Can you receive pleasure from a stranger?

I spent the weekend in country Victoria, with 1000’s of humans who gathered to celebrate life through one of my favourite joys - festivals.

I have loved festivals for many many years.

However, the way I festival has drastically changed, as I have changed.

No longer am I able to spend my entire weekend on the dancefloor (though I do spend a lot of time there).

Now my body, my energy and my heart require more diversity of pleasure.

I find this through deep conversations in pillow filled swimming pools, playing with nipples on couches as the sun sets, doing tai chi and yoga classes in the mornings, reflecting in my journal, strolling through exquisite galleries, and of course workshops.

This weekend the workshop high on my to do list was The Human Forest (adults only).

About 30 people gathered out the front of the workshop buzzing with anticipatory energy…

What is this workshop?

What makes it adult only?

What will we do, what will be done to us?

I knew what was coming as I knew the facilitators, Patrick and Anatolia, yet I sat back smiling choosing not to tell the mystery.

Once inside they revealed our journey.

The idea of the workshop was that we would become an ecosystem of trees and critters.

The trees being receivers of pleasurable touch, the gritters being givers of pleasurable touch.

We went through a long process of learning to express boundaries and consent.

We learnt the different types of elemental touch,

We partnered up with people to practise these touches, to express our desire for more or less of the touch,

And we practised asking for the touch to cease entirely.

We also touched on the difference between touching to ‘give’ and touching to ‘take’, something I have loved incorporating into my intimate world:

To be taken from, when we are in empowered surrender, can be highly pleasurable.

Yet to be taken from when we are in disempowered surrender, allowing or accepting, is what I believe erodes so many female bodies from accessing her / their pleasure over time.

My partner had a hard time touching to ‘take’ as she explained, I was raised in a religious household I’ve never ‘taken’ sexually from anyone.

I encouraged her that I felt safe and in full autonomy, and that I was allowing her to experience the energy of ‘taking’ from me.

Finally with the container well informed, dropped in and ready, we were allocated the position of Tree or Critter.

As a tree, I was handed a blindfold, and positioned myself to await my first touch.

It came from the shoulders, soft hands caressed the length of my arms, up to my hair, fingers running through it, then cascading down the sides of my legs…

I opened my hands to signal I was enjoying the touch and that they could continue, but I felt their hands disengage and another arrive.

These hands arrived with an awkward energy, the touch though trying to be earthy (firm, deep, solid), felt disconnected and rigid. I kept my arms to my sides signalling neither pleasure nor distaste as the pleaser in me wanted to give them a chance to improve…

They too disengaged and the next arrived.

Person after person the hands arrived and left, sometimes there were four, sometimes I had a moment alone to absorb…

Throughout the process:

My stomach was circled with fiery licks,

My bottocks swirled like water,

My face caressed with grace and love,

My back embraced in a grounding hug,

My neck was sniffed and blown on,

My lips traced like artwork.

I didn’t know who a single person was and yet I was so able to receive their pleasure fully.

When it was my time to give I dropped immediately into my temptress persona.

Dancing from tree to tree I attempted to sense what each unique beings energy required.

Some of them were easily and immediately activated, their energy open and ready to receive my touch.

Others I had to really concentrate and tune into.

Their energy was less open and trust in my hands had to be established before they could lean into pleasure…if at all.

One tree I read completely wrong and had to humbly back off when they signalled so.

Experiencing this process, and reflecting on it throughout the rest of my weekend I began pondering this capacity to give and receive pleasure, and the barriers that are held up against it.

Something wonderful that this workshop allowed was the disengagement of sight, and the judgement it can bring.

For me this allowed me to fully receive as I felt safe in knowing that: I know my own boundaries andI  trust that should they be crossed I will be able to express so.

I was able to so easily tap into my pleasure because my body has known great pleasure by my own hands, I can now surrender into full receptivity from the loving contact of another.

Yet through my partner whose religious upbringing limited her touch, through the being who touched me with such disjointed energy and through the ones whose walls were thick I wondered:

What was their relationship to self pleasure?

Have they learnt by their own finger tips what they like and dislike?

Have they established boundaries from which they can safely receive within?

Have they been told that it is safe to experience pleasure? Or are past stories and experiences continuing to dictate how they experience pleasure?

And, have they ever been given permission to embody their divine erotic essence?

The difference of a life where we are empowered or disempowered in our self pleasure is polarising.

If we cannot trust our own hands, know our own needs, and access our own pleasure potential…

Then we are likely to submit to jobs, relationships, and lives which lack authenticity and trust, which do not fulfil our needs, and which are starved of the natural, completely human right to pleasure.

If we can trust our own hands, if we know our own needs, can state and hold them, can access our own pleasure potential and surrender to receiving it from others…

Then we cannot help but curate a life that is aligned with our highest values, where the work we do fulfils us, where the relationships we foster are inspiring and expansive, a life which is fertile with the fruits of abundant pleasure.

My course Self Pleasure Arts is awaiting pleasure seekers to join it,


It’s time to take the fertility of your pleasure into your own artistic hands and learn who a pleasure filled YOU truly is.

Class begins in 8 days.

Let’s get the pleasure started. Join Here