About six months ago, I found out my mother has a wolf vagina. She attended a workshop teaching the beliefs of Quodoushka, a spiritual practice based on sex. She doesn’t literally have the vagina of a wolf, but according to these teachings, her sexuality, and physical characteristics resemble the spirit of a wolf. Every man and woman determines their sexuality type by looking at specific physical characteristics of the genitals. They are then destined to embody the spiritual and sexual energy of that animal. A wolf uses it’s “acute senses of hearing, sight, and smell,” and thus a wolf woman “quickly tunes into [her] attractions.” She is a hunter, fierce and passionate. Each woman can be one of nine spirits, each with its own characteristics. For example, the antelope woman is independent, the sheep woman is social, and bear women protective. There are nine male classifications as well: the deer man is alluring, the dancing man craves respect, and elk man can redirect negative energy into a healing power.

This classification, however, is not at the center of the Quodoushka teachings. Quodoushka helps you understand the world, it identifies qualities that should be present in good parenting and provides laws to help guide your life. The teachings of Quodoushka say that nothing you can perceive is outside yourself. The worlds of mineral, plant, animal, human, and spirit exist in nature, but also within. All of these worlds are created through spiritual sexual energy, and so the realization and acceptance of this energy allows you to connect your inner worlds to the corresponding ones in other beings, in nature, and in the cosmos.

I was intrigued and inspired by Quodoushka, but I didn’t grow up believing in wolf vaginas and the divine purpose of orgasm. Did I have to adopt beliefs of another culture in order to escape the taboos and oppressive western beliefs about sex?

Not knowing what I was looking for, I began researching sexology and found ‘sexplanations’, a youtube channel made by a sexologist, Dr. Lindsey Doe. In one of her episodes, she recommends a book called “How I got into Sex: Leading Researchers, Sex Therapists, Educators, Prostitutes, Sex Toy Designers, Sex Surrogates, Transexuals, Criminologists, Clergy, and more…” The further I got through this heavy hardback, the more comfortable I felt about sex. Not that I was allergic to it before, in fact, I was probably more sexually liberated than most, but the parameters for what I considered normal swelled and expanded, while my judgments for how people express their sexuality loosened and dissolved.

My three favorite stories involved a sex surrogate, the leader of a masturbation and female sexuality workshop, and a priest. Sex surrogates work for sex therapists, using a practice suggested by Masters and Johnson, two of the most influential sexologists in the history of the field. Basically, what sex surrogates like Barbara Roberts do, is teach by doing. From the description the story gave, it sounded like a client and a sex surrogate started with close embraces, caressing the face, and talking as lovers would, getting to know each other in an intimate setting. They then could progress to other sexual acts, including intercourse. The progress and exercises, however, were all dictated by the sexologist, who would conduct debriefs with the client without the presence of the sex surrogate. At first, I was surprised that such a practice existed and that it was legal! But throughout the chapter, I became convinced that it was legitimate and effective. Afterall, you can’t become a pro soccer player by reading a book or getting tips from Messi. Just like riding a bike, sex is a physical activity, and for those who have sexual problems that prevent them from learning with chosen partners, sex surrogacy is an ideal method.

The next story had a similar concept of teaching by doing. Betty Dodson believes “that women’s liberation not only required economic and social liberation but sexual liberation as well.” She believes that women should be able to be completely independent if they chose, and have all the resources necessary to succeed emotionally and sexually without being dependent on a partner. This is where masturbation comes in. She began by acting out orgasms of varying intensities and demonstrating techniques of manual sex using an electric massager. (Demonstrating orgasm is something I have heard of a few organizations doing, including a farm I woofed at that focused on pleasurable living and the female orgasm.) Betty continued similar workshops for a few years, and they “developed a basic pattern. The two main subjects were healing our body and genital imagery, and learning the basis of orgasmic release through masturbation. The only requirement for attending a group was agreeing to nudity. We all benefited from seeing natural bodies instead of constantly comparing ourselves to fashion models and centerfold nudes. There was no doubt in my mind that self-love started with loving our physical selves” (Dodson). The genital imagery portion of the class began as a slideshow of female genitals and evolved into a “genital show and tell” where each woman took a turn under “a spotlight in front of a free-standing mirror displaying the exquisite shapes and colors of our vulvas.” The other portion of the class, orgasmic release, began with demonstration only, homework assignments, and debrief discussions in class. But after a few years, she asked one class if they would be comfortable with masturbating together. Every woman agreed! So Betty led a “guided masturbation celebration” in which the women came to orgasm next to one another in the same room. How’s that for sexual liberation? Betty continued her career as a feminist and sex advocate and still teaches workshops although she is now 86. She transcended social taboos even in the face of overt criticism. My favorite quote from her story was her response to being called a whore: “Yes, I’m a whore, a sacred prostitute, an ancient temple priestess who serves the goddess of love.”

The last story tells of sexual liberation, a journey from the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Harry Walsh is an Irish-born priest taught that sex was sinful, masturbation was self-abuse, and emotional intimacy outlawed because it prevented “spiritual formation”. His descriptions of life inside the “enclosure,” the building where they were kept in isolation from the world from 12 to 25, made me cringe, angered by the injustices these boys were subjected to. “The two primary emphases were subordination and castration.” Subordination, or blind obedience, was enforced with the requirement to lick the ground where a superior had just walked. Sometimes this meant getting matter from the monastery farm in the mouth. Harry comments on each of these practices, describing his anger and humiliation. He even backs up his views that certain practices inside the ‘enclosure’ are wrong, with quotes from the bible.

The other practice is sexual castration. They were told they needed to fight against world, flesh and devil, and all three manifested themselves through sex. They were given tools to fight against these three evils, “one was the cilice (pronounced sill-iss). The cilice--actually there were three: one for the back, one for the leg, and one for the arm--was a bracelet made of barbed wire with the hooks turned inward. The cilice was worn for about four hours, long enough for the teeth to become embedded in your flesh. When you took it off, pieces of your flesh came with it, and the holes it left itched like crazy. Another aid to self-castration was the ‘discipline,’ a whip of knotted thongs with which to lacerate your bare posterior, preferably to the point of blood. Those with blood on their cell walls were seen as occupying a high rung on the spiritual ladder.”

Despite these horrors, the attitude his family had about sex, and the emotional barriers put between Harry, the other priests, and sex, he later goes to college to become a sexologist. Harry describes a realization he has on Christmas day one year, that his “sexuality, the created energy that drives us to seek connectedness and avoid loneliness, had been assaulted.” Although the beginning of Harry’s journey was much more sexually repressed than many in the world, I think his realization is one that we can all learn from.

I hope to continue my journey of sexual liberation, break social barriers, and maybe one day become a sexologist myself, a sexual advocate like Dr. Lindsey Doe, Barbara Roberts, Betty Dodson, and Harry Walsh.