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Daddy Lover God: a sacred intimate journey
WHAT IS "SEXUAL HEALING," BESIDES BEING THE NAME OF MARVIN GAYE'S LAST GREAT RECORD?
The goal of sacred intimacy is to facilitate self-knowledge through erotic pleasure. Sacred intimates approach sexuality with the understanding that it's related to spirituality. They help people identify, embrace, and practice desire as holy, to see sexual embodiment as an expression of the soul. They hold the body as sacred and view erotic energy as a crucial component of human life and spiritual health. Their primary intention is that of healing -- not just addressing the wounds to the spirit and the flesh caused by sexual abuse, addiction, or disease but also acknowledging that the fun and the pleasure, the vitality and the divine mystery of sex have nourishing properties in and of themselves.
Inspired by the visionary teachings of Joseph Kramer and the Body Electric School, Don Shewey shares his journey of building a sacred intimate practice and cultivating the capacity to treat each client as a combination of Daddy, lover, and God. This unvarnished account of his unfolding discoveries will be both illuminating and validating to past, present, and future practitioners, to seekers of sexual healing, or simply to sentient beings with an interest in the varieties of human sexual experience.
The goal of sacred intimacy is to facilitate self-knowledge through erotic pleasure. Sacred intimates approach sexuality with the understanding that it's related to spirituality. They help people identify, embrace, and practice desire as holy, to see sexual embodiment as an expression of the soul. They hold the body as sacred and view erotic energy as a crucial component of human life and spiritual health. Their primary intention is that of healing -- not just addressing the wounds to the spirit and the flesh caused by sexual abuse, addiction, or disease but also acknowledging that the fun and the pleasure, the vitality and the divine mystery of sex have nourishing properties in and of themselves.
Inspired by the visionary teachings of Joseph Kramer and the Body Electric School, Don Shewey shares his journey of building a sacred intimate practice and cultivating the capacity to treat each client as a combination of Daddy, lover, and God. This unvarnished account of his unfolding discoveries will be both illuminating and validating to past, present, and future practitioners, to seekers of sexual healing, or simply to sentient beings with an interest in the varieties of human sexual experience.
- GenresLGBTNonfictionMemoirGay
359 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 27, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 14, 2024
I loved this book. I found it interesting and inspiring.
August 16, 2023
Unputdownable queer healing & truth & joy memoir
A truly unputdownable memoir/meditation by pleasure activist and fine writer Don Shewey. Tales from his pioneering life in the overlapping worlds of sex work, tantra, massage and healing sizzle and seduce with raw sexiness made irresistible by shameless honesty. And by the author's restless, discerning mind, ever seeking more pleasure and deeper authenticity. You’ve never read a story like this. When you do--don’t wait!--you will surely surrender to Shewey’s charms and humor, and feel his capacity to spread bodily joy. This enthralling book transforms the reader like the best full body massage; leaving you electrified with unexpected insights and hope. Don Shewey is a pleasure powerhouse; and his delicious book is, too. My favorite book of this decade, period.
A truly unputdownable memoir/meditation by pleasure activist and fine writer Don Shewey. Tales from his pioneering life in the overlapping worlds of sex work, tantra, massage and healing sizzle and seduce with raw sexiness made irresistible by shameless honesty. And by the author's restless, discerning mind, ever seeking more pleasure and deeper authenticity. You’ve never read a story like this. When you do--don’t wait!--you will surely surrender to Shewey’s charms and humor, and feel his capacity to spread bodily joy. This enthralling book transforms the reader like the best full body massage; leaving you electrified with unexpected insights and hope. Don Shewey is a pleasure powerhouse; and his delicious book is, too. My favorite book of this decade, period.
May 21, 2024
Don Shewey has created somewhat of an unexpectedly delightful, unexpectedly profound anomaly in Daddy Lover God. It’s as much personal memoir as a sociological and, ultimately, spiritual treatise.
