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A SOCIAL HISTORY
OF THE FIRST TEN YEARS OF
TAOIST EROTIC MASSAGE,
1982-1992
In my twenty years of teaching, my most profound experiences have involved a form of erotic
bodywork called Taoist Erotic Massage. This massage often takes men and women into erotic
trance states. The rhythmic breathing and genital stimulation of a Taoist Erotic Massage activate a
prolonged, orgasmic glide. I have witnessed thousands of men and women access this astonishing
state. This expanded full-body orgasm is the cutting edge of sex education today!
You can witness and learn this massage as an enrolled member of the New School or in the DVDs
Fire on the MountainMale Genital Massage and Fire in the Valley Female Genital Massage. This
doctoral dissertation tells the story of the evolution of this ecstatic sexual experience.
ABSTRACT
This is a history of Taoist Erotic Massage, a sexual experience that involves breathing and genital
touching that often produces transformative altered states in those receiving it. Joseph Kramer
developed this erotic structure between 1982 and 1992 as a way for gay men to connect sexually in
a safe and ecstatic manner in the era of AIDS.
The erotic massage was called Taoist because the intent of the touching was not merely to stimulate
erotic energy, but also to circulate it throughout the body without ejaculation. From 1982 to 1985,
Kramer began to explore the possibilities of this massage with clients in one-on-one sessions. In
1986, the Body Electric School, founded by Kramer, began offering trainings in Taoist Erotic
Massage, first in Oakland, and then in cities throughout North America and Europe.
The dynamics of a Taoist Erotic Massage are explicated in terms of Silvan Tomkins affect theory
and script theory, and Donald Moshers depth of sexual involvement theory. Using affect theory,
one can posit that the massage was popular and rewarding because of the enormous amounts of
excitement and joy that it produced. Script theory conjectures that the transformative elements of
the massage occurred because of the crucial change of affect within the massage. The education in
Taoist Erotic Massage classes was profound by Moshers standards, because it involved exercises
facilitating partner engagement, erotic role playing, and sexual trance.
Transcripts of actual classes elucidate the ways this massage was taught. Comments from men who
gave and received Taoist Erotic Massage confirm the ecstatic and transformational nature of the
experience. This history ends with Kramer selling the Body Electric School, which continues to
teach this massage to men and women, gay through straight.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the thousands of men who offered me their genitals for my research.
I bow to the many co-creators and teachers of Taoist Erotic Massage, especially Chester Mainard,
Isa Magdalena and Matthew Simmons. I send a caress to all the men and women who have offered
and/or continue to offer this massage. I especially thank Erik Caplan, the archetypal erotic masseur.
I send one hundred and one hours of foot massage to my breath teacher Claire Arnesen, who first
planted the seeds of Taoist Erotic Massage in my heart and in my genitals.
Thanks to Michael Barger, Maggie Kent and Melvin Hill for helping me grasp and apply the work
of Silvan Tomkins.
Thanks to Jim Duggins for non-violence when I opted out of work on our half-finished book. Your
incredible effort is manifest in these pages.
Thanks to Carol Leigh and Hrabba Gunnarsdottir for helping me put Taoist Erotic Massage on
video.
This dissertation would be different without the wisdom and support of Dan Bredemann, Don
Clark, Randy Conner, Josh Davidson, Tony and Golden DeBone, Betty Dodson, Larry Dwyer, Peter
Etwas, Carlos Fernandez, Dan Fernandez, Anthony Lecours, Jeannie Little, Mark Malan, Ph.D.,
Jack Morin, Don Shewey, Tim Updike, Bill Weintraub, Roger Wharton, and Dr. Jerry Zientara.
Thanks to my spiritual advisors Jim Curtan and Michael Kelly.
Thanks to my sacred intimate, Joe Miron.
Thanks to Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D., for being my research partner and lover for the last fifteen years.
Thanks to my dissertation committee. To Loraine Hutchins, who didnt understand at the beginning
that this was a boy dissertation. To Ray Stubbs, my friend and colleague who massaged me to
excellence. And to Clark Taylor, who helped me see the limitations of conceptual models.
Thanks to Margaret Wade, the midwife of this dissertation. Its a boy, Margaret!
I am grateful to my mother and father who offered me both emotional and financial support without
expressing judgment.
An ancient Egyptian blessing for Michael Callen, Terry Weisser, Randy Wickstrom, and Tom
Hammond: May the hands of the Divine Lover caress you into Bliss.
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i
Chapter One: INTRODUCTION 2
Chapter Two: TAOIST EROTIC MASSAGE: A DESCRIPTION
Individual Sessions 4
Class Sessions 6
Comparison to the Work of Stubbs and Painter 7
Chapter Three: CONCEPTUAL MODELS 9
Toward a Theory of Human Behavior 13
Affect Theory 15
Script Theory 19
Depth of Sexual Involvement Theory 24
Sexual Role Enactment Script 25
The Sexual Trance Script 28
Partner Engagement Script 30
Three Dimensional Involvement 33
Chapter Four: OTHER INFLUENCES 35
Chapter Five: THE EVOLUTION OF TAOIST EROTIC MASSAGE
The Sexual Celibate 39
Self-Reichian Therapy 41
Educating the Caress 43
Private Sessions 44
The Founding of Body Electric 46
Teaching Erotic Massage 48
Public Exposure 51
The Big Draw 52
The Path of the Sacred Intimate 54
Making Videos for the Whole World to See 56
The End of an Era 57
Ecstatic Dying 58
Conclusion 59
Chapter Six: TEACHING TAOIST EROTIC MASSAGE 61
Chapter Seven: IN THEIR OWN WORDS 75
Chapter Eight: SUMMARY 86
BIBLIOGRAPHY 88
References Cited 88
Other References 93
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Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
To know oneself as a body is more important, at this moment in history, than to read the words of
all the wise men who have ever lived.
Marco Vassi, The Erotic Comedies (1981, p. 137.)
Although human animals have enjoyed erotic massage for thousands of years, neither of Kinseys
landmark twentieth century sex studies mentions erotic massage as a sexual outlet. Today a growing
number of people regularly have sex within a context commonly called erotic massage. Taoist
Erotic Massage (TEM) is an erotic massage structure developed in the 1980s by this writer, Joseph
Kramer. This massage is described in Chapter Two. It has become widely practiced in Europe and
North America.
However, the history of this new expression of sexual behavior has never been accurately
documented. In Chapter Five, I will narrate the history of Taoist Erotic Massage (TEM) from 1982
to 1992 from a first person perspective. The primary motivation for the development of this erotic
way of touching was the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic in 1981. Gay and bisexual men were in
dire need of ecstatic, erotic safe ways of connecting with each other. Although I chose not to
promote this massage as safe sex, safety was a motivation for the development and teaching of
TEM.
In addition to telling the story of the first ten years of TEM, I will present conceptual models to help
the reader better understand the transformative nature of the experience. In retrospect, the theories
of Silvan Tomkins, Ph.D., and Donald Mosher,
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Ph.D., offer the best framework for understanding the dynamics of a Taoist Erotic Massage and its
effects on practitioners. This conceptual framework will be explained in Chapter Three. In Chapter
Six, I will recount the methods used to teach this new form of massage. This history will culminate
in Chapter Seven with statements chosen from hundreds of comments and evaluations written to me
by men after they had received a Taoist Erotic Massage. Brochures from the Body Electric School
and a feature article from the Village Voice can be found in the Appendices at the end of the
dissertation.
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Chapter Two
TAOIST EROTIC MASSAGE: A DESCRIPTION
Sex is really only touch, the closest of all touch. And its touch were afraid of.
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterleys Lover (1983, p. 38).
A Taoist Erotic Massage is a sexual experience that involves breathing and genital touching that
often produces transformative altered states in those receiving it. Certainly, all erotic massage
involves sexually arousing stimulation through touch. The erotic massage most people are familiar
with is the hand job, which, for men, has ejaculation as its goal. Some erotic touch has been used
therapeutically to help men and women become more comfortable with the placement of their
attention on their bodies and on the bodies of their partners. Sensate focus, a method of therapeutic
touch foundational to most sex therapies, teaches givers and receivers of touch to be intensely
conscious during their interactions (Montagu, 1971; Hartman and Fithian, 1972; Masters and
Johnson, 1982; Kennedy and Dean, 1986). Many friends and lovers use massage as a physical ritual
or structure in which they can express their affection and love (Lacroix, 1994; Stubbs, 1989, 1999a,
1999b, 2000).
What constitutes a Taoist Erotic Massage of a man? The Taoist approach to mens sexuality focuses
on energy circulation and semen retention for strength and healthy living. Therefore, the word
Taoist was chosen to indicate that the intent of the activity is not merely to stimulate erotic
energy, but also to circulate it throughout the body without ejaculation (Chang, 1977; Chia, 1984;
Chang, 1986). This form of massage involves a fast, rhythmic breath simultaneous to the genital
stimulation. Participants in a
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TEM often experience ecstatic states and transformational moments. (See Chapters Three, Six, and
Seven.)
Thousands of folks worldwide have been introduced to this erotic choreography in a one-on-one
experience with a lover, a friend, or a professional masseur. Thousands of others first experienced
this massage in the context of a class. The structure allowed for variations each time one gave or
received a TEM. Even the structures of classes teaching TEM changed constantly. Below I offer a
description of the central elements that I included in one-on-one sessions. Then I will describe a
Class Sessions
Between 1982 and 1992, over three thousand men learned how to give a TEM in the context of a
class. Some classes were three hours long, some a full day. But most men who studied Taoist Erotic
Massage learned this choreography within the context of a two-day class called Celebrating the
Body Erotic (see Appendix A).
The entire first day was made up of exercises preparing men to give and receive a TEM on the
second day. The preparations included stretching and breathing exercises that reduced levels of
distress. Group nudity and eye-gazing exercises helped alleviate fear and shame. Men were
encouraged to laugh, to vent emotion and to communicate their intentions and fears. (See Chapters
Six and Seven.) The participants in the two-day Celebrating the Body Erotic had more than eight
hours of preparation before they began to give or to receive a TEM.
The genital stimulation with rhythmic breathing in these classes actually lasted between one and
two hours. Masseurs switched from table to table during the massage,
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touching seven to ten different men, who had their eyes shut or were wearing blindfolds. Various
massage strokes were demonstrated by the teacher. Then these touches were mimicked by the
masseurs on the men receiving. (These strokes will be detailed in Chapter Six.) Since affect is
contagious (Tomkins, 1962, 1963), it was quite common for a man who began laughing or crying to
trigger laughter or tears in a significant portion of the class. The group excitement in the minutes
just before the Big Draw almost always involved chaotic pandemonium as the masseurs intensified
the stimulation while the men on the massage tables screamed and writhed while breathing deeper
and faster. On cue from the teacher, all the masseurs in the room stopped touching, and the men on
the tables did the Big Draw at the same time. The next ten to fifteen minutes involved no touching,
just tranquil savoring. The group TEM ended like my one-on-one sessions, with a group sharing.
Comparison to the Work of Stubbs and Painter
Perhaps the most prolific and influential teacher of erotic touch in the world today is Kenneth Ray
Stubbs. Although Stubbs unique combination of Esalen and Swedish massage includes instruction
on touching the male and female genitals, the erotic stimulation is not the focus of his massage
work. The fact that Stubbs includes almost all parts of the body equally separates his approach from
most other therapeutic massages and erotic massages. While Stubbs allows for therapeutic and
transformational moments in his work, his core teaching is that touch is essential to our lives as
human beings (Stubbs, 1989, 1999a, 1999b, 2000). Touch helps us remember and honor our own
body and the bodies of those we care for. His instructional books and videos are filled with
sensuous invitations to touch as well as precise instruction in the language of touch.
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Jack Painters Pelvic-Heart Integration (2002) is a therapeutic process combining psychotherapy
with Reichian-style body manipulation. Painter works on blocks in the client, from the top of his or
her body down as he or she breathes consciously. The verbal part of this therapy involves bringing
consciousness to the clients core issues. Often the work focuses on changing negative parental
messages about sexual desire or about acknowledging the masculine and feminine realms within the
self.
Perhaps the most powerful moments in Painters somatic therapy involve genital stimulation of the
consciously breathing client while male and female assistants take on the roles of the clients
mother and father. After being instructed by the client in what to say, the mother and father
surrogates speak the messages that have inhibited the client for his or her entire life. Then, after
prompting from the client, the surrogates change their speaking to messages that the client wished
she or he had heard early in life. Although Painters context is therapy, the transformational
elements of his work are very similar to those of a TEM: breathing, genital stimulation, and
moments when behavior and thought patterns can be changed. The nature of this transformation in
Taoist Erotic Massage will be discussed in Chapter Three.
Chapter Three
CONCEPTUAL MODELS
In 1980-81, I enrolled in a year-long training with Claire Arnesen in rebirthing, a form of conscious
breathwork (Orr and Ray, 1977; Ray 1983). The process I learned, which lasted from one to three
hours, revolved around a fast rhythmic breathing where there was no pause between the inhale and
the exhale. The conscious, fast breathing produced a blissful, full-body experience, starting within
the first fifteen or twenty minutes of each session.
Central to this training was Reichs idea that trauma of all sorts, experienced from birth to the
present, produced armoring, or chronic constrictions, in our musculature (Reich, 1949). Reich wrote
that this armoring was the basis of all human neuroses. He hypothesized that intense breathing and
uninhibited sexual orgasms break up the armoring and clear neurotic patterns of behavior from the
body. Although my year of rebirthing did not include specific sexual exercises, the breathing
techniques I learned from Claire were geared to facilitate emotional release so that I could be
healthy, balanced, free, and ecstatic.
Beyond the rebirthing class work, I scheduled about twenty-five individual guided breathing
sessions with Claire. She would sit with me as coach and observer as I breathed for hours. During
these sessions and in my classes with her, she recognized my severe shame and paralyzing selfdisgust which had resulted from conflicts I had growing up as a homosexual boy in a conservative
Catholic milieu. She suggested a series of erotic meditations that I would do alone to release the
armoring. These exercises all involved masturbating and, at the same time, fast rhythmic breathing
for
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about thirty minutes and then visualizing scenes where I was interacting in a healthy and beneficial
way with significant people from my past.
My first erotic rebirthing involved me imagining my father standing nearby and affirming proudly
his son and his sons arousal. Claire made it clear that I was not to imagine a sexual connection to
my father. I was merely to feel his approval for me and my sexuality. She also suggested that I
remain well below the point of ejaculation inevitability. The first two times I tried this exercise, I
couldnt get aroused or remain in an aroused state while imagining my father being present. Claire
said I should continue my efforts. On my third attempt, I spent about a half hour touching myself
and breathing before I visualized my fathers presence. Then I remember slowing both my stroking
and my breathing as I welcomed his presence into the room with me. He didnt say anything. He
just looked and nodded in affirmation. His visit lasted just a few minutes. But afterwards, I felt
totally different towards my father.
I remember telling Claire, This exercise opened my heart to my father and I felt his heart open to
me. I wondered if all of the change was within me or if there were some metaphysical dynamic
where my father was also changed by the exercise. Claire said that understanding what had
happened was not as important as the change I felt. A few days later, I did the same exercise with
my mother. Again the exercise was difficult. I remember many distractions, but eventually I
imagined my mother present in the room with me, loving every aspect of my being, including my
homosexual desires.
