher at Body Electric for a decade and has developed several courses for the School. She is a gender-fluid sex activist, community organizer, shadow explorer and body-based therapist living in Seattle. She uses her training as a massage therapist, movement therapist and masters degree in social work to teach experiential sexual education classes and has a private healing practice.

Both Isa and Alex are profiled in Reclaiming Eros, Suzanne Blackburn and Margaret Wade, editors (2007).

Tuition: $395 per workshop. Recent CBE grads receive $50 discount on repeat workshops. Register with minimum $100 deposit. Full tuition is due three weeks before start of workshops. Contact Debi Soler, NYC coordinator, 212-726-0679, passionjustice@gmail.com

http://www.thebodyelectricschool.com

The workshop this weekend was phenomenal, as this workshop always is. This is my seventh time at a workshop through this same school, my third time as an assistant. It’s different every time, though the structure is very similar, mostly because I’m different I suppose - it brings up and heals and expells and calms different things in me depending on what is happening in my life.I had a lot of revelations this weekend. It’s different to be back in the “real” world now.

Let’s start with Friday.

I realized how little I breathe, and how much I’d like to do some serious study of breath on my own, not just in workshop. We did some tantric breathing, including a “pelvic lock” which seriously rocked my world, and after being blown away I swore to myself I’d look for some lesbian tantric resources. I also very much remember thinking the same thing last year, as I went to this same workshop almost exactly a year ago, and I started wondering why it was that I didn’t follow through on that.

Which is when a list of things fell into place. (I’ll give a little recap.) I split with my girlfriend of four years over the summer, in July, after I met Callie and went on a date with her. I have often described Callie as a “defribrulator for my heart,” as she jolted me awake in a huge new way - I hadn’t even realized how numb and hiding I was in my relationship with my girlfriend (at the time, often referred to as “the girlfriend” or “the ex-girlfriend” in the archives). Callie made me feel desire, lust - made me feel interesting, fascinating. I fell in love with her that first date. But, I had a girlfriend, and Callie found out, and refused to date me until I figured it out, said she wouldn’t wait for me, etc. Which, you know, makes sense. I spent the next three months getting my life in order - leaving my girlfriend, moving into my own apartment, fucking around - mostly so I wouldn’t be completely lost in my lust for Callie if/when we started dating.

And then, in October, on a Wednesday, I put up a person ad - the same one she had put up, to which I had responded, only in reverse - and then sent her flowers on a Friday. She called, almost immediately.

And that was the weekend of the workshop last year - so I couldn’t meet her that weekend. We had lunch on Monday, the day after the workshop.

I barely remember anything about the workshop last year. I remember lunch at the South Street Seaport, talking about Callie. I remember having a hard time focusing, because I really just wanted to be with Callie. I spent three months dreaming and preparing and wishing Callie back into my life, and there she was, ready for me, too - so I skated through the workshop and probably even used it to fall deeper in love with her. On my own, without her even there, without knowing her.

Dangerous, dangerous.

So, on Friday, I was remembering the feeling of wanting to study breathwork and tantra last year, and wondered where that energy and inspiration went, then realizing it was all focused into that relationship. Sex always worked with Callie (see: all of October to May, explorations from desire and role play and force, to lingerie and topping and ten times in twenty-four hours) and I always assumed that because it worked so well, better than I’d ever had in my life! Which was a combination of Callie being a femme bottom (finally, finally) and coming out of a sexless four-year relationship with a girl who didn’t really like sex, among other things. Because things worked so well between us, sexually, I quickly took that to a spiritual level - of course I did, coming out of this workshop the day before our relationship began! - and thought that that meant something much, much more than it did.

It didn’t mean that much. It wasn’t a spiritual connection, it wasn’t a “meeting of the souls.” Or, I don’t know, maybe it was a little bit, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t also unstable, seductive, and manipulative.

I’ve said this about Callie before, too, but it rings particularly true: she is beautiful for the same reason that puppies and babies are adorible - because if they aren’t, you would murder them for their horrible, life-shattering annoyances.

So. That was Friday, and throughout-the-weekend revelations about Callie. Things I took away: I want to make a serious study of some tantra and breathwork; and I feel like this relationship with Callie is further coming into focus.

(Saturday & Sunday revelations to come.)

The early registration deadline for the Body Electric School’s Celebrating the Body Erotic for women (only) is coming up next week. I wrote about it here and this PSA is to remind you about it, in case you are interested.The workshop is $340 if paid in full by August 15th, which is next Wednesday. When I return from it in October and write all about it, you are going to be very sorry that you weren’t there, too.

(I attended one last year in October, the weekend before Callie & I met up for the first time since our single summer date, though it looks like I didn’t actually write about it at all, which is weird. I guess I was oh so distracted by the potential romance. Ah, if only I knew. I’m excited that I will be focused more internally this time.)

