Power, Intimacy and the experience of a structured Edward Carpenter Community Gay Men's Week

Ten years ago, within a few months of having moved to Brighton, a friend suggested that I should think about checking out The Edward Carpenter Community and getting up to the Gay Men's Retreat at Laurieston Hall in Dumfries. He thought it would be my kind of thing!

I didn’t know what he meant and hearing his description of what happened when he’d been there, I thought he might have misunderstood me. I was vehemently monogamous at the time and the idea of thrusting myself into a community of randy, intelligent, articulate men seemed to be unnecessarily putting myself in the way of temptation!

Four years later my partner gets ill and our sex life peters out. He feels rotten and tired out so doesn’t want to spoil the memory of the great sex we used to have together. I remain dedicated and stay, at least conceptually, devoted to a fidelity towards him. I keep reminding myself that this is what was meant by the ‘In sickness’ part of the promise grown up people make to each other when they unthinkingly really expect ‘In health’. I keep hoping the ailment will resolve and our sexual intimacy will be able to re-kindle. It doesn’t. We stop going on holidays because he can’t bear spoiling my enjoyment with his tiredness and frustration. I go off for a few lone holidays to get a break from his unhappiness but I don’t really enjoy myself. We get into the habit of having holidays in Brighton and Guy’s relentless fatigue begins gradually to relent. However our clubbing, pub-ing and partying social life became moribund and rapidly expired in the early years of illness as the fair weather friends scurried off to their next engagements. I ultimately enter a social purdah when my two remaining friends move from Brighton and relocate to London and Equador! I start a blog and make some virtual friends. During all of this I’m developing a sense of my spiritual self and realising that it’s no use waiting for some organized religion to provide me with any kind of meaningful support. I have an acute sense that our tribe is seriously lacking a connection to spirit. My ordeal is helping me to know this and is goading me into doing something about it! I get serious about writing and manage to get a regular column published in the local LGBT magazine.

This is the context as I’m racking my brain for what to do for my holiday in August/September 2009. A ‘gay spirit’ yahoo group listserv email enters my in-box describing a workshop entitled ‘The Dance Between Power and Intimacy’ run by Sunfire, the resident Spiritual Healer at Easton Mountain Retreat. It seems radically different in its approach to male intimacy, erotic touch and spirituality. I bemoan that this kind of thing only ever seems to happen in the US. Then, still wondering about what to do about holidays, I remember my friend’s suggestion about ECC and check out the website to see if I can tie my holiday in with a Laurieston week. And there it is again-this radical workshop is being run not in the States but at Laurieston Hall! I hesitate and realise that I was happy to imagine that I would be someone prepared to attend this workshop when it was out of reach but now it is within my grasp I begin to find excuses not to go. I remember my conversation about Laurieston with my friend and contact him to see if he’d be up for it. He admits he’d be nervous about getting his kit off and exploring his issues- and in any case his mum is seriously ill and he can’t commit. What to do?

I print off the application and write a cheque and then wait, hoping that maybe there aren’t enough applicants for it to run and it will be cancelled!

It isn’t cancelled and so in September I set off from Brighton in my little smart car on my pilgrimage to Dumfries.

What happens next is a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of happy images, experiences, memories and dreams. Laurieston is my kind of place. The ECC are my kind of people.

What did I find?

Open, genuine, authentic, subject-subject, relationships between good, honest men.

A good old fashioned socialist co-operative providing the sustenance and structure to our activities.

An enchanted sacred space.

Fun. Playfulness. Dressing up. Make-up. Naked wrestling. Fresh air.

Wise and caring facilitators. Chakra cleansing. Healthy scepticism. Affirmation in bucket loads. Thoughtful reflection about my predicaments and how I was dealing with them.

Onion skins of security provided by the community, the base groups, and the intimacy ritual groups.

Qigong seven pearls yoga every morning before breakfast

Mind blowing exercises exploring erotic love and its potential to provide a vehicle for spiritual enlightenment. (Really!)

A new take on bondage and spanking!

What did I learn?

I had developed a pattern of not letting people see the real me because I believed that it was a source of power to be the only one who knew my vulnerabilities. Letting go of this attitude and exposing my vulnerabilities is the route to authenticity and true intimacy.

I needed to stop my mental masturbation and remember that:

Action moves the doubt the theory cannot prove.

I needed to stop thinking I could predict what people would do or say in response to my honesty.

I’m essentially an OK person with an unrequited libido.

What happened next?

It’s just one week down the line and I’m still processing and assimilating it all. My man has been swept off his feet by the energy of it all. The spare room is now our temple of erotic love and we’re working on curing his illness through sexual healing. It’s turning out to be lots of fun.

So thank you Sunfire for bringing your wisdom to these shores. Thank-you Shokti and Vyvyan for inviting him and organising the week. Thank-you to the gang of guys who were brave enough to have a go and especially my base group and the boys in my ritual group.

You changed my life!