Episode 63: On Stroking Naked Men

Hi, I'm Suzanne Noble, and I'm Zoe Bobbie, and you are listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. We've got a special episode today because we're with somebody that I've known for a very long period of time, Caroline Bobbie, who is a psychotherapist, 65 years old, and Back in 2007 to 2017, she decided to, as she puts it, start to stroke naked men. And, and it was kind of a calling, as she puts it. But part of the reason why we thought we'd have this conversation now, which is 5, 6, 2000— my mouth is terrible as well. 6 years after, 6 years after you stopped stroking naked men, was that Caroline asked me if we could share and talk about, and she could reflect on that experience in her life looking back, which you've not really done before. You sort of did it in the midst of it, but not really, not really looking back and thinking about now what is, as a 65-year-old woman, What does that really feel like and mean? And yeah, what do you— what are your thoughts on that? So Caroline, hello, hello, hello!

Hi, I have so many questions and I'm just, um, I'm just going, oh, I've never been on a podcast before, so give me a minute.

And it's, it's a pre-record, by the way, so it's not live.

Oh.

Oh, so we, we edit this and everything. So yeah, it's, it's a free-flowing kind of thing. So yeah, you're not live. There's no way.

Yeah, actually, while we're now just chatting, um, I, what I want to ask is, are, is this something that you did? I mean, I'll ask all these questions if you are open to having questions asked, But I am fascinated. I'm—

I—

if this— if you did this in sort of a therapeutic— with a therapeutic intent, I'm so excited to hear that. So I'm very, um— do you want to start by telling the story, or should we start with some questions? Yeah, let's tell the story.

I mean, a bit of both, I guess. I mean, first of all, to let you both know Suzanne Noble probably knows already, you can ask me anything. I'm, you know, I'm exceptionally out in almost every sort of— I can't think of anything that's not out, and some of it is quite sort of close to the edge for some people. So there is no no-go anywhere. Feel free.

Yeah, okay.

I'm, I'm a— you don't know me, but I'm a certified sexologist, very sex positive. I'm, I am also very open and supportive of anything as long as it's consensual and no one's getting hurt.

Lovely, lovely to meet you. I like your hat.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah, so how did it all start, Caroline? Just, just give us a bit of context.

So there I was, uh, 40-something, late 40s, and having identified and sort of spent most of my kind of adult sort of sexual life identifying as a lesbian, but not a kind of really hardcore lesbian in that I was sort of not somebody who found men revolting or horrifying. I just sort of— the lesbians adopted me when I was about 14 and I ran away from home, and I sort of joined the gang, and that suited me very well, although I had an occasional sort of play with, with the odd man over the years. Around 2007, like something was brewing in me, and it was a sort of desire to, to play, to play, to play with men. And the most upsetting thing about that was it sort of meant that I couldn't really legitimately call myself a lesbian anymore, which felt like a real loss because I liked being a lesbian. And it took me quite a long time to sort of, as a very sort of ambivalent bisexual, to get to realize that I'm queer. I've always been queer. I just didn't know that because we didn't have that vocabulary. But I'm definitely queer. So that felt better. I'm digressing a bit. So at this point, I'm a middle-aged— well, yeah, I'm a middle-aged psychotherapist, and I love my work. And suddenly I wanted to kind of open a space that was in structure and form very like the psychotherapeutic space. But I wanted to be offering myself in a sort of devotional but very boundaried service to men. I mean, and women if they showed up, which they did occasionally. And my head went, Caroline, you can't do this. It's against the Psychotherapy Police's rule book. And that went on for a bit. And then I just— it was such a clear, sort of simple call that underneath all the noise was just the simple. And I just understood that if I didn't do it, I'd never know. So I really thought it through in terms of the pragmatics, really. Sort of how to set it up on my terms. And I kind of made a deal with myself that if at any point it felt not okay, then I would step back out. And it was really as simple as that. And it was back in the day before sort of— it was right sort of before, um, everything was online, so sort of sex ads were in the back of those free papers that don't exist anymore. And even Time Out had a page for sex ads. And so I had 20 words to sell my beautiful self or invite people into this experiment that I was having with myself. And I, I think I began with, would you like to be lovingly touched rather than handled? And, um, uh, technology advanced and lots of things happened and it all went online. But really, that initial, are you looking for loving pleasuring rather than mechanistic handling, That was always the heart of my advertising sort of voice. And when it got online, I just sat amongst all the breasts and cum shots and sort of enormous boobs and, you know, do you want to have sex with your granny and all the weirdness that was out there. And there'd be just a little picture of my face with possibly a dash of lipstick, just kind of saying the same thing, really. That's how I set it up, and that's where I began. And that was the door opening to something that was very strong and clear in me, but that I didn't really fully— I trusted rather than understood what I was doing.

