With thanks to Faddic for the above painting entitled Free Dance. For purchase enquiries, please email sarah@oncloudzen.com
Sex Surrogacy
The cutting edge of therapy by Cyntha Gonzalez
My first encounter with a sex surrogate was in France 17 years ago. Amandine was a longtime friend and colleague in our shared worlds of meditation and spiritual education. She announced to me that after doing thorough training in Tantra, she had begun practising as a tantric masseuse and sex surrogate when erotic, sexual activity was identified as the most therapeutic for the client. She shared a story that defined the profession for me: Amandine had received a client who had problems with premature ejaculation. She began the therapy with a session dedicated to massaging him slowly and mindfully, so to teach him how to fully let down to languid, sensual touch and to stay with it. At one point he was very aroused, turned to her and declared that he wanted to massage her. She responded, “No, I am sorry but this is not yet possible. At this time you are not in the condition to touch me, as I deserve to be touched. There is still learning to be done so that you become fully present to my touch. As long as you are not able to completely receive my focused touch, you would be incapable of touching me with presence. I will not accept anything less.”
What is the difference between a prostitute and a sex surrogate? A prostitute is paid to give sexual satisfaction to the client. It is most often about instant gratification. The client may never see the prostitute again. There is no expectation of any processing of the encounter, though that may happen. Many prostitutes come to the profession victimized by poverty, abuse and trafficking. Almost every former prostitute I have met has confessed he or she would be on drugs or heavy alcohol to do their work. It’s an underground world.
A sex surrogate, also called a surrogate partner, works in the Light. She or he is trained, supervised and committed to be of therapeutic benefit. A surrogate often works alongside a psychotherapist who sees the client initially and then after each session, helps the client best integrate what was experienced and worked on. Some sex surrogates play both roles of sex surrogate and therapist. The work is high ritual, with this tantric priestess or priest holding a setting of unconditional acceptance and transparency where sex is no longer approached with shame and guilt but as a gateway to transformative healing and spiritual ecstasy.
Who seeks a sex surrogate?
• Disabled or what is increasingly known as differently abled individuals
• Elderly people
• Individuals with sex abuse history who have been deeply traumatized
• Individuals who fear emotional intimacy
• Men with erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation or other orgasm issues
• Women with fear of penetration or orgasm issues
• Those with sexual orientation confusion
• Those with a negative body image
• The inexperienced
• Those lacking self-confidence sexually
• Those lacking social skills in relating to a potential lover
• Those wanting to heal societal/religious conditioning of sex as taboo and/or shameful
• Those wishing to learn erotic massage
• Those seeking more tantric sexual experiences and education
Repeatedly, surrogate partners report that their work often has very little to do with genital contact itself – that it’s teaching how to touch, breathe and emotionally relate – much like what is needed in our own everyday sexual relationships.
As expected, there is great controversy around this profession. Sex surrogates can take great offence to being labeled as street prostitutes, feeling deeply misunderstood for the training they have undergone as well as the checks and balances in place to maintain professional integrity. They are both sex therapists and tantric goddesses or gods in action. In California, there is the International Professional Surrogates Association, that has rigorous training criteria, including the need for the triangle to be put in place of a sex surrogate, therapist and client committed to a therapy or learning plan.
Naturally for a professional association and an alliance between therapists and sex surrogates to exist, the premise is that sex is normal, healthy and seen as emotionally and spiritually healing. It is assumed that we all have the right to the pleasure and enjoyment of sex and it is important to heal anything that is preventing this. After learning of Amandine’s new profession, I was grateful for her courage to respond to a need I saw in a few of my clients. In my time of practising several body-focused modalities like Reiki, emotional healing bodywork and trauma release work, I would see actual experiential sex therapy could benefit certain clients, but was not my path to directly provide. But when Amandine shared with me her new calling, I felt there finally existed a context where a client’s sexuality had a grounded, lucid and safe arena to be properly addressed and healed. Throughout my years as a counselor and coach listening to impactful life experiences, I also now understand that some prostitutes have played that role to several of my clients, but with a more random structure.
In England and Holland a Surrogates Association has yet to come into existence. But in Holland prostitution is legalized and the sex workers receive regular health checks and medical insurance. Both countries pay, via health insurance, for the differently abled and certain cases to go to prostitutes for their greater therapeutic benefit. The social worker sometimes plays that third party in the therapeutic triangle. This is all a significant start with room for greater advancement.
The movie, The Sessions, recounts the true story of Mark O’Brien, who was paralyzed from the neck down due to polio and sought out a sex surrogate to lose his virginity to. Sex surrogate, Cheryl Cohen-Greene, along with a supervising therapist agreed that 6 sessions would best serve Mark. Often a limit on the number of sessions is put into place so to confront the possibility of attachment to the surrogate. The film, aside from sensitively relaying the poignant encounters between Cheryl and Mark, also captures the dilemma of a surrogate partner becoming attached to her or his client. Like in all healing professions, a healer or counselor is required to maintain supervision of the issues that become awakened while in the therapist role.
There is never an accident as to why a surrogate chooses that profession. Amandine grew up in rural Catholic France with conservative parents that saw sex as strictly for procreation. Since, I have met two sex surrogates who were sexually abused as children and are healed and empowered each time they bring mindfulness and consciousness to the sexual healing of another.
If prostitution is the oldest profession, could it be that it was originally comprised of sexual priestesses offering healing in more ritualized tantric temples as some historians claim? I welcome the current trend of reinstating the tantric priestess or priest to her or his rightful place as healer and teacher when experientially needed – with the support structures in place to keep it as mindful and integrity-bound as possible for all parties.
For more information on sex surrogate therapy, go to www.surrogatetherapy.us/intensive-therapy or to get in contact with Cyntha go to www.cynthagonzalez.com
