Veils to the Soul
Season 2 ... Masculinity and Spirituality. An exploration into the current state of the Masculine in Therapy and Spirituality.
Season 1 ... Birthing Spirit in the Modern World. An exploration of what's between us and our Souls' birth, and how the Modern World resists that birth, but needs it - if it's to survive and thrive!
Veils to the Soul
8. Sex
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Two English men brought up in the era of Carry On Films use all the Emotional Maturity they mustered in the previous episode to talk about Sex.
Takes us about 10 minutes to get to nudes but we think you'll find it worth the wait.
Gary and Oliver discuss (among other things) Apps and the loss of curiosity, Where's the fun? Shame, Tantra in the MBS, Nudity and Men's Groups.
Thanks for listening!
Find out more:
For Oliver's Psycho-Spiritual work with Individuals, Couples and Groups, please visit www.oliverbaum.co.uk.
For more information on Gary's work www.thewrightmedium.co.uk
Veils to the Soul, Masculinity and Spirituality with Oliver Baume. And Gary Wright.
SPEAKER_00So welcome. And I'm going to be starting the introduction, which is not normal, really. But we're going to be talking about sex today. Yes, I did say that. And um we discovered, we thought, well, when we're doing this, we'll have a chat. And we thought we'd probably end up saying at some point that men don't have conversations with other men about sex very often. We thought we'd probably come around to that point. And we probably will. And then we both realised actually we'd never had that conversation together. So last week we went and did that, which you will not be able to be able to hear because we had a no-holds-barred conversation about sex and how we approach it and what that has led us to feel and experience. And then we're going to come back and talk to you about our experience of having a conversation with each other.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and certainly from my perspective, I think the overwhelming thing was shame, really. There seemed to be that a theme or a vein of shame running through pretty much everything. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on myself with that, but um it's amazing though how present shame is in conversations around sex. And I don't know if it's um more present between a conversation between men um than it might be between I don't know, men and women or whatever. But but the one thing I have noticed certainly when I when I work with clients over the years is that when a client, a male client, specifically talks about sex in an unfiltered way, to me as a male therapist, the lightness they have at the end of the session is amazing. And actually, I I really felt that after our discussion as well. Um, for all you know, doing the classic therapist thing of sitting and let everybody else do the talking to actually engage in the conversation is a completely different feel to it. And we certainly raised some interesting themes. I mean, was there any standouts for you, Gary?
SPEAKER_00Well, I was just gonna ask you actually if you felt better um at the end of it, or whether that had shifted, which you which you've now said anyway, because something did shift for me, really. It wasn't um, I didn't immediately feel um an overwhelming sense of shame in starting the conversation there, really. Particularly, I didn't have that, that wasn't my starting point. Um but it was a very interesting point as I sort of chatted and spoke, and an interesting experience to think, well, actually I felt much better at the at the end. So I don't quite know what I sort of, if I'm honest, what I let go of or what happened. But it was a very empowering experience, really. Um, and as I as I'd said last week, I can't share this, but that but the week before we had uh our conversation about it, two men had decided to talk to me about it, talk about their sex life, which I don't think had ever happened to me in quite the way it had, but it sort of sat me down and went, Can I talk to you? And I went, Yes. This wasn't professionally, this was just friends. I just need to tell somebody this. So I'd had that experience through the week, but that was not me sharing, that was just me listening. And so I found that the fact of actually sharing stories were quite interesting. And there was a point of thinking, oh, actually, I've had some quite interesting experiences. And some not all of them have been wonderful, but quite a lot of them had been quite empowering. But it was only when I'd said it that I thought, ah, actually I'd never viewed it like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it's interesting to say that. I mean, literally the morning after we we um had the conversation, a long-term client of mine, and I won't give any details, just opened up about something they'd never opened up about before. And I I definitely felt it wasn't like almost like a shift in the field that gave him permission. Maybe it was there was an element of because I've been talking about this kind of thing. He, you know, unconsciously felt that there was there was permission there for him as well. So that this there is something in that sort of there's an opening up, I think was probably how I felt afterwards. There was a bit of freedom that I felt, um, as if I wasn't kind of carrying this sort of thing as a sort of, I don't know, guilty secret or whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00What was very interesting for me was actually not necessarily well, the it was interesting to have that conversation with you, but it wasn't that the shifts didn't kind of happen there. Because I'd sort of realised weeks a couple of weeks before that I knew you know this was in the schedule to talk about, and I thought, oh yeah, but that's you know, and I I said at the beginning, you know, we're going to end up saying, well, men need to discuss this more with each other. And I had more problems actually saying to you, I think we might have to challenge this in a different way or come at this in a different way. I had more problems with saying, well, actually, I think I need to do it this way rather than the way that we've just been coming together and just having a conversation about the topic. I think we need to actually explore this on another over another in another way. And I was sort of sitting there thinking, you know, after we'd done one podcast of can you ask for what you need? I thought I can't really not do that. So it took me quite a while to actually say I've had just had an idea. I think we need to do this. That was a bigger challenge than actually having the conversation. Oh, that's so there's some yeah, there's something about the starting block. It's the starting block to have in this conversation more complicated than having the conversation itself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's really interesting. And it does, you know, expressing your needs and asking for what you want, it does feed into that, doesn't it? And that that reticence, whatever it might be, you know, as we've discussed last time, in actually, you know, step forward and and just say, This is what I need. And the worst thing in some ways that can happen is the other person saying no, I suppose. Um and the best thing is they might say yes.
