All I want is to experience touch, intimacy, and sexual pleasure β but without freaking out. Whenever I get close to physical intimacy with someone, I run away.
I actually faked an emergency once and physically ran away because I knew sex was a possibility that night. This is not what I want for my life. I want a relationship and love, and to be open and comfortable with someone expressing their care for me in a physical way without panicked thoughts flooding my brain. I recently heard of something called a sexual surrogate. Are they legit? At some point, they might sit and hold hands, practice relaxation techniques, and focus on simple sensations.
While I had her on the phone, I asked Blanchard the first question many people have about surrogate partners: Are surrogate partners sex workers? And while healing and education might also take place in a sex-work environment, and while some form of sexual contact might take place in surrogate partner therapy, the primary intention is different. A patient working with a surrogate partner is there to heal old injuries or break out of bad patterns so they can have a relationship in the future.
People go to sex workers for an immediate experienceβthe agenda is sexual and about right now, not therapeutic and about the future. Then I asked Blanchard the second question many people have about surrogate partner therapy: Is it legal?
In California, where surrogate partner therapy is most common, no one has ever in 50 years challenged it. Finally, SCARED, the number of trained and qualified surrogate partners is relatively smallβIPSA has just 70 membersβso you might need to go where most of those trained and qualified surrogates partners are in order to work with one. People will come for two weeks and work every single day with a therapist and a surrogate partner.
