November 19-21 weekend, Central Texas Hill Country

Download the flyer for the Love & Intimacy Hill Country Retreat.

Are you ready to experience a miracle in your relationships? Join
with others who are taking love, intimacy and sensuality to the next
level. If you desire to move past the barriers that keep you apart,
fearful and in judgment…you are ready!
● Examine your beliefs about love, sex and intimacy and discover how they may prevent you from
fully expressing and receiving love.
● Explore being your authentic self and discover just how attractive and sexy your truth is!
● Engage with others while staying connected to yourself.
● Enjoy playful and powerful exercises in which you express your joy, depth and vulnerability with
others.
● Experience what comes up in each moment with calm and curiosity.

Love, Sex & Spirit, June 2010, with Charla Hathaway and Nicole Verway.

Charla and Nicole read letters from participants in the June 2010 retreat and talk about the upcoming Love and Intimacy Hill Country Retreat, Nov 19-21 retreat.

This retreat is open for registration now.

To register go to www.paypal.com and send deposit to spenconk@gmail.com (512) 796-7269.

Meet Your Facilitators

Nicole Verwey, Licensed Psychotherapist,
Certified Professional Life Coach and Relationship
Expert, teaches people through play and coaching
“How to Win the Love Game” and “Mindful
Eating”. A gifted healer, native of Holland, Nicole
is initiated as an Oneness Blessing Giver and
bestows blessings liberally. (512) 670-3955
www.whatyousaycounts.com

Charla Hathaway, Certified Sexologist, Tantra
educator, and intimacy coach has inspired thousands
to enjoy greater sacred, sensual embodiment.
She authored “8 Erotic Nights: Passionate
Encounters that Inspire Great Sex”, and best selling
“Erotic Massage: Sensual Touch for Deep
Pleasure” (available in nine languages).
www.bodyjoy.org (512) 626-5037

What will I learn?

You’ll experience seeing, hearing, and being with others in new ways. You will deepen your love for yourself
and others. You will take home new skills to cultivate more honesty, joy, and intimacy (in-to-me-see) in your
life.

Who will be there?

A community of loving friends who are ready to play with you! Meet new friends who, like
yourself, choose to explore life and sensuality in safe, conscious,
and spontaneous ways.
Why Now?
You are it! You are the creator of your own life experiences.
Life is happening NOW. Why not have the life you absolutely
love and adore?

What are the details?

Registration 5—7 pm, dinner 7 pm Friday at the Lotus Ranch, a wooded, Wimberley
retreat one hour from Austin and San Antonio, and ends Sunday, 4 pm. You’ll enjoy
quiet country air, hot tub, starry nights, gourmet meals and modern accommodations.
$395/person includes room, food and tuition, after October, $445 per person. To register go to
www.paypal.com and send deposit to spenconk@gmail.com (512) 796-7269

Love and Intimacy Retreaters from last June’s retreat said:

• “It was the best weekend of my life; I feel a natural innocence and playfulness return to my sensuality.”

• “I let down my barriers and let other people into a place that took 15 years of marriage for my wife to enter.”

• “I fell in love with my partner in new ways.”

• “My body’s changed. Since the workshop my acupuncturists said my heart rate went from 80 to 65. I’m a new person.”

• “After the retreat when I had knee surgery and I fell in love with everyone in rehab.”

• “It was amazing to experience trust, support and love build up so quickly in this environment.”

I quickly shed my clothes on the sun-baked rocks and slid bare-bodied under a mini water fall at Sculptured Falls along the Barton Springs Greenbelt.  Hiking with new friends from Austin’s Hill Country Nudist Club (www.hillcountrynudists.com) gave me the courage to swim the way I wanted to.

It was my first time to take off my clothes “in public” (no other bathers at the swimming hole were nude).  I peeled off layers of the rank and file, right and wrong world, and emerged vulnerable and fresh to enjoy myself unadorned. It felt divine to dive naked into the emerald pool and breast-stroke through spring-fed waters without resistance. I felt a childish glee to experience the oneness of my body and the water.

My buddies and I talked while sunning and sitting bare-bottomed in a shallow pool a clear water.  It felt natural to converse this way, unencumbered.  Talk flowed and there was a real sense of leaving the unnecessary behind and being present to life in the moment…with strangers even.

