Reimagining the session work (2023)
I build a new webpage every seventh year or so. It’s a process of reimagining myself. It’s an opportunity to put my finger on what I actually do, and I how I explain that to the world. Retelling the story about myself.
My private work with a client always starts with a single three-hour session. The experience contains conversation, tea, bodywork and integration. Most clients desire Japanese rope bondage as part of their bodywork, but the motivations always differ. Some have complicated traumatic demons to befriend; others long to let go and be held in a non-sexual intimacy; and finally, some bring a burning desire to explore their forbidden eros. Society today is built upon this weird unspoken agreement that intimacy and sexuality never mix. People often ask if I consider myself a sex worker, and my answer is no. I work with intimacy. That is what my clients long for. Sexuality is one of many ends to intimacy, but long before that end is trust, desire, surrender, ritual, submission, power, polarity, and the many other ingredients of eros.
“Every session with Andy is like opening a mysterious box of secrets – secrets that are deeply hidden under numerous layers of external garbage that I tend to call ‘self’. I never know what I’ll find inside. I come with some messy armful of things…” Lena
My clients with a traumatic background often already went to talking therapy, and they intellectually know their story inside out. However, their body somehow still keeps the score like an ill-tuned alarm bell waiting to go off in the most inconvenient situations. Often related to men, intimacy and power. Making it impossible to intimately trust another or themselves for that sake. Other clients are the brave explorers with taboo dreams about domination, submission, pain and humiliation. But where to consciously go with these ashamed desires? A Tinder swipe-right one-night stand? Flirting with the dangerous-looking men at the all-night-open gas station? Or confessing it to their loved ones? Finally, I often meet the masculine woman stuck in a masculine world. She is empowered as fuck and fought harder than any man to successfully climb the hierarchies, but at the cost of forgetting how to surrender. Now she longs to reunite with the mysterious aspects of her eros rather than being forced to behave like a man in their unfair world. ‘
“The way you tied my hair with rope and had complete control of the movements of my neck, and my postures, it was a way of wild and respectful freedom. No rush; total control and extremely sensual bondage with you changed the way I see myself. It is with devotion and gratitude that I write you this letter. You got one more enthusiastic fan.” Ilana
What they all share in common is a longing for a safe enough space to be brave and focus on themselves without everything having such dire consequences. By paying me for a service, our interaction is clearly defined for them. That is, for me, the definition of the therapeutic relationship. And why I can never relate to a client privately afterwards because they would not know me as a private person. Seventy-five per cent of my clients are women, twenty per cent are couples, and five per cent are men. When my clients are happy, I offer a three-session package, with the third session for free. Finally, when ready, a handful of clients start the Initiation for the Submissive, which is a hundred-hour one-on-one program with three modules for the most dedicated. Also, from time to time, I’m given as a birthday present, as inspiration for an art piece, or the lottery prize at a bachelorette party; while a bit odd, this is also most welcomed.