Claire had me do this exercise about a dozen times over three months. I masturbated and breathed
with both my parents together, with my whole family, and in St. Ritas Church, where I worshipped
as a boy. I masturbated and breathed among my
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high school friends. I masturbated and breathed in the dark confessional, where I had so often
confessed the sin of masturbation, this time telling the priest what a gift my body and my sexuality
were. I was startled when Claire suggested that I masturbate while Jesus looked on. But I did the
exercise, and he told me of his unconditional love of who I was. Each time I breathed and
masturbated while visualizing positive encounters with sources of shame from my past, I felt
profound changes in my body. The word that best described these changes was freedom. I was
becoming more and more free.
I was also committed to learning more about Wilhelm Reich. Reich, like early Freud, believed
neurosis, all neurosis, to be repressed sexual energy. What piqued my interest was Reichs idea that
sexual experiences could be as effective as months or years of psychoanalysis. In Genitality in the
Theory and Therapy of Neurosis (1980), Reich states, those who are psychically ill need but one
thingcomplete and repeated genital gratification. Healthy sexuality for Reich involved the
ability for total surrender to the involuntary contractions of the orgasm and the complete discharge
of the excitation at the acme of the genital embrace (1973).
For Reich, orgasm involved the ability to lose ones self, yielding all conscious physiological
control. Furthermore, Reich believed that authoritarian societies and institutions intentionally
suppressed the natural sexuality of children to paralyze rebellion and to inhibit critical thinking
(Shewey, 1992). Reich called the majority of western adults genitally impotent. The problem the
Reichian therapist or researcher faces is determining when someone has surrendered totally to his or
her orgasm. Reich never developed an objective method for measuring this total surrender.
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Whereas Reich perceived the orgasmic response as inseparable from the functioning of the total
human being, Kinsey and Masters and Johnson studied human sexual response as objectively
measurable incidents separate from other aspects of the human animal.
Kinseys two seminal studies of human sexuality focused much attention on the frequency of
orgasm but avoided investigations into the nature of orgasms (Kinsey et al., 1948, Kinsey et al.,
1953). Kinsey restricted the term orgasm to the isolated climax. He wrote: in the present study all
cases of ejaculation have been taken as evidence of orgasm, without regard to the different levels at
which the orgasms have occurred (Kinsey et al., 1948, pp.59-60).
He was even narrower in his definition of female orgasm. Many psychologists and psychiatrists,
emphasizing the satisfactions that may result from sexual experience, suggest that the after-affects
of this release from sexual tensions may be a chief source of those satisfactions. They are therefore
inclined to extend the term orgasm to cover both the release from tensions and the after-effects of
that release. There are, however, several advantages in restricting the concept of orgasm to the
sudden and abrupt release itself, and it is in that sense that we have used the term. Kinsey
acknowledged that there was more to orgasms than counting them but still decided to base his
studies on counting ejaculations and, in women, orgasmic releases.
In their enormous contribution to the understanding of human sexual response, Masters and Johnson
limited their conclusions to the observable phenomena that all sexual climaxes shared in common.
In all men and women receiving effective sexual stimulation, the physiological Four Phase Model
was operative: excitement, plateau,
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orgasm, and resolution. Vasocongestion , a swelling of the blood vessels, and myotonia, a temporary
muscular rigidity, were the measurable responses in the genitals prior to orgasm. Similarities rather
than differences of response have been emphasized in this investigation (Masters and Johnson,
1966, p. 273).
Researchers attempting to apply the Four Phase Model to a Taoist Erotic Massage might include all
preliminary stretches, breathing exercises, and massage of the full body in the excitement phase.
The reactions to all of the genital massage strokes and the simultaneous rhythmic breathing would
constitute the plateau phase. The thirty-second clenching while holding of breath and then the
release of breath and muscles of the Big Draw would make up the orgasm phase. The resolution
phase would involve the relaxation response, a decrease in neurological firing, at first precipitous,
then more gradual. This dissertation will explore sexual orgasm from the subjective experience of a
person receiving Taoist Erotic Massage.
Toward a Theory of Human Behavior
For fifteen years, I have been seeking a theory of human behavior that explains the intricacies of
human sexual functioning I was witnessing in the teaching and practicing of Taoist Erotic Massage.
Until 1996, my conceptual model for making sense of sexual behavior had been based on Taoism.
The way I perceived and taught about human sexuality was grounded in this ancient Eastern system
based on the circulation of subtle energy in and around the body. Acupuncture manipulates this
same subtle energy for health and longevity (Chang, 1977; Chia, 1984; Chang, 1986).
But Taoism didnt explain adequately and with nuance the dynamics of shame and other emotional
states that I had experienced and witnessed during sexual behavior.
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Through the work of Donald L. Nathanson (1992) and Gershen Kaufman (Kaufman and Raphael,
1996), I was introduced for the first time to an approach to shame and other affective states that
explained the dynamics I had been witnessing and personally feeling for years.
Both Nathanson and Kaufman based their understanding of human emotions on the affect theory of
Silvan Tomkins. Tomkins had developed an understanding of human functioning that went beyond
psychoanalysis in explaining human behavior and consciousness at the individual, interpersonal,
and cultural levels. Tomkins most distinctive achievement was to theorize a discrete biological
system of human emotion that he called the affect system. In his view, affects form the primary
system for human motivation. He wrote: Without affect amplification nothing else matters, and
with its amplification anything can matter (1991, p. 70).
Tomkins named his understanding of human behavior script theory (Demos, 1995). For Tomkins, a
script is simply a set of rules or interpretive guidelines that a human being uses in order to take
action, to make decisions, or to think.
Donald Mosher, Tomkins colleague, used Tomkins theories as the basis for his depth of sexual
involvement theory (Mosher 1980, 1995). This theory describes the subjective experience of levels
of absorption during a sexual scene. Since I will be using Tomkins affect and script theories and
Moshers sexual involvement theory as conceptual models to describe the development and
dynamics of a Taoist Erotic Massage, I will delineate in finer detail here those aspects of affect,
script, and sexual involvement theory that are pertinent.
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Affect Theory
In Tomkins thinking, affects are the biological portion of emotion (Tomkins, 1962). Affects are
sets of muscle and glandular responses located in the skin of the face and also widely distributed
throughout the body that generate sensory feedback which is either inherently acceptable and
rewarding or inherently unacceptable and punishing (Mosher quoted in Nathanson, 1996, p.107).
Tomkins identified nine basic affects, which in combination with each other and with input from
other subsystems of human functioning such as perception, memory, imagination, and cognition,
constitute the rich range of human affectivity.
He identified two inherently rewarding or positive affects: interest-excitement and enjoyment-joy.
(Tomkins used hyphenated names to indicate that affect exists on a continuum of intensity.) The
functioning of these two affects is crucial to an understanding of human sexuality and to an
understanding of the dynamics of a Taoist Erotic Massage. These positive affects expand and define
the thrill of sexuality more than does the sexual drive and the pleasurable sensations in the genitals
(Tomkins, 1962; Mosher, 1995). These affects are called positive not as a judgment, but because
they feel rewarding.
Interest-excitement is the affect that dominates male western human sexuality. The unrealistic desire
for nonstop hot, passionate, lusty sex is the desire for activation of the affect interest-excitement.
Our lovemaps (Money, 1986), core erotic themes (Morin, 1995) and pornography exist to trigger
this affect. This biological affect correlates roughly with Masters and Johnsons first two stages of
human sexual response: excitement and plateau. A Taoist Erotic Massage first stimulates interestexcitement.
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The novel feeling of being touched genitally with thirty different massage strokes while rapidly
breathing produces an increase in neural firing.
The biological affect enjoyment-joy is activated by a decrease in rate of neural firing in an
individual. This is the major post orgasm affect although it can be experienced for periods of time
before orgasm. Enjoyment-joy is also the affect of love and communion with a partner. In many
folks this affect triggers a smile or even laughter. The Mona Lisa and the smiling Buddha are
examples of enjoyment-joy. Most forms of sitting meditation are explorations of the affect
enjoyment-joy (Benson, 1975). This affect is also called contentment, bliss, peacefulness, and
savoring. Many men in western cultures have been socialized to avoid enjoyment-joy because it is
seen as passive and feminine (Mosher, 1991). Thus developed the stereotype of the man after
orgasm rolling over and going to sleep rather than savoring the afterglow experience (Mosher,
1991). When Morin calls for the cultivation of warm sex, he is suggesting to his readers that they
learn how to access enjoyment-joy. Rather than emphasizing focused intensity, warm sex revolves
around calmer experiences of sensuality, affection, pleasure, and playful fun (Morin, 1995, p. 283).
The period during a Taoist Erotic Massage after the Big Draw is the time of savoring bliss and joy
and contentment. All touching stops. Control of breathing is returned to the autonomic nervous
system. The music grows quieter. Some men laugh. Most spend this time savoring embodiment.
Tomkins also identified a neutral affect, surprise-startle, whose function is to clear the human
system of ongoing processing of information to prepare it to attend to suddenly urgent matters.
Finally, he identified seven inherently punishing or negative affects, which he listed in increasing
order of toxicity as shame-humiliation, distresspage 17 ______________________________________________
anguish, disgust, fear-terror, anger-rage, and dissmell. The latter is a term invented by Tomkins
modeled on the affect disgust, indicating a highly toxic emotion that seeks to permanently increase
distance between the person experiencing dissmell and a displeasing other, as in the drawing away
of the face and body from a noxious odor.
Negative affect is part of human experience and human sexual experience. Any of the negative
affects can be involved in a sexual episode as either a component of the scene or as a result of the
scene. It was my stated intention to men who were learning Taoist Erotic Massage that they should
fully experience and release any negative affect they might be holding in their bodies. The
articulation I used at the time was Reichian in nature: The preliminary exercises and the actual
Taoist Erotic Massage can assist you in releasing emotional holding patterns and armoring.
Six of the affects are triggered by patterns of neural firing, or neural stimulation (see Graph A). A
moderately rising increase of neural firing triggers the affect of interest-excitement; a steeper rising
gradient triggers fear-terror; and an extremely steep rising gradient triggers surprise-startle. A
declining gradient of overall neural firing triggers enjoyment-joy.
When the overall level of neural firing in the body increases beyond an optimal level, distressanguish (the affect of too much) is triggered. When the overall level of neural firing is increased
still further, anger-rage (the affect of way too much) is triggered (Tomkins, 1963, 1991). The
interplay of these gradients and levels of neural firing will become important in understanding how
Taoist Erotic Massage works and how it is effective in optimizing sexual functioning.
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The remaining three affects of shame-humiliation, disgust, and dissmell are not triggered by either
gradients or levels of neural firing, but operate as affect and drive-derivative auxiliaries. Tomkins
affect theory posits a unique underpinning to the emotion we commonly know as shame. He
theorizes that shame-humiliation is an affect auxiliary, which is triggered only when there is a
partial interruption in either of the ongoing affects interest-excitement or enjoyment-joy. Partial
interruption means that the reduction in either of these positive affects is incomplete. A complete
interruption indicates a switch to another affect. For example, during the Big Draw, interestexcitement stops, and enjoyment-joy begins. Thus, sexual shame results from thoughts,
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words, or actions that function as an incomplete interruption within an ongoing, positive sexual
scene.
To help the receiver in a TEM avoid getting stuck in shame, the giver is instructed to offer
continuous genital stimulation while guiding the recipient in conscious fast breathing. When the
recipients attention is distracted, shame is produced, according to affect theory. The ongoing
genital stimulation and the constant reminders to continue breathing are structural encouragements
to return from the interruption, to return from the shame episode. Shame usually pulls ones
attention from the present moment.
The affects, disgust and dissmell, have their origins in biological drive mechanisms intended to
protect the human organism from ingestion of contaminated foods and exposure to noxious odors
(Tomkins, 1961; Nathanson, 1992). These two affects have become generalized responses to a
whole range of unpleasant human phenomena (Tomkins, 1961; Nathanson, 1992). These affects are
the source of the sentiment, You make me sick (Nathanson, 1992).
Script Theory
Tomkins script theory posits that affect fuses with cognition to produce rules for human behavior
(Tomkins, 1991). These rulesalso called scripts or interpretive guidelinescontrol scenes. Often,
when these scripts are first formed and used, they are conscious. Some scripts are formed as we
reflect on what is happening or on what has just happened. After these rules have been used in
several scenes, they become unconscious and automatic. Some scripts are formed unconsciously.
Moments of human freedom are those timesthose sceneswhen we can consciously choose the
scripts or rules we will live by. I believe that the elements and
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dynamics that make up a Taoist Erotic Massage allow the person receiving the massage to
experience moments of freedom. This freedom is the ability to choose new scripts to live by. Thus,
we will look more closely at how a script is formed.
Scenes in which scripting takes place must be consequential. Tomkins describes these
transformative scenes as involving intense affect that changes dramatically during the scene. This
change can be in the type of affect or the intensity of affect or both. For example, the change can be
from fear to joy (type of affect) or from moderate interest to intense excitement (degrees of the
same affect). A consequential scene also involves a narrative where we tell ourselves what is
happening or what has just happened. During TEM classes, I shouted instructions to the group,
providing them with a possible choice of narrative. Among the most common narratives I employed
were entreaties to wake up every level of being and to be aware of everything and everyone you
are connected to.
The first segment of a Taoist Erotic Massage activates interest-excitement. The activators of affect
here are fast rhythmic breathing, loud and evocative music, unrelenting genital stimulation, and
shouted verbal guidance. All these elements contribute to an increase in the neural firing. The last
part of a Taoist Erotic Massage activates enjoyment-joy through quieter breathing, no touching
whatsoever, quieter music, and no guidance from the facilitator. Because of these dramatic changes
in affect, a Taoist Erotic Massage can almost always function as a consequential scene, where the
conscious scripting of future behaviors, choices, and cognitions can take place.
The kinds of scripts theoretically possible are infinite, and Tomkins specifies and explicates quite a
number of classes of scripts. The most important for our present
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purposes are the groupings of scripts that Tomkins calls ideological and cost/risk/benefit scripts
(Tomkins, 1991; Demos, 1995).
Ideological scripts specify what is to be considered good, true, and beautiful in human life. Sexual
ideological scripts specify what is real, possible, and valuable in the sexual realm. Ideological
scripts often include should in the script. Here are some examples of ideological scripts: Sex
should be between two married people, a man and a woman. The man is usually more aggressive
than the woman. Men ejaculate during sex.
Taoist Erotic Massage, as it was taught at the Body Electric School, almost always challenged the
receivers sexual, ideological scripts. The massage provided an environment where the receiver had
the opportunity to revise what he considered to be good, true, and beautiful about sex. The
ideological tenets of the TEM scene were: This form of sex is designed for men to produce an
altered state of consciousness different from what they normally experience. It can involve many
persons, all of the same sex. The man receiving is totally passive and doesnt need to ejaculate. In
fact, the man doesnt even need to get an erection to experience interest-excitement and enjoyment-
joy. It was my goal that most men leaving a class or an individual session have their ideological
scripts challenged.
Cost/risk/benefit scripts (Tomkins, 1991; Demos, 1995) deal with scenes where positive benefits are
desired but where one needs to endure cost and risk of negative affect in order to get the positive
result. If there is a low density of negative affect and high density of positive affect, the script is
rewarding. When sexual scripts seek shame, or fear, or terror, or disgust as a result, we call these
scripts punishing. Tomkins named
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five types of cost/risk/benefit scripts, which are listed here in increasing order of toxicity. These
scripts balance costs and risks in seeking out benefits in the various scenes of life.
Affluent scripts deal with scenes that are rewarding in and of themselves. A man who chooses TEM
as a regular mode of his sexual expression because it feels rewarding is living out an affluent script,
which basically deals with interest-excitement and enjoyment-joy. But a man who attends classes in
TEM in order to become more comfortable with his body or in order to dispel feelings of shame is
acting out a damage-reparation script. These are basically therapeutic scripts that seek to address
rewarding scenes that have become damaged in some dimension(s) and to repair the damage.