And in that, in amongst the breasts and the cum shots and stuff like that. Um, what kind of people turned up and responded?

One of the results from inviting in, in, in that way, which is just me, it's my authentic me-ness, you know that, Suzanne, it's like, yes, it's just me. Um, what it did was it minimized the people who weren't my naked men. It didn't— not— it sadly, it didn't like, um, it didn't get rid of them entirely by a long shot. But it— what I was speaking to, the men I was speaking to, and the old woman that I was speaking to, they heard me. So they came, so to speak, sometimes more than once. And, and, and so did quite a lot of the others. But I got— only time in my life I've ever had two phones. I had a naked phone and a normal phone, and I just got really fucking shit-hot at phone. And, and actually Over that decade that I spent doing this work— excuse me— probably the most tiny percentage of not my people actually showed up at my front door and ended up in, you know, in my room, in my blue room as I called it because it was at the time, because I caught them on the phone.

Yeah, yeah, because you do have to get very good at separating out whether there's somebody that actually wants what you're prepared and want to give and someone who just sees somebody that does just want to get off, right? And, and I suspect that that is about getting really clear on the phone about what you are or not willing to do.

Pragmatic level, yes, you know. But also somebody who starts off by saying, do you suck cock, is, is, is really not on the phone with the right person. Um, and, and that's obvious. But what, what was more kind of interesting in a way were people who were disguising themselves as someone else, maybe even partly to themselves. But I got— I mean, I've been a psychotherapist for, you know, kind of at that point about 25 years, so I am good at hearing what isn't being said. I'm here, I hear the subtext. I hear the code. So, um, which was a huge, huge asset. Yeah.

Caroline, I'm so curious, um, what— who were your people? Who was it? Let's talk about the men first. Um, who are the men that were— that you were serving in, in this endeavor? What was it that they were missing that, that called to you to, um, to give them in this loving touch?

I think if I had to, um, really make a haiku out of answering that question, it, it It would be something to do with loneliness, longing and loneliness. And some of these guys were like in very functional and even friendly long-term partnerships or marriages, but they were lonely. And You know, I think we're often— not so much just speaking about sort of the naked men, but just myself working in the zone of intimacy with human beings over sort of 3 and a half decades. I think we're often lonely for ourselves, and we— and culture, sort of across the globe really, in different sort of ways. It encourages and reinforces this idea that we're lonely for this sort of magical other. I don't believe that's true, and I believe subscribing to that idea causes so much pain and suffering and struggle and confusion and chaos in the sort of field of— technical word— attachment, which I think is a fancy word for love and connection. Love and connection, we're all sort of— but the thing is, I reckon it needs to start here. Like, how is my relationship with myself? You know, is there some good love and connection going on at the sort of internal home address. Generally, I don't like to generalize, but generally I think not. It's not particularly intimate, sort of self-self. So then we sort of bum around, like attaching to people and then getting really upset because it doesn't hit the spot.

Caroline, you're speaking my language. I often— I wrote a book called Radical Intimacy, and this is very much the premise of that.

Nice title.

Yeah, we can meet each other to the extent that we can meet ourselves.

Yeah, exactly.

You know what strikes me as— I love your story and I love the inspiration to to help people in this way and help heal people in this way. Um, they're, you know, in recent times there— I mean, there's been for quite a while sex surrogates.

Yeah.

