Somatic Disembodiment - Or: How do I find out what I want (and that this is what I don't want)? Or: My favorite workshops are workshops that turn workshops upside down
"We start with a short meditation in which we reflect on states that are not geared towards pleasure and satisfaction. We want to reflect on the nature of desire and ask whether our desire has much more to do with self-denial than with self-fulfillment."
Here it is! My note, which I was looking for because I was asked in a >> podcast how I actually approach my workshop design. The podcast is called "Sex in Berlin" and is by Nike Wessel. Nike was at the sex-positive festival >> Xplore in 2024 and attended my workshop "Everyone Is Female and Everyone Hates It" -- a >> quote by Andrea Long Chu, which lives rentfree in my head. The workshop was part of the workshop series "Non-pleasure and absurdity", to which performance artist >> Anna Natt invited me. In a week of total obsession, insomnia and workaholism, we wanted nothing less than to stretch the laws of sex-positive pleasure until they break. If you know you know. And my workshop was to serve as a warm-up for this.
In the podcast, Nike tells me that she was late for my workshop and actually only took part in the last exercise, which involved swapping clothes with the other person. She talks about how intimate it was to feel someone else's warm clothes on her skin and at the same time to see her own clothes on someone else's body. Nike then asks how I come up with such exercises and how I would describe my workshop style. In the podcast, I try to explain the important role that reading theory - social theory, queer theory, cultural theory - plays in my courses and that I wanted to use the exercise to make some thought experiments from the essay "Females" by Andrea Long Chu physically comprehensible: for example, the question of how one can become a projection surface for the desires of others.
This question is rather counterintuitive in sex-positive circles. After all, in most workshops you are encouraged to find out what you want. It's a lot about consent and therefore about your own will. About communicating your own wishes. Empowerment: strengthening your own power to act. In my workshops, this "have the courage to use your own sensuality" also plays a big role and I would always say that I encourage self-determination in my workshop work. However, I found reading "Females" so wonderfully refreshing, because it reflected my experience that the desire to be self-determined is more of a wishful thinking that cannot be fully realized. Because desire is much more complex.
An example: The special thing about our >> retreat 'Tantra with a pinch of salt' is that we don't teach fixed massage sequences, but rather tools and techniques that can be used to invent your own massages. This approach reflects my values, because I find it important in intimate encounters to engage with each other and not just reel off a script. The retreat thrives on an interest in ethical touch: how do we create a space for each other in which we can explore what is really alive between and within us? But also: if all bodies are different and people with different experiences and needs come together, what is the point of learning fixed massage patterns that are imposed on all bodies? I would rather provide the building blocks that participants can use to create their own massage that is right for them.
I think that's great. And many others think it's great too. And then you start and realize: oh, that's exhausting. And at some point the participants find themselves wishing that I'd better tell them what to do.
It's exhausting having to be someone.
You become claustrophobic if you revolve too much around your own self and your own will. And then this wanting should also be somehow understandable!
"Just tell me what I should do!" and even "Just tell me what I should want!" are sentences that I feel. I don't want to admit it to myself, but when I think of sexy interactions, these desires are also quite present in me. The workshop "Everyone is Female and Everyone Hates it" wants to explore this without immediately condemning it.
So what is this provocative sentence all about?
For queer theorist Andrea Long Chu, being female means "defining oneself through self-sacrifice": exhausting one's own desires in order to replace them with those of another. Being female means that our desires are projected onto us.
And why does everyone want that when it is said that "everyone is female, even if they hate it"? Well, there is also something relieving, liberating and protective about it. Because then I don't have to stand up for my own desires. I can hide behind other people's desires - desires that can always be shameful. So I am protected from shame. No one can accuse me of really wanting something so lowly, cheap, dirty or whatever. In our sexual culture, which is divided into neat categories, who really stands by their messy desires?
The aim of the workshop is not to find out whether the quote is true or whether it is good and correct. The aim is to work with the quote in order to play with alienation. To find out what helps us to live a depersonalized intimacy. An intimacy in which we can enjoy letting the body become a thing that is subject to the wishes of the other (and of course this happens in the workshop on the basis of mutual consent, so that we do not dehumanize and degrade ourselves and our counterpart).