SPEAKER_00Well, yes. And I thought, well, if you said no, I just thought, well, we'll just have to do something else, or come at it in a different way, or have a discussion of why you felt uncomfortable about that. So even if there's a no, it doesn't necessarily mean that the end of discussions just no, I'm gonna say no at this point, and then maybe I'll change my mind. But sometimes we do a no is quite final. I'm not saying if somebody says no, one should push somebody into an uncomfortable place. But the word no sometimes is quite a tricky thing. And um one of the things that we did discuss when we were talking is is can men suddenly say they're uncomfortable in a with something sexually, or do we have to plow on? You know, do we have a voice uh within our sexual selves, which I thought was actually terribly interesting when we were talking about that? And actually, were you know that's something that actually I often do hear with men when they have spoken to me about it, that inability to kind of articulate what they want with their partners.
SPEAKER_02I mean, the the the stereotype I suppose is that you know men are supposed to meet sex, you know, hard and ready to go, and and you know, that we want it all the time. Um, but actually, I mean, it's certainly with age, I I've found, and we we discussed this, that that unless my heart is at the very least bit engaged, then you know, actually I'd much rather say no, quite frankly. But then how is that no met often not very well? Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, it is interesting. You know, do men feel able to just stand up and say, actually, no, I don't want that.
SPEAKER_00We came to the conclusion that quite often no, well, no. And um it's a shame, really, because we're sort of we have moved into, which I think is really positive, we have moved into a kind of culture, really, in some ways, where talking about consensual sex and things like that is much more available. You know, most people it's on most people's radar in some ways, not everybody's, but it's much more talked about than it was when I was, you know, maybe 20 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago, possibly even five years ago, it wasn't quite so discussed in some ways. Um, but it still is interesting that whether people can really bring their needs and their conversations and their desires and their vulnerability to the forefront in talking about sex, to verbalise what one wants and what one doesn't want, and what works and what doesn't work, rather than thinking I'll just plow on and hope for the best. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and I suppose there's I mean, there's the the different sort of layers, realms, whatever we want to call it, of sex as well. Because I mean, uh you know, it can be a spiritual act, a very spiritual act, or it can be a very animalistic um physical act, and there's sort of any number of other things in between. I mean, even sort of archetypes, i archetypal uh forces and and all the rest. Um so it's it's also being able to discern our way, you know, where are we coming from, where is this need coming from? And also sort of, you know, how is conditioning from the past involved in it? I mean, it's very, very complicated potentially, and at the same time, very, very simple.
SPEAKER_00I had a th I had a thought this morning, you know, just the one, but I did have a thought this morning, and um I'm not really an app person. I've never I've never been on an app. I don't, I'm not interested in meeting anybody on an app, particularly. I I just don't, I just it's not a thing. But lots of people tell me that you know they've met, you know, the love of their life on them, and they seem to be serving, you know, the world in a in a big way. But it is, I did have a conversation with actually a lady a couple of years ago, and she said, Oh, well, you just have to send something nude quite early on. And I'm like, Really? And she was like, uh, yeah, because otherwise it just doesn't work. And she's a very empowered, very sexually confident person, and she said, and I said, Do you expect that back? And she went, Oh, yes. And I I was this came back to my mind this morning, and I thought, if we're starting there, that that kind of trading of photographs or images quite early on in a connection, if we're starting there, everything's kind of literally revealed within what you're comfortable with, I suppose, but she felt a pressure to kind of, you know, d you know, do more. We've kind of taken away curiosity. And I thought, if we take away curiosity, does that mean that then we're no longer curious about the person? And isn't curiosity quite isn't that the thing that leads to kind of quite a sexual chemistry in some ways, that curiousness? And if that's already been, you know, it put in over in a transactional way, so it's a bit, you know, am I in or out comma, you know, commercial kind of way of doing it? Have we not lost an incredible kind of part of a sexual connection already? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It feels it feels very, very visual as well. So it's only really sort of one well, certainly a sense that is predominant in that. It's very much about seeing as well as the transaction. And what about uh for me? There's a loss of touch in that, and again, that curiosity of touch between two people, which can be really revealing about all kinds of things. Um yeah, yeah, we do we definitely lose curiosity at our peril, I think, unless we are just sort of you know going for a quick shank or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00Um I I then I went on to say I've got a friend of mine who absolutely will not send anything. He just will not. He just goes, No, don't do that. Doesn't happen, and there, you know, lots of people I don't meet unless you know that's happened. Well, you know, he's very much jog on, yeah. Yeah, fair enough. And um people don't. People just don't uh he has no problems um at all. But he will not, she just I do not, and I'm quite happy to be on that, but I will not do it. And he doesn't have any problems actually, although most people say to me, Oh, well, it's the it's the norm now to have to do that. So I've had two very kind of conflicting views, and I thought, I wonder what happens if one takes a stand and goes, No, this is me sexually showing up in the world, or this is you know, the expression of my sexual energy or my sexuality, and one takes back control rather than the way that we it's all started to go, or well, here it started to go. Um it's an interesting point of saying, well, actually, where does where does my sexual energy start? And how do I want to kind of how do I want people to receive that?
