Intentional Erotic Reconditioning

Course Description 

Sex offers a lens through which we may examine and deeply experience ourselves and our connection to all of existence; in sex, we touch our most painful wounds as well as the heights of our most cherished aspirations. By fully immersing ourselves in our sexual experiences, we touch the possibility of personal transformation.

Even when we do not realize it, we encounter these realms of our inner lives during sex, and because of this access, sex offers us the potential to change if we allow ourselves to integrate what we find therein. Contact with the feelings we discover allows us to process and metabolize them, re-imagining the stories we attach to them. And as our stories shift, we can grow in exciting new ways. As such, sex offers rich ground on which to build an intentional practice that encourages self-reflection, nurturance, and intentional integration of our shadows, both personal and collective.

This course offers a conceptual framework to understand sexuality as a means for personal transformation by uncovering personal motivations for sex and offering a variety of embodied exercises—both solo and partnered—to promote insight and emergent sexual behavior.

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe a conceptual framework for sex as a path for personal growth.
2. Describe the value of intentional engagement with one’s eroticism.
3. Explain intentional/affirmative self-pleasure and how to build a personal practice.
4. Describe four key motivators of sexual desire.
5. List 2 somatic, erotic exercises that promote inquiry and behavioral insight.

Speaker Bio:

Born a minister’s son in the Deep South, I grew up in a rigidly religious environment, struggling against social conditioning and problematic relationship templates that I inherited from society. At age 21, I myself became a trained minister, suppressing my true sexual identity as a gay man, and dividing myself into pieces on the inside. Yet, it has been my eroticism that has led me into my own search for personal truth. Once I left the ministry and stepped “out of the closet,” I painfully accepted that my journey toward wholeness and my authentic self was far from over. In fact, it had just begun. Likewise, I believe that it is through our own pain that we will transform ourselves, our communities, and our cultures at large.

I studied social anthropology at the University of Texas and received a minister’s license in Texas. After leaving the formal church, I started a wellness coaching practice and moved to the Bay Area. There, I began apprenticing with a Tantra facilitator, hosting monthly groups for queer men seeking to explore connections between their spiritual and erotic longings. I later studied at Modern Sex Therapy Institutes and became an AASECT Certified Sexuality Counselor. In AASECT, I serve on a committee of editors for the upcoming magazine, Contemporary Sexuality Voices. My current practice ranges from private coaching to group facilitation and formal teaching. Additionally, I write and curate erotic content for Himeros.tv, an ethically informed erotica company for queer men.