Women come from all over the country for this workshop - and it will be the only women’s program offered this year, so I have no doubt that it will be incredible. Also, it’s run by Alex Jade, who is my favorite of the Body Electric teachers because she’s very genderqueer and looks like a silver-haired fag. She’s a lot less mother-goddess energy and a lot more playful kink energy, which I adore, with still a lot of the spirituality mixed in. It is transformative and foundational, it’ll break down the unstable places inside you and build up stronger ones, it’ll bring old, ancient pains to the surface and caress them, set them free.

It’s phenomenal. I can’t say that enough. I would gladly tell you more about it via email, if you have particular questions.

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The Body Electric School Announces
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
with Alex Jade

October 5-7, 2007, New York City
I am excited to extend an invitation to you and the women you know to join in a circle of women for an opportunity to explore, discover and celebrate empowered sexuality, self-defined eroticism, spiritually integrated eros. You will feel welcomed into a safe, serious, and playful space where we respectfully honor boundaries and experience ourselves as powerful, expressive and sacred.

In this weekend program of carefully designed embodiment practices women will:
- explore the innate wisdom of your body
- expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath, movement, touch, and communication, where each woman’s choices and rhythms are honored
- learn how to more deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit: to receive more fully from yourself and others, and to give without losing yourself
- learn to give and receive full-body massage and to focus on the healing potential of sensual/spiritual energy
- learn from your own and others’ unfolding, and feel awed witnessing and supporting our uniqueness and commonalities

This full weekend workshop is for women of all ages and sexual orientations who are ready to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sexuality.

Men, please pass this information on to your women friends. They will always be grateful for your thinking of them.

Debi

Workshop Title: Celebrating The Body Erotic for Women
Tuition: $375 per person ($340 if paid in full by Aug. 15)
Registration: $100 non-refundable deposit per person due three weeks before event

The workshop starts Friday evening and ends Sunday evening.

Contact: Debi Soler
New York City Coordinator
646-245-4371
passionjustice@gmail.com

Here’s the deal:This workshop, Celebrating the Body Erotic, is the ‘level one’ beginning of the Body Electric School, and it is phenomenal. I have participated in workshops through Body Electric since 2001, and have done CBE three times, Power & Surrender once, and assisted at CBE twice. it has sincerely and deeply changed my relationship with my body, my sexuality, my sensuality, my spirituality, and my relationship to other women’s as well.

(I can speak much more to that. Ask me anything.)

This is the ONLY women’s program being offered this year in the US. Body Electric School offers men-only and mixed courses as well (and many many more of them), and usually is able to offer 2-5 women’s programs, but funding and management is tight (I don’t really know what’s going on, but this is what I’ve gathered) and the Women’s Programs are in danger. I am so, so saddened by this idea, and want to promote and encourage and talk up a STORM about this upcoming CBE workshop, with the hopes that it will entice even ONE more woman to come and participate.

It’s not cheap, I know, for a weekend (especially those of you who may have to travel to come here), but I can’t say enough how much it is worth it. It is a safe, beautiful space for breakthroughs, healing, moving on, looking back, unsticking anything that is stuck, making connection, growing, evolving, becoming beams of light.

I don’t know yet to what capacity I’ll be going to this workshop - I may be attending.

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The Body Electric School Announces
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
with Alex JadeOctober 5-7, 2007, New York City

I am excited to extend an invitation to you and the women you know to join in a circle of women for an opportunity to explore, discover and celebrate empowered sexuality, self-defined eroticism, spiritually integrated eros. You will feel welcomed into a safe, serious, and playful space where we respectfully honor boundaries and experience ourselves as powerful, expressive and sacred.

In this weekend program of carefully designed embodiment practices women will:
- explore the innate wisdom of your body
- expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath, movement, touch, and communication, where each woman’s choices and rhythms are honored
- learn how to more deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit: to receive more fully from yourself and others, and to give without losing yourself
- learn to give and receive full-body massage and to focus on the healing potential of sensual/spiritual energy
- learn from your own and others’ unfolding, and feel awed witnessing and supporting our uniqueness and commonalities

This full weekend workshop is for women of all ages and sexual orientations who are ready to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sexuality.

Men, please pass this information on to your women friends. They will always be grateful for your thinking of them.

Debi

Workshop Title: Celebrating The Body Erotic for Women
Tuition: $375 per person ($340 if paid in full by Aug. 15)
Registration: $100 non-refundable deposit per person due three weeks before eventThe workshop starts Friday evening and ends Sunday evening.

Contact: Debi Soler
New York City Coordinator
646-245-4371
passionjustice@gmail.com