SPEAKER_02So I I mean the image I've got there's the it's almost like two energetic fields. So two people, two energetic fields, and and obviously they are separate, and it's it's it's how they come together, and the energy that is created. I mean, you you know, whether it's the polarity of gender or whatever, whatever it is, there's that there's something in that field that that either brings people together or doesn't. And there's different levels. This is the thing.
SPEAKER_00It's quite extraordinary, really, you know, that actually we've somehow made connection quite complicated. And I'm not talking about sexual connection only, I'm talking about that dance into it. We've somehow, you know, we're much more immediate as a kind of um with everything, I think, as a race. You know, we expect our if we order something, we expect it to be here within 24 hours, you know. I'm old enough to remember when you have to wait 28 days for a delivery. But somebody said to me, a whole month, I was like, yeah, so we're you know, naturally it's come into you know it's come into everything of this point that actually things have to move much quicker, and we haven't got time for that. But actually, that exploring one's sexual energy is lost in oneself if things move quickly. So it's about I think for me it's about actually understanding what that what what one's energy is doing, and you can only often understand that if you take things at a much slower pace.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and the must I mean give given certainly in the sort of mind-borrowed body-spirit world, the the amount of sort of tantra courses and all the rest of it, there's there's clearly an interest in this and a desire for this. And yet I don't in the day-to-day it seems to get lost. Um and and actually I mean, uh a lot of the tantra stuff I think is a bit um is not necessarily helpful. Let's put it that way. Um or is it is not challenged, let's put it that way. You know, is this actually healthy, is this healing, or or whatever. But yeah, again, it it for me it comes back to curiosity and a willingness to engage and slow things down. You know, there's a time for hot passion, don't get me wrong, but um but yeah, that that the beauty of slowing things down and just really allowing things to sort of grow and develop as they do.
SPEAKER_00It's quite an interesting point, isn't it? Because that slowing down requires you to have in some in some ways that exploring one's sexual energy requires you to meet somebody who's also wanting to explore their sexual energy, and sometimes that's just not very available. And I have a friend who's very involved in the tantra scene, um, and he uh primarily he runs workshops and things for for gay men, and you know, he one of his big arguments are well, it's great, and I can get people to a point of consciousness and understanding, but if they're not gonna find um anybody else to talk to or explore this with outside these three hours or weekend or whatever his structure is doing, he said it's actually very, very difficult for anybody to really embody anything because you you're gonna get a a glimpse in a weekend to yourself, but unless you're gonna continue working on that, and sort of a sexual union is not something mainly you can work with on your own. Work with a sexual sexual self on your own, but not a sexual union on your own, um, in terms of working with another person. So he finds it very difficult that you know everybody's he's got everybody to a kind of understanding of and a kind of an ear os in the room, and then directly closes a thing, everybody dives to the door and nobody speaks. And he's never worked that out. And it's not because he's a bad teacher, it's just that's what happens. People go back into themselves quite quickly, they're almost snapped back.
SPEAKER_02It's difficult with these workshops, even really transformative ones. Um, you know, I mean, we were recording this on February the 15th, and I ran a singles, uh, a Valentine's Day workshop for singles yesterday. And and there was so much beautiful movement in the room, you know, and there's lots of dynamics that became really clear, you know, ancestral patterns that that were impacting on people, people's lives in the present, um, particularly in how they relate. And, you know, I could see people almost take the jackets of the sort of weighted jackets of those um patterns for want of a better word, off, even if just for a glimmer, and then that they get to feel into what it feels like to not have that with them. But then, you know, again, as you say, they go out into the world and you know, for some people it can be a really lasting change, but for a lot of people, and I know I know I've done this in workshops before, I'll go out, and you can almost feel yourself unpicking the work, you know, the familiar patterns click back in. You go into into your life, and it's um and I uh I I don't know where I'm drawing sort of how much there's still a hangover from the sort of particularly as Brits, the kind of the Victorian, I mean if the Victorian, I mean it's a stereotype, so maybe actually the Victorians were sort of you know getting up to all sorts, but um you know, how much of a hangover that uh that that sort of attitude, this sort of again, shame-based sexual attitude still has with the current generation. Um I certainly I look at my kids, um, and they seem to have a lot more rules, um, which is probably not a bad thing entirely, um around dating and sex and all the rest of it than certainly in my day when I was their age.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because we touched in our conversation over the fact that we're of a generation where when we were sort of thinking about sex and thinking about connections and things, we're of a generation that had the AIDS crisis looming with those hideous kind of adverts, which were probably necessary at the time, those hideous adverts of gravestones and white bunches of lilies falling, and we're all gonna die. Um, and you know, the plague with that all with that, you know, very interesting voice that was somewhere down there in the depths of hell. Um that that you know, and how that that did lead to people being more communicative about sex at one point, you know, it was quite a big shift, and couples sort of feeling that they had to stay together and work through difficulties rather than maybe do sort of things on the side. So we did go through a conscious point of um talking and exploring, and somehow we've g gone back into that. So it's interesting that the the for use of a better word, the younger generation, because um I don't have kids, or you know, the twenties generation are actually more communicative and have much more kind of structure around it. That's probably quite a good thing.