Casually we noticed other families, kids, couples and dogs relaxing together in the early summer day.  I wondered what these ‘textiles’ or ‘threads,’ as someone from our naked group called the clothed people, thought of us ‘au naturals.’  No one seemed to care much except a young couple who kept gravitating towards us.  I was imagining them imagining how good it would feel to take your clothes off.

I realized our small community of unadorned recreationists were setting an example, a beacon for not forgetting how it can be.  We were living testimony to body-friendly, body-loving, and body-enjoying living.  We exemplified  how nudity doesn’t mean sex is around the corner.  We reclaimed our natural state for us and the joy of experiencing our own skin.

We ‘naturalists’  agreed we could not have done this individually–a single naked man or woman would be viewed differently on the river bank.  We needed the company of others for our adventure to work.  I reflected how true that is for many things–couples, relationships, families, children, sex, etc, all need community to support and nurture growth.

I’m awed by learning and teaching positive sexuality in groups (classes, retreats, pujas) and see how I’ve moved more and more from private coaching (which I love also) into building trust-based communities where we can be heard, seen, touched and appreciated by many.  The group holds us to the fire of authenticity, truth, presence and transparency where behind closed doors we often try to fake it or don’t even try at all.  Community is the highest standard; we discover our humanity, our connectedness, our normalness, and share our fear, love and pleasure.

On my first morning sailing to Hawaii on a clothing-optional cruise, I couldn’t decide what to wear. It was a cloudy, breezy day on the Pacific and too cold for me to be naked. I worried, “Would wearing a bathrobe or sarong to breakfast make me stick out?” Being my first nude cruise, I wanted to blend in. That morning I learned an important rule from my fellow nude recreationists, be comfortable and be yourself. At breakfast I found all states of dress and undress. More importantly, over the next two weeks on-board I found it easy to be myself, dressed or not–and the sun did come out!

I was invited on this 20th anniversary Bare Necessity cruise by Tom and Nancy, the founders, who wanted to offer their 2,000 plus passengers quality learning experiences during the eight days at sea going and returning to Hawaii. I could hardly believe myself–an invitation to teach sacred, sensual embodiment to naked people while sailing to Paradise! I figured my frank, positive talks on sex would fall on good ears (or buns!) on this trip.

My first lecture was on sex and aging, and I was having trouble picturing myself naked on stage with a microphone in my hand. From the podium I watched the sea of mostly naked bodies, a couple hundred or more, file into the ship’s auditorium. Everyone carried a towel to put between their butt and the seat cushion following the universal nudist etiquette, or UNdress Code. I smiled. Aren’t you supposed to imagine your audience naked before you speak in order to put yourself at ease? Wearing a silk Indian sarong my mother gave just before my cruise, I succumbed to my uncontrollable urge to ‘flash’ my audience. Now how many speakers can brag about doing that?! Laughing, someone from the audience piped up, “How many of us can say we’ve ever been flashed by a speaker?!” The ice was broken!

During the talk I asked these seasoned nude cruisers for their insights for my next book, Sexy Aging: Stories of How Loving Gets Better. Being sixty, savvy and feeling sexy, I shared how my journey to more pleasure and intimacy has increased with age. I posed them questions, “What do you enjoy about your loving now that you didn’t experience when you were younger?” “How has sex changed as you’ve aged?” “What advice might you give a young person today about enjoying sex as they age?” I felt like Oprah running around with a microphone following their lively responses, except my guests stood up stark naked. We relished how aging allows us to slow up, express more, and go deeper. “Now I have time to enjoy my erections!” “Now I feel my orgasm, not just in my genitals, but throughout my entire body and into my partner.” “My wife loosing a kidney has made our loving more precious than ever.”

Later I lead a large group in a tantra puja called Playful Touch in Paradise.  We gifted each other with imaginary pearls, whispered appreciations in each other’s ears, danced like dolphins, invited Sirens out to play, and graced each another with safe, heartfelt, sensual but non-sexual touch. Group play is magical. Each of us, supported by safe and conscious community, embraces our humanity and freedom.

