What exactly goes on in “Sexuality Workshops”?

Author: Michal Maayan Don

(Editing and translation by Yanshuf Kadesh 😉

Perhaps you’ve heard something about me from time to time, that, I lead sexuality workshops–among the many different such workshops currently being offered by many wonderful facilitators–and maybe you’re curious about what these are about. I have found doing this work that “sexuality” in most people’s perception means simply “sex.” However “sexuality” and “sex” are not the same thing and in my workshops, at least, we do not have sex. Rather, we develop the sexual personality. What does this mean? To answer that is the purpose of this article.

I am probably asked twice daily about my workshops: “People come to have sex? It’s an orgy?” This always makes me smile. I hear the trepidation, mixed with yearning, underneath the questions. I explain by example from my first course, “Capital Markets”, at the College of Management. We did not actually invest in the stock market in this course, and no one expected that we would. No one is having sex in my workshops! That’s not what I’m doing at all, and yet the frequency of these questions shows that something is unclear, and I feel that it’s my responsibility to clarify things.

Better, healthier sex is but one aspect of the positive changes that people experience after attending my workshops. We can say broadly that there are actually three tracks of development which I and other facilitators are working with:

1. Correcting Deficiencies in the perception of sexuality and sexual functioning.

2. Increasing Positivity in one’s perceptions of sexuality, as well as improving the flow of sexual energy in the body.

3. Directing this increased positivity and sexual energy flow towards Spiritual Elevation.

The quality of our sexuality reflects the nature of our perceptions and beliefs about sexuality, which we have largely inherited from our culture, our parents, etc. All of these perceptions and beliefs tend to come out in sexuality work, and can then be to be worked with and modified.

Let’s turn now to an overview of some themes that myself and other facilitators address in our workshops and private sessions.

From Loneliness, to Maturation
Most of us, I find, experience some loneliness from the moment the sexual hormones begin flowing within us at puberty and we are exposed to implicit or explicit messages of shame and secrecy around sexuality. Our challenge now, as adults, is to re-activate our maturational process, directing ourselves towards a fuller, healthier relationship to sexuality. This includes letting go of emotions like guilt and fear, as well as specific inner conflicts, and starting to flourish in free, spontaneous, natural sexuality.

As we grow in this way, we repair our connections between sexuality and love, and between sexuality and spirituality. We emerge from a kind of trance, a search for sexual satisfaction and release, and move into a new mode of ongoing “orgasmic-ness” which, rather than emptying us out, charges us up with powerful life energy–a power of greatness! Hugeness!!

To live in “Yes” is only possible when we have a “No”
Personal sexuality development offers a path to connection with an infinite life force that can enhance and transform us into the EXTRAORDINARY BEING that we are in potential. From both personal, and accumulated collective experience in this field I can tell you: It’s so worth it!!

The workshops create a framework for learning to listen closely to our personal boundaries and preferences, supporting and empowering us to modify limiting factors in our sexual development. We explore: What pleases me? What does not? What is right for me, and what is not? Who pleases me, and who does not?

If you are a woman you were likely taught a lot of “No” in the context of sexuality. If you are a man, you were probably exposed to pressure to perform–to always be with “Yes.” We attend to external morality and expectations; to the “need to please”, to a million things–just not to ourselves, our bodies and hearts.

In these workshops we practice locating our personal, embodied “Yes” and “No”, letting them guide us moment to moment, until we can flow naturally within our boundaries and preferences. It’s possible to be stuck for many years, and then in a sexuality workshop to suddenly realize we can accept “No” from others without feeling rejected. Or that we can ask for what we want without feeling guilty about it. We are supported in claiming our personal sovereignty by practicing the simple, clear communication of our needs and boundaries. This one aspect alone is worth the price of admission!

Working with “Yes” and “No” opens up a fuller internal and external conversation about our sexuality. Generally speaking, we do not talk about the full complexity of our feelings around sexuality and sexual pleasure. In these workshops we finally move past age 12, becoming adults who can speak about our sexuality just as we might speak about anything else. Because… why not? How long shall we carry on with our inherited confusion and stagnancy about anything erotic?

Love of the Sexual Body
Another aspect of the work we do is forming a positive connection–a world of connection–with our bodies, and especially our genitals. God with His playfulness placed the genitals below the belt near the ‘pee’ and the ‘poo,’ and shame became attached to them. The vulva and visible part of the vaginal opening–that wondrous place from whence human life emerges–startles and repels us, as if it were the source of all evil. This cultural programming obscures how sexuality is the creative, formative power of Life itself, a manifestation of Love!