Limitation-remediation scripts confront those aspects of life which are less than ideal, but which
must be confronted and can be confronted (Tomkins quoted in Demos, 1995, p 391). An elderly
man who feels unattractive due to his age might hire a professional masseur to give him private
TEM sessions. This type of script would also describe the behavior of a man who cannot ejaculate
because of a medical condition, so he chooses a sexual mode that doesnt emphasize ejaculation.
The prominent affect associated with limitation-remediation scripts is distress-anguish.
Decontamination scripts deal with scenes in which some impurity is introduced into a life. It may
have been good before, or it may have always been bad, but it is recognized by the individual as,
not a permanent limitation, but an impurity, a contamination to be purified or gotten rid of
(Tomkins quoted in Demos, 1995, p 391). Ones attempts to decontaminate oneself are, for the most
part, futile. One often finds this script in folks with conservative religious backgrounds who were
taught that all sex
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outside of marriage, especially homosexuality, is sinful, pathological, and illegal. The affect here is
disgust, especially self-disgust for having sexual feelings. Many men and women who carry
debilitating trauma from having been sexually abused act out this sexual script.
Finally, anti-toxic scripts are developed to deal with scenes of intolerable punishment, which must
be either eliminated, attenuated, escaped, or avoidedsomehow destroyed (Tomkins quoted in
Demos, 1995, p 392). Often incidents of severe sexual abuse can result in anti-toxic scripts. I was
taught that masturbation, homosexuality, and sex outside of marriage would result in eternal
damnation. This teaching was designed to cause terror in me and others so we would not transgress
the churchs mandates. We know the toxicity of terror. It is a very punishing response, which we
have to get rid of as soon as possible (Tomkins quoted in Demos, 1995, p. 394). Often, those with
anti-toxic scripts will choose severe measures such as suicide or heroin addiction to deal with the
unrelenting pain. Malans study of suicide and thoughts of suicide among young Mormons who are
tragically tormented because they cannot control their impulses to masturbate describes well
dynamics of anti-toxic scripts (Malan, 2001).
It is the understanding of this writer that TEM assists participants in moving the scripting of their
sexuality towards greater rewards (sexual affluence scripts) and away from punishment
(decontamination or anti-toxic scripts). Most men receiving a TEM are living an affluent script and
invoking damage-repair and limitation-remediation scripts as needed. This dynamic will become
clearer as we look at the three ways Donald Mosher divides affluent sexual scripts.
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Depth of Sexual Involvement Theory
Having been a student both of classical mysticism (Cloud, 1973; Merton, 1949; James, 1969) and of
the more accessible mysticism of the 1960s and 1970s (Leary, 1977, 1979; Tart 1975), I had a
language and context from which to speak to students and clients about the altered states that they
were experiencing during TEM. However, my research into the intricate dynamics of TEM moved
to new levels of understanding when I began to study Moshers depth of sexual involvement theory
(1980, 1995).
Mosher writes:
The theory postulates that it is psychological involvement that makes physical sexual stimulation
effective, that involvement can vary along dimensions of depth from shallow to deep, that there are
three potential dimensions of involvement in the sexual encounter, and that the emotions vary as a
function of both the depth and the preferred dimension of involvement (1980, p. 4).
Moshers theory describes the human sexual response as subjectively experienced by the
participant. Based on Shors hypnosis model (1962), he posits levels of increasing involvement into
the sexual scene. As the participant is absorbed ever more deeply into the sexual experience, he or
she becomes less conscious of the outside world.
Mosher (1980, 1995) has further theorized that the participant engages in one or more of three
distinct affluent sexual scripts as he or she becomes more involved in the sexual scene. These three
separate patterns of behavior that determine the human sexual response are sexual trance scripts,
partner engagement scripts, and sexual role enactment scripts.
These scripts are formed when an individual, living through a series of scenes, chooses or
unconsciously experiences sexual behaviors he or she finds rewarding. Over time, even the
conscious choices become unconscious, but they remain with the
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individual in the form of preferred sexual scripts. Scripts are preferred and rewarding when they
produce the affects interest-excitement and enjoyment-joy. When an individual is equally at home
in all three sexual scripts, his depth of involvement is profound (Mosher, 1980, p.25). Most
individuals have one preferred sexual script that rewards them above the others. Some are equally at
home in two of the three sexual scripts. Mosher names this involvement in one or two sexual scripts
as unbalanced (1980, p.26). Profound intimacy involves the ability to go deep into all three sexual
paths. Your limitations using sexual trance, partner engagement, and role play limit sexual
intimacy with your partner. If you can use only one (or two) sexual style(s)and only at superficial
depthsex never becomes profoundly intimate (Schnarch, 1997, p. 256). In total orgasmic
involvement all three dimensions are present (Mosher, 1980, p.26).
The structure of Taoist Erotic Massage classes included partner engagement exercises and skills, but
most of the teaching guided men in playing the role of the erotic masseur and accessing sexual
trance. Below I will explore in more depth each of Moshers sexual paths and how they help us
Engrossed Sexual Role Enactment. Here the participant jumps fully into the role with enthusiasm.
In TEM classes, men at this level of involvement touched with the intention of giving their partners
the best massage possible. There was a sincere desire to learn the whole massage structure.
Entranced Sexual Role Enactment. Here the actor, because he has mastered the sexual skills needed
to enact the role, merges with the role. At this level, giving a TEM becomes a dance where there is
little conscious thought. The student merges into the role of erotic masseur. In other words, he feels
and experiences himself as an erotic
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masseur. This usually involves a deep connection with the men he is touching. I gave a special
name to men who were able to go this deep and deeper into the role of giver of sexual joy: sacred
intimates. (See more about sacred intimates in Chapter Five.)
Ecstatic Sexual Role Enactment. This ecstatic level of sexual role enactment happened frequently in
TEM classes. Mosher writes:
Ecstatic sexual role enactment is unusual and infrequent. It is characteristic of fully developed
trance states, transpersonal experiences and archaic or mystical unions. In their actions they lose
their sense of consciousness and volition. They feel transported and transformed. The self is lost.
Time duration is distorted and seems eternal. Feelings are oceanic. The sense of unity or oneness
can be transpersonal embracing both the unique partner and the archetypal image. The experience is
described as a peak (1980, p. 8).
For many men, experiencing this astonishing depth of involvement with the role of erotic masseur
was life changing. Between 1986 and 1992, over three hundred men chose to get further training as
masseurs or erotic masseurs after taking a single class in TEM.
The Sexual Trance Script
When a human is sexually aroused, he or she experiences reality differently from normal, waking
consciousness. Mosher describes this movement into a sexual altered state of consciousness as the
fading of the Generalized Reality-Orientation (GRO) concurrent with the construction of a Special
Sexual-Orientation (SSO). The special sexual-orientation is a temporary schema which orients
awareness of sensations and emotions toward the realm of social-sexual meaning. The emotions
of excitement and joy become specific sexual excitement and sexual enjoyment (Mosher, 1980, p.
12).
Sexual trance, according to Mosher, moves through seven levels of deepening involvement. (See
Table 2.) Although few men in TEM classes had no ability to let go
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of normal consciousness, some held on to parts of their ordinary reality by keeping their eyes open
even after they had been instructed to close their eyes or wear blindfolds. Others avoided going into
altered states by usurping the role of the masseur, focusing their attention on touching the man who
was massaging them. Perhaps the most common technique to avoid going into trance was to think
about what was happening and to make judgments.
When a mans attention is finally captured by the erotic touch as well as by the excitement of the
whole scene, he lets go of ordinary reality. Mosher calls this the onset of altered states of
consciousness (1980, p.13). At this depth of involvement, a man can let his defenses down because
he feels safe. As the involvement deepened in a TEM through increased excitement, rhythmic
breathing, and intense genital stimulation, the
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man alternated his placement of attention from sensory experiences to the music, from his own
excitement to the meaning he was investing in the experience.
At the deepest levels of sexual trance, the mans volitional concentration is left behind. Now each
ingredient experience fascinates the person, attention flows with experience, is drawn by experience
as the person delights and revels in the sexual experience (Mosher, 1980, p.14). At this level of
trance, only emergency intrusions, such as a fire raging through the building, could reawaken
normal reality. In at least ten instances, massage tables collapsed at the apex of a TEM. In most of
these situations, the massage continued on the floor. The Special Sexual-Orientation was too
overwhelming to be ended by the collapse of a table. Often insight and revelations accompanied the
deepest levels of absorption into erotic trance. Some men screamed, laughed, and cried without selfconsciousness.
It was common for students to report to me in speaking or writing that they had gone deeper into
erotic altered states than they had ever gone before. One might hypothesize that most of these men
had been living partner engagement sexual scripts or role enactment scripts, and had never before
fully explored the possibilities of sexual trance.
Partner Engagement Script
The partner engagement script is the sexual path promoted both by religion and by civil society.
Mosher writes that Depth of involvement with a sex partner in human sexual response is a function
of (a) the strength and salience of the bond between the partners, (b) the extent to which the core of
the persons personality participates in the sexual contact episode, and (c) the extent to which the
sexual contact episode embodies
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profound meaning (1980, p. 22). Since most of the men in TEM classes did not know each other
before the class, one might surmise that the partner engagement script was not a significant part of
the experience. However, partner engagement was central to the TEM experience.
I named the relationship between and among men in TEM classes as sacred brothers. I defined a
sacred brother as someone who was present to assist in the transformation of others. During the
two days of the Celebrating the Body Erotic (CBE)
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class, participants were always referred to as sacred brother. It was common for students to use this
phrase in referring to each other.
The relationship between classmates was further defined by the constant repetition of the prayer
All My Relations. The sentiment in this prayerwe are all connectedwas used to define the
relationship among classmates. At the beginning of the first day of CBE, all men were taught the
American Sign Language hand movements for All My Relations. This prayer was repeated or
signed at the end of every exchange between sacred brothers in the two days of CBE. The naming
of participants as sacred brothers, and the naming of their relationships as connected, generated a
bond among the participants.
The meaning of the communal human sexual response was repeatedly expressed in a prayer spoken
several times before and during the massage: As I receive pleasure, so the whole universe receives
pleasure through me. This prayer both honored the sensual experience and placed it within a
context of boundless significance.
Every man in the class spent a considerable amount of time eye gazing. This was the most
significant partner engagement exercise. When they looked into each others eyes, they were
instructed to honor whatever connection they might recognize, but not to look for any specific
relationship. Students were also taught the greeting, I am another you. This salutation facilitated
connection with another person.
Partner engagement in TEM classes ranged from Moshers level four to level six. (See Table 3.) In
level four, partners engaged each other in a superficial, functional manner. The stated intention of a
TEM was that the masseur would give his partner pleasure through a variety of touches. This
correlates with Moshers level four. In level
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five, human beings connected with each other deeply. Evidence of this level of connection can be
found in the Body Electric networks that have sprung up all over the world. In Moshers level six,
the partner and self become universal man and woman. I heard reports of this level of partner
involvement perhaps a dozen times during the period of this history. All the partner involvement
described above was unusual for a gathering of men that started as strangers.
Three Dimensional Involvement
Taoist Erotic Massage both in classes and in individual sessions elicited profound involvement in
sexual role enactment, in erotic trance, and in partner engagement. Since this three-dimensional
involvement produced enormous changes in affect, both the man giving and the man receiving the
massage had the opportunity to experience new erotic guidelines as deeply rewarding within the
confines of a consequential scene.
Consequential scenes are scenes where scripts are formed or changed (Mosher, 1998).
Consequential scenes offer freedom. In other words, a man receiving a TEM experiences massive
changes in the intensity of excitement and then, after the Big Draw, experiences a dramatic change
in the type of affect, i.e., from interest-excitement to enjoyment-joy. The man giving the massage
also experiences dramatic changes from interest-excitement to enjoyment-joy. Profound threedimensional involvement produces rewarding and consequential results.
In this chapter, I have used Silvan Tomkins affect and script theories and Donald Moshers depth of
sexual involvement theory to offer a basic understanding of the dynamics of a Taoist Erotic
Massage. More importantly, I have told the story of how Claire Arnesens erotic meditations
provided the foundation for the transformational
page 34 ______________________________________________
aspects of this massage. In the next chapter, I discuss how Alan Brauer and Donna Brauer, Mantak
Chia, and Harley Swiftdeer contributed to the development of TEM.
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Chapter Four
OTHER INFLUENCES
Many of the concepts and experiences that influenced the development of Taoist Erotic Massage
occurred within the merging of Western and Eastern thought. What may be strange to some readers
is faithful to those immersed in those realities. Various cultures and societies have their own
definitions of orgasm.
In this dissertation, and in the sources in the bibliography, one can find the following terms: fullbody orgasm, extended sexual orgasm, breath orgasm, fire breath orgasm, energy orgasm, and nonejaculatory orgasm. None of the above terms are the equivalent of Masters and Johnson's
physiological orgasm, those few seconds of involuntary, muscular contractions at the peak of sexual
excitement.
This diverse use of the term "orgasm" is one significant reason I have embraced Tomkins' affect
theory. Tomkins' theory explains most of the non-Masters-and-Johnson-type orgasms as an interplay
of the affects interest-excitement and enjoyment-joy (Tomkins, 1961). All of the above are called
orgasms because they are analogues for the orgasm described by Masters and Johnson in
physiological terms. However, each has its own nuance. A full-body orgasm manifests throughout
the body. An extended sexual orgasm is defined by its duration. A breath orgasm and a fire breath
orgasm are affective states produced by breathing techniques. Any of the preceding could be an
energy orgasm, which is defined by the intensity of the experience. A non-ejaculatory orgasm also
can be any of the above, as long as ejaculation does not occur.
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Until I discovered Extended Sexual Orgasm by Alan Brauer and Donna Brauer (1983), I didnt
know anyone else who was researching prolonged orgasmic states, or erotic rebirthing, as I was
calling it in 1982 and 1983. The Brauers described full-body orgasms in their clients similar to those
I was facilitating in men during periods of erotic massage and rhythmic breathing. Their methods
combined the best communication techniques from Masters and Johnsons couples work with Taoist
sexual practices similar to those I had integrated into my massages. The controlled breathing
rhythms the Brauers taught were designed to help the receiver bring attention to his or her body.
The chaotic breathwork during a TEM also awakened awareness of the senses, but a more
foundational goal of the breathing was to flood the body with an excess of oxygen, which resulted
in feelings of enjoyment-joy.
I have always been interested in what Mosher (1998) and other Tomkins scholars have called
consequential scenes, those moments of freedom where we have the opportunity to make changes in
our thoughts or in our behavior. Although I had been attracted to many of the new therapies
introduced in the1960s and 1970s such as LSD psychotherapy (Caldwell, 1968; Grof, 1980) and
primal scream (Janov, 1980), my search in the 1980s became one of transformation through sex.
My initiation to a truly effective therapy had been Claire Arnesens masturbation meditations. I also
took note of Baghwan Shree Rajneeshs assertion that three hours in a full-body orgasmic state
would transform forever a mans desire for normal ejaculation sex (Rajneesh, 1979). As I sought out
therapies that involved sexual orgasm, I discovered the realm of sex magic (Symonds and
Grant, 1969; Kramer, 1993). The basic technique was simple: As
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you start into and during your orgasm, visualize, or feel, clearly the result you wish to manifest.