As a single person among mainly couples, I was warmed by the abundance of camaraderie and inclusion. Strangers welcomed me to their dinner tables, and I met new folks easily at the pools, sauna and hot tubs. It seemed these people had shed more than their clothes for the journey–they’d left behind position, rank, defenses, and ego that keeps us separated and apart. From the onset, I experienced a communal warmth that invited open-hearted conversation and camaraderie, often about meaningful and intimate subjects. Your body size, shape or age didn’t seem to matter. Several women had only one breast, other passengers where in wheel chairs or on oxygen.

On this cruise I discovered unadorned pleasure. We came together to enjoy rather than to judge, to share rather than to perform, to show up rather than to show off. I snorkeled naked with the fish, played bare-bodied on the beach, did naked yoga on sea sprayed rocks, and nestled my bare body in moss covered rocks under trickling fresh water. In my life drawing class on the boat we drew the nude, nude. Go figure! In dance class we let it all hang out doing the salsa and meringue. Have you ever listened to a string quartet…naked? Many times I heard, ‘”Once you’ve experience a nude cruise, you’ll never go on a textile cruise again.”

When I was a girl I remember how good the grass felt between my toes on a summer day, cool and inviting. On this vacation I discovered how good it feels to go barefoot all over my body in the joyful company of other caring and respectful adults.

Are you ready to experience a miracle in your relationships? Join with others who are taking love, intimacy and sensuality to the next level. If you desire to move past the barriers that keep you apart, fearful and in judgment…,you are ready!

Download the flyer with details about the Love, Sex & Spirit: Playing Together
Retreat weekend, June 11-13, Central Texas Hill Country

LoveSex&SpiritFlyer

I just saw a play on Broadway about the first electric vibrators doctors used to relieve women of ‘hysteria’ (built up pressure in the womb) in the late 1800‘s.  Now the Victorian doctors could do in minutes what used to take an hour–or eternity for many clueless husbands of the era.

Interestingly, the play included a rare instance of a man with ‘hysteria’ in which the doctor invented a new vibrator for the anus which stimulated his prostate–yep, right there on Broadway.  I mused, “Is touching and pleasuring the anus a new sexual frontier we can explore on and off stage now?” Is anal eroticism what oral was to sex a couple of decades ago?”

As a certified Sexological Bodyworker I’ve trained in safe, hygienic and erotic stimulation of the anus and learned its importance to our health and pleasure. To most of us, the anus was our first shaming and we, unaware, have built an invisible electric fence around it ever since. Can we undo the damage and begin to include this sensory-rich ‘rosebud’ in our intimate pleasuring?

At the Institute for the Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality, Dr. Jack Morin, author of the ‘bible’ on the subject, Anal Pleasure and Health, spoke to my class of erotic bodyworkers on how de-shaming the body’s ‘last frontier’ encourages us to accept and love ourselves more wholly–or more ‘holy’ if I may add a sacred element to deep embodiment.  He suggested taking a soapy finger while you’re in the shower and getting to know what’s been ‘behind’ you all along, “Hi there asshole, how you doing?  A little tight today?–let me take care of that.”  Erotic bodyworkers know if you can relax the rosebud, the rest of the body follows.

I’ve found a great technique in my work as a sex educator to bring new awareness and appreciation to our innocent posterior.  I often ask my clients if I may ‘interview’ their asshole. That’s right, I invite the person (say a man) to speak as if he is his anus speaking–giving voice to this silent part of his body.  I may ask for example, “How does it feel, Mr. A, when your Master (or the name of the person) ignores you, never touches you, or doesn’t recognize your unique gifts for His expanded and prolonged eroticism?”  “How do you feel when your neighbor, Mr. Penis, gets all the attention?” “Does your Master ever call anyone an ‘asshole’?  How does that make you feel?”

I’ve discovered people’s assholes are very articulate, surprisingly humorous, definitely persevering, and love to have their say. I like to ask my interviewee, “Mr. A, what could your Master do to show you more appreciation? Would you like him to check in with you from time to time?  And how would he do that?” I like to find out if Mr. A has ever been approached in a way that didn’t feel comfortable or without his permission.  Empowering a person with choice when it comes to anal touch can heal past abuse.

