Connecting Pain & Pleasure

So, I did something a lot of us probably do when we’re not really paying attention to our bodies: I over-exerted myself during a session at the gym with my trainer and ended up throwing out my back. Badly. I mean, really badly! It’s been just over a week and the pain has been nearly constant and is only marginally better now. When this happens to me, it almost always eats into my self-pleasure practice. Although I’ve tried to continue my daily meditations in the morning, it’s essentially been ‘hands-off’ my erotic body! Why? Because the pain is just so distracting! My mind is always centered on the pain and won’t allow for touch other than to try to massage the soreness. So, this morning I decided to try to wake things up and consciously connect the pleasure that I can engender in my cock with the pain in my lower back.

Many of you may know through experience that pain and pleasure can be exquisitely connected. That connection is, after all, the basis of all BDSM sex. As usual, I put myself in a sitting position with my back firmly against the back of the chair, brought my left heel up to my perineum to exert a little pressure there, then began to breathe. Clenching my PC muscle, I began to breathe up from my pelvis first, then through visualization I brought the breath slowly up, up, up through my solar plexus and into my heart. The last step is to try to bring the breath up to my Third Eye, and this is a moment when I often experience euphoria. Today the euphoria was there, but it was muted, very mild. After a few conscious breaths into the Third Eye I began to apply a small drop of coconut oil to my frenulum, massaging very slowly in circular movements, trying to bring some erotic pleasure into my body. As the erotic energy began to build, I visualized connecting the pleasure with the pain that I felt in my back with every intake of breath.

What happened next was quite unexpected. Rather than the pleasure ‘masking’ the pain in my lower back (like taking pain meds which can take away the feeling of pain but do nothing to help heal the source of the pain), the pleasure melded and became one with the pain. My only job was to notice this phenomenon, not to drive it, not to try to control it. With every intake of oxygen, I noticed a conversation going on between my cock’s pleasure and my back’s pain. The two sensations became one. Sitting in that position, of course, my genitals and my lower back were on the same plane. SoI felt like there was an active circle of energy flowing through my pelvis that was at once erotic, healing and calming. I continued this mindful erotic exercise for about fifteen minutes and while I got hard and produced a good amount of pre-cum, I didn’t ejaculate. That wasn’t my purpose, and it wasn’t necessary. What was necessary was the healing it produced.

Pleasure is healing. That’s a basic tenet of my practice as a Somatic Sex Educator and Sexological Bodyworker, and it’s foundational to Tantric practice as well. Consider your self-pleasure as an opportunity for healing, not just ejaculation or orgasm. Your body will take care of you if you simply stop, notice, and listen.