I am not surprised anymore, and we need you.

Photo by Wolrider YURTSEVEN: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-a-man-standing-in-smoke-18632053/

There is(was) a website. It hosts rape. Like an academy that teaches you how to do it.

It is abhorrent. And sadly, again, I am not surprised.

This website (and many others) are not hidden away in corners of the dark web. They are easily accessible by anyone who has a mobile phone and an internet connection. And they will keep existing until we decide, collectively, personally, in our homes and in our communities, that we are fucking done.

Gisèle Pelicot and the Next Layer of #MeToo

When Gisèle Pelicot waived her right to anonymity, I believe she knew. She knew there had to be more than the 50 men they were able to prosecute. 50 men who raped her, in a small town in France. If 50 men existed there, within a 30-mile radius of their home, there must be millions and millions of others across the globe. Because of her courage, we have the next layer of the #MeToo movement.

And alongside the Epstein files, look at what they reveal. Look at what happens in homes, with men who don't have billions of dollars or a global reputation.

It's the same fucking thing.

The Fear Is Real: Women Cannot Tell Which Men

This is not about all men. I want to say that clearly, and I also want to say this: us women cannot tell which men. We do not get a warning nor a label. The man who holds his unintegrated, unspoken desire could be a colleague, a neighbor, a friend, a person we're dating. He could be a man in our goddamn house, whom we are married to.

So I want to speak directly to the men reading this. (and to the women who will forward it)

We need you.

Not as bystanders. Not as silent witnesses shaking your head in disgust.

Not as men who felt something uncomfortable and kept scrolling or kept talking.

We need you to stop fearing what happens when you call out the misogynistic joke.

When your friend criticizes a woman's body.

The fear you feel in that moment? Women live with something so much bigger than that every. single. day.

Start being courageous.

Like we are. Do the right fucking thing.

Don't wait for someone else to go first.

Get "hysterical" with us.

We need you.

We need men doing their work, in private, in community, with support, and with EACH OTHER.

We need men looking at their shadow.

We need men working with their bodies.

We need men taking responsibility for themselves.

We need healthy male role models.

Do you want to be one?

Conscious Kink, Fantasy, and Metabolizing Shame Safely

Here is what I know about desire and taboo: shame can exist alongside. Suppression does not make it go away. What lives in the shadow does not disappear because we refuse to look at it, it finds another way out.

Conscious kink, fantasy, intentional erotic exploration, these are not the problem. Are CNC fantasies "wrong"? No, because they are CONSENSUAL, between two consenting adults.

We need men doing sexual shadow work with professionals, whether it be with sex therapists, Pro Dommes, surrogate partners, sexological bodyworkers, trained tantrikas, or somatic sex educators.

Now more than ever.

Professional containers are places where shadow can be metabolized. Where the deeper questions, why is this in my psyche? what does it need? what is it asking for? can be asked and explored. In safety. In integrity. Without harm to another. The darkness gets to move through, rather than being buried until it erupts somewhere else.

Conscious desire, tended with honesty and responsibility, has the power to heal. Yet unintegrated desire, left to fester in the dark, ravages everything.

The Generational Repair We Are All Responsible For

The repair that is needed from all this news being revealed to people who didn't know about it (or needed some evidence to "believe" it) will take generations. We still have so far to go. We need people doing their work, in their bodies, in their relationships, in their communities.

Rooted Pleasure exists because I believe in a world where self-aware adults support themselves and raise the next generation to live in embodied, authentic truth. Where pleasure is celebrated, with compassion, with responsibility, in connection and care for others and the earth.

That world is possible. And it begins with the courage to look at yourself. Are you willing to be a man who looks at his shadow? And works on it with integrity?

And who is willing to call other men into their integrity?

You are courageous.