In parts this reads like the private diaries of someone involved in the sex trade, the intimate musings of someone with an extremely unique career path. Over the course of the book, these ‘diary entries’ morph into evermore profound self investigations and réalisations that this unusual career potentiated. Opportunities for personal growth are ever present around us, if one is inclined to look, to consider, as Shewey so evidently is.
Yet beyond this diary-adjacent parts, this book is also an investigation into the multilayered and overlapping universes of complex human sexuality, detailed through Shewey’s own experiences and those of his clients. And it is also a detailed reflection of an aspect of urban, American gay life in the late 20th and early 21st century. It is by that token also a great source of optimism as that same subculture slowly matures and grows in that same time frame. Shewey was lucky and skilled enough to be at the forefront of this maturation process, still in its formative years, especially via his association with pioneer and mentor Joseph Kramer. Shewey goes into great historical and biographical detail about this.
I came across Kramer’s earliest videos about self pleasure and energetic eroticism when I was in my early twenties. I was fascinated but it was too freaky and off the wall, funny even, for me to appreciate. I was also fully tuned into the most surface aspects of human sexuality. Years later I find myself now teaching similar themes in workshops, and sharing many aspects of Shewey own path in work and life.
Therefore this book for me was of particularly deep interest. Aside from everything I just mentioned, this marvelous page turner of a book operates most of all as a guide to authentic self investigation. The way Shewey notices his inner triggers, self deceit, magical thinking, and how desire sometimes hijacks our higher values, and then with radical honesty unpacks the convenient truths we all tell ourselves in order to transcend them into deeper wisdom - this is the book’s largest value to me.
This book will be of interest to more than just other bodyworkers. The modern western gay experience has been so sex obsessed for decades now, and with some consequences only recently becoming apparent, that we could all do well to ask ourselves the same kinds of questions Shewey has asked of himself for years. To up our games if life.
In parts this reads like the private diaries of someone involved in the sex trade, the intimate musings of someone with an extremely unique career path. Over the course of the book, these ‘diary entries’ morph into evermore profound self investigations and réalisations that this unusual career potentiated. Opportunities for personal growth are ever present around us, if one is inclined to look, to consider, as Shewey so evidently is.
Yet beyond this diary-adjacent parts, this book is also an investigation into the multilayered and overlapping universes of complex human sexuality, detailed through Shewey’s own experiences and those of his clients. And it is also a detailed reflection of an aspect of urban, American gay life in the late 20th and early 21st century. It is by that token also a great source of optimism as that same subculture slowly matures and grows in that same time frame. Shewey was lucky and skilled enough to be at the forefront of this maturation process, still in its formative years, especially via his association with pioneer and mentor Joseph Kramer. Shewey goes into great historical and biographical detail about this.
I came across Kramer’s earliest videos about self pleasure and energetic eroticism when I was in my early twenties. I was fascinated but it was too freaky and off the wall, funny even, for me to appreciate. I was also fully tuned into the most surface aspects of human sexuality. Years later I find myself now teaching similar themes in workshops, and sharing many aspects of Shewey own path in work and life.
Therefore this book for me was of particularly deep interest. Aside from everything I just mentioned, this marvelous page turner of a book operates most of all as a guide to authentic self investigation. The way Shewey notices his inner triggers, self deceit, magical thinking, and how desire sometimes hijacks our higher values, and then with radical honesty unpacks the convenient truths we all tell ourselves in order to transcend them into deeper wisdom - this is the book’s largest value to me.
This book will be of interest to more than just other bodyworkers. The modern western gay experience has been so sex obsessed for decades now, and with some consequences only recently becoming apparent, that we could all do well to ask ourselves the same kinds of questions Shewey has asked of himself for years. To up our games if life.