I like to close the anal interview with a question like, “Mr. A, since you’ve been so wise and so silent for so long, what closing words of wisdom would you like to leave with your Master now that he’s listening?” I hear the most profound sentiments rise up from the deep bowls of the body, “I’d like Him to lighten up, have more fun, not waste life only working…touch me, share me with a partner, learn to be multi-orgasmic with me…or even, show me off!”

Most folks who include anal touch in their erotic play do not have anal sex, or penetration with the penis.  Most simply enjoy stimulating the external rim or penetrating this nerve-rich area with a well-lubricated finger or sex toy designed for the anus (with a flared bottom to keep it from going inside).  More and more people are finding the anus is just another feel good part of the body we can enjoy (with a little knowledge and communication) instead of fear, or keep off limits.

Yes, anal gets us to the bottom of things.  We don’t have to reach far for sound advise–we’re sitting on it.  Each of us, man or woman, sits on a goldmine of pleasure and wisdom. We don’t even have to be hysterical to enjoy it!

Like any fine art of living, sensuality is a learned and practiced art.  Good lovers are not born, they are made.  Accomplished sensuous virtuosos fine tune their play on the instrument of the human body. If you want finesse, find good teachers, study, and practice.

As a teacher of erotic touch, I’m always amazed in my classes how a room full of fidgety ‘strangers’ transforms magically into a relaxed, inquisitive and supportive community.  In just a few hours we take a sacred journey, beyond silence and shame, that most people (and couples) never take in a lifetime.

Most of us desire depth and breath in our loving as we mature. Such was the case for the sixteen pioneers of conscious touch who met last week for my class on female sensual massage.  I demonstrated on a lovely woman, a teacher in her own right, how to set the stage for a woman’s spiritual, healing, and pleasurable release.  We learned (and some practiced) touching with an open heart, languaging permission, and enjoying the lost art of going nowhere slowly.  Fun.

With the upmost respect and appreciation for the model (and teacher), this group of sixteen men and women, ages 27 to 77years, created a space that felt like a cathedral for the carnal and the sacred. We shared camaraderie, personal stories, tips, and laughter around the temple room.  Our sacrament was honoring the human body; our prayer was to touch like an angel.

The women generously offered ways they like to be touched, including breasts and genitals.  “I like my breasts massaged this way.”  “I didn’t know the outer lips could be massaged like that.” The men graciously drank in the experience and offered theirs, “I never realized how important asking for permission is, or even how to ask.”

All of us (not just me!) shared an afternoon of heartfelt questions and experiences; we all became teachers, for and with each other. It felt like a new era had dawned, exchanging positive (and accurate!) sex information between folks who practice it!  Amazing, could it ever be just like exchanging tips on good eating or exercising?!  How we would all profit!

So my students wanted to know, like all of us, “How do you touch a woman so she relaxes, opens like a flower, and surrenders her mysterious cathedral of carnal and spiritual delights?”   We all became virtuosos exploring and playing the Body Electric. Look what the initial, tentative ‘strangers’ risked by coming to class, look what they walked away with.

In our closing circle, we looked again into each other’s eyes.  We had changed. We were no longer strangers, rather each of us another face of the Divine, each of us honored, nurtured and revered.  We had witnessed the divine Masculine and Feminine at play, searching for wholeness, and connecting in pleasure.  We learned more about becoming each others angels.

Who would have imagined a shy girl from the midwest sponsoring a workshop on  female g-spot ejaculation?  Growing up in the 60‘s I was just discovering that women could have orgasms (forget what kind). The first time I ever heard the word clitoris I was in college (at which time I checked out ‘down there’ with a mirror just to make sure).  And now we’re not only supposed to be responsible for our own orgasms, we’re supposed to bring a towel.  What’s a shy girl to do?

Well, sexpert and female g-spot orgasm specialist, Deborah Sundahl, came to Austin and talked with us and showed a video clip on how women can expand their orgasmic potential.  She followed the fascinating co-ed lecture/discussion with an all women’s workshop.  Deborah, founder of On Our Backs, a women’s erotica magazine, author of Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot, and an award-winning DVD producer, gave us accurate information and tangible images on what could happen ‘down there’ if we are willing to let go deeper and trust our bodies.

