Tuesday, May 21, 2013

I Got Married. Again.


I got married. Again.

Something I vowed I would never do. But vows are funny things, you know. Life is constantly in a state of flux. What we vow one day gets flipped upside down the next. We either stay firm within them, or we shift with the tide.

So when the unshakeable desire arose to love this man and commit to the unfolding partnership, I shifted too.

But when it came time for me to write my wedding vows, I found myself utterly stumped. Months went by. I thought the moment would magically arise and words would effortlessly overflow from my loving cup. Alas, I every time I tried to share what was in my heart, everything felt cheap and trite.

I reconsidered the whole notion of having vows. When I hear ‘in sickness and in health; til death do us part’, I think of fundamentalist, religious perspectives of the ‘proper’ roles of husbands and wives. Considering that I believe relationships can express themselves in a variety of ways, i.e. queer, poly and/or non-marriage based, this collection of antiquated aphorisms just weren’t my speed, nor did they inspire my writing.

Finally, in the shower, I had a flash in the form of a lyric from a medicine song that deeply binds me to my prayer.

I quickly wrapped a towel around me and dashed to my computer. Four lines squeezed out of me. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

The next day, our internet went down. We called the cable company. While my partner was testing the internet on my computer, he saw the beginning of my vows, which I had idiotically left open on my laptop.

I was back to zero. And this time, I felt even more hopeless. The crappy internet had destroyed my tiny shred of inspiration.

And that’s when I decided I would start as I always do: with the truth. I made the decision to just write what I was feeling in the moment. Every mental block and aggravation poured out of me.

And from this odd pile of brain vomit arose a simple truth: I was trying to vow in a way that wasn’t in integrity with who I was. I was looking for static promises that I knew would all set me up for failure.

Instead, what I discovered, was that this love was a moment to moment choice. How our relationship will look or what we will want in the future will naturally ebb and flow with the tides of our lives. But I can be certain that I will be a total ‘yes’ to whatever arises. And this ‘yes’, to everything—the blissful and the challenging—is the foundation of orgasmic marriage.

I share these words with you today in the hopes that they carry on the spirit of that prayer: to inspire and foster growth—for myself, my Beloved and everyone we meet.


In a moment when a writer most needs her muse
Words utterly fail me—
Or rather they disappoint—
They are but brief placeholders
To the magnitude of love inside.

I remember within the first weeks of dating you
(During our emotional disarmament)
When I laid down my vanity and spoke
The ominous desire:
“I want to know what it’s like to be utterly devoted to a man.”

And so…here we stand.
Me: a woman
Just trying to figure it out.
You: the answer
To my every prayer.

This relationship has felt like a series of choiceless choices.
I can say ‘Yes’
And watch the most incredible miracles unfold--
Or…I can say ‘Yes’
Because you and I would never choose anything less than magic.

I choose connection over ‘being right.’
I choose vulnerability over pride.
I choose support for our growth over insecurity of my own inadequacy.
I choose celebration over manipulation.
I choose ‘more life’ over stagnant insulation.

I choose gratitude over resentment.
I choose play over ‘winning the game.’
I choose service to Spirit over selfish adoration.
I choose interpersonal freedom over fear-laden codependency.
I choose a pauper’s truth over a king’s ransom of lies.

“Oh my Beloved, you are always in my heart”
And this is my only prayer:
May our love be the foundation of our lives,
And an inspiration to each other
And to every person we meet.

I honor—and devote—myself to you,
Adam Gordon.
My partner in this world—
And every place
Beyond understanding.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Forget Coffee: Start Your Mornings with ‘Explosive Sexual Healing’


Explosive Sexual Healing: three words that would pique anyone’s interest.

When I first heard it, I was taken a little aback at the audacity of the name. I mean, Explosive? Really?

Maybe I’m a chronic skeptic. Maybe I’m a little jaded. Or maybe I’ve just had my share of guys promising ‘explosive’ nights of ecstasy, only to end up seven minutes later with cum on my shirt and an unpaid dry-cleaning bill.

So when the neon sign unapologetically flashed EXPLOSIVE Sexual Healing, all I could think was, “Buddy, you better deliver.”

What is Explosive Sexual Healing? According to husband-and-wife team (and founders), Ben and Jen Rode, it’s a “healing modality that empowers women through ecstatic states of full release G-spot orgasm.” Through clearing blocks in a woman’s sex, they also unblock her from having what she wants in the rest of her life.

