Yes, it was too tempting not to use this title. I do have to qualify it though. I am only talking about my naked men and my depression and though it is mostly men, I am also talking about women.

If you would like to read about how I got from orthodox psychotherapy to sacred pleasure giving, I have covered it in an article written in 2012, called – Psychotherapy Meets Erotic Massage – and you can find it in the Parallel Lines section of this site.

Here, I want to talk about how this work, that I really do consider a vocation, operates in relation to my depression. What I do is actually very simple, as well as mysterious. I show up and offer a sincere experience of being welcomed. I devote myself to receiving and loving a human being. It sounds simple because it is. However, I cannot offer and deliver, this simple and yet deeply sweet, service, unless I am fully present, in my mind, body, heart and soul. I have to call myself to attention. I have to be able to say, ‘here I am’ and that has to be true. This is the very the reason my naked men come to me, no matter if they know it consciously, or not. I cannot go through the motions. I cannot use my hands unless they are full of heart. I just can’t.

Doing this work doesn’t change depressed into not depressed. And yet it does give depressed a gift. It, by which I mean day to day, getting through the day, is the very best it can be, if I can be present (my, that is a thrown about term, I know) but yes, present, in my body. ‘Here I am’ is my prayer for life. Stroking naked men helps me repeat and deepen this prayer. My clients are grateful because they feel seen, loved and touched, rather than mechanistically, handled. I am generous because its my nature and because I can be and want to be. And my gratitude for how the giving and receiving flows and circulates, is boundless. This is partly how I pay my bills, and yet I receive infinitely more than my fees. Maybe it isn’t possible to work like this, just for the money? I can only speak about my own direct experience. For me, it would not be a good way to earn money, if it weren’t devotional work. And the work is medicinal for me too, like dancing and making cake.

In an ideal world, a naked man would book in every morning about 10am. As if life would ever be that orderly, I know… But what I’m saying really, is, its mighty fine when it rolls like that. Mostly, of course it rolls messier and men want to come when I’m up to my elbows in the kitchen, or all at the same time, when my policy is not more than one massage in a day.

Life rumbles on. I have made it work for me. The intimacy and the solitude from which I weave my cloth, hold me gently. Leonard keeps on singing, the seasons keep turning and I’m tap, tap, tapping away from the window ledge.