And there are also— there's a whole sort of newish, um, discipline called somatic sex worker or somatic sex therapy.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Um, where there's actually hands-on. And as someone who treats clients in the sexual realm, there are so many times where clearly, like, I can only do so much, and then someone's got to get hands on them. And I'm often coaching partners to do that for each other. But, um, but it's such a beautiful idea that someone could come to you for that kind of healing experience, in a way, you know. And the idea that sex can be healing. Yes, sexual activity.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as I said, it's very, very powerful to, to be reflective, and I I have obviously— I mean, I would call this chapter in the actuality of pretty much decade that I was offering this a constant revelation to my own understanding of what I was up to. And also since sort of bringing it to a close, I'm still understanding sort of layers of what it was that I was up to. But in, in the sort of structural reality of what I was offering, I, I was not offering sexual intercourse, although occasionally that happened if I felt like I wanted to hop on somebody. I I would. But what I was really offering was to receive. Like, I, you know, my kind of, my word was and still is in many ways, welcome. Like, really welcome. Let's make you really welcome. And if somebody was saying what What are your boundaries and your dos and don'ts? Like, I used a massage table. I would, um, invite somebody to like unwrap themselves. I might help them unwrap themselves. I definitely wasn't kind of dressed up in high heels and stockings. I was usually wearing something like a sarong around my waist and a sort of nice kind of vesty thing, which is the sort of thing I like to wear. So simple and, um, but not a lot of clutter and certainly not any theatrics. So it was kind of like, come in, be welcome, be here. Very simple and very different for a lot of men who had used sexual services and were much more used to a bit of a performance, or a lot, or a lot of a performance. So Um, I think a lot of the men for whom I was the right kind of person, the kind that came back and came back often and, and, you know, kind of deepened into a, a relationship in the same way that I would with the psychotherapy client, a lot of those men were really looking to be welcomed and received. And my sort of premise really was, um, I'm holding the space. I'm holding the space, which is what I do as a psychotherapist. I'm holding the space and, um, I'm safe. We can find out what needs to happen here. Together, but I'm holding the space. And I think what I came to understand over those 10 years is that actually, in terms of sort of my erotic life and kind of libidinal joy and all those sorts of things, that is my favorite sexual position— to, to be holding the space— which is not really suitable for a, an ongoing partnership. It's, you know, you can't— but I, you know, I'm very, very interested in intimacy, connection, sort of understanding my own story in terms of relational matters, attachment, love, and connection. And yeah, that is That is my favorite sexual position, and I got to have 10 glorious redemptive healing years in which I gave a lot and received a lot. And when I started with that sort of call-out, I had no idea about any of that, no idea whatsoever. I kind of like sort of rolled onwards into understanding that. And the more deeply I understood that, the more beautifully it, it kind of worked, so to speak. It like, it, it became sort of much more happening, happening in the sort of like a river is A river, it doesn't have to think about being a river, it just rivers away. And it, it became much more like that. And yeah, what I just said, I gave a lot, but I absolutely got given a lot. And you know, if I think about that, whatever it was sort of 10 years plus, 6 or 7, you know, that much younger me, I just think, fuck, fucking hell. Like, I really bow to the me that like walked through that doorway because it was a little— it was a little bit radical. The psychotherapy police would not approve. And, um, to say the least, to say the least. And, and, and, you know, in terms of the being out, you know, I wrote some articles for, you know, psychotherapy websites. I talked about what I was doing. Um, you know, luckily my procrastination had saved me from, um, actually getting accredited by any of these bloody psychotherapy police sort of bodies of, you know, I mean, you know, I was like halfway to the UKCP and then I changed my mind about what I wanted to be, which department of psychotherapy I wanted to be in. By the time I faffed around with all that, the timing collided with this door opening, and I thought, you know what, I'm going to go into the margins because I don't ever want to be in a position where some— somebody's going to call me up to defend myself in one of these accreditation bodies. So I'm not credited as a psychotherapist. And it means that if anybody ever did sort of call me on it professionally, I would just stand in my boots and my heart and speak my truth. And there would be no BACP, UKCP, anything, CP, anything, you know, like, involved. And, you know, there've been some losses in that, in that I can't work with training psychotherapists, which has been sad a few times. And I can't supervise people in training, can't work in the NHS. But actually, it means that I'm uncompromisingly uncompromised.

