Becoming a tantric sex practitioner and kinbaku artist

Learning from a Tantrica on an island in Thailand

One of my most important mentors as a dominatrix is also a shibari teacher and performer and a Tantrica.  Her practice is what I would like mine to be.  A celebration of women and femininity, sensual, empowering, in touch with the divine.  I wrote to her and gushed, “I want to be just like you!” and lo and behold, she agreed to speak to me the next day.

And just like that, she became a formal mentor.

I have been able to work with her in New York, in a dungeon and in a Shibari studio, and she invited me to visit her in her home, but I am a bit hesitant to go to the US these days, given the anti-trans climate.  Don’t think I fancy being shouted at, harassed, harangued, prevented from using the bathroom, or anything worse from being declared a felon, having my passport taken, driving license taken, being arrested, jailed, beaten up, murdered.  Well done America!

Instead, I joined her in Thailand where she spent a month.  This worked with other plans of mine which included a trip to Tokyo, working with her teacher too, and just meeting my need for sunshine.

I had planned to go to Thailand and/or Bali with friends in January but had not because of my divorce—I was in court in dreary old England instead.  That was an experience and a half, and one that I would not recommend to anyone.  It was also cathartic for me, though the pressure of preparation nearly drove me over the edge.  Indeed, I created an entire emergency no-suicide network with the help of my therapist, and had her on the phone every day after court, as well as two friends, one of whom is an emergency room surgeon who had admitting privileges and could make decisions for me.

To say these people stepped up for me is an understatement.  “Can you be my 3:00 am friend?” was what I asked of the surgeon.  She knew why and even though we don’t know each other super well, she was ready.  It’s funny how you can know someone for 30 years and never spend time together, or socialise at all, even though you like each other, and then suddenly, you are in one another’s lives.

My children call her the “genius” and she is one of the miracles that has come into my life. D’you know the book “Diamond in your own back yard”? It was recommended to me by a magician once upon a time in the Wisconsin Dells, and it talks about how everything you need is already within reach. True magic is learning to see it.

My children increasingly vote with their feet and their hearts, and when they keep coming home to be with me, at home, and are desperate that I create them a new home when we move, is all I need to know. So many trans people lose their family, their friends, their loved ones to the social bigotry which increasingly defines discourse around us. But the world will remember the courageous ones, as it always does, and I will simply bask in the beautiful love of my children, and laugh at how many people are consumed by hate.

So, in Thailand, we spent a lot of time together learning her style of rope…not so much the knots, but instead how she embodies energy through rope, how she transmits divine feminine archetypes, calls in Goddesses, invokes the elements.  It was very instructive.

The rest of the time?  I spent quite a bit of time running and doing core exercises, or just lying on the beach.  It was pretty blissful.

And I also started doing “real” yoga.  I’ve only ever done kundalini yoga before, and it is not that kundalini yoga isn’t real.  It is.  And wonderful, and I will return to it.  I will also seek out other practitioners as the person I have access to at the moment is a novice of sorts.

No.  This yoga was vinyasa.  Ashtanga.  Not that I know anything about the different types of yoga.  I went every day but one.  Two hours.  Physically challenging.  My body was stretched, pulled, and exhausted every day in ways that I didn’t know possible.  It felt so good that I could imagine going back for a month and really sinking into my body.

At this rate, that may come.  But first, I need to figure out how to make a living.  A sustainable one.

I rented a motorbike and tore around the island.  It was delightful to feel the breeze on my skin, the sunshine splashing down, and to be in the heat.  The sea was still.  The sky was blue.  It rained only briefly once.  The sounds of the birds.  The fresh fish.  And all the fruit.  These are my body love languages.

The Thai massage, however, was often too painful for words.  The practitioners had good fun with me.  My moans and whimpers in their own voices echoing back in teasing mockery became the cries of sexual ecstasy.

“You come now Madame.  Massage,” and then they would whimper and giggle.

Wherever you go, leave a wake.

During my days in Thailand, I tied many different women.  It was fascinating how they articulated where they were in their bodies, what they hoped for in a session, what they needed.  Only one wanted a spanking, and she got it.  I love it when a woman moans “yes” with her body when she is spanked, asking for more without saying it.

I also tied two men.  Two firsts.  Though one thinks they might be trans, and the other was physically tiny, skinny as a rail, it was still very different.  Men respond differently to rope than woman do.  They have a harder time letting go, surrendering.  At least in this way, it must be hard to be a man.  And it may seem perverse to say so, but I have no idea what it must be like.  Never have.  At this rate, I never will.