SPEAKER_02I I I do, I'm not sure boys have as strong a voice though, as as the girls that the um they the girls seem to be much clearer about expressing what they want and it's sort of expected and And I mean I'm sweeping generalization here by the way. But um but the boys are still as um they're not great, shall we say, as artic at articulating their needs. And then much more sort of almost there in service of the feminine. And I think that is in part down to the education. Sort of the they've been sort of brought up to see male sexuality as predatory and as a threat. Um and don't get me wrong, it can be, but you know, certainly that's not true of everybody.
SPEAKER_00No, and it's very interesting because um I was having a conversation with somebody the other day, not really about sex, but about shame. And but he's a sort of a young man in the world, and he said, Well, oh, I just don't bother. And I went, Why don't you bother? And he said, Well, you know, he said there's all this in the news about, you know, you know, we've got the Epstein files coming out and lots of abuse and you know, and lots of really, really difficult stories from women. He said, It's just I just I'm too terrified to go there because I would probably get it wrong, because I just don't know what any of the rules are. And I was like, that's a bit of a shame though, isn't it? And he was like, Yeah, but it's just easier. So he's kind of put in his very, well, he's not even 20, very early, put this massive restriction on himself of it's too hard to navigate, it's too complicated, it's too risky. So it was we were talking about shame, but actually we ended up talking about fear because he's gone into a place of well, I don't want to be accused, cancelled, it's all far too easy to get something wrong in the moment. So has really retreated. And I said, Well, isn't that you know, do you miss it? And he was like, Well, you know, if you're quite young, you know, you've a limited time doing it, so you know, you don't miss something that you've you've only tried a cut few times, really. And it that was his take on it, like that he's just gone into a place of it's not really available for me. And I said, Well, if you found you loved somebody, do you think you could have those conversations? He said, Oh, yeah, but you've got to get there first. And I thought, well, that's quite a shame. That's happened since you know we had the conversation.
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, I mean, Japan is the younger generation, apparently, are just not having relationships again, sweeping generalization, but the birth rates are down massively. Uh, and this does seem to be happening in in in Europe as well, um, for that very reason, or or for that reason in part, it's just it's either too expensive, so there's an economic angle, but it's also just too difficult. Um but then I suppose the the the shadow side of that is the m is I suppose there's a kind of incel movement where there's that resentment towards you know, that anger towards women for saying no. Um and yeah, I just I don't I don't know there's something in that actually, thinking about it. Again, that's back to whether that is it does feel a little bit one-sided. Um and there's a reason for that. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's very it's very interesting, isn't it? Because it's it's a very easy subject to start talking about sex, and and it's kind of sort of happened really, but start talking about sex and then ended up end up going into talking about abuse um or certainly lack of communication, which you can also say is kind of abusive. They tend to find that if you start talking about sex, it's quite easy to come into that energy stream. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I think it's in many ways quite a good thing to actually explore that, but they seem to be very, very linked now rather than um just something that could actually be a bit of fun. It's got very, very heavy. Yeah, and I can't remember it being other than the AIDS kind of uh thing looming in the background when I was young. I can't remember it being that kind of heavy when I was young. It was much more kind of fun. And I'm old enough to remember where where you had to have a conversation with somebody, you couldn't do it on an app. And so you you were forced to talk to people because you know, the internet I'm so old. The internet was not really available in in the way that you know it wasn't in most people's pockets, to say, per se. So, you know, you had to have those conversations. Where um I was in a bar the other day and I said to somebody, why is everybody talking? He said they're all on that, they're all on Tinder, working out who's who's on who's possibly standing next to you. I said, Is this what it's like? I mean, it's like a whole world, it's like learning to speak all over again, going out. And I it was like, yeah, and it was like, oh yeah, oh yeah. And he and then he kind of showed me, I said, All these people are kind of like, yeah. I was like, how interesting. But actually, nobody needs to kind of do that. They can now message somebody and go, Well, I'm in the same bar as you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, so there isn't that kind of energetic exchange across the room, and yeah, I mean, I remember particularly my teens and that that energetic exchange across across rooms and pubs and bars and clubs and whatever it was was awesome. I used to love that.
