1) I am particularly pleased to be offering a full-day workshop on Saturday, August 3rd, called“Erotic Hypnosis for Lovers” and we will cover the cosmos with regard to sensual, sexual, intimate, and edgy things you can do with hypnosis and a partner(s). You’ll get a good grounding in basic hypnosis skills in the morning, and then by afternoon, begin to play!
You’ll also get a range of sample scripts, tips, and techniques to take home, that will enable you to get started. Please check out the link above to enroll and purchase your ticket. Individuals, couples, and multiples of all persuasions are welcome. Our class is limited to 14 people, however, so don’t hesitate!
Erotic Hypnosis for Lovers will be held at LSI, 2015 Center Street, Berkeley, located across from Berkeley City College and just down the block from the downtown Berkeley BART. We’ll have a ground floor classroom, and as usual, please attend fragrance free.
2) My 1-hour, introductory class, Beginning Erotic Hypnosis, has been available online at Creative Sexuality for a couple of years. For only $20 you can get a nice little intro to the basics.
3) I am also in the process of creating a 6-hour, online course in Erotic Hypnosis, also through Creative Sexuality. This will be easily accessible and a convenient way to – again – get the info and ideas you need. I’ll announce it when it’s ready!
—Intimate Hypnosis: Sexological Hypnosis Skills is the course I teach through the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, a private graduate school in San Francisco. This is a professional course for people who want training in sexology and training in the use of hypnosis to help clients with sexual problems. This 300-hour course (over 15 weeks) gives you TWO certificates for the price of one, as well as the option of getting your hypnosis certification through the National Guild of Hypnotists. This is a $9,000 value for only $3,750! This is mostly a distance-learning course, online, with an optional one-week intensive in mid-October, at IASHS.
—National Guild of Hypnotists 100-hour Hypnosis Certification training. $2,100. Two ways to learn – either a two-month training with 30 hours of home study and five weekends in class, or an “Easy Pace” option where you drop in to get your hypnosis practice hours one Saturday a month. (Payment plans and an “early bird” discount available…).
Why is this so hard to understand? Toxic chemicals damage the body, sometimes to the point of dysfunction, and people who live with this as a chronic condition are often significantly impaired in how they are able to perform their activities of daily living. Furthermore, they lack access to “safe (i.e. nontoxic) paths of travel” into and out of stores, clinics, schools, hospitals, churches, recreational facilities, yoga studios, cafes and restaurants, public restrooms, government offices – you name it!
Participating in community, attending a civic meeting, or simply hanging out in hopes of conversing with someone who is NOT a solvent-based life form is often next to impossible! Even playgrounds can be hazardous. When my kids were little, I had to haul them off the climbing structures and away from the fragrance wafting moms more times than I can count. Mass transit can be a disaster. Mass anything with people in it can cause me to lose (1) airway function, (2) energy, (3) my ability to use words or think clearly, (4) coordination, (5) one or more days of being able to do much of anything. I cannot consider simple actions like attending a business networking meeting, taking classes at the local city college, getting my hair cut, going to the doctor, shopping for groceries, giving a bunch of teenagers a ride in my car, going to a job interview, or participating in civil disobediance without first considering how much it will cost me and how much am I willing to pay.
Why? Because common consumer, personal care, and industrial toxins are ubiquitous in our modern environment and they form a significant, real, physical barrier to people like me – who may crumble at any contact with their molecules. And because the average consumer has been gulled and lured into participating in their own internal poisoning – and that of others! – by using and wearing products which are NOT proven to be safe. And doing this in public spaces. The commons of our air (not to mention food, soil, water, etc.) is profoundly polluted.
We hear a lot of talk about food justice. It’s important. But I also want AIR JUSTICE. I’d like to go somewhere – anywhere – and not be at risk.
As for sex – finding and keeping sexual partners who are willing to give up their cherished signature fragrances or hair products is easier said than done. A polite request for accommodation is often perceived as an offer to violate constitutional rights! No ma’am – these folks will give up their Obsession and Eternity bottles only when you can pry them from their cold, dead hands! Three cheers then for the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the flavors and fragrances industries for the ultimate in recycling: adding hazardous chemical wastes to perfumes, cosmetics, and food additives and getting away with it! When it comes to pricey, relentless lobbying, the NRA ain’t got nuthin’ on them!
Oh, but I was talking about sex. What got me to this rant – erm, blog! – today was that once again I encountered a respected colleague addressing the topic of disability and sex who had no interest whatsoever in including people with environmental illness/multiple chemical sensitivity (EI/MCS) in her disability views.
Sigh.