Also the beautiful male sexual organ, instrument of loving penetration, we instead imagine as a weapon, provoking shame if it arises up at a ‘wrong’ moment. We try to resist the influence of what our culture has taught us, that when the penis becomes aroused, the mind, morality, basic human love, are extinguished! Men learn that they are enslaved to this organ; women learn that they are duty-bound to satisfy it.

As we can see, there is plenty to be done to increase the positivity of our relationship with the genitals! This work can be done completely without nudity. It can also be done with nudity. The main thing is to appreciate how this process is just part of growing up into healthy adult sexuality, which does includes letting go of foolish, damaging beliefs about our sexual bodies.

The Connection between the Sexual and Heart Centres
One of the issues that I have experienced myself, and which is shared by almost all of us, is a disconnection between our sexuality and our hearts. We do not make love with both our sexuality and our hearts present and connected. For many of us this goes so far as to actually feel a contradiction between the sexual instinct, as something inferior, and the heart as something superior and pure. These beliefs limit our capacity to engage sexuality with an open heart, a heart awake and alive in creative sexual flow.

The workshop environment allows and supports us to open up, and it becomes surprisingly easy to connect lovingly with each other, because we are beings who naturally want to love. A certain magic happens in these workshops. As we start to love our own sexuality, and also begin really listening to others, experiencing them more fully, we can begin to love their sexuality as well. We can experience each other as the sexual beings that we are, without fear. That is when our sexual and heart centres begin to connect. This is a lifelong journey that we need only to start from where we are now.

Starting to Move!
The movement of sexual energy in the body using special techniques and practices can itself bring great healing and positivity into our lives. Sexual energy is the energy that created us, right? Right! This is the strongest energy we have. It sits centred in our pelvic area, and is stuck there. What a shame!

An important element of sexuality training is to realize that our sexual energy naturally wants, and knows how to expand upwards, magnifying our life force and distributing it throughout our bodies. As sexual force and feeling expands beyond its concentrated centre in the genital area, it begins to make possible a more profound type of whole-body sexual pleasure–I would say infinite pleasure.

Throughout the workshop we utilize effective techniques from different systems which allow us open blockages in the pelvic region as well as various energy channels in the body, freeing up and strengthening the flow of sexual energy. It is not necessary to have sex for this. It’s an individual practice, with clothes on, utilizing breath, movement, intention, and an ocean of joy!

Sensuality
To be “sexy”–a sexually alive person–is not only–or necessarily at all–connected with how we are in bed. Sexuality is an all-sensory experience that, once freed, touches of all aspects of life. When I look around myself, I see how much we have learned to subdue our sensuality, experiencing life and sexuality more from our heads than from our senses. In sexuality workshops we learn, little by little, how to allow desire to sprout forth and grow, and from there it’s but a short path to the awakening of sensuality in all areas of our lives.

We all know how our minds seem to busily work overtime. When we can allow the mind to relax and let go, the senses can re-awaken, and the sexual energy begins to activate and move. Then, as we then re-activate our mental activity, we can keep it more balanced and connected with our sexual life force. Thoughts become juicy, exciting, alive. We become more fully present in our lives, no longer escaping down all possible avenues of thought. We move into a greater sense of personal authenticity, which in turn deepens our capacity for intimacy and love.

Unfortunately, many of us have great difficulty when it comes to intimacy. The ability to be present and safe in our full sensuality and sexuality, places us directly where we can meet others with intimacy. The workshops I have built are designed to facilitate people trusting their natural ability to be relaxed and safe in intimate encounters with themselves and with others.

In these, and in other areas (each of which could be a subject for an entire article), sexuality workshops can facilitate transformative experiences, leading to profound and lasting changes. There are now many instructors providing sexuality workshops here in Israel, and across the world, some of whom work similarly to me, others who work differently. I’m glad I chose to tell a little about my way of approaching this incredible work.

Yes, at first it may sound sleazy: a “Sexuality Workshop.” But, once you dive in, it feels like the Sexual Initiation that we all needed to pass through at the age of 15, to transition into a mature sexual being. But there was no one to guide us. Once we arrive and settle in the workshop, it begins to feels like a very simple, natural space. How come we never received this before now? That is the question that workshop participants ask themselves during the process.

You are all lovingly invited to join me in this exciting endeavour, growing into people full of active love, unburdened by shame, guilt or fear, bursting with vitality and desire.

Michal Maayan Don is a teacher in the ISTA international organization for Sexual Shamanism. She is also a co-founder of the Ishtar Group, and founder of the School of Facilitation Arts for training group facilitators for women’s circles. She is also a gender researcher, spiritual activist, leader and mother.