Embracing My Erotic Shadow

Desiring Infinite Intimacy (8m read)

“Drop your energy here,” she said, barefoot in a sheer black slip, her finger pointing directly to her pelvis.

“I feel you here,” she said, tapping her heart, “but I want to feel you here,” her hand moving in slow, soft concentric circles below her navel, each gyration a silent incantation.

My breath caught. Heat surged to my head. A flush spread from my neck down to my thighs, as if my body was blushing from the inside out. The sweet musk of Nag Champa hung thick in the air, the smoke curling like a lover’s finger through the dimly lit room. Beneath the halogen light, my skin began to shimmer, prickling with a heat that wasn’t just arousal.

Her pupils dilated, nearly eclipsing her hazel irises, locking onto me with the focus of someone trying to read the body, not the mind. As her gaze devoured me, I tried to maintain mutuality — something I’ve always done instinctively, a practice passed down from my predecessors.

But this time… I blinked.

Not outwardly. Inwardly. Something soft and long hidden was touched.

Was it fear?

Yes. But not of her.

Though we’d only just met at this event — me a host, her a guest — the space between us pulsed with palpable erotic electricity.

Was she signaling me to escalate? Is this some secret sex code? A shit test? A seduction?

She gave conflicting flirtatious cues. Coy glances. She radiated polarity. Yet she didn’t carry the aesthetic of a healer. No flowy fabrics, no feathers, no goddess pageantry. Just honey-colored skin, slightly concealed by a thin veil of black silk.

She wasn’t just attractive. She radiated something raw. Elemental. Mystical. Her petite presence didn’t merely arouse me — it exposed me.

“In your honest opinion, do I come across as a ‘nice guy’?” I asked, fingers air-quoting the phrase, while bracing for her response. I was sure she would confirm my insecurity.

She didn’t flinch. “No. I don’t feel you are a nice guy. You confidently approached me, asked a genuine question and you seem vulnerable and emotionally open. AND I do feel you are disconnected from your sexuality.”

My eyes said: tell me more.

“I study and practice Tantra, specifically Tantric Sexuality. I definitely feel your heart chakra is open. I feel your sexual energy, your Svadhishthana, the sacral chakra. But it feels blocked.” She pressed a fingertip just below my navel. “Try leading from here.”

It felt as if she felt the part of me that needed to be conjured, not the therapy speak part of me who had learned to hold space, speak truth, emote openly, and listen deeply, but the part I had hidden even from myself: the man who longed to express want without shame, and passion without apology.

It had been ages since I felt this exposed, this nude, in a public space. Somewhere along the way — maybe after the Me Too reckoning, maybe just living in San Francisco, I stopped leading with lechery. Stopped allowing my lust to enter the room. I unconsciously chose safety. Emotional depth. Playful banter. I became a limited lover, a whisperer of wounds, a demisexual, a man disconnected from his carnal cravings.

In each moment, I wrestled with the urge to speak, torn between feeding my desire and soothing my discomfort. I wanted her to initiate. I wanted her to unlock my repressed sexuality, to carry my burden, to absolve me of responsibility, to do the work for me. But that was exactly the problem — echoed in the growing frustration of so many women: a yearning for men to lead, to step forward with heart and backbone, to courageously stand in and own their sexuality.

Still standing transfixed, I wanted to take her hand and whisk her away to a private space. And soul gaze. Just the two of us, seated in silence, eyes locked, breath syncing. A dark room, encircled in gilded flames that flicker, casting a soft halo of candlelight around our bodies. Our hands roam gently, reverently, exploring one another’s sacred landscape of sensations, awakening sensuality. The air is thick with the scent of warm cacao melting us within, molten wax, and the musky sweetness of arousal. No words. No masks. No place for the vestibules to the soul to hide. Just pure presence and vulnerability, where passion blossoms slowly, petal by petal, enrapturing us in limitless intimacy.

In every erotic encounter there is an invisible and ever-active participant: imagination, desire. Eroticism is first and foremost a thirst for otherness. This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there – the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.¹

“Dwelling Place of the Self”

To fully accept and ultimately love ourselves, we have to be clear about who we are. Sexuality is so taboo in our culture that few of us are ever empowered to fully articulate and connect with this part of our identity. Even fewer are given the tools to share it honestly with their partner.²

I ask myself: Why am I drawn to the erotic? Is this another veiled pursuit — a conscious yet covert attempt to make myself rejection - proof? Another crusade to finally be deemed worthy of love?

The truth is, I feel my chest constrict around my heart like a vice; my breathing turns to shallow gasps just at the thought of wading into the erotic realm. I feel a fear that is not my own, a cultural inheritance, wading into this mysterious and forbidden world. I hear a shame-based story whispering that this kind of exploration is for perverts, nymphomaniacs, sexual deviants, not a noble quest befitting a white knight.

But I know that authentic connection begins within. Real intimacy demands self-awareness. If I’m to love others in truth, I must first claim my sexuality — owning it fully, completely and unapologetically. I must embody my desire to be cradled in an eternal embrace, to fold into an infinite intimacy.

The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.³

Into The Erotic

Eroticism is an art. But it’s also a practice. And when we’re out of practice, even taking the first step—simply granting ourself permission to explore the pleasurable dimension of life—can feel daunting, especially when it involves another person.⁴

I can’t master erotic connection or become a poet of the body just by sitting behind a screen and Googling, asking ChatGPT or Claude, or reading about sex and sensuality. I know it must be felt, experienced until the practice becomes embodied. That means intentional practice, confronting my deepest fear of being seen as a creep. It means beginning anew again: finding new mentors, a new community, a tribe… the ones willing to witness — maybe even walk alongside. It means risk, rejection, being misunderstood, potentially unearthing parts of myself that have the potential to shatter my self-worth and sense of identity. Long days enduring pain and suffering, followed by the revelry of ecstasy and euphoria.

The journey ahead holds no map, no path. The road before me is sensual, sacrosanct, and unseen. Only feeling, touch, and the quiet bloom of desire can guide me through the slow ignition of my sexual intuition.

Here I am again, on the edge of another evolution, another alter of becoming.

Inhale. I surrender my vision. I feel myself. The voices of my past selves rise like battle cries in the dark: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

Exhale. I slowly open my eyes. Shall we begin?

So I ask you my kindred sexual spirits: Do you too long for infinite intimacy? Beyond just the limitations of physical pleasure? To embark on a journey to nirvana—where souls feel safe to harmonize, to weave together mind, body, and spirit in divine union? What does this feel like for you?

Shunga (春画)

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Reference

¹The Other Voice: Essays on Modern Poetry, Octavia Paz, 1998

²Articulating sexuality…, Andrew Horn, 5/2025

³Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power, Audre Lorde, 2000

⁴Letters From Esther #37: Eroticism is an Art. But It’s Also a Practice, Esther Perel and Mary Alice Miller