September 27, 2023
I found Don Shewey's handling of the "eros + spirit" pairing in sacred intimate work highly compelling. He states, "When I think about the place of sex in a healing practice, there are so many strands to separate" (p. 255). This book--and the autobiographical quest it gives voice to--permits those strands to emerge with fullness and directness, from both sides of the eros/spirit teeter-totter, as it were. Shewey takes us with sharp-edged clarity into client sessions he's conducted, and then teases out questions vital not just to sacred intimates but to anyone who aspires to be both sex-positive and spirit-positive. In one key passage he inquires about the difference between massage and erotic massage, between giving an erotic massage and having sex with someone, and between having sex and making love. He follows this up by asking, "Where is the connection to spirit in all these things?" (p. 256). A reader comes away with specific answers that Shewey has arrived at in his years of pursuing a cutting-edge practice--how does he conduct an erotic massage, for instance, or what does his sacred altar look like--as well as the restless questions that he has returned to when some answers, once useful, later brought him up short. Eros and spirit are not the only pairs explored: soul-celebrating and soul-searching; techniques for the beginner and queries for the advanced; AIDS awareness and full-body orgasms; and elements of innocence and outrageousness blended in both a Catholic altar-boy's service (p. 123) and a porn star's orgasmic performance art (p. 262). "Sacred sex," Shewey says at one point, "sounds like sex with the fun sucked out of it" (p. 256). Shewey puts the fun back in. As a wordsmith and therapist, as a pleasure activist and former altar boy, as a Joe Kramer acolyte and psycho-sexual-spiritual adventurer, as a sacred intimate and sexual healer--in all of these capacities and more, he sure has fun playing with his tools!
October 23, 2023
In this captivating, easy-to-read sharing of the real life male who has chosen to make use of multiple practices to help people, especially gay men, to discover themselves, to learn about themselves, to challenge themselves, and to take their rightful place and freedom in expressing themselves in all fascinating facets of the human experience. Don uses very accessible personal narrative to share what is likely just a very tiny portion of experiences he has had in serving as a sacred intimate. For those who begin reading the text with unchallenged judgements, shame, or fear of their own sexuality, it may seem that there is nothing beyond stories for arousal. But for those who have been willing to embrace judgement, recognize their shame, and even touch upon exploring their sexuality, there is a lesson in every chapter. I gladly disclose that I am also a Body Electric School aficionado, I have experienced fundamental healing working with sacred intimates alone and at times with mental health professionals, and I am trained in the practice and have served as an SI for many years. I consider Don a mentor, a friend, and one of the few individuals who "was there" as the practice emerged through the work of Joseph Kramer.
If you are willing to make space in your mind, in your heart, and in your spirit to acknowledge that eroticism, sexual energy, and intimacy of any two individuals can heal and lead to more expansive living, then this is definitely a read to consider. I certainly highly recommend it!
If you are willing to make space in your mind, in your heart, and in your spirit to acknowledge that eroticism, sexual energy, and intimacy of any two individuals can heal and lead to more expansive living, then this is definitely a read to consider. I certainly highly recommend it!
July 23, 2023
Don Shewey is out there doing the Lord’s work. I’ve known Don since his theater days (and he is still very much the culture hound!) but it’s his writing on gay sex throughout the years that has really impacted me. I think he occupies a space in the discussion of one of gay men’s most beloved past times in that he welcomes a holistic, human and humble approach. Don has really lofty ideas about the subject but never gets too rarified to call a dick a dick. He really looks shame in the eye in all the places it likes to hide out and accumulate.
Although this book is a memoir of his experiences entering the service of being a sacred intimate, a path he discovers via his work with Body Electric and its founder Joseph Kramer, it almost functions as a session on the reader. Don touches on so many vital points—the validity of sex work, consent, spirituality, trauma, healing, shame—that I found myself running to my journal and getting down what he had kicked up.
Along with his Paradox of Porn, Don has contributes some vital reading for queer men looking to deepen their self-knowledge through their eroticism.