So yeah, I mean, I'm— I think One of the things about when you started, as you said, without the, without the internet, without people maybe being as into porn as they are now, um, and now of course when, as, as Zoe said, you know, we've got different types of, of therapy, some of which involve hands, Tantra, um, possibly some of the work that you were doing back then, just a lot of these other things just weren't available. And so what you were doing was really kind of quite unique and quite radical. And I, and I think also one of the interesting things is that managing to sneak in between all the performative sex workers and still be able to find people that respected and understood why they were there and what you were there to give was pretty amazing, because I know you could have ended up in a place where a lot of people turned up that were just fundamentally after a handjob.

Yeah, yeah.

It seems like you kind of found a way through all of that to find people who understood that they might get a handjob, but would, but it wasn't going to be in the same way, in the same, you know, wasn't going to be in the same way as maybe they had expected. Um, and yeah, that, that takes some filtering and yeah, keeping yourself safe. You know, that's what I always worry about all of these sorts of situations is keeping yourself safe. Is somebody walks into your space you know, you have to really, really know that you're not in danger. Did you ever feel through any of those 10 years that you were in a situation that potentially was quite dangerous?

I never felt unsafe, but I think I, I headed off quite a lot of unsafe at the using the phone as the portal. What I did have to deal with probably 5 or 6 times was a full-blown panic attack, you know, a full-blown sort of kind of emotional blowout. And I think that is because those people that it's contact It's like we want contact, but then it's, you know, for all sorts of reasons to do with people's trauma and stuff that, you know, I'm not going to get told a narrative of. But the actual reality of getting contact just kind of sort of cracked a few people, sort of it kind of blew into something. And, you know, luckily I was able to manage that because of, because of who I am. But there's quite a high frequency of customers, clients, sort of having a freakout in a session. You know, they've gone for a maybe for full sex, as it's called, or, or a handjob or whatever. But somehow it takes some people somewhere. And then some people, you know, they take something before they come to sort of, you know, they might take some pills, or they might— I mean, I'm not talking about Viagra, but something sort of mood-altering, something soothing, something, you You know, I mean, if somebody walks in or walked in and they were pissed, I just took some money off them and showed them out again. But, you know, kind of some pills and what have you are more subtle than that. And I think, I think probably people who really don't know how to handle a panic attack get sort of faced with one.

You know, we have so much trauma, um, around sex and sexuality, and there's so many people— I can imagine many of the people who would respond to your ad, who would be attracted to having loving touch, are people who are missing that in their lives. And then to the vulnerability of, uh, of being in that position and receiving that, not wrapped up in the typical cultural narratives around sex. I can imagine how life-altering that is. And there's an aspect of that. Yeah, I mean, I see it in my practice all the time. I'm not hands-on, but just in, in talking about it, exploring it, and It's, you know, um, there's a grief that can flood in when you realize what you've been missing and what you've been longing for, and that this isn't really a regular part of your, of your life. It's not in your, your daily, your relationships, maybe with your partner. Maybe you don't have a partner. Maybe you've never had a partner.

Exactly.

All of a sudden, exactly, the contact with yourself can be You know, it's like, as a therapist, I wouldn't always advocate that somebody does step into therapy.

I mean, some people are, you know, we have defense systems for very good reasons. And, you know, if I'm taking some time to sort of consult sort of over a few sessions about a potential therapy. I would consider that a collaborative consultation. But then there's a place where, you know, I can feel into what's there, and obviously they can sort of get a sense of me. But I've said no to people who want to have psychotherapy with me, because I just think, like, bless you if you do break open. There is, like, in this so-called compassionate society, there is nothing that will, like, offer you the kind of holding and containment that you would need to, to support you if you were going to like sort of break open, sort of, you know, maybe like, you know, I think with the, the end of anything resembling a therapeutic community as a model, like there's, there's nowhere. And, you know, I can't sort of say yes to somebody because they can't move in with me and have 24/7 kind of, you know. So it's like for some people I would say I'm really sorry, but I don't think it's a very good idea. And when you're kind of opening your door to a naked man, you don't have that, that space, obviously, to, to have a sense about sort of what may or may not be fruitful, that may actually be counterproductive, may actually sort of kind of set off a reactivated trauma. So, you know, there've been a couple of those moments where I thought, oh my God, yeah, oh yeah, Pandora's box, right? Did I have— didn't hear the second line.

