Joseph Kramer | |
|---|---|
 Joseph Kramer in 2020 | |
| Born | May 20, 1947 |
| Website | eroticmassage |
Joseph Kramer or Joe Kramer (born 1947) is an American sexologist, filmmaker and somatic sex educator. He is the founder of the Body Electric School and of the profession of Sexological Bodywork. [1]
Kramer was born in St. Louis, Missouri. After finishing high school, he entered the Jesuit order where he spent ten years studying, teaching and preparing to become a Catholic priest. Although he left the Jesuits before ordination, Kramer found his vocation as a teacher and thoroughly embraced the Jesuit motto: "To be a person for others." [2] His early work focused on weaving together sexuality and spirituality. [3] [4] [5]
In 1976, after leaving the Jesuits, Kramer moved to New York City to integrate his call to be a teacher, his Catholicism and his recent identification as a gay man. He became the head of the religion department at Convent of the Sacred Heart, an elite, all-girls Catholic school and continued to practice his religion through DignityUSA - a group for gay Catholics. He was eventually fired from his teaching position at the Convent of the Sacred Heart for being gay. [6]
Kramer then moved to Berkeley, California, where he finished his Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree, graduated from massage school, and began practicing as a massage therapist. Kramer learned from the Jesuits the importance of schools, where like-minded individuals gathered to teach and serve others. To disseminate his somatic teachings, he founded two institutions: the Body Electric School of Massage and Rebirthing in Oakland [7] (approved to train professionals by the State of California in 1984) and Sexological Bodywork in San Francisco (approved as a profession by the State of California in 2003). [8]
Responding to the fear of sex among gay and bisexual men during the AIDS crisis, Kramer began developing and teaching Taoist Erotic Massage classes in 1986 as a safe way to sexually connect with others. [9] Because of the presence of HIV in semen, Kramer included the Taoist sexual practice of semen retention as a crucial element of this massage. [10] [11]
In the Taoist Erotic Massage, the masseurs genitally stimulated the receivers for more than an hour with thirty different caresses, vibrations, tugs and even pauses. Those receiving were also guided in fast breathing that constantly changed speeds and rhythms. The novelty of the touch and of the paced breathing helped the receivers to stay focused on their bodily sensations. Habits of going off into erotic fantasy or self judgment were ignored as men immersed themselves in sustained sexual arousal. [12] [13] The touch portion of the massage ended with a Big Draw, where the receivers clenched all the muscles of their bodies and held their breath for thirty seconds, then relaxed into a fifteen-minute period of quiet often marked by joy, peacefulness, wonder and clarity. [14] [15]
In 1992 in collaboration with his intimate, Annie Sprinkle, Kramer began offering Taoist Erotic Massage classes to both men and women. [16] Together Kramer and Sprinkle put the massage instruction on film - Fire on the Mountain, in 1992, and Fire in the Valley, in 1995. Because his earlier films had not dealt directly with gender diversity, in 2017 he commissioned and helped Barbara Carrellas to create Transcendent Bodies - The Erotic Awakening Massage for Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Bodies. Much of Kramer's work has been producing, directing and teaching erotic touch through film. He presently offers more than sixty hours of online streaming education for the public as well as for neo-tantra teachers, sex educators, sex workers, and erotic bodyworkers. [17] [18]
In the midst of the AIDS crisis, Kramer recognized the need for an erotic healing profession that offered pleasurable touch to both the living and the dying. The Body Electric began training men as sexual healers, erotic bodyworkers and hedonic midwives to the dying. Kramer named these men committed to erotic service “Sacred Intimates.” [19] This new profession has had a galvanizing effect on thousands of men and women world-wide who now call themselves Sacred Intimates. Their commitment, in the words of Sacred Intimate Don Shewey, is to “help people to wake up to the joy of life in a body.” [20] [21]
Because Sacred Intimates and other practitioners offering Taoist Erotic Massage did not have legal status in the United States, Kramer approached the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco about offering a professional training for Sexological Bodyworkers. In 2003, after a thorough investigation by the California Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education, Sexological Bodywork was approved as a legal profession in California. [22]
Kramer helped to found and is on the faculty of three Sexological Bodywork schools: the Institute of Somatic Sexology [23] in Australia, the School of Somatic Sexology [24] in the UK and the Instituto Latino Americano de Sexologia Somática [25] in Brazil. He also helped start schools in Germany and Canada. Kramer created the core Sexological Bodywork curriculum used in these schools and helps to upgrade the training materials each year. [26] Sexological Bodywork was featured in Gwyneth Paltrow's Netflix series, “Sex, Love and Goop” (2021) bringing new levels of attention to the profession. [27]
Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behaviors, and functions. The term sexology does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sexuality, such as social criticism.
Erotic massage is the use of massage techniques by one person on another person's erogenous zones for their sexual pleasure. The process may achieve or enhance the recipient's sexual excitation or arousal and sometimes achieve orgasm. The person providing the massage is called a masseur (male) or masseuse (female). Massages have been used for medical purposes for a very long time, and their use for erotic purposes also has a long history. In the case of women, the two focal areas are the abdomens and pubis, while in case of men, the focal areas are the male breast muscles and nipples, male genitals, the anus, and the prostate. When the massage is of a partner's genitals, the act is usually referred to as a handjob for penises and fingering for vulvas.