The G-spot is typically known as this mysterious locus of pleasure (which may or may not have something to do with female ejaculation) to which only the lucky few have access. The Rodes work to educate women on their anatomy (yes, every woman has this power within her), as well as set the stage for her to experience the scope of her orgasmic potential: through coaching, intuitive tarot readings, reiki and (you guessed it) massaging the G-spot.

I can see the comments section filling up already in a chorus of dissent:

You mean some random dude is going to touch my girlfriend’s pussy?
That’s fucked up.
What if I fall in love with him?
That’s immoral.
Why would I let someone touch me ‘down there’ if I’m not going to marry him?
Isn’t that prostitution?
I don’t want to get taken advantage of.

On the one hand, the concerns are legitimate. In our current climate of sexual shame, secrecy and fear (especially regarding female desire), it’s no wonder we are confused. Religion says women should be honorable and loyal and yet Cosmo tells us we better know how to ‘rock his cock’ lest we lose our chances at capturing ‘the one.’

Men don’t have it much easier. They are taught to be ‘players’ and base their self-esteem on successfully bagging chicks, but only have porn, hookers and their 13-year-old awkward fantasies as a reference (no offense to a gold bikini-clad Princess Leia).

However, it is because of our limited education and attitudes towards sex (and not in spite of them) that the Rodes created Explosive Sexual Healing. Admit it: as much as want to think we are all sexual rock stars, most of us still have a lot to learn when it comes to our erotic potential. Just as professional mechanics specialize in cars or professional accountants specialize in finances, we must also learn to make space for professional sex workers who know how to skillfully work with our sex.

Ben Rode is one such professional. As a Certified Sexological Bodyworker, he is trained in handling sexuality with the utmost care and integrity. As of now, this type of certification is legal in the states of California and Nevada.

He calls what he does ‘one-way touch’; that is, he touches the client’s genitals, but the client does not touch back. Ben never removes his own clothes and there are no other ‘strings’ that usually get entangled when we try to connect to pure, unadulterated orgasmic energy, i.e. romance, husband hunting, trying to impress, fear of looking ‘unladylike,’ etc.

Plus, Ben’s wife, Jen, is present and part of the healing process, thus making it psychologically ‘safer’ for many women to relax their ‘center of vigilance’, a.k.a. the reptilian part of the brain that keeps us in a state of fight-or-flight. When the center of vigilance is activated, women cannot enter a state of orgasm. Therefore, knowing that she is safe and well held is essential for a woman to tap into her orgasmic potential, which is why working with professionals is invaluable in this type of work.

The importance of what they do cannot be denied; and yet it’s also extremely cutting edge and goes way beyond many people’s comfort zones. Not only do they have to face cultural judgment around touching their clients’ genitals, but also they come up against antiquated and misguided definitions of orgasm.

Thanks to my training in Orgasmic Meditation, I had a broader experience of orgasm, but most people the Rodes meet have never considered the possibility that orgasm is more than just a 30-second crashing climax or that it could last one minute, five minutes, thirty minutes or even longer. Explosive Sexual Healing literally throws grenades both into our mental and physical paradigms of sexuality.

But Ben and Jen don’t see this as a deterrent. Beyond the ‘orgasmic’ appeal, Explosive Sexual Healing truly is about healing. In addition to being a Sexological Bodyworker, Ben is also a Certified Hypnotherapist and Jen is a powerful clairvoyant and Reiki Master. They think of their work as a ‘calling’ and believe that their ‘Twin Flame’ partnership, both in marriage and in vocation, serves the greater healing between the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine.

Don’t misunderstand me. For all the woo-woo talk, Ben and Jen are two people with their feet firmly planted on the ground. More than that, they are also in alignment with their own sexuality and have clear and firm boundaries within their personal relationship. Therefore, the boundaries they have with their clients are some of cleanest and healthiest I have ever experienced.

From the moment I walked into their home, I knew I was in a place where I could surrender.

Over time, I had come to know Ben and Jen as genuine and loving people with a message similar to mine: sex and pleasure are our birthrights and what the world desperately needs are sexually empowered queens stepping into their greatness and sharing their gifts.

I threw my expectations out with the rest of my vanity and lay my naked body on the table. Ben proceeded to oil my legs and back and gently worked the muscles that held tension. Jen floated her hands over my body, performing reiki.