SPEAKER_00And so I don't know whether the progress of the kind of highly technological way we meet now has meant that actually we've lost, you know, for me, I'd argue that we've lost the feeling into can I trust this person? And that may well have opened the doorway for things to be more complicated and more abusive, yeah, and still more predatory rather than oh, I'll sit here and have a conversation with you. And I'm not saying difficult predatory things did not happen in in you know when people were in bars, because they certainly did, but there is a kind of point, isn't there, about not you having to eventually you have to kind of trust your own instincts and you have to trust your own communication style. And um we've lost that. And as I said, lots I you know, I do hear men saying now that it's actually they've they don't know where they fit in the world, it's too difficult sexually now. So they're kind of drifting, or they're just not bothering, or it's just all complicated, too complicated. So I won't go there.
SPEAKER_02And I can feel that, yeah, that I mean that drift of masculinity. And what I mean, nothing really fills that void, does it? No. Because that there's something here that I mean just that energy needs to be needs to have something receptive um to be met. And without it, it's just drifting, basically. Or it comes out sideways in in ways that are actually won't will create you know pain, hurt, etc. for other people. There's something uh I mean, a l a lot of the work I do is uh uh particularly in workshops, is around the the integration of the masculine and the feminine within us and uh outside. And this dynamic is so where both sides feel met, you know, whether this is internally or externally, so important. And and arguably sex is sort of an ultimate human expression of that. And certainly, you know, I can think of times when you you you you really lose your ego, it it just goes, all sense of eye goes. And in that moment, you know, you can feel totally and utterly connected to the divine, and it's a it's a really beautiful thing. Um But without people actually being able to do those initial movements towards each other, you know what's happening? You know, this is like a certain part of being human just grinds to a halt.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and sex is a very, very good way of staying in the moment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00And in that way that you you can totally be in the moment and with somebody else and with yourself, I suppose is the ultimate expression of you know, a good couple of hours, possibly. Or or whatever, you know. But it is an interesting thing. We did talk about, didn't we, is sex sex as a healing modality, yeah, as a healing energy for ourselves. Which I think that that divine energy of it, or that divinity where you know two people meet in great honour of each other, is something to aim for, really.
SPEAKER_02And the within it there's almost like a celebration. We we touched on the life-death cycle as well. But uh with within sex, there's a celebration of that, the life, the death, the creative forces of nature that both begin and end. But there's there's something about in modern society we seem to have slapped sort of shame and guilt in amongst that cycle. Um and also a sort of lack of trust. And goodness knows how what else as well. It's just it's it just become much more complex.
SPEAKER_00I was I was thinking back to to uh some who I think, you know, uh magically, you know, energetically, you know, two of the great sexologists uh and you know uh a lot to be said about the man, not always easy, but you know, Crowley was at least the magical side of sex, you know, before the you know, talking about it before before the first world war and things and during, you know, in that kind of thing. And yeah, as I said, a lot to be said about the man. Um, you know, um, but did have that encouragement of that will and that for that force, you know, uh uh and and thinking about it, embodying it, right? And then you had that, you know, that other amazing magical person, Dion Fortune, who was, you know, a great one for that point of talking about, you know, she was when you know one of the highest paid, you know, you couldn't actually, women couldn't be a psychotherapist at that time, but she she really did study that all of that and you know was very much in demand. Because she she did that, the mix, you know, the mixing of thinking about the mixing of genders and that point between the masculine and the feminine and that unity within, you know. And so going back, you know, when you talk about the Victorian times a bit before that, but going back, you know, to sort of pre around the first world war and the second world war, you know, there were people talking about this on quite interesting levels. And then, of course, you had, you know, I always think about putting putting Mari Stopes in the middle of this, who was uh, you know, quite a kind of force, really. And, you know, she was she was uh she was interested in eugenics and didn't think the poor should be allowed to breed. But she did talk about multiple orgasms uh on and together um around the First World War, before the first world war. So she was a you know, we have had in the past, not that long ago, people very much talking about that connection and divinity and that sort of euphoria of sex. And somehow we've come into this very kind of conscious brain bit and not into the energetic bit. And it's we seem to have lost that, you know, because those three, you know, those three people talking about sex were quite prevalent, and you know, yeah, it's over a hundred years ago, but we've we seem to have lost quite a lot more. Where you know, around that that war period, it was much more talked about in some ways.
SPEAKER_02And actually, how much how much is um new? You know, because I'm certain I I remember when I did research into sex magic, I mean it was very much it was Crowley's work that was front and centre, as it were, for that. And then you've got tantra, which obviously has its roots um in ancient wisdom. And eastern meaning. And eastern meaning, yeah, yeah. Um and actually I I mean that takes me to you know, we talked about body confidence as well. Yeah. Yeah, how that in sort of it again, that seems is that a particularly Western thing? I don't know, and that's probably got worse with um sort of Instagram and all the rest. You know, sort of constantly being flashed images of of apparent perfection.
