Can I Be Honest With You?: An Edgy and Empowering Romantic Comedy Dating Memoir by Amy Palatnick

Author:Amy Palatnick [Palatnick, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781954930018
Publisher: Jungle Beach Press
Published: 2021-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

Date #57: Easy on the No’s (Told from both perspectives) July 2017

I met Theo briefly the year before on my first night at Summer Camp. I was walking around alone and felt drawn to join a circle of people playing a game. Like a large, friendly hobbit, he welcomed and folded me into the group, quickly teaching me how to play. My first impression was that he seemed like a uniquely emotionally available man.

On the first day of this year’s camp, I sat next to him in the big group circle and felt happy when he asked to put his head in my lap. Instinctively, I massaged his head and neck, and he moaned. When I touched some acupressure points, electrical impulses moved through his body in surprisingly strong kundalini jolts. At one point Theo said, “You know this is making me fall in love with you.” It seemed that “falling in love” happened often, and easily, at Summer Camp!

Later that evening, there was a blindfolded contact improvisation dance experience, and Theo encouraged me to go. He had been doing contact improvisation for years, but I had only tried this twice before. Not usually drawn to physical contact with strangers, I went, reticently. A wise, older woman guided the experience, and her cues calmed me. She gently invited us: “Just relax, be curious, explore new expressive movements.” The blindfold helped me stay grounded, and I found grace as I circulated. At one point, as the group moved slowly on the floor, crawling and slithering around, Theo and I found and recognized each other—first through contact, then confirmed by humorous whispers and mutual peeking. We sank in together and went back and forth between being acrobatically playful and sweetly cuddly. He felt like a slightly stiff teddy bear.

The next night, a large group gathered in the Dome for a Tantra 101 workshop before the ritual opening of Aphrodite’s Temple. We changed partners in a series of exercises that built slowly from sitting back-to-back and breathing with a partner, to eye gazing or hand holding, to more potentially erotic positions. When I paired with Theo, we were instructed to “yab yum.”

I straddled Theo and got into position; he immediately broke into a sweat. His body started to buzz. Was he scared? We were awkward and stiff, and the moment felt complicated. As I rotated on to my next partner, I wondered why our yab yum felt so weird.

After the workshop, the large group prepared to walk pilgrimage-style up to the mandatory Temple orientation. Theo approached me and asked me to go with him. Like, a date? I wondered. “OK, sure,” I said casually.

As we walked, we shared our boundaries, fears, and desires. I said, “I don’t want to be sexual, but I’m enjoying our connection.” One of his desires was to cuddle, and I said, “Let’s see how we feel.” It felt good to enter with boundaries.

The Temple priestesses welcomed us all by simply, clearly, and lovingly explaining the consent guidelines. Then,

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