Sexual Partner Surrogacy Explained:
For When Talking About Sex Isn't Enough

A Sexual Partner Surrogate provides a structured and supported opportunity for someone to explore emotional, relational and physical intimacy with another person.

And there is always a purpose to what we're doing. We might be exploring what happens when someone tries to ask for what they want. Or we might be practising giving and receiving touch. Or we might be working with anxiety around erections or ejaculation. Or we might be exploring boundaries, pleasure, receiving, communication or simply what happens inside someone when another body gets close.

Sometimes the work can include sexual touch and sexual activity.

A Sexual Partner Surrogate provides a structured and supported opportunity for someone to explore emotional, relational and physical intimacy with another person.

And there is always a purpose to what we're doing. We might be exploring what happens when someone tries to ask for what they want. Or we might be practising giving and receiving touch. Or we might be working with anxiety around erections or ejaculation. Or we might be exploring boundaries, pleasure, receiving, communication or simply what happens inside someone when another body gets close.

Sometimes the work can include sexual touch and sexual activity.

The men who have come to me over the years have done so for all sorts of reasons.

Some have had very little sexual experience. Some have had lots.

Some are late virgins who feel as though everyone else was given a rule book about sex and relationships that somehow passed them by.

Some experience erectile difficulties or premature ejaculation and have become so focused on what their penis is doing that there is barely any room left for pleasure.

Some can have sex perfectly well, but struggle with intimacy.

Some don't know what they want or they know but don't know how to ask for it.

Some are frightened of getting it wrong.

Some are deeply uncomfortable receiving.

Some simply want the opportunity to learn about their own sexuality without the pressure of trying to impress, satisfy or keep a romantic partner.

And quite often the thing a man initially tells me he needs isn't where we eventually discover the richest part of the work lies.

That's part of what I love about it.

Imagine a man who knows perfectly well that erections come and go.

He understands performance anxiety. He knows stress affects arousal. He may even have talked about it in therapy.

And yet the moment his erection disappears with another person, everything he knows goes out of the window.

Suddenly he feels like he's failed, he's embarrassed, wondering what I'm thinking while trying desperately to get his erection back or trying to deflect his shame by focussing on pleasuring me.

Now imagine something different.

His erection disappears and nothing terrible happens. I don't need him to get it back. Nobody rushes and we stay connected. We might talk laugh or play. We might carry on touching or stop touching altogether.

There is still pleasure available and there is still intimacy available.

Something can change for him in a moment like that.

Because we're no longer talking about what might happen if his body doesn't perform.

His body hasn't worked in the way he thought it had to, and he has discovered for himself that the world didn't end.

That experience belongs to him now.

This is where I think embodied work can be incredibly powerful.

It evolved quite naturally from the work I was already doing. During my training and early practice as a Sexological Bodyworker, I began noticing a gap. Men could learn to become more aware of their bodies. They could learn about pleasure, breath, arousal, consent, communication and boundaries. We could practise noticing what they wanted. And then came the question:

Because that changes everything.

It's one thing to know what you want when you're alone. It's another to notice what you want when there's a woman you're attracted to sitting in front of you.

It's one thing to practise saying no. It's another to say it when you're frightened that the person you're with might be disappointed, reject or abandon you.

It's one thing to understand that you don't have to perform. It's another to actually experience being accepted when you don't.

And if you've reached your 30s, 40s, 50s or beyond with very little sexual experience, being told to “just get out there” isn't particularly helpful. Where exactly are you supposed to learn?

That question became increasingly important to me. I realised that for some of the men I worked with, what was missing wasn't more information. They needed somewhere safe enough to practise being intimate with another human being.

Sexual Partner Surrogacy became one way I could offer that.

This is probably the thing I wish more people understood about the work. Yes, I might be helping somebody learn about touch, erections, ejaculation, arousal or sexual technique. And we're also working with being seen.

Being awkward.

Wanting something.

Not knowing.

Asking.

Receiving.

Hearing no.

Saying no.

Getting something wrong and discovering that it can be repaired.

Laughing when bodies do ridiculous things.

Discovering that pleasure doesn't have to be earned.

Learning that intimacy doesn't require perfection.

There can be so much tenderness in this work, there can be playfulness, curiosity, frustration, vulnerability and enormous courage. And sometimes there is great sex. And sometimes there isn't. Both can be useful and delicious.

Embodied intimacy work doesn't automatically mean taking your clothes off or having sexual contact with a client.

There is a huge landscape between sitting opposite someone talking about sex and being sexually intimate with them.

We can work with

Tantric breath.

Movement.

Eye contact.

Proximity.

Asking.

Receiving.

Boundaries.

Touch.

Pleasure.

Rejection.

Embarrassment.

Desire.

And, perhaps most importantly, what is actually happening between two people in the room.

For some practitioners and clients, that's exactly where the work should remain. For other practitioners, with appropriate training, agreements, boundaries and professional frameworks, intimate touch may become part of the work.

Sexual Partner Surrogacy sits towards the furthest end of that continuum. And working at that end for a decade has taught me an enormous amount about all of it.

We talk an awful lot about men's problems: porn, erections, ejaculation, performance, loneliness, shame, disconnection.

And yes, men bring all of these things into my work. And they also bring tenderness, Longing, Curiosity, Awkwardness, Humour, Fear, Desire, Courage.

And often an enormous hunger for connection.

I have watched men discover that they can ask rather than assume, that receiving pleasure can be just as vulnerable as giving it. That a boundary isn't necessarily a rejection, that another person's pleasure isn't something they have to manufacture, that sex can contain laughter and awkwardness and pauses and changing our minds, that intimacy can survive an erection disappearing or an early ejaculation, that they don't have to know everything. And that their worth as a man has very little to do with what their penis happens to be doing or not doing

These are some of the moments that kept me doing this work for a decade.

Because underneath the “problem” that originally brought someone to me, I so often get to meet the human being.

And that is a privilege.

Recently in my Professional Development for Women Practitioners Series of Webinars, I’ve been talking a lot about the responsibilities involved in working with men's sexuality.

About ethics, safety, consent, power, boundaries, training. And all of that matters deeply to me and to our profession. And I've realised that there is another part of the conversation I want us to have.

Because I don't want women practitioners to come away believing that working with men is principally something we need to protect ourselves from. That isn't the whole story.

Some of the most touching, funny, challenging, surprising and deeply human experiences of my professional life have come from working with men around sex and intimacy. I have witnessed profound changes in some of the men I've worked with, and the work has changed me too. And I am deeply grateful for the depth of that work.

I love seeing a man discover something about himself that changes the way he experiences his body.

I love the moment someone realises that pleasure doesn't have to involve performing.

I love seeing shame begin to loosen its grip.

I love the laughter when something doesn't go according to plan.

And I love witnessing someone become a little more comfortable being exactly who they are with me.

You don't have to become a Sexual Partner Surrogate to work with any of this.

But I do think we need practitioners who are willing to include sexuality, intimacy and the body in conversations about human change.

And that's what I’m talking about next.