My interest in sex magic led me to the work of Harley Swiftdeer, whose heart pleasuring exercise
reaffirmed for me the Taoist teaching that the energy generated in our genitals could and should be
circulated throughout the body (Swiftdeer, 1984). The central action of heart pleasuring is the
circulation of energy between heart and genitals. Swiftdeer encouraged advanced practitioners to
combine the heart pleasuring exercise with the fire breath, that produces a dramatic and very deep
orgastic experience (Swiftdeer, 1984, p. 82, 90). In the Personal Quodoushka Magick Ceremony,
Swiftdeer gives detailed instructions for creating that which you need in your life (abundance,
healing, growth, job opportunities, relationships, etc.) (1984, p. 170). After discernment, to be sure
ones requests are in alignment with the cosmic (1984, p. 174) individuals or couples do the heart
pleasuring exercise. During orgasm, see yourself having actualized your request(s) and focus on
this during the entire orgasm. When orgasm is complete, release the image and do not think of it
again (1984, p. 174). Not only did Swiftdeers ceremony spell out for me the elements of a
transformational sceneintense change in affect while holding the vision of what is possiblebut
it further reminded me of the importance of connecting the heart with the genitals. Many of the men
I was giving TEM to in the early 1980s were having profound heart-opening experiences. Thanks to
Swiftdeer, the importance of the heart-genital connection became central to the TEM experience.
Mantak Chia teaches the Big Draw as a way of stopping ejaculation by clenching the
pubococcygeus muscles at the base of the genitals. The clenching of the muscles
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pumps the orgasmic energy through a circular pathway, up the center of the back of the body to the
head, and then down the center of the front of the body back to the genitals. Mantak Chia calls this
pathway the Microcosmic Orbit (Chia, 1984). I began to use a version of the Big Draw in my
classes in 1988 after learning it from Valnn Dayne in a training on Ecstasy Breathing. Dayne
taught me to hold my breath while contracting all the muscles in my body. I taught my students this
Big Draw first without genital stimulation, then within the context of a TEM. In advanced classes, I
would have students do two or more Big Draws during a TEM. The change in affect during the Big
Draw from excitement to bliss was dramatic and abrupt.
Many men reported to me that, instead of circulating energy within the body at the point of the Big
Draw, they felt their consciousness shoot up through the tops of their heads and out of their bodies.
They would then experience themselves re-entering their bodies a few minutes later. This
experience appears to be similar to what the Tibetan Buddhists call the ejection of consciousness,
which propels a persons life force from his or her body at the moment of death. The Tibetan Book
of the Dead begins with the statement that one doesnt need the liberating guidance found in that
text if one has learned this faster form of liberation (Tibetan, 1975).
In this chapter, I have related how the work of Alan Brauer and Donna Brauer, Mantak Chia, and
Harley Swiftdeer has contributed to the development of TEM. In the next chapter, I tell the story of
the development of TEM.
Chapter Five
THE EVOLUTION OF TAOIST EROTIC MASSAGE
The Sexual Celibate
When I was seventeen years old, I left the home of my parents and my life as a marathon
masturbator to join the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious community also known as the
Jesuits. I totally embraced the Jesuit ideal: To be a man for others. For years, I was sequestered
from contemporary culture, while being taught ancient meditation practices and being guided into a
personal relationship with God. The Jesuits who trained me were authentic yet wounded, repressed
but unabashedly ecstatic. When I say ecstatic, I mean they were intoxicated with the possibilities of
being human. Although masturbation and all other forms of sexual expression were forbidden, I was
being initiated into the multidimensional path of the ecstatic. My life was to be lived in a heroic
manner for the honor and glory of God.
As a Jesuit, I had one full-body massage in 1974. At the time, I was enrolled in a four-year Master
of Divinity program at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. For years, I had been walking
an ecstatic but nonembodied path, studying literature, psychology, philosophy, and mathematics.
One day at lunch, John Coleman, my academic advisor, announced to a group of students that he
had completed training in Esalen massage the previous weekend. He was seeking bodies to practice
on. I immediately volunteered. I was nervous about being completely naked, although I knew the
massage was not to be erotic. Still, I worried I might get sexually aroused.
John calmed my fears by telling me that this massage was about bringing my consciousness into my
body. He suggested that I allow his hands to guide my placement
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of attention. He also said the more I surrendered to the experience, the more I would profit from the
massage.
I had had many ecstatic experiences as a Jesuit, but this massage woke up levels of consciousness I
didnt know existed. I remember thinking after the massage, That was the most important two
hours of my whole life! The Esalen massage had introduced me to a totally embodied trance state.
For two hours I felt totally present within my physical being. For months afterwards, I delighted in
a feeling of wholeness as if the massage had woven together pieces of myself that had never before
been connected. I knew I could not continue to ignore this realm of feeling states and bodily
sensations in order to remain celibate. In reading William James (1969) for a course in mystical
experiences, I came across a passage that helped me gain insight into my massage experience.
Although so similar to states of feeling, mystical states seem to those who experience them to be
also states of knowledge. They are states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive
intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate
though they remain; and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority for after-time.
(James, 1969, p.371)
Even today, I look back almost thirty years to those two hours of massage from John Coleman as a
place of great liberation in my life. I did not understand then that the illuminations and revelations
of that massage would transport me out of the Society of Jesus.
However, at age twenty-eight, I painstakingly came to realize that the Jesuits were not the
community of men for me. I didnt have the required gift of celibacy. In Moshers terminology,
the role of the celibate wasnt my sexual role. I finally
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acknowledged that my special way of loving and serving others involved my sexuality. The Jesuits,
master teachers that they are, taught me to teach. Experts in discernment, they showed me how to
make good decisions. Administering and teaching in over twenty universities and thirty high
schools, the Jesuits imprinted on me the importance of founding your own institution of learning to
get your message out. In 1976, I ended my extraordinary, ten-year experiment in living as a Jesuit.
Self-Reichian Therapy
I moved from living a celibate seminary existence to New York City to explore what it was to be
gay. There I discovered I had moved into a neighborhood defined by sex. All the men I knew were
constantly having sex, everywhere. My favorite sex venues included the Eagle, the Gloryhole, the
Spike, the Everard Baths, Mans Country Baths, and even the Hudson River piers. I discovered I
liked being sexually aroused for long periods of time. I felt my arousal was vibrating dead spots,
constrictions, and fears from my body. I later called this my period of self-Reichian therapy. I
brought to my sexual encounters a heart wide open from my years as a Jesuit, which contributed to
my astonishingly deep experiences. Even when the connections were anonymous, I felt my
partner(s) and I were assisting each other in exploring what was possible as human beings.
My first year in New York City taught me that the goal of sex was not ejaculation. I recognized that
my primary mode of sexual involvement was trance. This was logical for a man who was basically
kinesthetic. While, according to Bandler and Grinder, most humans learn from seeing and hearing, I
process information through feeling states. This way of sensing data is called kinesthetic in
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (1981). As
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a kinesthetic person, I developed profound empathic skills. In other words, I learned to feel what
others were feeling. This ability allowed me to follow not only my own bliss, but everyone elses
bliss also. This aptitude of feeling levels of excitement and joy in anothers body was the primary
tool I used in the development of TEM.
Soon after I arrived in NYC, I met Carlos Fernandez, who became my lover and my guide into the
ways of being part of an ecstatic couple. With him, I first explored the depths of partner
engagement. Both of us felt that having enormous amounts of sex with others, celebrating sexual
trance, contributed to our own intimate connection.
During a month-long visit to California in the spring of 1979, I took an Esalen massage class for
gay men from Milo Jarvis in his home on Sanchez Street in San Francisco. The four-evening class
was nonsexual but intensely erotic for me. The long, sensuous strokes of my classmates triggered in
me delightful trance states. I became aware that there were pleasurable ways other than sex to
access physical trance. For the first time, I was able to relish the role of masseur. I returned to NYC
and immediately offered a weekend class in Esalen massage for men in Dignity, a group of gay
Catholics. This was the first massage class I ever taught. I was in awe of the peacefulness, the
relaxation, and the pleasure the men offered to each other through conscious touch. When I returned
to California in the summer of 1979, Milo Jarvis invited me to assist him in teaching his Esalen
massage class. He said he thought I would make a good teacher of massage.
Educating the Caress
I returned to Berkeley to complete the masters degree I had begun as a Jesuit in 1972-75. After
three years of nourishing, ecstatic, nonstop sex in New York City, I
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wanted the focus of my master of divinity studies to be erotic spirituality. I also enrolled in the
Berkeley School of Massage. It had been six years since my massage initiation by John Coleman. I
didnt plan on becoming a professional masseur. The kinesthetic part of me demanded I get more
massage and that I find a way to give touch. Since I couldnt afford regular massage rates, I enrolled
in a one-hundred-hour massage certification training for total tuition of $300. That hundred-hour
massage training has had more impact on my life than all the thousands of class hours I endured
during my undergraduate and graduate education (Kramer in Stubbs, 1999b, p. 17).
After I graduated from massage school in the fall of 1979, I wanted to learn bodywork skills beyond
the Swedish massage techniques in which I was certified. I first attended the Acupressure Workshop
to learn Jin Shin Do. I took their first course in acupressure, which taught forty of the most effective
points on the body. I repeated it three times, because other students would be sensing energy with
their fingers at various points, but I felt nothing. I thought, This is a lot like being Catholic. You
have to believe when you dont feel anything. Eventually, I started to sense energy flows in my
own body and then in the people I was working on. This sensitivity to energy was greatly enhanced
when I began studying rebirthing, or conscious breathing, with Claire Arnesen. (See Chapter
Three.) I also took classes in other forms of bodywork: Trager, Shiatsu, Watsu, Orthobionomy,
Feldenkreis (1991), Reflexology, and others.
I began offering professional massage sessions immediately after being certified as a professional
masseur in the fall of 1979. After each class I took in various forms of bodywork, I incorporated
those techniques into my individual bodywork sessions. I never gave the same massage twice.
Creativity was important to me in my work. Many
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of my clients appreciated this versatility. Although some of my clients requested sex during the
sessions, I refused. Though versatile, I had no intention of including sex with massage.
That changed during my year of study with Claire Arnesen. Her teaching to me was that my
personal sexual transformation could be ecstatic. Her meditations for me involved breathing,
masturbating, and visualizing situations where my energy was constricted. I found breathing
rhythmically while sexually aroused was a powerful tool for personal transformation. I began
exploring how I could integrate this into my private massage practice.
Private Sessions
I remember vividly my first TEM paying client. I had been experimenting with breath and erotic
touch for almost a year with friends when Fernando came to me for a Jin Shin Do acupressure
session in the fall of 1982. He was so moved by my acupressure skills that I felt confident in asking
him if he would like to experience erotic rebirthing. I explained that it involved a fast breath
along with genital stimulation. In the dozen sessions I did with Fernando over the next few months,
I learned how powerful and engaging the combination of breath with erotic touch could be. In each
session, Fernando seemed to go deeper into the experience. Both of us were surprised by how
excited and ecstatic he got. Those sessions emboldened me to offer TEM to others of my regular
clients. Just a few months after I started offering TEM, I was seeing more than twenty clients a
week for two-hour sessions.
I remember the first time I ever massaged a man with AIDS. Jeffrey had been coming to see me for
lower back pain for almost three months. He had been in an
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automobile accident, so insurance was paying for his sessions. When he didnt come for his regular
session, I called a mutual friend who informed me that Jeffrey had been diagnosed with AIDS. I
was paralyzed with fear. I had been touching AIDS for three months. I wasnt sure I could continue
as a masseur. When Jeffrey called to confirm his next appointment, I told him I looked forward to
seeing him and touching him. My compassion totally overwhelmed my fear. After that next session
with Jeffrey, I never again experienced fear of touching someone with AIDS.
Although I offered massage and breath sessions to women in my private practice, I declined
requests to do Taoist Erotic Massage, because I didnt feel I had enough understanding of womens
sexuality. Carol was the first woman I did a Taoist Erotic Massage on. In 1984, she came for a
massage session. She said she knew I did erotic work with men, and she wanted to experience the
same work.
She had recently had an abortion, and her boyfriend had abandoned her, and she felt judged and
abused by the male doctor who performed the abortion. She said she needed to reconnect with men
and with her vulva. This was what she hoped would be accomplished in a Taoist Erotic Massage
with me. Trusting my own intuitions, I gave her a full-body massage and then guided her breathing
with my own as I sensitively caressed her vulva. As I touched, she got angry, and started screaming
and writhing. I had been through many similar emotional releases with other clients, so I just kept
massaging her vulva and reminding her to breathe. The anger turned to tears and, after a few
minutes, to a quiet peacefulness. After she had dressed, Carol said, I got exactly what I came for.
She expressed surprise at how light she felt.
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In my private sessions with clients, I often didnt talk a lot before the session. I felt the massage was
a more powerful medium than words. That changed when a man claimed I raped him. A man about
my age came to me for massage. He told me he taught in a local Catholic high school, and coached
the boys swim team. I remember mentioning that I, too, had taught high school for a few years.
That was the extent of our conversation together. I then gave him a very deep massage on his back.
When he turned over, I requested that he breathe with me and I proceeded to give him a Taoist
Erotic Massage. He moaned and writhed as he breathed. He seemed to have a powerful session.
Afterwards, he said, You raped me. I didnt come here for an erotic experience. Rather than argue
that he seemed to enjoy the whole experience or rather than suggest that he could have told me to
stop, I was dumbfounded. I apologized as he left. From that session on, I was committed to having a
verbal contract with every client about what was going to happen in each session. When a new
client made an appointment on the phone, I always asked, What is the experience you are
seeking? I then articulated in detail how I would work with him. The not-so-surprising end to this
story is that the swim coach came back many times for sessions after the rape. Each time, he
clearly requested a Taoist Erotic Massage.
The Founding of Body Electric
After giving over one thousand individual massages, I knew I wanted to start a school of massage
and rebirthing. Claire had agreed to teach the rebirthing part of the trainings. I needed to hone my
massage teaching skills, so I offered one massage class a week for a year beginning in February
1983. In each class I taught a different type of massage. (See Appendix A.) I would spend several
hours each week researching how to
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best teach foot massage or face massage or whatever was the body part of the week. By the end
of 1983, I felt confident in my massage teaching skills. During this year I also took a course at my
local community college in anatomy and physiology. As a teacher in a school of massage, I needed
to know the body well.
In March 1984, after more than a year of preparation, I founded the Body Electric School of
Massage and Rebirthing. This school was started to offer professional certification in massage,
acupressure, and rebirthing in a nonhomophobic environment. As part of my own massage training,
I had attended classes at six other San Francisco area massage schools. All but one I found subtly or
blatantly homophobic. So I created a safe place for gay men, lesbians, and their friends to study
massage. I named the school after Walt Whitmans ecstatic vision of the human form, body
electric.
Since the massage profession was so adamant about separating massage from any sexual context, I
was determined not to jeopardize my license from the State of California permitting me to certify
professional massage therapists. Although I had been offering TEM in private sessions for more
than a year, I had no intention of teaching erotic massage at The Body Electric. By 1984, it was
clear that safe-sex education was crucial for the gay male population of the Bay Area. Still, I didnt
realize the contribution I could make. I was afraid. Throughout my life, the fear-based part of my
personality motivated me to seek safety. This applied even to sex. I have always despised the term
safer sex. As a paranoid person, I wanted myself and others to engage in totally safe sex. This
desire for safety in sex motivated me to develop TEM in my private practice, but my fears kept me
from teaching it.
