3 Modern-Day Spiritual Healers Who Embrace Sexuality

The Trap Witch, @thetrapwitch

The Trap Witch, whose first name is Tatiana, has a very intriguing journey into spirituality, healing, and motivational speaking. Nicknamed the "Card B of consciousness" by her friends, Tatiana is someone who is relatable in an arena where mysticism is overplayed.

"I didn't know that I wanted to be a healer or a motivational speaker until everything I did the 'right way' in my life fell apart. My Master's program fell through, freelance photography and design wasn't going as I had planned, so I jumped into sex work (adult sensual massage) and made that my hustle until I could figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I did that for five years and in the midst of it, my spiritual awakening happened during that time. I found that I liked the healing aspect of massage, but I made the best of the work by actually talking to people. Sex work gets a bad reputation, but that's where I found my confidence to start speaking to people more and understanding more about psychology."

She continued, "After quitting the business with $1000 left to my name, I sat on the porch with my cellphone and some tarot cards and just started to channel my messages into motivational words."

How Sexuality and Spirituality is Linked

"Sexuality is linked to spirituality because we each have masculine and feminine energies within us. We have feminine energy, which is our creative side and how we love, and masculine energy, in how we do things and what we will for our lives. If your dual energies are in balance and you know yourself, then what you are capable of is limitless.

"In our lives, we have to break our own stigmas, that are imposed on us in order to come into our purpose in the world. Being born to a West Indian Christian mother, and then to go on to become a sex worker and then a proclaimed witch, was every stigma my mother was afraid of. My life didn't become fulfilled until I didn't care anymore what anyone thought and because I knew that although sex is often 'taboo,' it's what creates life. Nothing I did in my life worked out for me until I got into the sex industry and understood my raw power to manifest what I needed from nothing but the essence of myself."

What Sexual Healing Means To Her

"Sexuality can be used for healing in many ways. Libido is your sexual desire and is your energy, appetite, and a component of the life instinct. If you look at someone who has a high sex drive, they have a desire to have sex, which is technically used for reproduction and pleasure. Someone with a low libido will be very understimulated and has a lack of excitement. In life, there are some people who have a high drive to be able to reproduce fruits from their labor and creation and to receive pleasure from that, and some people who are the exact opposite. I think we need to look at sexuality as more as a desire to heal our life through creation and how we 'do it' and keeping up the drive to keep doing it over and over again."

Re-evaluating Modesty As Virtue

"Seldom do well-behaved women make history. Women like Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Cardi B are all very sexually expressive women and it doesn't take away from the things they do for people to either empower, or give back. I don't really condone anyone shrinking themselves in order to be accepted. To me, virtue is in the heart. I have big boobs, but also a big heart and if someone wants to judge me based on the fact I'm not modest enough for them, and they can't see my heart and actions, then they can kick rocks.

"I don't really condone anyone shrinking themselves in order to be accepted."

"I don't feel like you should have to be 'holier than thou' to do God's work. Your work from God is to fulfill your mission to serve yourself and people and maintaining good character while doing it. Sexuality is also not just revealing skin, it's a whole attitude. You can seduce someone with simply words or your mind. Either way, you don't need to be modest about something that is a power, even if others want to hold prejudice."

Bias Against Sexuality in Spiritual Communities

"There is definitely many biases in the spiritual community. I recently have found that with the goddess and divine feminine being trendy, women are embodying that energy, but women who have actually walked the path of sex work often don't get treated with the same respect. I've experienced a lot of hatred too for being an open sexual being from even people with the same spiritual practices as me, especially since I'm supposed to be a 'leader.' I've also found that sometimes, women hide their pain still in expressing sexuality. I used to be a woman who held a lot of pain from my sexuality and what I used it for. Sometimes we have to ask if it's solely attention seeking and that is directly rooted to self-love. I feel like where you channel it and what the intention behind it is, is very important."

Her Affirmation for Sexuality and Embodying The Divine Feminine

"A woman who knows the wealth of her love and power, along with the prosperity of her soul, not allowing anyone to take it for granted, is priceless. Overcome your stigmas and master your self-love, and you will unlock your biggest secret weapon ever."

The Hood Healer, @thehoodhealer

The Hood Healer, who is also known as the Kitchen Goddess and whose first name is Imani, got into spiritual motivation and healing by freely speaking about her experiences.

"Healing is something that occurs naturally within an individual when they come to a point of a great challenge or adversity, whether that is in life, love, relationships, family dynamics, or otherwise. It all begins with one's own journey. As I began to learn about my own truth and embrace it, I began to feel my inner voice reach out and my desire to share increased almost exponentially."

How Sexuality and Spirituality is Linked

"Spirituality is the authentic expression of your own acceptance of yourself and that includes your sexuality or sexual nature, which is apart of your being. To be a spiritual being is to be in touch or aware of all that is, including your sexuality."

What Sexual Healing Means To Her

"Sexual energy is one of the most powerful, loving energies in the universe. Therefore, through its use, you can heal, you can charge, you could manifest all types of things by learning how to channel this energy. Sexual energy is the raw force of creation. This is why many spiritual beings in the world have an issue letting go, or getting over people they have had sexual intimacy with. Again, being a spiritual being is about understanding yourself and the energies you are made of."

"Sexual energy is the raw force of creation."

Re-evaluating Modesty As Virtue

"Modesty has many things to do with virtue in the sense that sexually, one is only modest when you are honoring your body and honoring your body translates into loving yourself. As spiritual beings having a human experience, we are filled with all types of passions and desires and these are complimented or enhanced by our environment. True modesty shows restraint and discipline of oneself. This is the virtue of self-awareness, the virtue of discernment, the virtue of self-control."

"True modesty shows restraint and discipline of oneself."

Bias Against Sexuality in Spiritual Communities

When it comes to sexuality biases in the spiritual community, Imani sees this is something that is more of a hindrance in religious communities. "I don't feel as if there is a bias as much as I would say that sexuality is something that is unspoken in most spiritual communities. I also want to make the clarification that spiritual communities and religious communities are different. I personally feel that the bias you speak of resides in the religious community."

Her Affirmation for Sexuality and Embodying The Divine Feminine

"I can suggest that if you want to explore affirmations, that you do so with intention. Affirmations stated and believed by the individual will be accepted by the subconscious and implemented, especially when there is an emotional charge associated with the subject. Be careful and conscious of what and how you're speaking to yourself. It is your inner voice, which seeds the manifestations."

Ev'yan Whitney, @evyan.whitney

Ev'Yan centers her spiritual healing career around helping her clients through erotic therapy and liberation.

"I got into the realm of sexual healing because I myself needed to be sexually healed. I was living in a sexually inactive marriage, felt really unconfident and uncomfortable in my body, and was having some major issues understanding and accessing my sexuality due to shame brought on by my religious upbringing and sexual trauma. Writing has always been my main method of self-awareness and in many ways, it was a kind of meditative practice I used to silence my erratic brain and tune in to inner wisdom. So it was through writing that I came to explore sexual healing—for me personally and then, later on, professionally."

How Sexuality and Spirituality is Linked

"Sexuality, to me, isn't just about the physical act of sex or intercourse, but the energy and intention you bring to the fact that you are a sexual being, that that can never be separated from you, even if you're not in the act of sex. And when I'm in full alignment with that energy—when I feel totally connected to the desires of my body and the power of my pleasure—I feel like I tap into a state of being that feels spiritual. I mean, there's a reason why, in the throes of passion, we say 'God.' When we're connected to our sexuality and sexual energy outside of shame or "shoulds" or trauma, we come face to face with our highest self. Pleasure, orgasm, desire—the energy of those things is really no different from worship in the traditional sense. It's all the same energy."

"There's a reason why, in the throes of passion, we say 'God.'"

What Sexual Healing Means To Her

"One of the ways I work with my clients to liberate their sexuality is by using the very methods we've been discouraged to use by organized religion to bring gentle healing to that part of them. So self-pleasure (masturbation, yes, but also this notion of prioritizing making yourself feel good outside of a sexual context), exploring curiosities and desires that feel taboo, connecting with and creating a relationship with your sensual body (and quite literally, your genitals), orgasm as a method of self-realization—all of these things can be incredible tools for sexual healing and liberation. Particularly self-pleasure. Some of the most spiritual moments I've experienced with myself have been with coconut oil, my rose quartz wand by Chakrubs, and an intention to connect with my sensual body. So many of us are afraid to 'go there,' but when we give ourselves permission to explore healing ourselves in this way, literal magic happens."

Re-evaluating Modesty As Virtue

"I combat the old ideal of modesty as a virtue by not being modest. By showing off my body and talking openly and boldly about my sexuality—the desires I have, the pleasure I've experienced, the love and acceptance I have for this part of myself. The notion that a woman doesn't have to be modest to be respected is a major theme of my work—and not just modest in a sexual sense, but in a general sense. When I proudly proclaim I am a sexual being, I am subverting old narratives that have kept my female lineage suppressed; I am taking my sexual power back from the male gaze; I am controlling and in complete ownership of my narrative as a sexual woman; I am demanding to be seen and respected."

"When I proudly proclaim I am a sexual being, I am subverting old narratives that have kept my female lineage suppressed; I am taking my sexual power back from the male gaze."

Bias Against Sexuality in Spiritual Communities

"Patriarchal-based religions have made it their business for centuries to suppress the very natural sexual desires, pleasures, and curiosities of people—especially in women. Actually, many of my clients come to me for sexual healing because organized religions and their traditions have made it next to impossible for them to access their sexuality because they've been taught it was bad or sinful. There's so much fear and ignorance around women's pleasure, sexual bodies, and orgasm, and even though our culture has shifted big time in the last couple of decades, that ignorance and those old stories of shame and sin are still really present today. That's why sexual healing is so important. This shit doesn't heal itself. You've got to actively dismantle these old stories and make it a priority to create new narratives about you as a sexual being and what kind of relationship you want to have with sex."

Her Affirmation for Sexuality and Embodying The Divine Feminine

"I am a sexual being and my erotic energy is a source of power and strength and a method of connecting to the divine."