What is a Sacred Intimate?

Sacred intimates combine the roles of priest, prostitute, and psychotherapist. In other words, they approach sexuality with the understanding that it’s related to soul work and to spirituality. They use mindfulness and integrity to help people identify, embrace, and practice desire as holy, sexual embodiment as an expression of the soul. They hold the body as sacred and view erotic energy as a crucial component of human life and spiritual health. Their primary intention is that of healing — and by healing I mean not just addressing the wounds to the spirit and the flesh caused by sexual abuse, addiction, or disease but also acknowledging that the fun and the pleasure, the vitality and the divine mystery of sex have nourishing properties in and of themselves. That’s a message that easily gets lost in a culture that is as ambivalent or sex-negative as ours.

Every person in the healing professions brings a different set of tools based on his or her training, experience, and personality. Same goes for sacred intimates.

I’ve come to understand that much of the growth that takes place in sacred intimate work happens on very, very simple levels. Simple, nurturing touch is so important. Touch that includes genital touch including breath plus presence feels like acceptance. Giving permission is a big part of sacred intimate work. It’s about giving permission to receive pleasure, to feel your whole body, to speak desires, to bring consciousness to sex and touch, to live your spirituality without blocking your sexuality and vice-versa, to be seen naked, to see another person naked. All these are opportunities to heal shame, isolation, erotic malnutrition, and touch deprivation.

 

SACRED INTIMATE – An integrative approach to sexual healing

An excerpt from an article written by What is a Sacred Intimate – by Don Shewey….

What does a sacred intimate do? I like to say that sacred intimates combine the roles of priest/priestess, sexual healer and psychotherapist. In other words, they approach sexuality with the understanding that it’s related to soul work and to spirituality. They use mindfulness and integrity to help people identify, embrace, and practice desire as holy, sexual embodiment as an expression of the soul. They hold the body as sacred and view erotic energy as a crucial component of human life and spiritual health. Their primary intention is that of healing — and by healing I mean not just addressing the wounds to the spirit and the flesh caused by sexual abuse, addiction, or disease but also acknowledging that the fun and the pleasure, the vitality and the divine mystery of sex have nourishing properties in and of themselves. That’s a message that easily gets lost in a culture that is as ambivalent or sex-negative as ours.

For me, sacred intimate work is a constant dance between the sex-worker side of me, concentrating on healing through pleasure, and the psychotherapist, processing emotional issues. And all this takes place within the context of my own grounded spiritual practice, a consecrated ritual space, and my own sense of purpose, to wake people up to the joy of life in a body. I want to live in a world that honors and supports sexual freedom, erotic abundance, and healing through pleasure.