Dismissed. Invisible. Denied. And dissed. The EI/MCS crew has been fighting this battle for years, on every front you can imagine. Even the disability community was against us for quite a long time as we often appear to be perfectly fine – unless we’re wearing a mask, respirator, or oxygen tank. Acceptance of EI/MCS as a disability (also called TILT – toxin induced lack of tolerance, thanks to Dr. Claudia Miller – or chemical injury) has been slow, grudging, and is still woefully incomplete in just about every area you can name. Part of the problem is not just that we fall into the “invisible disability” category, but that we also need something quite different from many other people in the disability movement.
We don’t need integration into society – we actually need a profound systems change in which these toxic chemicals are no longer manufactured or at the very least are not allowed into public spaces (like cigarette smoke) before we can even consider inclusion! And because we are not likely to get this, at the very least, we need our own toxin-free housing, clinics, classrooms, jobs, grocery stores, dance clubs, hula classes, art museums, laundry facilities, etc. And we are not likely to get those either. (I have been more active in the past on these issues, as a former president and board member of the Environmental Health Network of Northern CA.)
And we are not even likely to get SSI – as the condition of TILT or EI/MCS or whatever you call it is still debated in public assistance circles. My chemically injured mom – because she can still actually work – only gets a 10% disability rating. Yeah, even after her occupational injury she can work fine! But only in a toxin free workspace! That’s my problem too. I can work brilliantly, as long as I am not exposed to junk in the air. “Junk” being fragrances, air fresheners, hair care products, synthetic carpet, paint, cleaning products, particle board furniture, pesticides… da kine! Non-toxic jobs – and job settings – are all but impossible to find. They don’t exist. Even in a bastion of non-toxicity, like a health food store, you’re always going to find some nitwit hooked on organic, biodynamic produce who is also wearing more volatile petrochemicals on her skin than you’d ever spread on a strawberry patch – and is mindlessly off-gassing all over the entire store.
My adaptive technology.
Oh, but I was talking about sex… So, the disability activism mantra used to be, maybe still is, “self-advocacy.” Yeah. Easier said than done when you’re brainfogged from a sudden toxic onslaught and can’t even put a sentence together or contain your chemically-triggered rage response. So, just picture some enchanted evening. You see a stranger across the room. You catch his/her/zir eyes and you begin to move forward, hearts beating as one… Then, it hits you! It’s no longer love at first sight – it’s chemical warfare at 50 paces! You have no choice but to get away as fast as you can. You can’t even get close enough to say why you can no longer afford to be interested, assuming you’d even retain the power of coherant speech. No one, I don’t care how georgeous or charismatic they are, is worth the risk of a fatal asthma attack.
I recently took my own sweetheart, who is wonderfully non-toxic, to a tantric puja at a temple with a strong, fragrance-free policy. I even booked accommodations for the night, a room in a guest cottage with a shared bathroom. I felt safe, secure, healthy – ready for a wonderful evening with my love. Wouldn’t you know, but in the 45 minutes allowed for dressing up puja style, a man I’d never seen barged into the shared bathroom as I was sprinkling myself with body glitter, and began to apply strongly scented hair gel! I said something like “fragrance, help!,” staggered to the door, slammed it shut, and fell gasping into our room (okay, I am exaggerating slightly…but not much!). Later, this man did nothing but give me stink eye over breakfast. For heaven’s sake! He’s the one violating temple policy and I’m the one to get the dirty looks?
Sadly, I no longer feel safe at the temple. And I’m not yet up to talking to the tantra teacher (a person I adore). It’s just too painful. But I will, after I process my feelings more completely.
I remember another time, enroute to another tantra retreat, when a fellow “goddess” wanted to carpool with me. When I explained that she’d have to be willing to ride unscented, she decided her scented haircare products were just too much a part of her life to give up, even for a couple of hours with me and the promise of a free ride. I was so sad to find I was much less important than a bottle of shampoo.
I am not exaggerating. As a person with EI/MCS I see a sort of madness in this world. People are so addicted to their cosmetics, personal care products, and other inhalants that they chose them over the people in their lives. If this is not a chemcial dependency, what is? In fact, inhalants – common household products huffed by teenagers – can be deadly. Really – deadly!
People who have experienced the lasting effects of toxin-induced loss of tolerance can see this clearly. They experience the heartbreak of suddenly being disbelieved and dissed by spouses, lovers, family members, co-workers, bosses, teachers, medical and mental health professionals, social service agencies (ad infinitim), and becoming social pariahs, deviants, outsiders unworthy of love, friendship, or the ordinary necessities of human life.
