Boys who do Girls who do Boys...

Good evening readers....today you find your divine hostess Claudia with a rare night to herself, no lover, no responsibilities, nothing to do but dream and ponder. What to do? Watch a bit of Anna Span chick porn? Or maybe create myself a bit of Tantric healing space all for me...or perhaps a movie or two. First off though I find myself, for many a reason contemplating boys who like to dress as girls or rather, men who love to cross dress. It strikes me there are many of you out there, I've known several and certainly every chance I ever got to attend a fancy dress ball or party, the numbers of men who love to dress as women were generally off the radar! Yes guys, given half the chance it would seem you love nothing more than the feel of nylon and silk against your skin, and who can blame you?

Us women get to play with our appearance on a regular, well daily actually, basis. Hair, trousers on our more masculine days, power dressing when we feel the urge, heels or flats, soft skirts or layers on our more floaty days, and what do you get? Trousers! And not in many varieties either, no wonder our clothes and our freedom to try out our different aspects through our apparel appeal to you, you poor inhibited beasts!

One of my ex lovers used to have a passion/fetish/unmet need for dressing up in womens clothing but felt terrible shame in doing so. Personally I didn't have a problem with it per se, I mean look at Grayson Perry and Eddie Izzard and how incredibly possible they have made it for men to express themselves differently, yet it's sadly fair to say that for most average men wanting to try wearing womens clothes, a fair bit of abuse and prejudice may be encountered pretty soon along the way. Public venturing? Not for most of you. Pioneering women such as the amazing Miss Vera (pictured below)

have made it possible for some men to begin to explore, without criticism or judgment, their feminine drives and desires, to try it on for size if you like, and to really explore this side of themselves, whilst sexual pioneers such as my heroine Annie Sprinkle continue to work tirelessly towards a new sexual revolution that encompasses a holistic approach to the free expression of our erotic selves. So, whether you want to look like this

in your boy girl dress, or like this...

what is it that would stop YOU from feeling free to do so? to admit to your desires? to play with them free from guilt, shame or fear? Wouldn't it be great if we could foster that permission and stop judging and attacking those who wish to simply explore their sexuality more fully. We can change the world one moment by one moment, one person by one person. I find myself more comfortable in the company of sexual renegades and adventurers. Long may we reign!

Sexual Freedom & breaking the bonds

What does "sexual freedom" mean to you? It's been coming to my attention for years now that we are so bound by our ideas of ourselves and our ego-centric senses of identity that most of us don't even know we're captive any more. We have sex for so many reasons; duty, obligation, guilt, fun, love, money, stuff, approval, pressure, connection, release...and yet all too often we often don't even truly SEE our lovers any more, yes ladies and gentlemen, we are both prisoner and jailer at the same time!

Sexual energy is creative energy and properly channeled and acknowledged can be a most blissful and healing thing to fully experience, so what stops us? Media ideas of beauty can be intimidating, social notions of romance can create disillusionment, familiarity; does it really breed contempt or is it a platform from which to truly get to know our lovers and their pleasures? The more I dive into my Tantric journey, the more I realise how vast the range of both experience and pleasure is, how different our bodies are and how varied their/our needs. I used to be afraid of the term 'sacred sexuality' fearing it would lead to a kind of disowning of my more carnal side, my archetypal (or actual!) 'whore' or playful 'slut', however given the right teacher/teachings, just as with any other spiritual discipline, light, dark AND shadow can be fully embraced and played with. Enough of the guilt of being a sexually active, liberated woman in pursuit of hot sex! Enough of the judgment and labels...time to re-claim our power, and that goes for men too. Not power over but power of self expression in healthy, respectful, playful and celebratory ways; truth-telling!

Many cultures have historically known this, and here in the west, where I'm from, we have the gift of exploring many aspects of our sexuality with a great deal of freedom too, however there are things we need to bypass first - the erotic police invest in the suppression of sexual energy knowing its potency is great and its potential for liberating us phenomenal. Yet who 'polices' our sexual expression in truth? Mostly we do a very good job of this ourselves. Our 'phnaar phnaar' attitudes and 'Carry On Up The Khyber' mentality keep us protected, safe from the fear that we may not in fact be "getting it right". Once upon a time there were temples of sexual healing and the women who worked in them were considered Priestesses and highly revered, and yet now, so few work with sexual energy in this healing way, and yet there is change coming.

Sacred Intimacy is a phrase becoming more frequently heard as women and men long for something different, desiring of healing our sexual wounds and our erotic nature, which can be so many different things. I recently met a woman who works within the UK National Health Service and was so deeply saddened to hear how many women she comes across with great trauma and shame locked into their bodies and souls. Women afraid to look at themselves, who will not even touch themselves and who have disowned themselves from the waist down. Women who believe their genitals to be ugly rather than a thing of great beauty, and I'm sure there are as many men suffering the same disconnection. There are as many different types of vajra (cock) and yoni (pussy) as there are hair types, eye shapes, noses, bodies yet we persist in subscribing over and over to the myth of 'sameness' and aspire to some kind of non-existent sense of perfection. Breaking out of that is POWER-FULL and liberating. Allowing ourselves to truly love our bodies as they are, and to learn to name our pleasures is just as potent. BREAK THE BONDS and find the true expression of your sexual self...I promise you, you cannot fail to enjoy the ride, even if a little bumpy at times....