SPEAKER_00And I admitted, having been an old dancer, that probably I had sort of reasonably you know, reasonably uh perfect perfect looking body at one point. I definitely had an eight-pack in my time as a dancer. I don't even know what one of those would look like. Well, you had six and you said two more, yeah. Two more, really, but you know. Um but but it was interesting because you asked me quite sweaty, you know, having come from a an embodied movement basic, was that did that make it any easier to be body confident? And I said, Well, no dancers really ever happy with their body because you always think, Oh, why does my body not do what their body does? So still there is that comparison, although being physically in something does mean that you can drop into your centre much more, and I think there is something about having to go past uh a body, really, and an understanding that actually that is your vessel and loving it. Um I was reminded of somebody I uh knew, she's past now, but she she said to me once, she she was a very, very accomplished actress, very, very good, amazing. And she said to me one day, she said, Well, I she went to Radha and she said to me, you know, she said, I looked in the mirror one day, and I thought, wow, you're plain. You are really, really plain. And she said, I decided that I would have to be bloody good and be in my body. And I remember her saying that to me, and I thought, well, that's really interesting. That she knew she couldn't intellectually do this, and she was very, very accomplished. She she always worked, and um, she was present, she had presence, and I don't know how many of us now really think about our bodies as being a vessel that we really should love. And I definitely don't think, other than the conversation we'd had last week, that men I've ever had a conversation with another man about being really confident and really honouring their body and trying to consciously connect in with it in a loving way.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting, one of my favourite books is um a guy called uh what was it, Colfred um Durkheim, and it's called Hara, it's about the Japanese idea of Hara having belly and and how sort of someone with belly means they've got weight and they've got a bit of gravitas, they've got presence ultimately, they're there, and it's considered a really good thing to have. And it's sort of whereas as over here, you know, even if you know we're all sucking everything in and desperately trying not to show what we have got kind of thing. Um and uh and it's it it's an interesting contrast because presence is essential, I think, in um to have really, really, really fulfilling sex.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and that connection with yourself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, there's no point worrying that you're in lack of something. It's um it's a very interesting energy because sometimes um I was thinking, you know, quite often people don't like themselves or they don't have a lot of self-respect and they don't have and that tends to run across the board, really, in in every area of their life if they have that. Um but uh and sometimes you know people can be quite confident in other areas of their life, but not in terms of body confidence and not in terms of sex. Somebody said to me once, uh, it's not that I'm unconfident, I just don't think I'm what's required. What do you mean by that? Well, they just didn't feel that they were what what they looked like and what their body was like was what was required. Wow. What was going to be desired by anybody, by anybody, you know, he said, you know, gaze straight anybody. I don't I don't care, really. I just don't think what's required. And he didn't think he was enough. But in other areas, he was very, very, very successful because he didn't have that, but he had it around body image, and therefore he said it's really limited my life. And a very interesting point of what's happening, really, um, for society, if we're all going to go down to the perfect body, and we're also, I don't think, really exposed to other people's bodies enough anymore. You know, it's a bit because we've a lot of people have gone into shame around their body not being good enough, you know, in terms of or hitting a perfection, people do tend to cover up in ways that I can't really remember, you know, in the 70s and 80s, people being quite so quite so sort of uh able to retreat, you know, wanting to not be seen physically or being very, very, very conscious. People just kind of got on with it really a bit more. And so that's a bit of a shame that you know, if we don't see other people, we haven't really got anything to kind of sort of compare ourselves to, to kind of think that, well, actually, everybody's kind of got, you know, lumps and bumps and you know, things that they probably don't like, and you know, and and and not possibly how much you stop noticing that after a while. If you're having a conversation with somebody, you know, you don't tend to sit there constantly in my well, my brain doesn't go, they've got brown eyes, they've got brown eyes. I'm I'm concentrating on what they're saying and what they're doing. Always notice much after the first kind of initial you know meeting with somebody about what their what their vessel looks like. But we somehow become very hardwired to in ourselves that we've got to look brilliant at every angle.