An erogenous zone is an area of the human body that has heightened sensitivity, the stimulation of which may generate a sexual response such as relaxation, sexual fantasies, sexual arousal, and orgasm.
Frot or frotting is a gay sexual practice that usually involves direct penis-to-penis contact. The term was popularized by gay male activists who disparaged the practice of anal sex, but has since evolved to encompass a variety of preferences for the act, which may or may not imply particular attitudes towards other sexual activities. This can also be used as some type of foreplay.
Acrotomophilia is a paraphilia in which an individual expresses strong sexual interest in amputees. It is a counterpart to apotemnophilia, the desire to be an amputee.
Taoist sexual practices are the ways Taoists may practice sexual activity. These practices are also known as "joining energy" or "the joining of the essences". Practitioners believe that by performing these sexual arts, one can stay in good health, and attain longevity or spiritual advancement.
Androphilia and gynephilia are terms used in behavioral science to describe sexual orientation, as an alternative to a gender binary homosexual and heterosexual conceptualization. Androphilia describes sexual attraction to men and/or masculinity; gynephilia describes the sexual attraction to women and/or femininity. Ambiphilia describes the combination of both androphilia and gynephilia in a given individual, or bisexuality.
The German Society for Social-Scientific Sexuality Research is a sexuality research and counselling organization based in Düsseldorf, Germany. It is primarily devoted to sociological, behavioral, and cultural sexuality research.
William Granzig was an American sexologist.
Feminist sexology is an offshoot of traditional studies of sexology that focuses on the intersectionality of sex and gender in relation to the sexual lives of women. Sexology has a basis in psychoanalysis, specifically Freudian theory, which played a big role in early sexology. This reactionary field of feminist sexology seeks to be inclusive of experiences of sexuality and break down the problematic ideas that have been expressed by sexology in the past. Feminist sexology shares many principles with the overarching field of sexology; in particular, it does not try to prescribe a certain path or "normality" for women's sexuality, but only observe and note the different and varied ways in which women express their sexuality. It is a young field, but one that is growing rapidly.
Non-penetrative sex or outercourse is sexual activity that usually does not include sexual penetration. It generally excludes the penetrative aspects of vaginal, anal, or oral sex, but includes various forms of sexual and non-sexual activity, such as frottage, manual sex, mutual masturbation, kissing, or hugging. Some forms of non-penetrative sex, particularly when termed outercourse, include penetrative aspects, such as penetration that may result from forms of fingering or oral sex.
Human sexuality covers a broad range of topics, including the physiological, psychological, social, cultural, political, philosophical, ethical, moral, theological, legal and spiritual or religious aspects of sex and human sexual behavior.
Barbara Carrellas is an author, sex educator, performance artist, and certified sexologist accredited through the American College of Sexologists. She facilitates workshops in which participants explore sexuality through a holistic approach that includes practices like erotic breathwork and Tantra, and she has lectured at various institutions, including the Museum of Sex in New York City, Vassar College, Barnard College, and the Chicago Art Institute. She is known for her "breath and energy orgasm" techniques, which she says are "orgasms you can have using your imagination and your breath." Carrellas learned the technique during the height of the AIDS epidemic as a way for people to orgasm without physical contact. Such techniques, she says, offers a way for "people to have more safer-sex options."
Cunnilingus is an oral sex act consisting of the stimulation of a vulva by using the tongue and lips. The clitoris is the most sexually sensitive part of the vulva, and its stimulation may result in a woman becoming sexually aroused or achieving orgasm.
The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS) was a private, unaccredited, for-profit graduate school and resource center for the field of sexology in San Francisco, California. It was established in 1976 and closed in 2018. Degree and certificate programs focused on public health, sex therapy, and sexological research.
Yoni massage or yonic massage, derived from the word Yoni, a representation of the vulva which symbolizes the goddess Shakti, is a type of Tantric full-body massage. It primarily focuses on the labia, clitoris, G-spot, uterus, the breasts, the anus and other erogenous zones. Yoni massage is the female equivalent of a Lingam massage. The massage is viewed as therapeutic and is sometimes used as a method of relieving tension, pain, or general discomfort of the vagina. It has been claimed by some practitioners to be helpful to achieve fertilisation, although there is no scientific support for this claim.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human sexuality:
Tantra, or tantric massage, are two defined massages developed in Berlin in 1977. The word Tantra refers to an esoteric yogic tradition that developed in India from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards. Erotic massage, which incorporates elements from the neotantric movement in the Western world, massages the primary erogenous zones of the body, those being the mouth, the phallus (penis), the vagina, and the anus.
Space sexology has been defined as the "comprehensive scientific study of extraterrestrial intimacy and sexuality". It aims to holistically understand intimacy and sexuality in space, including its risks, and potential benefits for the health and well-being of those who travel beyond our home planet.