Anatomically women have a prostate gland, though more diffused than a man’s, and create a prostatic-like fluid. Given the right stimulation to her g-spot, the spongy, wrinkled area just inside the vagina on the top side, every woman can ejaculate.  A scentless, clear fluid builds during arousal in her prostate which surrounds the urethra, the ‘nectar’ then drips into dozens of tiny ducts into the urethra.

In my experience I’ve found that g-spot orgasms differ from clitoral orgasms which feel to me more hard hitting, intense, and quick–how I imagine a man’s orgasm to be.  When I’ve experienced g-spot orgasms (or combinations) they feel almost elusive, diffused, and my whole body undulates in waves a subtle pleasure that come and go over time.  Call this spiritual?  I seem to be deeply aware of life, freedom, death and beauty–all at once, of course!  I become immersed in the awe of life.

How does a woman achieve such bliss? Deborah’s offering a new telelclass series you can enjoy in your own home, check out www.isismedia.org   Instead of pulling in and tightening the pelvic floor muscles (with high pitched squeals), try pushing out during orgasm using your strong Kegel muscles, moaning deeply, and invoking the Earth Mother, ha!…a watery squirt or diffused seepage may result–with or without orgasm.

The biggest hinderance to women expanding their orgasmic potential is shutting down and stopping the ‘flow’ so to speak. Since the ejaculatory response feels similar to the urge to pee many women stop there and it’s easy to see why.  A women may feel shame for having ‘wet the bed’ at some point and vowed never to do it again.  It takes a lot of trust in herself and a partner to fully invite a deeper surrender and vulnerability.   Supported and encouraged by a right lover, a woman’s waters can be coaxed ‘to pool’ in a slow dance of seduction, support, and connection.

And men, we have nothing up on you.  You have as much potential for expanded orgasm as women do.  Your prostate is your g-spot and stimulation of it is your ticket to repeating, deeply moving and spiritual pulses of pleasure.  Having full body, multiple g-spot orgasms are well worth getting over any homophobic idea that anal eroticism is saved for a blessed few.

Thank you, Deborah Sundahl, for sharing with us accurate, positive information about our bodies. Women, let’s take the egg timer off our orgasms, stop being so tidy, and stop being so SHY.  Let’s explore our bodies, trust our rhythm, and enjoy our juices.

I just got to spend time watching our closest ape relatives, the Bonobos, at the San Diego Zoo.  The youngsters sat in warm sand, legs spread open, scooping it up and pouring it over their genitals, getting up and doing it again–all with an erection of course!

It was hard to tell which gender was stroking another or reaching for the genitals of a passerby.  No one seemed offended or even phased.  I saw assimilated intercourse repeated times (lasting only a few brief moments) and then the next moment, the positions of the participants would be reversed.

These good tempered monkeys seemed to used sensuality as a social glue, offering lots of cuddling , grooming, and genital contact across gender and age lines and even delighting in themselves.  I’ve heard these little dark hairy critters, declared their own species for only the last 70 years, are really our closest relatives and different from the more aggressive chimpanzees.  Their style is cooperative and peaceful.  They share easily and will often defer to conflict by simply offering a submissive sexual position.  They can even copulate face to face unlike the doggie style of the chimpanzee.

The San Diego Zoo is one of only eight zoos that have these critically endangered animals.  The human children watching with me delighted in Bonobo shenanigans without knowing any of the adult names for their behavior.  The adult zoo visitors  were also mesmerized, though they seemed a little more uncomfortable at times.

The zoo keeper told me that teachers bring their middle school students to study the behavior of these endearing ancestors which we used to refer to as pygmy chimpanzees.  I thought what a great lesson in sexuality ‘outside the box’ for adolescents–even if it is behind the glass at the zoo.  I was warmed to know we can still touch our natural roots of pan-sensuality before we layered it with protocol and judgment.

So do I want to host a Bonobo Party when I return to Austin?  As a sex educator and coach I still believe in getting permission, and that means a clear yes, before any touch (or hug) really–unless certain behaviors are agreed upon between partners. But I’d like to give a party in the spirit of the Bonobos and their tender touching, caressing, and play.  We humans can take the best of both worlds; we can care of ourselves with a simple yes or no and reclaim a community of sensual effervescence of shared, safe touch.