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As director of the Body Electric School, I responded to the AIDS crisis in several ways during 1984
and 1985. First, I offered all volunteers in AIDS agencies a discount of 50% off the tuition to
become a certified masseur or masseuse. This contributed to massage becoming a regular part of the
care of people with AIDS, and also helped counteract the intense fear of touching people with
AIDS. In addition, I required that all students getting certified needed to have training in touching
people with life-threatening illnesses. I hired Irene Smith, a masseuse for people with AIDS and an
associate of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, to teach this part of the certification program. Body Electric
was the first massage school in the country to offer such training for its students.
I regularly taught Playing with Myself, Playing with Others, a class offering safe sex information
from Taoist, Tantric, and Reichian perspectives. (See brochure in Appendix A.) I also responded to
the fear surrounding AIDS by offering a weekly Group Oil Massage night for gay and bisexual
men. This three-hour class began with a period of stretching and breathing and introductions. The
massage involved four men at each table. Each man directed the other three men in giving him a
half-hour massage. My directions were that a mans genitals could be included in the massage, but
he should not be masturbated with the goal of ejaculation. During the seven years that Body Electric
offered this weekly event, thousands of men gave and received quality, nurturing touch.
Teaching Erotic Massage
In October 1985, I lectured the student body at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human
Sexuality on Enhancing and Prolonging Orgasm in Men. I had been invited by the dean of the
school, Wardell Pomeroy, co-author with Kinsey of the two
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landmark sex studies of the mid-twentieth century. I presented information and exercises that I had
been teaching for two years in the class Playing with Myself, Playing with Others.
I first guided the students in some stretching and breathing exercises, alerting them to the fact that
sex was always better after stretching and other physical exercise. I asked students, How many of
you have had an orgasm from breathing? I then explained energy orgasms and how this full-body
vibratory state differed from ejaculation in men. I guided the students in breathing, explaining that
breathing is a powerful way to access energy orgasms. I spoke about the transformative nature of
these orgasms in Tantric, Taoist, and Reichian traditions. I even described some of the experiences
my clients were having during TEM. When a man simultaneously has an energy orgasm from
breathing and a sexual orgasm from touch, he can experience what William James calls a mystical
state. I didnt have an adequate conceptual model at that time to explain more clearly what my
clients and I were experiencing. Coincidentally, three days after I spoke at the Institute, Donald
Mosher lectured the student body on his Depth of Sexual Involvement Theory. It would be
another eleven years before I would discover Moshers theory and the work of his colleague, Silvan
Tomkins. (See Chapter Three.)
By 1986, I could no longer allow my personal paranoia to prevent me from offering hands-on
classes in safe-sex education. The gay men in my sex education lectures were clamoring for lab
periods. For three years I had been offering about twenty private sessions a week in TEM. During
these years of experimenting and constantly refining my technique, I developed confidence in the
effectiveness of this massage. One of my regular clients had given his favorite strokes names like
Rock
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Around the Clock and Twist and Shout. I decided that giving clever names for different ways to
touch the penis was one way to begin teaching this massage. I also learned from the Group Oil
Massage Night that being touched by several different men in one massage added to the excitement.
So six times in 1986, I offered a three-hour class in TEM. Three hours does not allow much time for
classmates to get to know each other. Although students liked the classes, very few experienced the
profound altered states my clients were having in my individual sessions.
The men in these first TEM classes were learning a pleasurable, no-risk way of being sexual. I
knew this was more important than teaching conventional massage classes, so I developed an entire
safe sex program focusing on TEM early in 1987. I called it The Dear Love of Comrades
Trainings for Gay and Bisexual Men in Tantric/Taoist and Reichian approaches to love and sex.
(See 1987 brochure in Appendix A.) I was very clear about my motivations and intentions for these
sex classes. I wrote in the brochure:
These are tragic times. The epidemic has spawned fear in our minds, in our hearts, and in our
genitals. I call these dark times: The Big Constriction. Mead Morgan, the man who tracks the
spread of the disease for the National Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, clearly states the
governments strategy: We are commissioned to stop the spread of this thing. As far as we are
concerned, the greater the fear, the better. The government is spending millions of dollars on
education to make you afraid of your own sexuality. The government wants you to be afraid of
ecstatically connecting with other men. The governments solution is The Big Constriction, the
greater the fear, the better.
The Dear Love of Comrades is dedicated to the banishment and healing of fear through erotic
celebration of ourselves and others. Information and techniques in our seminars come from Tantric
and Taoist traditions and from the work of Wilhelm Reich. All of these traditions celebrate eroticism
as a healing vibration in the body. We invite you to step out of the Dark Ages, open your heart, and
celebrate the Dear Love of Comrades. (See complete brochure in Appendix A.)
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Public Exposure
Not long after I distributed this brochure advertising sex classes, two policemen from the Oakland
vice squad visited me at Body Electric. This was the scenario I had most feared. Although I was
panicked, I casually invited the officers to sit down and asked them how I could be of assistance.
The older one said they wanted to know about the erotic massage classes the school was teaching. I
handed each of them a purple Dear Love of Comrades brochure. These massage classes are safe
sex trainings for gay men. Taoist Erotic Massage teaches men a way to be sexual without
ejaculating. The officers looked stunned. Then the older one said, Theres no ejaculation involved
in these classes? I think weve heard enough. They got up and left not five minutes after they had
arrived. I could hear their thoughts, We cant bust these folks. They arent having real sex.
This 1987 brochure was the last time I advertised my sex classes as a response to AIDS. Brochures
for future classes invited gay and bisexual men to participate in rituals based on Native American,
Taoist, and Tantric traditions. Although all Body Electric classes taught safe sex in the midst of the
epidemic, they were better known as places where gay and bisexual men could access the wisdom
of their bodies as well as celebrate new ways of coming together.
In March of 1987, The AdvocateThe National Gay Newsmagazine, offered the first national
exposure to the erotic massage program at Body Electric in a cover article. (See complete article in
Appendix C.) This publicity led to invitations for me to teach in cities around the United States. In
October, 1987, I was invited to New Mexico to teach a weekend experience for a group of gay men,
a network of friends who had been
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meeting together for almost ten years. They invited me to offer a class about how to have sex with
your friends. I committed to leading them through two days of safe erotic rituals exploring the Dear
Love of Comrades. I used the life of a man from birth to death as the structure for the two days. We
began by celebrating our first breaths. The ritual evolved into ecstatic group rhythmic breathing. In
the afternoon, we acknowledged that hormonal quantum leap called puberty with laughter, touch,
and more breathing. In one of the exercises, we role-played the first time we had touched another
boy sexually or had allowed another boy to touch us. On the second day of the class, we celebrated
the fullness of being men within the context of a TEM. In the quiet time after the end of the
massage, I led a meditation about letting go into death.
The class structure I taught that weekend in Albuquerque worked so well that I began offering it in
Oakland and in other cities around the United States. I called the class Healing the Body Erotic.
This two-day structure allowed men more depth of involvement in the experience than the threehour or the one-day classes I had been teaching. The majority of men were having experiences
similar to what men were having in my private practice. Still, mens experiences receiving a TEM
varied greatly. As I brought the massage to an end in classes, there were always some men who
were just beginning to go deeper. Their experience was limited by a structure that served the
majority of participants. The Big Draw solved this dilemma.
The Big Draw
In early 1988, Valnn Dayne, a breath teacher from San Diego, enrolled in Healing the Body Erotic.
At the end of his erotic massage, he took a deep breath and held it while clenching the muscles of
his body, slightly lifting his head and feet. He held that
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big squeeze for about thirty seconds, then fell back onto the massage table into bliss. He told me
later he called that maneuver the Big Draw. Two weeks later, I traveled to San Diego to learn the
Big Draw technology from Dayne. Ecstasy Breathing, the process Dayne taught, involved three
steps: a thirty-minute period of rhythmic breathing, the Big Draw, then time for savoring.
Immediately, I began experimenting with the Big Draw during Taoist Erotic Massages. Since this
clenching almost always took those receiving the massage into a profound altered state, I chose to
use this technique as Dayne had suggested, as the climax of the massage. I guided both the touching
and the breathing of the TEM to a frenzied pitch. I then had the receivers do the clench. After the
Big Draw, the masseurs would stop all touching. They were instructed to witness whatever was
going on with the man they had been touching. Often this state was quiet and blissful; sometimes it
was intensely emotional with laughing or crying. Frequently, men laughed and cried at the same
time. For many men, the dramatic change in affect from excitement to bliss during the Big Draw
created the opportunity for a choice. Many experienced TEM as a consequential scene during
which they could make changes in their normal patterns of behavior (Mosher, 1998).
After I had offered two years of Healing the Body Erotic weekends, my friend Annie Sprinkle
suggested that healing might mean that something needed to be fixed. What if someone wants to
attend your class just to celebrate his sexuality and his body? she asked me. I immediately changed
the title of the course to Celebrating the Body Erotic.
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Annie also suggested that I offer TEM classes for women. I told her that I needed to do more
research on touching a woman. She immediately volunteered her vulva for my research. Over the
next few years, we developed TEM for women. The massage we developed was first taught at the
Cosmic Orgasm Awareness Week in 1993 at Wildwood. Isa Magdalena and P.K. Kozel, two of the
women who attended Cosmic Orgasm Awareness week, immediately began to teach TEM for
women through The Body Electric and through their own organization called XOX. Annie Sprinkle
also taught TEM for women throughout the United States and Europe. Not until 1999 did Annie and
I put Taoist Erotic Massage for women on video (Sprinkle & Kramer, 1999).
Taoist Erotic Massage for men seemed to focus on excitement. The stimulation before the Big Draw
usually lasted more than an hour while the savoring afterwards lasted about ten minutes. Annie
Sprinkle changed this dynamic in the womens massage. She gave equal time to the stimulation
before the Big Draw and the savoring afterwards. If the touching lasted an hour, the women who
received had an hour to savor their experience. This was a most important innovation.
The Path of the Sacred Intimate
I was constantly experimenting with the structure of Celebrating the Body Erotic (CBE) and the
structure of TEM. My criterion was to retain anything that facilitated the men in my classes going
deeper into altered states. I tried to eliminate any elements that inhibited profound altered states.
While most of my focus was on teaching sexual trance, I started to notice how deeply some men
would go into the role of erotic masseur. At least three or four men in each Celebrating the Body
Erotic (CBE) lost ordinary consciousness while giving the TEM. Some even expressed a feeling of
being connected
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to their lifes work. Between 1987 and 1992, almost three hundred men decided to become
masseurs, erotic masseurs, and even prostitutes, after they experienced giving a TEM. Mosher
writes that the deepest levels of such role involvement embrace the archetypal image. Leaving
behind their own identity, they become the role and are engrossed in the script.... On questioning,
persons will reveal the nonvoluntary, nondeliberate, intensely feelingful and meaningful nature of
the engagement (1980, p. 8). I named this role with many titles: sexual healer, erotic shaman,
facilitator of erotic states, erotic masseur. But the name that seemed most appropriate was sacred
prostitute, the bringer of sexual joy (Qualls-Corbett, 1988, p. 34).
Men who discovered a resonance with the role of erotic masseur, with the role of bringer of sexual
joy, began contacting me, requesting guidance. In order to research more deeply the role of erotic
masseur and the possibilities of erotic trance, I organized a six-day gathering in June 1990, at
Wildwood, a secluded retreat center 100 miles north of San Francisco. Fifty-five men attended that
first Dear Love of Comrades Intensive. In my welcoming talk to the men who had come from all
over the United States, I named our time together Sacred Prostitute Summer Camp and a Six-Day
Maithuna Ritual. The Sacred Prostitute segment of the training offered guidance for pursuing the
role of sexual service. Sexual trance was taught within the context of a Tantric ceremony, Maithuna,
where the participants harmonized every level of their beings as they built the sexual energy for six
days to a communal orgasmic peak. In the final ritual, some men chose to participate in the tribal
orgasm by ejaculating. Others did the Big Draw. This was the first time that any of my trainings or
private TEM sessions involved the opportunity for ejaculation.
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After the Dear Love of Comrades Intensive, the focus of my teaching shifted from erotic trance to
the training of Sacred Prostitutes. I hired a consultant to help me develop a program for Sacred
Prostitute education. She understood the archetypal role but said the word prostitute was so laden
with negativity that it was unusable in our culture. Together we came up with a new term for this
role of sexual service: Sacred Intimate.
In the fall of 1990, I traveled to Europe to teach classes in Germany and The Netherlands. My first
two European classes in Frankfurt and Cologne were small, but the classes in Berlin and Munich
both had over forty men in each class. The class in Berlin was the most profound group erotic
experience of my life to that point. There was electricity in the air. The Wall had come down ten
months before. This class was held the weekend before the two Germanys were reunited on October
3. The class consisted of gay men from both East and West Germany as well as six Americans who
had traveled to Berlin for the class. All who were in the class consciously stepped into the role of
erotic shamans and world healers, dedicating our two days of rituals and TEM to the weaving
together of Germany. Body Electric Berlin and Body Electric Europe were birthed in that Berlin
class. Six Germans from this class discovered their resonance with the path of the sacred intimate
and traveled to California the following year for further training.
Making Videos for the Whole World to See
When I returned from Berlin, I immediately began filming Fire on the Mountain: An Intimate Guide
to Male Genital Massage. I produced two versions of the video, one in English, the other in
German. Both were released in 1992. I was committed to
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offering people a way of learning TEM that was less intimidating than attending what I sometimes
referred to as a group blind date.
This video allowed thousands of people to learn TEM in the comfort of their homes. The first one
thousand copies of Fire on the Mountain came with a 28-page booklet that showed folks how to
learn massage in ten pleasurable hours using the video. Many men who attended Celebrating the
Body Erotic workshops bought the video to remember the massage or to share with friends. TimeWarners Book of the Month Club chose Fire on the Mountain as its sex education video choice.
They sold 2500 copies in one month. This showed me the educational possibilities of the medium.
In my entire career, I had only educated 2000 men in Taoist Erotic Massage classes.
Fire on the Mountain was the only gay video ever offered by the Book of the Month Club. I didnt
expect that the major purchasers of this instructional video outside of the Body Electric milieu
would be women. In addition to the Book of the Month Club, this TEM video became a bestseller
through such womens venues as Good Vibrations, Eves Garden, Toys in Babeland, Grand
Opening, and in the heterosexual Playboy Magazine. Obviously Taoist Erotic Massage has moved
to the erotic mainstream.
The End of an Era
I was a good masseur. I was an excellent teacher of massage and erotic massage. However, as the
size of the school expanded and its complexity grew, I found the job of running Body Electric
getting too stressful. Furthermore, after the Sacred Intimate Training in 1992, I felt complete with
my mission of training pioneering men.
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So in October 1992, I sold the school to Collin Brown, who had been my office manager. He had
participated in the creation of many of the trainings since 1990. He bought the school with the
vision of bringing the work, which had been created for gay and bisexual men, to all people, gay
through straight, men and women.
As part of the sale agreement, Collin requested that I would develop a version of TEM for women.
This was not difficult since Annie Sprinkle and I had been working on this for several years. In the
summer of 1993, we taught this new massage structure at the first Body Electric erotic training for
both men and women, which we called Cosmic Orgasm Awareness Week.
Ecstatic Dying
When I first developed the two-day class to teach TEM, AIDS was ravaging the gay male
population of the San Francisco Bay Area. At the time, I visualized teaching an experiential class
called Ecstatic Dying. I would use breathing and TEM as metaphors for the ultimate surrender.