As the minutes passed, I felt myself sink into deeper levels of relaxation.

Finally the time arrived. Ben put on his gloves, lubed up fingers and requested permission to enter me.  I granted him access. He slipped in two cool fingers and slowly began to pulse the spongy area above my pubic bone. It wasn’t long before I felt an urgent swelling suckle his fingers. Jen reminded me to connect the softness of my heart with the nuclear power plant growing in my genitals.

As per Ben’s instructions, I began to stroke my clit while he supported my legs and kept the pressure building inside. He told me to go to the edge of climax but stressed to not go over. He let me know that soon we’d be going into the first orgasm. I nodded my head, face dripping with sweat and pussy swollen with blood.

I released my clit stroking, barely hanging onto the orgasmic edge. I opened my throat, bore down onto his fingers and spread the energy down.

At first, I felt a widening sense of being, like hanging in the air, followed by a strange disconnect between my body and me. I looked down. Out of the rumbling pile of bones that I identified as ‘my body,’ a warm, sweet-smelling stream of liquid flooded his hands, the sheets and my legs.

The scream ebbed from my lips and shifted to a stunned, “Oh.”

In my sexual life, I’ve had dribbles or the occasional squirt. But I had never seen a river of that magnitude flowing from between my legs.

I laid my head back and started crying.  I felt I had been initiated. All the stories you hear about the power of a woman, the Source of Life, the Great Void, L’Origine du monde, all suddenly made perfect sense.

“Are you ready to go again?”

“More?!” I thought.

We started again, building the orgasm to an unbearable peak and this time I bared down even more, committed to extend to the edges of my capacity. Again, jets of fluid misted over us. I was stunned at what had been building (or should I say stagnating) inside my body all these years.

He asked once more if I wanted to stop, but I knew I had one more peak to go. This child inside demanded to spread her legs freely and I knew she had not yet quite been birthed. The labor built up to the highest peak yet. And when it came time to surrender into absolute, a spark shot from my clit to his fingers and spread into the most heavenly agony imaginable. Never wanting it to end and wondering if I had the strength to take another moment.

I convulsed on the edge of light and dark. Heaven and earth. Ethereal and chthonic. The veils lifted and inside was nothing…and everything.

At the end of the final release I fell back and started laughing. Endlessly laughing with wicked, wild, wet abandon. The orgasmic joke overtook me and one hilarious and dangerous truth emerged: this was only the beginning.

Ben pulled his fingers out of me. They stepped out of the room. I inhaled and surrendered into the sopping sheets, afterglow washing over my newborn body.

So, does Explosive Sexual Healing deliver? Yes. In more ways than one.

If OMing is like brushing your teeth, then Explosive Sexual Healing is like going to the dentist.

After the session, I found myself flooded with life. I was glowing and wanted to share my turn-on, as well as integrate and metabolize the energy. I took a yoga class, walked for 30-minutes through the Mission and went out dancing for three hours before collapsing into my lover’s arms that night.

Who needs coffee when you’ve got orgasm?

Think about all the little addictions we have to escape taking responsibility for our power: caffeine, alcohol, shopping, hard-n-fast sex, television, sugar, etc.

Or imagine the money we spend in endless therapy sessions, plastic surgery, punitive gym classes or pointless fashion magazines in the vain attempt to attain ‘perfection.’

What orgasm teaches us is that the nourishment we seek resides inside of us, and can never be found no matter how many ‘hot sex tips’ we learn or how many doughnuts we stuff inside our souls. And this orgasmic nourishment is a bottomless resource we can tap into anytime. All we have to do is say ‘yes’ to our pleasure and surrender to her wisdom.

As for the name? Well, according to the Rodes, ‘Sensual Hypnotherapeutic Release’ was too long for a web address. Plus, ‘Explosive Sexual Healing’ is simply one URL no one ever forgets.

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Ben and Jen Rode are currently taking clients. For women, they offer a 90-day Ultimate Self Empowerment Program for $4997 as well as a 5-day World Traveler’s VIP Rapid Transformation Retreat for $2997. For men (or women) who would like to learn how to give G-Spot orgasms, Ben offers a one-on-one training program for $1997. And for the curious but hesitant, Ben and Jen have a 90-minute, clothing-on intro session for only $147.

Email Ben Rode at Ben@ExplosiveSexualHealing.com for more info.