Charla Hathaway 8/5/09

www.bodyjoy.org

512-626-5037

At the end of a couples intimacy or partner massage class I’m always amazed at how my body feels.  I’m touched by what my students say in the closing circle, “I’m happy to be alive, I’m aware of being love, I feel peace through my whole body.”  I notice how the faces have softened in just a few hours. Gratitude envelopes the circle of not-so-long-ago strangers, and we speak of soulful things in whispery tones.

As the teacher I witness the most tender and vulnerable moments between partners.  I lead and observe couples in simple but profound interactions of truth and transparency.  I’m reminded how ready we all are to access another way of being, a slower reality, where the body leads and the mind becomes the observer.  So rich and rare are these times we feel delighted when they happen.  We relish this timeless and treasured space that feels so natural.

As I witness the locked engagement of couples (whether they have know each other for 30 minutes or 30 years) I realize the power we possess as humans to transform our reality one moment at a time.  I am nourished  by what I experience–the natural sensuality, attention, and deep caring we long to share with each other.  Our communal joy is just waiting to surface, just longing to spring forth, just waiting for the slightest permission–and we’re there!

Rarely do we spend a whole evening together being instead of doing, showing up instead of showing off, connecting instead of performing.  The precious moments when we slow down to the Speed of Love, we once again remember who we are.  We remember our birthright as human beings.  We let our breath flow, our mind relax, and become aware of our shared Lived Body.

I just returned from visiting my Uncle Bob who at age 85 has started dressing as a “Lady.” My Aunt Eleanor died about a year and a half ago and he says, “I’ve always lived as others expected of me. I only have a small time left, and now I want to be me.” He certainly makes a handsome older lady in a tasteful dress, wig, makeup, and jewelry.  I noticed he had renewed energy and looked healthier since my last visit two years ago. I interviewed him with my video camera and even captured him and Mom, his 87 year old sister-in-law, playing cards like old times.

He told me how girls get the best clothes and a rustling silk skirt and air around your legs is cooling and wonderful in the Florida heat. He wore trousers the other day and couldn’t wait to get home to take them off. He shared with me his theory about men’s pockets versus women’s purses. Uncle Bob, who walks with a cane due to an accident many years ago, still sported Dorothy-of-Oz red high heels on the day we visited. “They make me feel good,” he said with a smile. He pointed to his smooth legs and mentioned that wearing nylons had healed the sores on his legs–my mother was amazed!

He shared stories with me about growing up on a farm in the Midwest with his two brothers who were much older than he, and that his parents had wanted a girl. His brothers did the farming with Dad while he helped his mom with the cooking and gardening. Gardening is still his favorite hobby.

He was excited for Mom and I to meet his favorite caretaker, Barbara, “a cute, young English girl of sixty,” he winked. He joked that he cleans his house before she comes over so they can spend their time socializing and going out. Barbara shows up wearing a flouncy skirt and gives Bobbie a new lace blouse and matching chiffon skirt she’s purchased for him. Over lunch I could feel their mutual affection; she was drawn to this well-traveled, courageous, and genuinely compassionate woman.

Uncle Bob, (it’s still hard for me to call him Bobbie unless we’re out somewhere), noticeably chokes up when remembering Eleanor. I asked him what’s most important in his life, he replied,” family.” His daughter, Mary Kay, said he was always the softer of her parents and smiles, “My dad was there for me when I decided to get a divorce.”

He’s proud that he was a good father and husband to two beautiful women (his first wife died mid-life.) I asked him what he’d most enjoy today and he said, “To be asked to play cards, shop, and talk with the Ladies of his trailer park.” He sighed deeply, “I miss being touched, I got so much of it with Eleanor. You don’t know how much  the hug that you and your mom gave me means!”  I vowed to give him even a longer hug when saying goodbye.

Additional note:  I would love help in editing the video tape I took of my visit with Uncle Bob, his daughter, and my mom who traveled the Amazon with Eleanor and Bob. I’d like to make a short documentary to encourage all of us to live freely, embrace our true selves, and inspire others. If you have video editing skills and are interested, please give me a call, 512-626-5037.