Students would practice letting go on the exhale hundreds of times in two days. While receiving
genital massage, they would fearlessly dissolve into sexual trance and mystical states. In every
interaction in class, we would practice clear beginnings and endings. I would teach the major lifeto-death technique from the Tibetan Book of the Dead: the ejection of consciousness (1975).
However, my business manager convinced me that no one would come to a class called Ecstatic
Dying, so this became the class eventually called Celebrating the Body Erotic. It was not
uncommon, after an hour or more in profound sexual trance, for men to comment that they would
like to die during a TEM. Others reported learning that If this is what dying is like, there is nothing
to fear.
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The Sacred Intimate trainings of 1991 and 1992 expanded the role of sacred intimate beyond the
bringer of sexual joy to include midwife to the dying. On the first day of the 1992 gathering, we
gave each other permission to die during our 17 days on the mountaintop at Wildwood.
Tom Hammond, who was near death with AIDS, announced his desire to die within the ecstatic
vibration we were cocreating. He received one or more Taoist Erotic Massages every day, in
addition to participating in the group erotic rituals. As the seventeen days came to a close, Tom
announced that almost every moment on the mountaintop had been a preparation for his last breath,
but life during these days had been too precious for him to let go. He returned home to Seattle, and
died a week later in a hospital, surrounded by his birth family. From Tom and others, I learned that
how we relate to orgasmic states is a good indicator of how we relate to death.
Conclusion
The development of Taoist Erotic Massage surprised me at every turn. The story began with a
young kinesthetic, committed to celibacy as a Jesuit, getting a nonsexual massage that transported
him out of the monastery into a life celebrating the joy of sexual arousal. I soon discovered my
favorite form of sexual arousal combined conscious breathing with massage. When the advent of
AIDS demanded that gay men practice safe sex, I wanted to share my discovery with my gay
brothers. I offered classes all over the United States and Europe. Over two thousand men were
initiated into the joys of giving and receiving Taoist Erotic Massage.
The Body Electric classes and the video Fire on the Mountain became the major media for teaching
this massage to men and women, gay through straight. After
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resonating with the role of giver of erotic pleasure, hundreds of men committed themselves to bring
joy and transformation to others as a sacred intimate.
After twenty years of helping individuals transform their lives through Taoist Erotic Massage, I
learned that the same results are possible without assistance of another person. Today, my
commitment is to train masturbation coaches to assist men and women to access ecstatic,
transformational states through erotic self touch.
Chapter Six
TEACHING TAOIST EROTIC MASSAGE
Much of the history of the first ten years of Taoist Erotic Massage involved the teaching of this
transformative structure. This chapter will focus on how this massage was taught. At the beginning
of 1991, I was finally satisfied with the ever-evolving structure of Celebrating the Body Erotic
(CBE), the major class teaching TEM. During the next eighteen months, ten different classes
teaching TEM were audiotaped and transcribed. This chronicling was undertaken because I wished
to train other men to teach TEM. In this chapter, I will present a written conflation of actual oral
teachings recorded in Taoist Erotic Massage classes. These oral teachings are indented. My added
commentary is not.
It is easy to learn how to give a Taoist Erotic Massage. You practice the strokes and learn to guide
your partners in conscious rhythmic breathing. The real difficulty is learning to receive all that is
possible as you are massaged. Can you allow yourself to feel boundless pleasure? Can you tolerate
prolonged, full-body orgasm? Can you allow your heart to open? Can you stop the chatter inside
your mind? Can you let go of blocks and chronic constrictions? Can you stay totally present during
the massage, not going off into fantasies or other distractions?
Most men had never realized that there are skills they might need to learn to fully receive a
massage, skills that facilitate going deep into sexual trance. The above questions were asked to help
the receivers place their attention on scripts that might be unconscious. Some of the questions even
suggest that TEM is a form of meditation where one stops the chatter inside your mind and stays
totally present.
The major technique to help you receive a Taoist Erotic Massage is being conscious of your own
breathing. All of your effort should be on the inhale, then relax on the exhale. Nourish yourself with
oxygen on the inhale; let go, surrender on the exhale. Learning to let go of patterns of behavior that
are not beneficial to you can be the major benefit to be gained from this massage.
Playing with various breathing rhythms is an excellent way to prepare for giving or receiving a
TEM. Here is an enjoyable breath exercise. The onepage 62 ______________________________________
minute Train Breath starts slowly. Then the rhythm speeds up like a train gaining momentum. Be
sure to keep eye contact during the entire Train Breath. This breathing often leads to laughter.
Another favorite pattern of mine is two shallow breaths, then one deep breath and repeat. No matter
how fast you are breathing, you will not hyperventilate if you relax on the exhale. During the
massage, the masseur should guide his partners breathing with his own breathing rhythms.
Conscious breathing helps keep the musculature of the body relaxed, even during high erotic states.
The breathing also demands that you remain in the present moment, making it difficult to go off
into fantasy. As the massage progresses and the erotic intensity builds in the genitals, the breath
helps circulate the ching chi energy (erotic energy) throughout the body. If the man breathes deep
and rhythmically for thirty or more minutes, he can experience a feeling in his entire body similar to
a sexual orgasm. When this breathing is combined with a sexual orgasm, expanded levels of
consciousness are possible.
Breathing is as central to the TEM experience as is the physical touching. The rhythmic breathing
demands attentiveness. If a man allows his placement of attention to wander, his breathing will be
taken over by his autonomic nervous system. Immediately his conscious rhythmic breathing will
change to his normal unconscious breath patterns. So the intense rhythmic breathing allows the
masseur to monitor the attentiveness of the man receiving massage.
In my private TEM sessions, I warned my clients, If you stop breathing, I stop touching. If a man
got distracted and his breathing went unconscious, I always stopped my touching. The abrupt halt in
genital stimulation almost always motivated the man to resume breathing. I have had some clients
who fell into deep unconsciousness during a TEM. To bring them back to consciousness, I had to
slap their feet or help them into a sitting position.
Thousands of men who learned TEM in the two-day Celebrating the Body Erotic (CBE) classes
have had the experience of an ecstatic breathing session in the first day without any touching. This
breathing session ended with a Big Draw. During this two-hour breath session, I noted carefully
those men who refused to breathe. I personally
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spoke to those men, encouraging each of them to participate in the breathwork. If they refused or
couldnt for some reason, I asked that they leave the class at the break after the first breathwork
session. I refunded their entire tuition. The class was for men who were willing and able to
participate. When individual men didnt participate in the group breathing processes, others felt
unsafe. Some who were asked to leave returned to participate in another class, but most had
discovered that this class was not for them.
John Pasqualetti, a breath coach who trained in 1991 as a teacher of TEM, claimed that the true
source of the TEM experience was actually the breathing. He jokingly claimed that the genital
massage was just something to pass the time while the oxygen molecules accumulated in the body.
Below are instructions that participants received at the beginning of the second day of the CBE just
before beginning the TEM.
You have spent a full day connecting with the other men in this class. You have stretched and
breathed. You have touched each other. You have wanked together. We now begin the TEM. Those
of you who wish to receive first lie down on a massage table. I recommend wearing a blindfold to
help you go deeper within. Masseurs, choose a table where you will begin your massaging. During
the next ninety minutes, you will be directed to move from table to table offering different strokes at
each table. Men on the tables, keep your awareness within your own body. I invite you to visualize
that the hands that are touching you belong to every man in the room. You can even imagine that
these hands are the hands of everyman in the world. Masseurs, allow your awareness to focus in
your hands. Let this man you are about to massage know by the quality of your touch that there is
nowhere else you would rather be, that there is no one else you would rather be with.
The suggestions that the receivers are to imagine they are being touched by everyman and that the
givers are to feel there is nowhere else you would rather be, that there is no one else you would
rather be with are guidance for going to the deepest levels possible during the massage. Mosher
suggests that only a very few partners might take you to the deepest levels of partner engagement,
but this selectivity is not necessary for going deep into the role of erotic masseur or going deep into
an altered state. A
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maximally acceptable sex partner is not required for achieving deep involvement along the
dimensions of sexual role enactment and sexual trance (Mosher, 1980, p.17).
This TEM will focus on the genitals and the front of the torso. Begin by gently resting your hands
on your partners heart center (between the nipples) and on his genital area. Take three comfortable
breaths together. Remember this massage is about charging the body with erotic, life force energy.
Charging the body with erotic energy is a taboo in our culture where sex is normally used like
alcohol, to celebrate and to sedate.
Let your fingertips caress the whole front of this mans body. By the quality of your touch, let him
know that you are massaging every level of his being. Try to keep one hand vibrating and
massaging the genital area as your other hand dances and plays from the feet to the head. Massage
circles on the belly and chest. Rock and roll the arms and legs. I often squeeze and tug the tips of
each finger where the meridians begin and end. Wake up the genital area with light tugging of the
pubic hair. Then vibrate the pubic bone just above the magic wand. Fondle and tug the balls.
TEM as taught within classes at the Body Electric School involved ten minutes or less of massage
before beginning the genital touching. In most instances, the men involved had already spent a full
day of preparations, including playful touch, breathing, and stretching. When I gave a TEM in a
private session, there was always forty-five minutes to an hour of deep muscle massage before the
genital touching and rhythmic breathing began.
In many cultures of the world dating back thousands of years, anointing with oil was a special ritual
of honoring. Start by oiling the genital area and the corridor up to the heart. Then oil the whole front
of the body. Rather than squirting oil directly onto your partner, put the oil on your hands and then
on to his body. Since the tissues of the magic wand are sensitive, too much oil there is better than
too little oil. Use more oil where there is more hair. Be sure to oil the perineum.
Throughout the whole massage, try to keep at least one hand on the genital area at all times,
continuously generating ching chi. If the man receiving isnt wearing a blindfold, make sure he
has his eyes closed during the massage. And make sure that he is consciously breathing. With every
touch, let your partner know he is special among all your relations.
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For years in all of my classes, I requested that students use the term magic wand when referring
to the penis. I was aware that most terms for the male genitals had some shame or ridicule
associated with them. By using the phrase magic wand, we were able to speak about the penis
without being pulled into past associations. Furthermore, the term magic wand suggested in
poetic language that this tumescence was a vehicle for transformation, a purveyor of magic.
Shiatsu is a Japanese word meaning finger pressure. With your thumb and first finger squeeze up
and down the magic wand, both front and back and sides. This rhythmic stroking begins to wake up
the inner tissues of the magic wand.
Once this massage begins, most men are willing to receive all day and all night. So I call this next
stroke Rock Around the Clock. The magic wand pointing toward the belly button is 12 oclock.
With alternating hands, sensuously and slowly rub the magic wand around the clock. Make sure you
are massaging both the magic wand and the body parts below it. At 5, 6, and 7 oclock, wrap your
whole hand around the magic wand. Take some extra time at 6 oclock. This is a favorite position of
many men, especially if they are soft or semi-soft.
Men receiving, remember that the goal of this massage is not erection or ejaculation, but full-body
aliveness, nourishing every level of being. Most men find a two-thirds erection to be the most
beneficial state in which to receive a TEM. Erections, like the tides, ebb and flow. This is the
natural rhythm of the body.
A foundational technique of this massage is to pull the skin of the penis toward the base, especially
if your partner is uncircumcised. This tightening of the skin provides pleasurable variations for
almost one third of TEM strokes. The nerve endings become more available to caresses when the
skin is pulled taut. A significant teaching that most men took away from classes teaching TEM was
that you dont have to be fully erect to have a quality sexual experience. At the beginning of every
class, I told students that many men had gone through this entire training without an erection but
still had wonderful erotic experiences. The instruction to the masseur to pull the skin of the penis
toward the body is simply a way to access the nerve endings as if the man were fully
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erect. The erotic experiences of thousands of men with partial erections in my classes supports
Moshers thesis that Effective sexual stimulation is a joint function of the density of physical
sexual stimulation and depth of involvement in the sexual contact episode (1980, p. 1).
Masseurs, give special attention to the place just below the head on the underside of the magic
wand. I call this concentration of nerve endings the Gates of Consciousness. This is the place of
visions, the third eye of the magic wand in cock reflexology. Pull this skin taut with one hand and
massage with thumb circles. You can also pinch this skin between your thumb and index finger and
rub and tug. Try cross-country skiing with your thumbs, making alternating strokes up and down the
Gates of Consciousness. I call this movement Oshos Delight, in honor of one of my teachers. Osho
said that three hours in the full-body orgasmic state can heal dysfunctional sexual patterns forever.
He also said that western men are all premature ejaculators they come before they make a
connection with themselves or with a partner. Cap the head of the magic wand with your whole
hand, your fingers on the top side, your palm on the tip, the heel of your palm on the gates of
consciousness. Squeeze while rubbing the heel of your palm up and down on the Gates of
Consciousness. Some men see colors with this stroke.
Detailed instructions were necessary for the givers of TEM to feel comfortable in their role. The
more confident the givers became, the deeper their involvement in the giving of TEM. Mosher
comments, The person faces the task in his or her sexual role enactment of fulfilling the
expectations with competence . . . Motoric skills are needed for the sexual role enactment which
requires rather precise control and flexibility (1980, p. 10).
Notice, in the passage above, the detailed guidance for the masseurs hands and for the receivers
placement of attention. The teaching here is that different parts of the penis feel different. This can
be a revelation to some men for whom sex has involved a frenzied rush toward ejaculation. The
instruction here is that there are a multitude of sensations available from stimulation of the penis.
Men are encouraged to savor the sensations they feel on and around their magic wands. This
savoring allows a focusing
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on the affect enjoyment-joy rather than the more common emphasis on interest-excitement.
Reflexology teaches that nerve endings on your feet and hands correspond to other realms of your
body. So if you have a lower back pain, you can deal with that pain by massaging the lower back
realm of your foot or hand. Both Stephen Chang and Mantak Chia have developed reflexology
maps of the penis (Chang, 1986; Chia, 1984). This theory teaches that massaging different parts of
the penis affects different parts of the body. Since Changs map and Chias map totally contradict
each other, I developed my own approach to cock reflexology based on my own extensive research
and on the Indian chakra system. The Indian chakra system describes human energy as being
produced and distributed through energy centers of the body, which are called chakras. The major
seven chakras are located from the top of the head, down the middle of the body, to the perineum.
Each chakra is traditionally associated with certain state of consciousness.
In my cock reflexology, the penis is the whole man. The very tip of the penis is the crown chakra
(top of the head), where our life or sperm moves out to other realms. The Gates of Consciousness,
located on the frenulum, contain both the third eye (on the forehead between the eyes) and the
throat chakras. The foreskin is the heart chakra, encompassing the upper three chakras. The
power chakra (located in the solar plexus) is contained within the shaft of the penis at the
midpoint between the tip and the base. The sexual chakra (located just above the genitals) can be
found on the penis where the testicles attach. The root chakra is located where the penis enters the
body in both systems. I certainly believe this map to be equal to any other reflexology map of the
penis, but I also acknowledge it as a useful fiction. The idea that realms of the penis when touched
have effects on other parts of the body encouraged more variety of stroking in masseurs and more
mindfulness in the men receiving.
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I call this next way of touching the Healing Stroke. With the magic wand resting on the belly, let
the heel of your hand closest to the feet glide up and down the underside with your fingers toward
the feet. This area is the spine in cock reflexology. Pay special attention to the Gates of
Consciousness area. This stroke generates a tremendous amount of erotic energy. Notice that your
other hand is available to spread the energy you generate to other parts of his body. Now continue
this heel-of-palm-on-magic-wand stroke while your other hand glides from one knee up across the
belly and down to the other knee. Return and repeat. Use more pressure on the tops of the thighs,
and lighten up on the abdomen.
