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When Brian — whose last name I'm withholding to protect his privacy — finished his sessions, he felt he had become a new person.
"It was a life-changing experience, and I don't say that lightly," he says. "I had always been a caregiver, a provider. I was in the military, and I'm a doer. I had never before been a lover. Relationships ended because of this problem. I feared that someone I asked on a date would say yes. After one woman left me, I was celibate for five years. At age 40, I said, 'I have to do something about this.'"
Brian had his doubts. He had tried books and breathing exercises. At first he didn't believe that someone else could change what he could not change on his own. But the surrogate partner and his talk therapist cared about his progress, and they helped him to commit fully to the work.
"You can't dabble in this," Brian says. "You think you're going into this to talk about this one problem, but you end up talking about your whole life. You want to guard yourself against the emotions that come up. But I realized I had to lay myself bare, to give everything to this process. Sometimes you just have to pull over while driving and cry."
He was afraid at the beginning of his SPT sessions, and then again at the end. At first he feared that SPT wouldn't work, and when he made progress with his surrogate partner, he feared that after the sessions were over, his old problem would return. But the techniques he learned have stayed with him.
For three years now, he has had complete control over his ejaculation. He credits SPT with enhancing all of his relationships: with friends, family, and with business associates.
"This was an incredible process, you learn how to touch everything," he says. "You begin with simple objects, learning to notice textures, things like that. Slowly, you learn to be intimate in a completely safe environment. You experience a sense of self-realization. You are in it and at the same time, you are watching the process from the outside."
Surrogate partners and other bodywork practitioners provide a space for people to learn how to live with themselves as physical beings who need one another for pleasure, as well as for health and sanity — because those things are related.
For Wu, Mark, Chao, and Wadell, the experience of helping people connect with their bodies is one of shared liberation. Wu's own healing led her to explore new possibilities in her own life, and to bring it into harmony. She says that her goal is to help people's heads, hearts, and genitals all vibrate together, in tune with one another. Sounds like a worthy endeavor for all of us human animals.
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