Important: 'Femininity' here does not mean biological sex. Rather, 'femininity' here means a universal gender. It refers to an existential state that all genders can experience: a state in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desire of another.
The workshop is not aimed at making you feel good (which doesn't mean it's aimed at making you feel bad).
In the guided meditation at the beginning, I ask the participants to breathe in and out deeply, to feel the airflow in their nostrils as they release their body weight to the floor. In a gentle voice, I try to imitate my yoga teacher:
"Now think about all the desires you typically pursue in your sex life. Recognize how much effort and energy goes into satisfying these desires.Now choose one of your erotic fantasies. What would be the best thing you could experience at the Xplore Playparty? Imagine it in detail. Then ask yourself: What would be the second best thing? What would be the less good fantasy? What would be less desirable? Replace your best fantasy with your second best and decide to always go for the second best idea at the playparty.Visualize this. Recognize the feelings and thoughts associated with this fantasy. How underrated second best is. Pay more attention to it, stick with your mediocre fantasies and decenter the first-best ones.As you continue to breathe, imagine yourself letting go of these desires too. Imagine them disappearing into thin air.
Now imagine that you have two bodies at the same time: one body that is full of desires but needs to find a place outside itself to place these desires. The second body becomes this place, this vessel for the desires of the first body. Imagine how this second body makes space within itself for the desires of the other body. Feel the space that is created within you. Accept this emptiness, this feeling of being without your own desires. Observe all the feelings that arise.
Now bring your awareness back to your breath. Notice the rise and fall of your chest with each inhalation and exhalation.
When you feel ready, open your eyes and sit still for a moment and think about your experience."
After the meditation, I explain the philosophy behind "Everyone is female and everyone hates it" and try to get closer to depersonalized eroticism in three exercises:
I.) Modeling the other
There are always two people working together - one person (person A) is in the role of the sculptor, the other person (person B) is the material for their sculpture.
A brings B into certain poses and positions, which A decides on.
Discuss personal boundaries, no-go's and safewords in advance. Agree on how A should touch B (perhaps even with sticks instead of hands) and which parts of the body must not be touched. The interaction can be stopped at any time.
A has 8 minutes to model B according to A's ideas. Then both swap roles.
II.) The self-negation role play
Two people always work together. In each duet, one person plays the 'I' first, while the other person plays the 'other'. After each interaction, the roles are swapped so that you alternate between being 'me' and the 'other' several times in a row.
The interaction is as follows:
'I' expresses a personal preference, a personal desire or a personal wish. The 'other' responds by replacing 'I''s statement with another preference / desire / wish - one that is projected onto 'I'. The 'other' simply has to imagine what 'I' wants or what the 'other' thinks suits 'I' better, without it necessarily having anything to do with 'I'.
For example:
Me: "I like bondage and am usually tied up at play parties".Other: "Actually, I'd rather see you jerking off in the corner at a play party and gawking at other people".
Me: "I like to dress in tight-fitting lingerie"
Other: "Baggy clothes would look great on you and suit your type perfectly"
Me: "I'm usually rather shy"
Other: "I can tell by looking at you that you are someone who makes the first move when flirting and has the latest pick-up lines at the ready"
Every time the 'Other' replaces a statement from 'Me' with another, 'Me' takes off an item of clothing as a symbol of 'Me' letting go of something of himself.
'I' and the 'other' then switch roles. So when 'I' says something and the 'other' projects an alternative desire onto 'I' and 'I' then takes off an item of clothing, the roles are swapped: whoever was previously 'I' becomes the 'other' and the 'other' becomes 'I'. The roles are then swapped again and again and again until you no longer want to take your clothes off or until you are naked.
Then they both stop using words and interact by taking turns taking an item of clothing from themselves and slowly handing it to the other person. The person who receives the item of clothing puts it on and then takes an item of clothing from themselves, which the other person then puts on. This goes back and forth until both people are wearing all of each other's clothes or until the discomfort of the exercise becomes too unbearable.
Finally, they both finish the exercise and discuss how it felt to have their desires/presence/ownership negated and replaced, and relate this to the idea of femininity described by Andrea Long Chu.
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