Although this book is a memoir of his experiences entering the service of being a sacred intimate, a path he discovers via his work with Body Electric and its founder Joseph Kramer, it almost functions as a session on the reader. Don touches on so many vital points—the validity of sex work, consent, spirituality, trauma, healing, shame—that I found myself running to my journal and getting down what he had kicked up.
Along with his Paradox of Porn, Don has contributes some vital reading for queer men looking to deepen their self-knowledge through their eroticism.
April 16, 2024
Don Shewey is a perceptive and poetic author. This book is part sacred intimate memoir, part autobiography of a gay man coming out in the 70s/80s, and part history of the world of sacred intimacy, Body Electric and its founder Joseph Kramer.
I was expecting to find an interesting window into the world of sacred intimacy. What I didn't expect was to find such deep kinship in the questions and concerns being wrestled with about sexuality and the erotic. I was left with the deep personal question: how can I reclaim my erotic as an integral part of myself?
I believe every gay man would gain deeper self-understanding, and leave with a new sense of inquisitiveness having read this engaging and adroitly written book.
I was expecting to find an interesting window into the world of sacred intimacy. What I didn't expect was to find such deep kinship in the questions and concerns being wrestled with about sexuality and the erotic. I was left with the deep personal question: how can I reclaim my erotic as an integral part of myself?
I believe every gay man would gain deeper self-understanding, and leave with a new sense of inquisitiveness having read this engaging and adroitly written book.
October 9, 2023
I love Don Shewey's wonderful, funny, and honest book Daddy Lover God. First of all, I am amazed by Don's willingness to bare it all in service to the great healing work of Sacred Intimacy. It is beautiful to read about his experiences with clients - the healing, the mess, the sexiness - and it is laugh out loud funny. He shines the light into the shadows of his journey to offer healing and pleasure and care to the men who sought out his gifts. It's also a manual and a manifesto for the brave and loving people who choose to offer this work in the world...for me, I felt a part of something and far less alone in the work. I am grateful for Don's generous and fascinating work!
July 8, 2023
Sexy, funny, generous, and wise, this memoir by journalist turned erotic masseur and sacred intimate Don Shewey entertains, arouses, and teaches. In prose that is openhearted and refreshingly lacking in piety and jargon, through personal backstory and client vignettes, the author gives us a perspective from beside the massage table. In establishing just what a sacred intimate does--and doesn't--do, he brings to the surface and works through intimacy issues not only of his clients, but of his own. Ultimately, readers will find the ending a happy one.
December 9, 2023
This is an amazing book--both for gay men as well as anyone who is interested in how touch, sex, and talk can be incredibly healing. Don has had a remarkable career in varied fields but found his calling in helping to heal people though, as he calls it, being a combination priest, sexual healer, and therapist. A very hard book to put down since it is so fascinating and compelling. I wish I had been able to share in the work that Don did to help so many people. Highest recommendation!
January 2, 2025
Don Shewey is in my mind one of the great heroes gay culture has produced. He knows how to articulate how the many contradictory impulses we know as sexual and spiritually aware gay men. In Daddy Lover God we are inside his mental processes and self-discoveries he encounters reflecting on his upbringing, coming out, leaning into his nature as a born pleasure activist and realizing that his desire to make all the men he encountered happy was in some cases not his healthiest choice within his own needs. I challenge any gay man to read Daddy Lover God and not have a few disquieting moments of profound identification. I wonder how gay men under thirty will process these lessons but at 64 I had a profound experience of Shewey's words.
December 17, 2023
I read this book in four sittings, unable to put it down. It's a deeply moving and engaging story that we don't hear very often, about the warm tender loving commitment to physical healing that's long been a part of Don Shewey's life. In this time of increasing anti-queerness and increasing disconnection from the world, this is an essential reading for everyone, gay, queer, and otherwise.
April 4, 2024
"Sacred intimacy" is sorely needed in a sex-phobic world. Knowledgeable and well-experienced, the author shares his exquisitely intimate grasp of the subject – and writes well, to boot!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews