e069e219e903b0b32791589b18bc2902Flirting, in its potential, is not some form of ‘base’ or ‘lower’ impulse, like it’s often thought of, due to our sex-negative conditioning and history of gender wars….

Flirting is a form of nourishment: when we allow ourselves to be curious about each other and for eros to flow between us, some kind of life-affirmation button in our system is switched ON, we feel alive, we feel turned on by life, we allow ourselves to get juicy on life.

We don’t have to limit our flirting to humans – have you ever flirted with a tree? Admired and complimented it’s phallic magnificence and felt its little blush of pride at being appreciated? Flirting can make us feel enamoured and enchanted with the world, happy to be alive…

Flirting is the dance between us – it’s not a one way thing. I send you an impulse through an action – a glance, a wink, a remark – and I wait and see what comes back. Flirting is a way of creating artistry through desire, exploring and celebrating the space between us. It invites a mastery of subtlety as we read signals and take delight in how so little can create so much.

But where is there room for this in a world so riddled by gender conditioning and gender wars? Where men are programmed to be the chasers and women passive bystanders – where is the dance in that? In our urban, intensity-junky societies, where is the possibility for tuning into and appreciating subtleties? In a consumer-driven world that’s so goal driven, where is the space for flirting just for the love of the moment, the love of play, without expectations? In the current climate of #metoo and so many of us women being so vigilant and trigger-ready, how can men find the volition to flirt, when they might be accused of inappropriate behaviour? How can women feel the volition to initiate, when our cells contain so many stories of feeling overwhelmed by unwanted male desire?

Due to this, in this day and age, true flirting – the dance between us and reading of subtleties – almost feels like a form of activism, chipping away at our tragic history and creating a new narrative.

I’m tired of being in spaces that either feel like meat-markets with no reverence or appreciation of subtlety, or spaces where we are acting like we are castrated, too weighed down with our history of trauma and transgressions, where play between us feels too complex to even bother with, so we just detach from our bodies, our curiosity and desire. That’s so sad! I want to live in a world in which eros is celebrated, where we value being juicy and turned on by life. A world in which we are fully connected with our inner initiator and our yes’s and no’s, where we strive to become artists of desire, masterful in play and the space between us.