Bating Your Prayer, Praying Your Bate

"The penis is the exposed tip of the heart, the wand of the soul."

--James Broughton

You can adapt the use of prayer beads--a meditative tool used by many religious traditions--as a rich and flexible resource for a mindful practice of self-love. 

Choose a set of beads that doesn't carry negative baggage from your upbringing. The mala of Buddhist and Hindu traditions, a set of 108 undifferentiated beads (plus a head bead that marks the beginning and end of the set) offers a possibility that doesn't carry as many unhelpful associations for some as a Roman Catholic rosary. For others, a mala might be the wrong choice for many of the same reasons. 

(This is a great example of why queer spirituality needs to draw on the resouces of traditions that don't carry previous toxic associations: we need to borrow and adapt. We're doing radical drag of the soul here. Think RuPaul meets Sister Mary Ignatius.)

Breathe in deeply for a count of five on the first bead. Exhale completely for a count of five on the next. And so on. You'll soon settle into the rhythm, although it might feel artificial for the first few cycles, until you slow down.

You'll be touching your cock with one hand and telling beads with the fingertips of the other. As you breathe, take five strokes for each bead. After a few beads, change your stroke. Break out of your habitual pattern. Explore new ways of touching yourself: there are dozens or hundreds. You may or may not be erect at any given time. Or not at all. Breathe into the sensation you're experiencing in the present moment, not into an expectation of how you want to feel, or how hard you want to be. 

You can move the beads around on your body to spread the erotic energy. Rub circles on your belly. Drag the beads across your chest, your thighs, your perineum. Over your heart, over your throat, over your third eye. Wrap them around your shaft and balls. Be creative, as you continue to stroke and breathe. Experiment with closing your eyes sometimes, then sometimes opening them to take in the wonder of your penis in your hand.

If you find yourself getting close to ejaculation, change your stroke and slow it down. Focus on your breath and on how the beads feel touching other parts of your body. If you need to, pause and just breathe for a few counts of five to cool down. The more deeply you breathe, the more pleasure you can hold without spilling over.

If you're nowhere close to ejaculation, then that instead is exactly where you're supposed to be. Be here now. Be someplace else later. It's not so complicated.

At the end of your practice, which will take anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, you'll have given yourself 540 moments of pleasure. 

At that point, maybe you'll choose to ejaculate. If you do, don't clean up instantly. Bask in the afterglow. 

Or an alternative to ejaculation: take twenty quick, forceful "charging breaths," followed by three full breaths as deep as you can. Let the first two out with sound. Then hold the third for as long as you can, while you tense every muscle in your body. When you're ready, release the breath, relax your whole body, and stay still while the energy flows.

Either way, at the end of your practice, please breathe out some gratitude for your one wild and precious life.

Photo by Andrew Graham

I offer my thanks for the inspiration of an online friend at Bateworld--the only social media site that feels to me like a genuine community.