SPEAKER_02I I'm I've certainly noticed the difference. I'm just sort of compared to gym changing rooms these days. People are much the it's I mean, it's partly probably my education, but you know, we'd be just in changing rooms, communal showers, etc., and whatever. And it was even if it was uncomfortable, you just kind of did it. Um whereas now there's a lot, you know, private cubicles, people are much more sort of covering themselves up in the in the change rooms. Not everybody, you always get the one who, you know, the old one who flings his tail over his shoulder and struts through the changing room, but it's kind of um uh fair play to them, frankly. But um, but yeah, it does seem people seem to be less confident in their bodies now. I mean, again, it's a generalization, but it is it does seem to be the case. And I don't think that's just because sort of people are getting, you know, we get I'm getting older or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00No, I can I kind of uh agree with that. It's much more, you know, so the places where and then there's sort of the extreme, really. Then people go the to the extreme where things like naked yoga have become very, very popular, and you know, good on you know, good on anybody who's gonna go as well, you know. Uh not a not there's not a judgment on that, but it's uh it's there's doesn't seem to be a sort of natural space somehow in the middle to just be, really. It's got much more kind of um it has have we come much more into shame, you see, around bodies, and of course, but you know, nudity and sex are two completely different things, yeah. But but chances of being kind of comfortable sexually if you're not comfortable being naked is probably quite a jump. I don't know many people who who would say to me, Oh, I'm hugely comfortable sexually, but I can't bear, you know, or I'm I'm really uncomfortable, you know, I'm really uncomfortable taking my clothes off in front of anybody. I don't think they kind of fit together really. I think there has to be an embodied sense of self. I was talking to somebody, it was this was about a play I was working on. And um it was a play that we're not meant to talk about in the theatre, but as we're not in the theatre, you know, Macbeth. And I was working at working at on that in a drama. School and this actor came in and he said, Well, I've decided that Lady Macbeth and and you know Macbeth, they have a lot of sex. And actually, it all goes very wrong for both of them, but they are they they do love each other. Well, one of the more successful relationships in Shakespeare. And he he said, I've decided that I have to play Macbeth, maybe not confident in his ability and social climber, but he's he's very body confident and very kind of sexual. And boy, and she agreed that actually Lady Macbeth was hugely in her power and sexual. And it was a very interesting way that they performed this play as those two central characters, because they absolutely embodied being comfortable in their body, and therefore they were, they both took it in a way, they said when they were trying to develop how they were going to play it, they both took it in a way that they were actually turned on by themselves. They would fancy themselves. That was the way they kind of started to form the energy in that as a character in their mind. And I remember that because it was it was electric in the rehearsal room and it was an electrical production when it went on. And I thought it's interesting. Do any of us think about being holding a sexuality within ourselves, not in sexual spaces? And there are people who are extremely sexy when they walk down the street and extremely comfortable in themselves. And I wonder where that comes from, because I definitely don't have it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's interesting because you know, someone I I think someone with presence I do you have to be in your comfortable in your body to have presence, embodied presence. It's an interesting question. I think it I let's just say it helps. But there is something that's quite sexy and quite alluring at that, you know, in in a man or a woman. You know, someone who has that embodied feel to them um will attract people to them. And maybe there's something about the lack of shame in that. I don't know. The la lack of anxieties quite often, if someone's anxious about how people perceive them, you know, you can feel that in a person, and that you know, that's not necessarily something that draws us towards people.
SPEAKER_00No, it's a very interesting thing. And and uh, you know, I I remember having a friend, this was like 40 years ago, who used to always laugh, and she used to always say, You know what you can't buy? You can't buy sex appeal. But whoever you are, you can create it. And she was not a conventional shape at all, but boy was she sexy. She was nothing about her that was conventional. She used to get people fling themselves at her from afar. I mean, people behave really madly in rooms with her because she was incredibly sexy, but she was, you know, what we would now say we would now describe as morbbly obese. And she had a way of dressing and she had a charm, but you know, it wouldn't be what by today's standards would be seen as even healthy, let alone desirable. But she absolutely embodied, she used to walk down around. I've never seen, I've never seen anybody so sexy to this day. She stands out. I saw her take a pair of shoes off in a in a shop once, and um the person serving her dropped dropped the box. She just was, she was trying on a pair of shoes. She had a way of moving, but she said she was she was medic, uh there was a it was a medical problem, which was why she could not maintain a lower weight. But so she said, I've absolutely had to love it. And she did, as she really, really had something, um, which was extraordinary, but she'd worked on it consciously, so she uh you know, she had to love herself and and feel that she was desirable and she had to really work through it, and she embodied that. I mean, it poured out of her in bucket leads.
SPEAKER_02Well. Again, we were back to that space of sort of um, I mean, not just being able to hold your own heart, but to hold hold other parts of you as well. So in your experience, Gary, of men's groups and that kind of thing, to sort of bring it back to that. How good or not do you think groups are generally at dealing with sort of sexual sides of things?
SPEAKER_00Well, we had this conversation, we had we had this conversation, didn't we? That it quite often, I think there is uh a difficulty, because there's sex and intimacy, isn't there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And intimacy, and I think in sharing in men's groups can be very, very high. But and often, you know, you've been in a bit there've been men's groups or men's retreats, and often there's a kind of, you know, oh, it's time to take your clothes off moment. Um in in sometimes in those structures. And I don't always know whether they're placed in the right way. Because as I said, nudity and sex are two very different things. But I did remember, I was thinking after our conversation, that many, many years ago somebody I know who'd said that they had had gone somewhere and they had had a whole day on um conversations around sex with with other men. And it was kind of, you know, like, what do you like, what do you what gets you off kind of thing. It was not this sort of it was very, very kind of raw, which they all which the the facilitation was kind of um, you know, the structure was it, that you were all nude as well. So they had to have these conversations with with nude. And it obviously, you know, on a man, if one's getting, you know, sexually interested, things tend to be more visible, let's just say. No, why I've said that, erections, you know, but um he said that actually it was one of the things that had really transformed it. So I don't think there's a lot of space in ones that I've been to recently about conversations really around sex clearly. Sex and shame, yes, are often really well held. And people have been very honest, I've been in spaces where very honest about very difficult things around shame sexually. You know, porn addictions, incests, all things I've heard, but not about the celebration of of the male form or not the celebration of sex as oh, some of it could be fun. It's often always on the the sex tends to come up because it's very, very it's spoken about because it's very, very difficult rather than it actually be celebrated. And I don't know whether actually doing those things, you know, that bit of nudity that often comes into groups and retreats is needed. I'm not necessarily saying it was whether it's natural uh to do that, but it's got to be thought about, I think, in a very, very kind of careful way. What are the two? What what the two do you do have in conversation? Is having a conversation really important? And what's the starting block? And often the starting block is a wound, but where do we move through to that? That's the bit I've often felt is sometimes lacking.