Did you have repeat clients? And did you have rules around that? Did you have like rules and boundaries around repeat sessions? I know with sex surrogacy there's a certain number of sessions that you are allowed by the licensing board because after that it becomes, um, the, the attachments and the and the, the feelings, the emotions start to— can, for many people, start to cement a relationship. And it becomes—

I didn't really have a policy. I guess I, um, policy there. I would say I, I, I, I trusted myself to to stay, to, to stay with what felt healing, for lack of a better word. And if it, and if it stopped feeling, um, you know, if it was veering somewhere else, like I did, I, I did have a a couple of, um, men that came quite a few times, and, and it felt really nice. And sort of, when I say really nice, I mean connective, um, intimate in the right way. And on both occasions, something started to enter into the field. And I would say it was, um, it was the beginnings of anger. It was the beginning of, um, I can't— I don't like what you're doing. I don't like that you're not just mine. And actually, that was very, very sort of distinct. You could— I could see it, feel it, smell it almost before it started to formulate itself. And for me, that was like, we've got to wind this up because I'm not going here. It isn't useful for you if this— if, if I've been a helpful experience for you. I'm really, really glad, and you have mattered to me. You're dear to me, that is unequivocal. But what's starting to try and happen now, it's like, I'm going to cut it off before it gets up ahead of steam. And I would be very direct and simple and straightforward, and I would say more or less what I've just said in, in a sort of appropriate to the person sort of way. But I would say it, you know, I am not interested in something that has been very precious and has indeed been healing. I want you to internalize that and keep it, take it with you, and like kind of, you know, let it be sort of fertile and maybe grow something out of it. Stay with yourself and, you know, see if, you know, you do meet somebody, you bring the gifts of this to it. But I'm absolutely not going to collude with something that would in a way take a toxic wrecking ball to something that has been very clean and very simple. So I guess that's my version of, you know, what's behind your question. I didn't have a sort of, okay, I mean, some people I saw for years, like, I don't know, just kind of without any stress or pressure. And like sometimes Um, you know, kind of 6 months would go past and, and then, you know, there'd be a little sort of coming sort of every couple of weeks for a bit. And then, you know, but like all those long-term sort of dances, the quality that ran through them was ease. Which I really dig ease. I love ease. So many people say to me, oh, you listen to people's problems. No, not really. I kind of meet people. I meet people where they will allow me to meet them, and we see what can happen that might be sort of reparative, redemptive. But it's always about connection and intimacy. It's so, you know, the idea that a therapist or a counselor is somebody who sits and listens to people's problems is so far away from, you know, the the almost the mystery, the mystery of the intimacy involved in like working in that realm. And if, you know, I mean, I, I remember like, like this guy saying to me once, this old— not old, but he was like, I don't know, he was in his early 70s and he was quite sort of broken in a way about— I think he probably was very disappointed about how life had gone. And I think he probably took Viagra when he came to see me because he always had a sort of raging erection. And, um, he'd obviously watched— he obviously watched a lot of sort of porn, because he had a lot of sort of porn narrative. So he would, you know, he would often kind of go, oh, what are you doing to me? Oh, what are you doing to me? And, you know, I just remember the day I said, um, well, I'm not really doing anything to you. I've got your cock in my hand, but really I've got your heart in my hand. And what I'm really doing is staying with you. I'm right here, I'm right here with you. Cock and heart indistinguishable, really. What if you take a deep, slow breath rather than the panting that's going on and see if you can let what I've just said land just for a micro moment. It did, just for that. And I'm sure he wasn't able to keep it, but it happened. That moment happened. And I really, like, I remember it so vividly. It was so tender. Tenderness happened in that, in that moment. And I just Oh, that like sort of sorrow and beauty in moments like that. I'm full of moments like that.

Caroline, you're a beautiful human being, really.

Thank you.

I'm very moved by, by your calling, your courage, your presence. Um, you're really a healer. And, um, we need more people like you in the world stroking naked men.