Even the “ecosexuality” movement leaves us behind – preferring instead to talk about “green sex” on undyed cotton sheets, with tempered glass dildos and eco-friendly lubes. The sexual health and difficulties of people who desperately need to benefit from this kind of sensitivity are simply not considered to be of interest. Perhaps it is easier to talk about eco-products with other yoga buffs while sipping a non-GMO almond milk vegan protein shake, than it is to meet the glance of an uncool freak in a respirator. The environmental justice communites don’t quite get it either – they haven’t yet put consumer toxins, and their effects, into the mix.
Is it any wonder that suicide rates are high among the chemically injured? Though we do our best to maintain and create relationships and community, our energy is often low, our ability to commit and follow through may be spotty, and we are wounded to the core by being treated as pariahs, freaks, hypochondriacs, and worse. But if someone seems to understand our strange plight, they become golden in our eyes!
Finally, I want to mention a mass event I did attend this last weekend. Moana Nui, an event organized by and for Pacific peoples in collaboration with the International Forum on Globalization, Pua Mohala I Ka Po, and the Oceanic Coalition of Northern California. I sat at the back, or far away from others, as I usually do – in search of fragrant-free “air space” – but stayed the whole time. I was deeply exhausted by Sunday evening, but I did stay. It was a life transforming experience. And this is what I learned.
The people of Pacific nations and islands are my kin in the struggle against toxic exposure. I knew this already, of course, being the granddaughter of an atomic veteran who had witnessed the tragedy of the bombing of Bikini Atoll and died of a radiation-induced brain tumor. And I knew it, of course, being the partner of a man who fights against GMOs and depleted uranium and other toxic conditions in Hawai’i. But at Moana Nui I began to understand just how widespread toxic activities are in some of the most beautiful and fragile places on the planet – thanks to factors like colonization, globalization, American military base building and activities, and environmentally destructive resource extraction by multi-national corporations. As a result, every Pacific Islander is at risk for toxin-induced loss of tolerance – not to mention the dangers of radiation exposure – as the people of the Marshall Islands know so well and so tragically.
They already know – and will know still more – the corrosive effects that toxic chemicals have on their bodies, families, and lives. I hope that their societies are more merciful, more loving, and less inclined to cast out the sick than this one is. I know this madness has to stop.
I thought I was talking about sex… but I guess this blog is really all about love.
I used to have a hat with this logo, purchased from the Environmental Health Network of CA
P.S. As a clinical sexologist, here are classes and information I’ve produced which may be of interest:
Really. I hardly know where to begin. But thanks to my oldest son, in the last couple of days I’ve become aware of the controversy pertaining to the transphobic policies of the environmental group, Deep Green Resistance, and the laudable actions taken by those who have decided to withdraw their support of DGR for that reason, including Earth First! Here’s a quote from their blog:
“However, in light of DGR’s continued assault on trans people, with language and analysis that denies the struggles of trans-people and even goes so far as to deny the value, worth and power of their existence in radical movements, labeling trans people as somehow “not real,” or as Post-Modern manifestations of individualism, the Earth First! Journal collective will no longer print or in any way promote DGR material. While we don’t need to agree with an individual or organization to find their words or actions relevant for discussion we will not continue to include those whose core expression of values continues to promote exclusion and oppression.”
Updates on this issue from the Earth First! Newswire blog can be found here and here. I intend to follow this story.
So, a little background. I first became aware of DGR a couple of years ago, listening to an interview with Lierre Keith on KPFA. She was talking about “the vegetarian myth,” and I thought she had an interesting perspective. I even… (now I shudder to think of it)… bought her book on this topic. But I had no idea that my small purchase was going to support a person who holds deeply transphobic feelings and even goes so far as to deny the right of trans and gender variant people to exist.
Later, I found out that Keith belongs to the category of feminists who simply hate erotica. I am a sexologist and erotologist, so I realized that she would find my views on this topic abhorrent and might even view me as some kind of patriarchal dupe. Even so, I still had no idea that this was a person capable of spewing hate-filled words and creating hate-filled policies against people who are gender diverse.
Now, according to the Earth First! Newswire blog, Lierre Keith’s views can be described as “assumptions that trans people are some sort of Post-Modern expression of liberal individualism and that trans womyn in particular are manifestations of patriarchy in disguise.” The Earth First! blog article also featured a video of a rather smarmy young woman, apparently one of Keith’s followers, claiming to be a former “teenage age liberal” on the topic of gender. She sounded just like that misguided (and also smarmy) young woman who made a YouTube video to argue against the inclusion of a young trans girl in a Colorado Girl Scout troop. I hope some day she’ll feel ashamed of herself.
