Somatic Disembodiment – Or: How do I figure out what I want (and that it’s actually what I don’t want)? Or: My favorite workshops are the ones that turn workshops upside down
“We’ll begin with a short meditation in which we reflect on states of mind that are not focused on pleasure and satisfaction. Our aim is 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! The note I’ve been looking for—because I was asked on a >> podcast how I actually go about designing my workshops. The podcast is called “Sex in Berlin” and is hosted by Nike Wessel. Nike attended the sex-positive festival >> Xplore in 2024 and took my workshop “Everyone Is Female and Everyone Hates It” there—a >> quote from Andrea Long Chu that lives rent-free in my head. The workshop was part of the “Non-pleasure and absurdity” workshop series, 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 snapped. If you know, you know. And my workshop was meant to serve as a warm-up for that.
In the podcast, Nike explains that she arrived late to my workshop and actually only participated in the last exercise, which involved swapping clothes with a partner. She describes how intimate it was to feel someone else’s warm clothes against her skin while at the same time seeing her own clothes on a stranger’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 theories, queer theory, cultural theories—plays in my courses, and that with this exercise I wanted to make some thought experiments from Andrea Long Chu’s essay “Females” physically tangible: for example, the question of how one can become a projection screen for the desires of others.
This question is somewhat counterintuitive in sex-positive circles. After all, in most workshops, people are generally encouraged to figure out what they want. It’s very much about consent and, therefore, about one’s own will. It’s about communicating one’s own desires. It’s about empowerment: strengthening one’s own agency. In my workshops, this idea of “having the courage to embrace your own sensuality” also plays a major role, and I would always say that I encourage self-determination in my workshop work. In contrast, however, I found reading “Females” so wonderfully refreshing because it mirrored my experience that the pursuit of self-determined desire is more a matter of wishful thinking that cannot be fully realized. Because desire is much more complex.
Here’s an example: What makes our >> “Tantra with a Pinch of Salt” retreat special is that we focus less on teaching set massage sequences and more on providing tools and techniques that allow participants to create their own massages. This approach reflects my values because I believe it’s important in intimate encounters to connect with one another rather than just going through the motions. The retreat thrives on an interest in ethical touch: how do we create a space for one another where we can explore what’s truly alive between us and within us at that moment? But also: If all bodies are different and people with varying experiences and needs come together, what’s the point of learning fixed massage patterns that are imposed on all bodies? I’d much rather provide the building blocks that participants can use to construct their own massages—ones that feel right for them.
I think that’s fantastic. And a lot of other people think it’s fantastic, too. And then you get started and realize: Oh, but this is actually exhausting. And at some point, the participants catch themselves wishing that I would just tell them what to do.
It’s exhausting to have to be someone.
You start to feel claustrophobic if you revolve too much around your own self and your own desires. And then those desires are supposed to be understandable, too!
“Just tell me what to do!” and even “Just tell me what I’m supposed to want!” are phrases I can really relate to. I don’t want to admit it to myself, but when I think about sexy interactions, these desires are actually quite present within me. The workshop “Everyone is Female and Everyone Hates it” aims to explore this without immediately judging it.
So what's the story behind this provocative statement?
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 desire is projected onto us.
And why does everyone want this, if it’s said that “everyone is female, even if they hate it”? Well, there’s something relieving, liberating, and protective about it. Because then I don’t have to take responsibility for my own desire. I can hide behind someone else’s desire—a desire that can always be shameful. So I’m protected from shame. No one can accuse me of actually wanting something so base, cheap, dirty, or whatever. In our sexual culture, with its neat categories, who really stands by their messy desires?
The goal of the workshop is not to determine whether the quote is accurate or whether it is good and correct. The goal is to work with the quote to explore alienation—to discover what helps us experience a depersonalized intimacy. An intimacy in which we can take pleasure in allowing the body to become an object subject to the desires of the other (and, of course, this takes place in the workshop on the basis of mutual consent, so that we do not dehumanize and degrade ourselves and our partner in the process).
Important: “Femininity” here does not refer to biological sex. Rather, “femininity” here refers to 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 another’s desire.
The workshop is not intended to make people feel good (which does not mean that it is intended to make people feel bad).
In the guided meditation at the beginning, I ask the participants to breathe deeply in and out, to feel the flow of air through their noses, and to let their body weight settle onto 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 those 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-than-ideal fantasy? What would be less desirable? Replace your best fantasy with your second-best one, and resolve to always choose the second-best option at the playparty. Visualize this. Recognize the feelings and thoughts associated with this fantasy. How underrated the second-best option is. Pay more attention to that, stick with your mediocre fantasies, and shift the focus away from the top choices. As you continue to breathe, imagine letting go of these desires as well. Imagine them vanishing into thin air.
Now imagine you have two bodies at the same time: one body that is full of longings but must find a place outside itself to hold those desires. The second body becomes that place, that vessel for the desires of the first body. Imagine how this second body makes room within itself for the desires of the other body. Feel the space that arises within you. Embrace this emptiness, this feeling of being without desires of your own. Observe all the feelings that arise in the process.
Now bring your awareness back to your breath. Notice how your chest rises and falls with each inhalation and exhalation.
"When you feel ready, open your eyes, sit still for a moment, and reflect on your experience."
After the meditation, I explain the philosophy behind “Everyone is female, and everyone hates it” and try to explore depersonalized eroticism through three exercises:
I.) Modeling the Other
Two people always work together—one person (Person A) plays the role of the sculptor, and the other person (Person B) serves as the material for the sculpture.
A guides B into specific poses and positions, which A decides on.
Discuss your personal boundaries, no-gos, and safe words beforehand. 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 sculpt B according to A's vision. After that, they switch roles.
II.) The Self-Denial Role-Playing Game
Two people always work together. In each duet, one person plays the “I” first, while the other plays the “Other.” After each interaction, the roles are switched, so that each person takes turns being the “I” and the “Other” several times in a row.
The interaction works as follows:
“I” expresses a personal preference, a personal desire, or a personal wish. In response, the “other” replies in such a way that “I”’s statement is replaced by a different preference, desire, or wish—one that is projected onto “I.” The “other” simply has to imagine what “I” want or what, in the “other’s” view, would be a better fit for “I”—without it necessarily having anything to do with “I.”
For example:
Me: “I like bondage and am usually the one doing the tying at play parties.” Others: “Actually, at a play party, I’d rather see you jerking off in the corner while staring at others.”
Me: “I like to wear tight-fitting lingerie.”
Others: “Baggy clothes would look great on you and totally suit your style.”
Me: “I’m usually pretty shy.”
Other: “I can tell you’re the kind of person who makes the first move when flirting and always has the latest pickup lines ready.”
Every time the “Other” replaces a statement from “Me” with a different one, “Me” takes off a piece of clothing as a symbol of letting go of a part of myself.
Then “I” and the “Other” switch roles. So when “I” say something and the “Other” projects an alternative desire onto “I,” and “I” then take off a piece of clothing, the roles are reversed: whoever was previously “I” becomes the “Other,” and the “Other” becomes “I.” After that, the roles are swapped again, and again and again, until one no longer wants to undress or until one is naked.
Then neither of them uses words anymore; instead, they interact by taking turns removing an item of clothing from themselves and slowly handing it to the other person. The person who receives the item puts it on and then removes an item of clothing from themselves, which the other person then puts on. This continues back and forth until both people are wearing all of each other’s clothes or until the discomfort of the exercise becomes too much to bear.
Finally, both of them finish the exercise and discuss how it felt to have their desires, circumstances, and idiosyncrasies negated and replaced, relating this to the concept of femininity described by Andrea Long Chu.
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