SPEAKER_02Because you're right, yeah, I mean the focus does tend to be on the wounds, whether it's you know traumatic wounds or relational wounds or or whatever it might be. And there is then yeah, there's I can feel it's it's almost like so all of that would be say in the root chakra and the and the sacral areas, and then there's a bit of a block around the solar plexus before the conversation would then move up to the heart. So there's something about people feeling empowered enough to to have those conversations, to have those intimate conversations that that can trans transform and potentially heal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a very it's it's quite a comp it's quite a complicated one that I've observed over the years, really, that it's either there, and I'm not saying that that you know talking about sex and talking about wounds are it's you know, it's better to talk about them than not, I feel. I think is a lot always about sharing something will really will help you understand or release something. Or there's been this thing of you know, let's all stand around a campfire and dance. Um with no clothes on. There's neither one thing nor the other. And I don't know what that middle way is, really, in terms of finding that. I mean, you know, I can, you know, asking for what you want, which we've looked at. I don't necessarily know I can immediately articulate, even in myself, that what that space would really look like for me necessarily, you know, although having a conversation with you last week was actually rather empowering and and quite freeing. But I don't know if you would have that in a larger group, how necessarily I would feel. Are those conversations better one-to-one and then ripple out? Where do we get comfortable? What's the first point of comfort and how do we expand from that point?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I and and similarly, I don't necessarily have any any answers to this, but it's been the joy of these conversations, is it's it's more about encouraging conversation between ourselves and in others. And uh I don't know, it's it's almost like so. I can see an integration of all of things, you know, the dancing around the fire and and the conversations as well. It's it's how we bring it all together in a way and is that's respectful and intimate.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it is the interesting point, you know. I think when men when get together in groups, I think, you know, there's always that point of and I think it's still there now. Now I mean, and I say this, I don't just mean I'm not having it just to go at uh go at anybody here, because I think it equally exists in all men, regarding of sexualities of is it too gay? You know, and straight men can go, is it too gay? And gay men can go, is it too gay? Where's it leading? So it's not that, you know, not that kind of comfortable in either way, really, sometimes for either sexuality. So it can be very, very complicated. And you know, I've been in circles with men, you know, gay men and straight men, and you know, it's all been interesting. It doesn't, you know, the woundings, the wounding are the same on everybody, and there's a great leveller on that. But there is a point of talking about sex that's that's in an empowering way of what does that what what what does that mean? And that's where it all goes straight up into the head and everybody overthinks it. And we're again bypassing the heart of how I feel or how one feels. We're thinking, well, actually, if it's not on a wounding and we've managed to get past that in ourselves a little bit, to want to do have a conversation that's a bit more interesting, or a bit more around, you know, sharing and experiences and oh well, I quite like that as well, you know, those conversations. Uh it has to travel through the heart and it has to travel through a point of excitement. And can we sit and hold the excitement in an intimate way in conversation or or in a nude setting or whatever the shape needs to look like in the various retreats or groups that are you know I've found myself in what's that and it's missing out, it's I so either goes heady or it goes wounded, it doesn't go into a point of exploring and fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there is there's a lack of that excitement, as you said, used the word excitement, there's a lack of that about that sort of there's a lightness to that which honours sort of the heaviness that may have gone before in a conversation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so I think there's this thing of we have to go past, you know, we've all got to go past of actually what it is and what it isn't. And that probably means that actually we've got to talk about kind of you know what the what you know what we're hoping to get from those conversations, and that probably isn't a lead. I mean, it's a it's a workshop and a and a retreat all in itself on one subject, really. Um but I don't know how brave it would be to market because I don't know how many people would go, you know. I've never spoken to people, I've never, as I said, I've been facilitating the help-to-metreats. I've never run one with the financial costs and all of the marketing problems. I've just turned up and done my bits. Um, but it is a very interesting thing of where how available would would groups of men be for that conversation that does go into a different space and how one would structure that because there is something often I think missing quite quite greatly, where it's neither one thing nor the other. Or, you know, it it somehow is endured, and then nobody says anything about it the rest of the week, or the rest of the day, or it doesn't happen anymore. It's like it doesn't seem to kind of hit a point, and I think it's because it doesn't travel through the heart energy properly. That's been my known experience. I haven't felt that my heart has been engaged, it's either my head or my panic.
SPEAKER_02Masculinity and spirituality with Gary Wright and Oliver Baum. For more information on the work of Gary Wright, please visit www.therightmedium.co.uk and for Oliver w dot oliverbaum.co.uk Produced and edited by Oliver Baum with additional editing and music by Felix. Thank you for listening.