A variation on this stroke involves gliding from the knee to the heart area to the other knee and back
while you continue the Healing Stroke. Another pleasurable variation is to let the hand closest to the
head do the Healing Stroke while the other hand massages from the inner thigh through the
perineum to the other inner thigh. Man receiving, invite the energy in your hips to flow to every part
of your body. Invite this sacred energy to weave you together into wholeness.
By the naming the above stroke Healing, I introduced the idea of sexual healing into the massage.
In many TEMs, I guided the men receiving massage on a journey of sexual healing that involved
the awareness of every hand that had ever touched their genitals. Send love to all of those folks
who have touched your magic wand even if love wasnt there during the actual touching. I then
encouraged men receiving to imagine love coming back from all those who had touched them
sexually. This exercise was then repeated to heal all the other types of sex this man had had in his
life. This short reframing of all of the sexual experiences of a mans life within a loving context
brought many men to tears. I dont know any better definition of sexual healing than reexperiencing an incident with love even if it didnt involve love when it first happened.
This stroke generates enormous amounts of pleasure. I call it Twist and Shout. You twist, he
shouts with ecstasy. Again, pull the skin taut toward the base with one hand and corkscrew your
hand up and down the shaft. Cover as much skin as possible. Try Twist and Shout with the magic
wand pointed towards the feet. I call this the Six Oclock Good News. This stroke is especially
pleasurable when the man is soft or semi-soft. Slow is better than fast when your partner is soft. Be
sure to use plenty of oil.
The fact that the goal of a TEM is not ejaculation allows the receiver to focus on savoring the
variety of touches he receives from the masseur. Although Twist and
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Shout is a high friction stroke, it is still very different from the up-and-down-the-shaft stroke most
men use to take themselves to ejaculation. Many times in TEM classes, men did ejaculate. The
masseur would wipe up the ejaculate with soap and water and then return immediately to giving
erotic touch. Many men ejaculate in order to end an erotic experience. It was clear to men receiving
a TEM that the massage would continue even if they ejaculated.
Belly Circles: Let the hand closest to the feet do the Healing Stroke. Let your other hand do circles
on the abdomen. Massage clockwise. Vary the speed and pressure. Massaging counterclockwise
stirs up powerful erotic energy. (Stroking counterclockwise should not be done if the man has eaten
recently.) Make sure both your hands are massaging with the same rhythm. Then move your hand
from this mans belly up to his chest. Circle your palm on his chest. The Taoist name for the point
directly between the nipples is the Sea of Tranquility. Masseurs, you are now massaging the heart
and the genitalsthe places of love. Touch these places as if they were the same place.
Nipple Circles: Mens nipples can be awakened as places of exquisite pleasure. I recommend
massaging lightly with fingernails, then massaging with palm circles.
The instruction often encouraged the giver to find a rhythm in his giving of massage so that the
experience became like a dance. Because rhythmic music was played during the entire massage, the
whole room of givers were often in the same rhythm. The visuals were extraordinary.
A major goal of TEM is the celebrating of the heart-genital connection. When erotic energy is
allowed to build up in the hips, it connects to the heart. Sometimes the energy travels up the back of
the body, over the head, and down the front of the body to the heart. Other times it takes the short
route through the belly to the heart.
Berlin is a sweeping stroke using the forearm on the torso from the upper chest to the pubic bone.
Wipe away all walls between the heart and the genitals. I named this stroke in Berlin in October
1990, as Germany was reunited. Celebrate the heart-genital connection. Sweep away the walls with
Berlin.
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Can humans make radical, swift changes in their scripts? The fall of the Berlin wall on November 9,
1989, was an electric event that said major change was possible. In my two years of teaching TEM
after that event, I often brought a piece of the Berlin Wall to class to remind my students and me of
what was possible. Sometimes I put that piece of wall on mens chests while they were getting
massaged. A significant number of men receiving TEM had transformative experiences comparable
to the fall of the Berlin wall. Some of these experiences are related in Chapter Seven.
Here follows guidance for a series of somewhat complicated strokes. Note that most of this
verbatim classroom instruction is for the masseurs. The only responsibility of the men receiving
was to breathe.
With Belly Bliss, pleasure the abdomen as you pleasure the Gates of Consciousness. As one hand
pulls the skin of the magic wand taut, place the heel of your other hand on the Gates, fingers toward
the heart and rub. Let your fingers caress the belly. Visualize an orbit of energy up the magic wand
into the belly at the second chakra and then imagine the energy travels down to the wand again.
Massage the energy round and round.
Leg Massage: Everyone loves to have their legs massaged, but most leg massages stop several
inches from the magic wand. Let one hand start near the knee, massaging up to the base of the
magic wand while the other hand does the Healing Stroke. I like to position my partners foot
against his opposite knee (Tree position in yoga or Hang Man in Tarot). Then massage the inner
thigh and perineum. This is also a great position for Twist and Shout and the Six Oclock Good
News. Another position for leg massage has your partners knee in the air, his foot flat on the table.
I try to support his foot with my leg on the table. Furrow with your thumbs down the thigh muscles,
each stroke ending at the base of the magic wand. Rock the leg muscles. As you put the leg back on
Draw. He later explained to me that in the Catholic books of his youth, this was how God was
pictured.
The major spiritual concept surrounding the teaching of TEM was interconnectivity of all persons
and things. This was repeatedly articulated using the Native American prayer, All My Relations.
Each man was taught to sign All My Relations in American Sign Language. Almost every
encounter with another man during the two-day class would end with both men signing All My
Relations for each other. Almost every TEM included a guided meditation calling to mind all
those whom we are connected to. This feeling of connection was further fostered by the
requirement that each man refer to the other men in class as Sacred Brothers.
Phallos: Each stroke starts at the base, wrapping your hand around the magic wand and gliding up
and off at the tip. Alternate, using both hands, stroking the energy up toward the sky. Repeat again
and again. Phallos is the masculine image of the divine. Worship with your hands.
Hand Jive: Weave your fingers together, taking the magic wand between your palms and rubbing up
and down and back and forth. Hand Jive is actually a hand dance. Make it up as you go along.
Carpe Diem: Stoke the magic wand toward the heart, and at the same time tug the balls toward the
feet. Be sure to watch his face during this stroke. He
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will let you know if you are being too rough. This is the very first stroke I ever taught in a class.
Amsterdam: Place your second finger between your partners eyebrows on the third eye. Place
your other second finger at the base of the magic wand on the root chakra (perineum). Vibrate as
if your fingertips are touching each other. Invite your partner to make sounds on the exhale as you
vibrate. An erotic masseur in Holland taught me this stroke.
Each of the thirty or more genital massage strokes had a name. This naming helped masseurs
remember how to do the stroke but also called forth a level of mindfulness on the part of the
receiver. As the massage when on, the men giving were guided deeper into the role of erotic
masseur. Leaving behind their own identity, they become the role and are engrossed in the script
(Mosher, 1980, p. 8).
Many times I joked or made comments like, An erotic masseur in Holland taught me this stroke.
The goal here was to distract the defenses of the man receiving. These humorous or informational
comments often allowed the man on the table to sink deeper into the Taoist Erotic Massage
experience.
The Big Draw: Men on the table, in one minute we are going to do the Big Draw. I invite you to
breathe fifty faster breaths. Now take three deep breaths with me and hold the third breath while
you clench all the muscles of your body. Slightly lift your head and your feet. Remember to clench
your butt muscles. If you have any weakness in your lower back, do the Big Draw without lifting
your head or your feet. Masseurs, stop touching at this point.
During this twenty seconds while men where clenching, I usually shouted some suggestions like,
Remember who you are. Wake up every level of your being. Give up control. Surrender to this
experience. Feel the connections to all your relations. Relax your muscles and let go when you
are ready to come home to your body. Be with your feelings.
The masseurs were instructed to cover their partner with a sheet. They were then to not move or talk
but to be quietly with the man for the next ten minutes or so. Some men felt the sheet as a cocoon.
Some men felt it as a shroud, which was appropriate since the Tantrics say, in the Tibetan Book of
the Dead (1975) that the Big Draw is the way we
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die. Many men receiving a TEM were consciously preparing for death. After the Big Draw, most
men fall into a deep state of enjoyment-joy, bliss, contentment, peace.
This chapter chronicled verbatim many of the actual instructions that were given to masseurs and
those receiving TEM during classes in 1991 and 1992 along with some commentary. In Chapter
Seven, we will read the experiences of men who gave and received TEM in their own words.
Chapter Seven
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Students in TEM classes always had the opportunity to share experiences in a number of ways.
Participants had the opportunity to speak to the whole class after each massage. They were also
invited to comment in writing. Some filled out questionnaires at the end of their class; others mailed
letters from home later. While there were common themes, responses and experiences varied
dramatically. Many attendees reported life-changing encounters, including overcoming fears and
past traumas. Descriptions of deep levels of trance and partner engagement were frequent.
Occasionally, a participant would experience a profound level of role-playing as well.
The following are parts of two journal entries of a religious Mormon man who sent them as
feedback on his experience. He relates experiences common to many participants in TEM classes
over the years. The first entry was written on his airplane ride to the workshop.
For hours today, Ive wanted to just take time out and cry. Cry because Im confused, I feel lost, Im
unhappy. Who am I? What is truth? I dont understand what the spirit wants me to do. This all is
from Satan. I recognize the feeling. It happened right before I went on my mission; it happened
after I received the Melchizedek priesthood. I must be getting close to something grand. But Ive
professed the Lords name all day long and hes the one whos on my side. Tomorrow is the
workshop on Tantra and Taoist philosophy. Im looking forward to being naked all day for two
days. Its therapeutic for me. I think another thing Im stressed out about is that if my family knew I
was attending this, they would all condemn me except for Mom and maybe Dad. Damn them. They
have never allowed me to be me. I dont know what to do. The Church is crazy making. It tells
you to seek for truth and then they condemn all the ways outside of what the church leaders say and
the scriptures say to find the truth. Ive never heard a lesson in the LDS church that teaches me to
trust me. Only trust leaders. I SAY REPENT OR SPEAK TO ME NO MORE. IM SICK OF YOU
HIPPOCRITES. Please give my soul back to me. I obviously am a better steward. You have really
fucked up
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my head!! Thank you everyone! Now hopefully I can go on and be more calm after having said all
that. Now I have a headache and I need some rest.
He wrote the following journal entries, the first immediately after an exercise in the workshop, the
other on his plane ride home.
I cant even write it down. I need to remember this for the rest of my life. For the first time in my
life, I felt like my body and my spirit came together. I felt love for every single person in the world.
I felt like a child skipping over a fantastic airy beach. I felt a need to give, a need to share
everything I was learning. I felt Gods love. I felt him carry me through all this. Even right now, my
earth life is squeezing out all these truths and saying it didnt happen. God was there; he was loving
me. He was loving me, every part of me. Mother was there. Even Mom massaged my genitals with
pure love. All the people who are currently challenging me to think, love, expand both spiritually
and intellectually were there. I was telling them about what I was feeling and experiencing. In the
final draw, my arms wouldnt come down. I opened them to receive everything there was to receive.
It was as if the savior himself were there with his hands in mine just holding, saying nothing, just
being there. It was dark this time. Yesterday, the final draw brought white light white like
electric-white, and generated it all through my arms and out my fingers. It moved as fast as
lightning. Today was different; there were images. There was a God-like image in front of me at
first. But he wasnt white and pure like. But his love was there; he was holding my hands tight. It
was almost as if he moved behind me keeping my hands in his. Now this is all kind of going away.
Emotions came and went. When I cried, I cried out of sorrow for my hurt childs feeling and beliefs,
but most of the time it was out of gratitude for life and love. I came to almost worship oxygen. For
the more I could get, the more I could learn, the more I could feel. Looking back on my
conversations before I came here I just think what fools we were and how caught up in the world
we are. Ive learned that sexuality is part of my body. It can bring light to my mind, it can teach, it
can open, and it should never be used to take. This massage was not about erections and
ejaculations but being a whole human being. Its been very enlightening and very spiritual and
healing. I am me and I am whole and once again all the feelings Ive felt inside about sex, the act,
its use, everything, even things like holding my hand on anothers heart and rubbing it are true.
Everything above was written immediately after my first experience with a Taoist massage. Now
its 12:30 at night and Im on the airplane home.
Ive got so much to say that its overwhelming. Right now Im just feeling. Just feeling special and
full. Sometimes, even more than sometimes I feel like the luckiest, most loved man in the world.
Especially after today. Even though I wasnt attracted to more than probably five of those guys, I
still feel a love. During the initiation or Taoist massage today, while I was the giver or
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masseur, I was overwhelmed by all the emotion that was flowing. It became very sacred. I caught
the message and the meaning. Ive always been taught that the body is a temple of God. Today was
the first time Ive ever felt it at all about others and so deeply about mine. I dont want to ever
forget the sacredness I felt. I originally signed up because I wanted to be around naked men and it
turned out to be one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. I couldnt even talk about it earlier
today and even when I do I get this feeling that maybe I shouldnt talk about it so much or make it
common.
Some of the themes this student expressed in this passage are shared by many other participants: the
sacredness of the Taoist Erotic Massage experience, the feeling of body and spirit coming together,
a direct personal experience of God during the massage, a feeling of love for everyone in the world,
sexuality as an important part of life, the release of pain and sorrow and old beliefs, and the
experience of profound healing.
Many men wrote of healing longstanding issues, particularly childhood sexual abuse. Here are one
mans words:
I ended up receiving more from the course than I had expected. After the training in July, I could no
longer approach sex, not to mention other things in life the way I had before. The fact that I did
not experience what I had expected gave me the opportunity of coming out about a portion of my
life about which most people in my life know nothing. Not only has abuse been a major issue in my
life, and more recently sexual abuse, but so has privacy/secrecy. Although I felt extremely
vulnerable after opening up to the class, I experienced a wonderful liberating feeling as though the
shackles of secrecy no longer were restraining me. I have also found that I am much more open
to experience in bodywork. Last week I went to a bodyworker who was working on my neck, when
I all of a sudden started to cry and beg not to be choked. It was not the bodyworker I saw but rather
one of my older brothers. I must have cried for three minutes solid, not knowing whyother than
the fact I was so scared. I had no specific memories of my brother Andrew doing this to me, but I
was very aware that I had never had a good relationship with him.
After the session, I went home and called my sister to talk to her about the situation. When I asked
what Andrew had been like when I was growing up, she just laughed. She was rather surprised that I
could not remember all the maniacal things he used to do to me.
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I was very upset I had no recollection of many of these things occurring in my life. However, that
may be in part because I was five at the time, and I have focused for so many years on just the
things my father perpetrated on me.
I am somewhat amused that even after buying a therapist a retirement home, I have never had a
cathartic reaction with talk therapy. I know that traditional therapy is not the answer to everything. I
have started to question my long-term career plans and whether I want to go to graduate school in
psychology.
Another mans description of healing sexual abuse:
When I was four years old, my father took me for a drive in his car. We parked beside a lake and he
forced my mouth over his penis. For the next six years this event was repeated many times, often
with a brutality hard to explain to someone who has not lived it.
Your workshop was my biggest adventure to date in touching the snake (my name for my
adventures in self-exploration). I cant really tell you what your workshop meant to me. I cant tell
you what it was like to risk strangers touching me, touching me so intimately; or allowing myself to
sense physical pleasure, either as a giver or receiver.
I was really frightened to attend this workshop. I purposely came late and parked where I knew I
could leave. I was anxious and expected something like a mini gay bath. Of course, it wasnt.
Instead it was surprisingly spiritual, gifted with the gentleness of tears and care and ritual. It was
very beautiful.