And I guess that brings me back to kids. And me being a mom and all that. People like Keith and Derrick Jensen of DGR just haven’t got a clue. They haven’t got a clue about the loooooong history of gender diversity in human beings, and they have no idea that very young children can be accurately aware that their inner sense of gender does not match their gender assignment at birth! Little “girls” who are really little trans boys are not going after “male privilege” and little “boys” who are really little trans girls are not patriarchal tools seeking to subvert all that feminism holds dear. They just want to be who they are, with names and clothes and toys and friends and parents who feel good to and about them. Experts in transgender and gender variant issues, including the parents and family members of such people, know this. And they know that acceptance is crucial to the survival of these kids!
So the astounding cruelty of denial coming from people like DGR is – let’s say it – an exercise in the very worst of adult privilege. Yep! Privilege! What Keith and Jensen and their ilk do is not just transphobia and cis-centrism, it’s also a very deliberate way for them, as powerful adults and opinion-leaders, to deny people of all ages their right to define themselves in the most basic manner without fear of reprisal, violence, abuse, or exclusion. And that’s frakking dangerous. It’s dangerous to the survival of innocent children, just like it’s dangerous to the survival of trans youth and trans adults.
Finally, I challenge Keith and Jensen to humbly attend the Gender Spectrum Family Conference in Berkeley this summer, so they can see and feel with their own eyes the joy of trans and gender variant kids in the act of being themselves, and the love of their supportive families. I challenge them to offer their snarky little gender analysis directly to parents who wonder hourly if their child or teen will come home intact after using the school bathroom or if their adult child will end up on the Day of Remembrance website. Such experiences might help Keith and Jensen to transform their own narrow, sadly pathetic little minds and their cramped, vicious little hearts. Perhaps there is hope for them and their ilk, but I’m not counting on it.
I write as the mother of two. One kid is cis-gender, the other is trans. I challenge Keith and Jensen to talk to me.
I’m delighted to find I’m included in this trailer about human puppy training, commenting in my capacity as a sexologist. This was filmed back in January, and I’m happy it’s going to air on Oct. 9th.
I’m back to making videos again. It’s so satisfying. I hope you like this one!
Speaking of videos – back in January I was taped again by National Geographic Taboo, offering sexological insights into “looners” (people with balloon fetishes), human puppy training, and shoe fetishes. There’s a “looner” in the new episode coming up on August 19th – an episode which also features famous tantric daka, Baba Dez. If anyone sees me making a comment on the balloon loving portion of the episode, please let me know. I don’t have cable TV… [Note: my comments on “looners” weren’t used in the program.]
The two pictures here are stills taken from the Taboo website.
It looks like the human puppy episode will be aired in another installment. I do not see anything about the shoe fetishist yet.
I see many people in my practice who want to have great sex with partners they don’t like. They may love them – a lot! – but they don’t like them. Hurt, resentment, lack of communication – many things prevent them from liking and enjoying their partners. So, it baffles me that they expect to have great sex with them. Some people do have tempestuous relationships where they argue all the time and then fuck and make up with gusto, however, such people have a pattern which works for them on some level, and so they aren’t the ones who typically arrive on my doorstep. Perhaps people in such relationships are less likely to seek counseling – I don’t know.
I made this video to convey a very simple message. And to commemorate the first day of 2012. Happy New Year!
This month I am offering two one-hour webinar classes, and one two-hour class, on unusual aspects of sexology, all through my wonderful, juicy new online campus courtesy of Creative Sexuality Education Corp. My oh my! Teaching is going to be easy and fun for all of us, and my creative energy is flowing. I can’t wait to offer more and more and more!
Go to the courses page and check it out! Plus, if you go to the library page, you’ll find a free, erotic hypnosis script waiting just for you! Take it, it’s yours!
If you’re really hot for this stuff, you can also register for the 6-part Sexology for Hypnotists course! Even if you’re not a hypnotist, you’ll enjoy this introduction to sexology.
Objectum Sexuality – What is It? A Clinician’s Guide: Objectum sexuality is an orientation toward the affectionate and erotic attraction to objects, landmarks, and transportation – often to the exclusion of erotic attraction to people. This class offers an overview of objectum sexuality by one of the world’s first sexological researchers into this topic. This class will broaden your understanding of human sexual and relational behavior, but the ultimate focus is on the OS client and how you can understand and effectively assist this person in his/her/hir goals. You’ll attend a 2-hour live webinar class, plus spend additional time studying materials and videos. $70 for the class.
Introduction to Clinical Ecosexology: Environmental health meets clinical sexology. This class discusses the effects of toxic consumer and industrial chemicals may have on human sexual health, behavior, and reproduction. How to do a preliminary assessment of potential toxic exposures in order to make referrals for further treatment. $35 for the class.
Sex and Sensory Dysfunction: Discover the link between some forms of sexual behavior and sensory integration dysfunction. A valuable course for any helping professional who assists clients with sexual problems. $35 for the class.
I hope to see you at some of my classes. Please, help spread the word!