Today, driving down a freeway, I felt myself breathing. I felt myself sensual and at peace. Thank
you for giving me this experience.
Another man had several negative and painful experiences during a six-day workshop, which he
attended with his partner, Peter. His comments reveal a healing of old issues.
I went to sleep with my body touching Peters in several places. That was unusual, because we
normally do not, cannot, touch as we fall asleep. About two hours later I awoke. Through my body
passed a tingling sensation much like that following the Big Draw. The more I focused on it, the
stronger was the sensation. I got higher and higher. I lay absolutely motionless, but my spirit was
flying on a roller coaster that only went up with the momentum of having raced down. If it did start
to go down, I only had to think up and I was taken up to a new height. Incredible detailed images
moved before me, visions that I had lacked that week in my Big Draws. After this continued for at
least an hour, I debated whether to turn it off and go to sleep to allow myself to be fresh for the next
morning, or to continue to experience the ecstasy.
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I brought myself down to sleep, but began to ask why I had reacted to John Pasqualettis ritual so
negatively. As soon as I asked the question, the words Compelled, game, rituals, violation came to
me. Lacking any idea of what that meant, I searched for a meaning, trying to think of games that I
played as a child. I could think of none that was appropriate. Then I remembered Catholic rituals
that I had participated in as a Protestant child that had offended me. That very likely was the
button that John had pushed, drawing me into a seemingly religious ritual I detested. For me, that
was a violation.
I awoke again at 6:00, wondering whether I could still find the feeling and energy. To my surprise, it
quickly filled me for 75 minutes until I released it. During that time, I again saw many detailed
visions; I felt filled with energy, which I directed to Sacred Brothers who were in pain. I felt
connected again.
Others were less specific about their issues, but wrote about a new way of living, about new
potentials.
The weekend provided a key to unlock a specific block which Ive been aware of for a long time
but didnt know how to get through. The psychologists and mentors and people I share with didnt
seem to be able to help with it. Through breathing, working with the brothers, I know this block will
vanish. After the workshop and reading Two Flutes Playing I sense that there is more that I can
tap into. My life is like a rocket poised to take off or maybe taking off through gravity toward orbit.
I wonder what I can be, can do, to be receptive, to open more circuits, to go where other men have
gone before.
And:
My life is filled with fear, anxiety and panic attacks. I have many abreaction attacks. These go back
to incest/trauma in my childhood. My feelings are starting to change. Im feeling more opened, a
deep need to continue with erotic massage.
It is not surprising that many men had newfound realizations about penises in a training that focused
on penis massage. Hundreds of men were surprised and delighted that they did not need to have an
erection to experience erotic pleasure.
I had a realization about the penis that just makes me laugh whenever I think it or say it. You dont
need an erection to have erotic feelings. You dont have to get it up! What an idea. I thought I would
have an erection all the time. I didnt and I felt embarrassed about it until it was explained to us. It
was such a
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GREAT RELIEF to know that one can have erotic pleasure without an erection and that erections
ebb and flow just like the tides.
[I didnt realize] that it could feel soooo good while soft, that I could receive intense sensual
pleasure without getting erection. Also it seems that some forms of pleasure are blocked by being
erect.
There is pleasure in softness.
Since I touched so many, I learned that there isnt any different excitement in touching an erect or a
soft penis. They are both just as sacred.
It was surprising how many adult men had revelations about their own and others penises.
Now I want to wake it up more and more so I can feel better, learn more about how it works, and be
more at home in my body.
Its like a Timexit keeps on ticking. What I learned at this workshop was how to sustain and
circulate the energy by massaging/playing with the genitals.
I like them. I like being with them. I like looking at them. I like touching them. The allure of the
cock is that it leads to the man.
I need to pay more attention to my own cock and learn more enjoyable sex.
I was always intellectually aware of my penis as a generator. However, today I got in touch with the
physicality of that energy and how to channel it. This has always been a desire of mine, but without
the necessary tools to accomplish this, I have always been drained and frustrated and unsatisfied
with sex. I also realized the tremendous potential the penis has to open other areas of my life,
including physical, psychological and psychic.
Men learned new ways of understanding and appreciating their own and each others bodies. Some
reported new attitudes toward sexual attractiveness, age, and body types.
I have done a lot of healing in my body image the last couple of years. During the workshop, the
healing and the growth took quantum leaps. I experienced myself and my body as incredibly
beautiful and delicious. My body is strong, powerful, sensitive, gentle, flexible, pliable. (I am
crying.) Im still feeling so wonderful, the words are just falling out of the pen.
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While I still have, appreciate, and respond to my hot types I can love, be attracted to, and
pleasure all sizes, shapes, ages. I feel freer from my stereotypes.
I noticed during the workshop, I became more attracted to the different types of bodies of the other
participants, and I realized that attraction was directly connected to the degree of intimacy I shared
with these people.
I have learned in this massage to respect other peoples pain and blocks as they manifest in the
physical body. I also realized that in the final analysis, the bodies are all the same; the souls are very
different, and that they can be differentiated by looking into the eyes.
I am more accepting of differences.
One of my fears beforehand was that I would be old. I was blown away. I made contact with men
from 20 years younger to 20 plus older on all kinds of levels personal, physical, sexual, spiritual.
The irrelevancy of age as to intimacy, attraction and appeal energizes me in my desire to live, love
and be sexy into my 90s one day at a time.
Many comments had to do with methods of relating to others. Some men experienced great
intimacy, some overcame longstanding fears, and others came to accept their sexuality in a new
way.
This is the first experience that I have had in my life that allowed me to step completely outside my
own sexual distress and experience eroticism as God gave it to me. It had nothing to do with
compulsion, obsession, incest, any of the things that kept me stuck. All of my sex life has been a
replay of these. This workshop gave me the awareness of being in my inherent human nature and
experiencing eroticism in all its beauty.
I realize that my sex life can finally give the satisfaction that I have been looking for. And I want
more.
The highest point of the class for me was the intimacy exercise with a partner. Instead of fear
(which I would expect, not being the most trusting person in the world), I felt joyous. Since one of
the reasons I was there was to face the gay part of myself, I was happy with this joy.
Everyone taking the Taoist Erotic Massage workshops both gave and received massages.
Participants had the opportunity to learn about the roles of giver and receiver.
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In learning and practicing to receive, it was such a relief to ask for something and get it. It was also
so moving to be taken care of in such touching ways: being covered, being given an glass of water,
being held, and having someone check my breathing.
In giving, it was exciting to do something that the man really liked.
The more I let myself receive, the more the givers were pleased and aroused, and this led to deeper
connection.
I have always thought receiving was better that now seems like a head trip. When Im into the
giving, I also get incredibly high. Witnessing my Sacred Brother at the end of his TEM was most
powerful. When I had finished giving, I was just present, a witness, a channel.
In giving, I picked up on the other persons space real quickly. If someone wasnt breathing, was
holding back or was armored, I felt it and reacted to it. Conversely, if the other person allowed
himself to feel pleasure fully, I felt an incredible amount of pleasure in giving him pleasure it was
a true partner exchange. In receiving, the same applied. I found I had a lot more performance
anxiety than I thought I would have, until I realized my erotic energy was everywhere, not just in a
hard cock. I got into receiving a lot.
Ive always been about giving much more than receiving though in this workshop I was more
50/50. Made me take a closer look at the guys I have dated and what possibly I may really want.
The physical experience of TEM was different from what many attendees were used to. During the
Big Draw, men had physical results that were unique. This allowed them to see their sexuality and
eroticism in an entirely new light.
The Big Draw: brilliant colors and uncontrollable ecstatic shaking/eyes blinking.
After I pulled the Big Draw, all my limbs shook uncontrollably as the energy flooded my physical
body. My whole spine and torso lurched up and off the table, and I felt as if my soul wanted out
of my physical body.
During the breathing before the Big Draw, I started to cry and got pissed off that I wasnt breathing
right. So I just told myself that whatever happened is okay, then did the Big Draw. I still havent
figured out exactly what happened, except I felt at peace for the first time at that level.
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I liked the emphasis that we create our own sexual energy. The American way straight and gay
is hot wiring, look, grab, come. The way you presented was touch gently, erotically, experience
totally and maybe even - AMAZINGLY try not to come total body orgasm. A healed body
seems to work this way?? You and this philosophy swim against the tide of red-blooded
Americanism.
Many men described how TEM helped them integrate their spirituality with their sexuality. This
was eloquently expressed by the Mormon man quoted above. Here are some comments others
made.
Your workshop woke up not only my body, but my mind and spirit too. I have felt for many years
that there has got to be more. And now I think I realize that physicality without spirituality is
unfulfilling, and that spirituality which denies the importance of the physical is death of the spirit.
I felt ecstasy in a spiritual way I felt as if I were conversing with God in an extremely intimate
way. As a result, the feelings I was experiencing were that much more intense and real: feelings of
abandonment, aloneness, unconditional love, joy, oneness and separateness all at the same time.
Just over six months ago, I was invited to participate in an erotic massage workshop. Neither my
spiritual life nor my erotic life has been quite the same since then. I have discovered, with a great
deal of help and assistance from others, that there is no contradiction between spirituality and
eroticism; there is no real conflict between body and spirit; there is no real reason to exalt one
over the other.
There were many respondents who described their lives as changed after they returned from their
workshops. Some took intentional action to restructure their lives based on new outlooks.
My experience at Body Electric was far beyond my highest expectations. The first massage I did
when I came home was called electrifying. Several significant events have occurred
spontaneously since I got back. I fired my AAMFT (American Association for Marriage and Family
Therapy) supervisor. I got a tattoo on my upper arm (a recent dream image). I threw away my
watch. At my partners request, Im leaving and getting my own apartment. And my feet are still
very much on the ground.
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After attending more than a dozen Celebrating the Body Erotic weekends, this man wrote to a
comrade who was preparing to take the class for the first time. The writer describes how he uses the
class as a technology to make positive changes in his life.
I usually bring a question to the class something in my life that I am puzzling about something I
need addressed. And then after the last Big Draw, I usually find that I have an answer. Its not a
linear process, and I often dont even think about the question during the workshop. Sometimes,
like the advice from an oracle, the answer is difficult to appreciate. But one of the things the class is
about is coming to a deeper understanding of ourselves, getting in touch with core energy. So I
would recommend that you think about what are the big questions in your life. Bring them to your
awareness before the weekend, so that afterwards you can see if things seem different.
Responses from participants also indicated that many saw themselves and their lives in new ways
that reflect an increased sense of self-esteem and wholeness.
The Dear Love of Comrades Intensive is a miracle of the flesh and subtle body. A week later, the
images are still washing me, cleansing me of shame and limitation.
I continue to be energized by the weekend in New York. I have a level of confidence, self-love,
serenity and self-acceptance that I have never reached before.
My sense of pride and self-worth was greatly increased by the realization that I am a member of a
brotherhood of pioneers who are breaking down attitudes and morals that no longer work, and
havent worked for a long time. I shouldnt be surprised that Gay People are the forerunners in this
work since, after all, we have always been the pioneers on the physical front.
For some men, the altered states of the TEM did not end with the workshop. Here are two mens
descriptions of their mystical experiences after the workshop.
I just had the most amazing experience and I want to share it with you. I didnt come during the
weekend so I put a porno movie on the VCR, but rather than stroke my dick right away, I started to
breathe and watch the movie, little breaths to the heart, then 2 long and one short, then more small
breaths, and then some long deep ones. Memories of the weekend flooded in as my body became
charged. As I breathed and started to play with my dick, I realized that what was going on with me
was a lot more interesting than the two hunks in the movie. I looked at my body and I thought how
wonderful it
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was and how beautiful, and I knew it was beautiful in that moment. As I came close to coming, I
dissipated the energy by moving to relaxing my back, which I didnt realize I was tensing up. This
went on for 20 minutes or so, still breathing, still getting the energy high. I looked over at the movie
and there on the screen was a hot naked man walking with a full erection. It was Pan! I was so
charged with energy that I thought I could come without stroking my dick by breathing faster and
faster. I felt the energy rise in my dick as I held it lightly and as my orgasm reached the top of my
dick, I did a Draw and half of the orgasm came through the dick and the rest just danced through
my body. I was so amazed that I started to laugh, and I was laughing and laughing, and then I
realized I was still coming long after my dick was and I knew what you had been talking about.
Then I cried a little, but I had so much energy that instead of rolling over and going to sleep, I rolled
over and wrote this letter.
Something wonderful has been happening to me. I suppose it is a development (or gradual
unfolding) of a sensual awareness. Walking down the street in San Francisco last weekend, I was
suddenly swept off my feet by the color of a rose red-purple and velvet. An orgasm started and
went on and on and on. Another time, the smell of coffee fresh brewed, wafting out the door of
Spinellis Coffee Bar did it to me all over again. What I think has been going on is that I have
grown much, much more aware of myself of the wind on my skin, of my entire sensual self. There
is a gradual unfolding of the mystery of sensuality. I feel as if I am drinking from a stream and
satisfying myself at every turn. The need to masturbate seems to have disappeared or at least, it
plays a very secondary role. And yet, I am carried away on waves of orgasm brought about by the
sensual provocations around me. It is wonderful.
Approximately three thousand men experienced a Taoist Erotic Massage in Body Electric classes
between 1986 and 1992. I went through years of letters and feedback forms for this history. I could
find no written negative comments. A few men did have negative experiences. Some men left a
class before it was over because they came expecting a sexual orgy. Others uncovered painful
emotional wounds or sexual abuse that they wished to deal with in a more therapeutic context. The
comments recorded in this chapter are representative of the Taoist Erotic Massage experiences of
those three thousand men.
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Chapter Eight
SUMMARY
Taoist Erotic Massage is an invented erotic structure that involves breathing and genital touching
that often produces transformative altered states in those receiving it. This massage was developed
by this writer, Joseph Kramer, between 1982 and 1992 as a way for gay men to connect sexually in
a safe and ecstatic manner in the era of AIDS. I called this erotic massage Taoist because the
intent of the touching was not merely to stimulate erotic energy, but also to circulate it throughout
the body without ejaculation. TEM produces an altered state that some describe as mystical. For
many, it integrates their sexuality with their spirituality. The massage creates an environment in
which it is possible to change behavior patterns or scripts.
For years, I had sought a theory of human behavior that explained the intricate dynamics and effects
I was witnessing in the practice and teaching of Taoist Erotic Massage. Then I discovered Silvan
Tomkins affect theory and script theory, and Donald Moshers depth of sexual involvement theory.
Tomkins theories explained the transformational elements of the massage. By Moshers standards,
the education in TEM classes was profound, because it facilitated deep levels of partner
engagement, erotic role-playing, and sexual trance. Alan and Donna Brauer, Mantak Chia, and
Harley Swiftdeer also influenced the evolution of TEM.
From 1982 to 1985, I explored the possibilities of this massage with clients in one-on-one sessions.
In 1986, I began teaching classes in TEM through the Body Electric School. The first classes were
held in Oakland, but within two years they were being offered in cities throughout North American,
and then in Europe and New Zealand.
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From 1989 to the present, this massage has been taught in a two-day workshop called Celebrating
the Body Erotic, which has been offered more than 500 times to men and women, gay through
straight. In 1992, I produced Fire on the Mountain, a video teaching this massage. This video
became popular among nongay buyers through distribution in womens stores and heterosexual
publications.
Since selling the Body Electric School, I have found that the TEM results can be accomplished
through mindful masturbation, without the need for another persons presence. My current work is
educating masturbation coaches who can guide both men and women into ecstatic states.
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