Where The Sun Don't Shine
(Originally published February 12th, 2021)
This is a long piece of writing. It's been a long time coming but I knew that once the weather changed I would be ready to sit at my laptop and start. I want this writing to be accessible to people so I'm consciously leaving out lots of extraneous details but I’m an open book so if anyone wants to hear the unabridged story mine’s a double double. Just saying.
"Hello, my name is Lily and I massage prostates for a living."
On May 5th, 2021, it will be a year since I announced online my mission to
‘Normalize Prostate Massage for Better Prostate Health’. Anyone who knows me knows that I just love missions! I chose May 5th because it was my Uncle Stephen’s birthday. My uncle died on February 12th, 2018 after a long battle with prostate cancer.
My mum wanted to name me ‘Poppy’ when I was born, because I was born on November 11th, but back then ‘Poppy’ would have been a super ‘way-out there’ name, so Lilian it was, after her maternal grandmother. Remembrance Day itself, or Novembrance Day as I like to call it, is recognized more in Canada than in the UK. It's a statutory holiday in Canada - most people get a day off work on November 11th - lucky! So for my first birthday in Canada I decided to hold an ‘All Day Open House’ for my birthday so I could see my friends on my birthday as well as sell coffee to them to raise money for a good cause, spend time with friends on a stat holiday AND raise money for charity, what a win-win situation!
Every birthday since my first one here in Lethbridge, Alberta I have organized some kind of community event. Last year, however, I wasn’t able to do anything like that. The pandemic stopped me in my tracks as far as organizing anything involving bringing people together was concerned. I had to accept that this important part of me was on-hold. Most of us have had to accept big changes in our lives. And who knows how long it will be till things go back to how they were pre-Covid, if they ever do.
My last paycheck was in 2012. Since then I’ve been self-employed. Mostly as an owner operator taxi driver. It has been tough at times but I was fortunate that the Lethbridge music scene and the clubs kept me afloat for seven years. I loved my taxi work but never considered myself a taxi driver, more of a professional friend who made sure their customers and friends got home safe. Having all your eggs in one basket if you are self employed is not a great idea so I had a few other part time work options that helped bump up my monthly income.
A Girl's Gotta Eat
I’d found the local BDSM/kink community in 2011 and dived straight in. It didn’t take long to find out that I felt the most comfortable identifying as a female dominant. Initially, I decided to explore professional domination as a short term thing to tide me over until I found a ‘proper job’. I never found a proper job. I didn’t even look for one. Turned out that professional kink suited my life perfectly so for the best part of a decade I just juggled driving a cab with my pro-domme work.
Kinda funny how similar my roles were in both the jobs. People felt safe in my taxi and they felt safe in my space, my clients and customers felt comfortable enough to share what was really on their minds knowing that to this day their secrets are safe with me. The human condition is a very beautiful thing to observe.
March 2020, coronavirus arrives and I find myself in a pickle. The bars and clubs closed and I’m left without a customer base for my taxi business. I like paddles but being up shit creek without one is not ideal. I have kids, a mortgage, bills to pay etc. On top of that a month or so before lockdown I’d signed a six month lease for an office space so there I had an extra financial commitment at a time of extreme financial uncertainty. But all was not lost, the lockdown gave us all an opportunity to think long and hard about what was and is important in our lives.
Living in Canada I was fortunate to be able to rely on CERB payments till things changed. I was no longer invested in my taxi business like I was when it was a thriving business. It was great while it lasted but honestly I needed a change and the opportunity presented itself. I’ve always known that if you can earn a living doing what you love then you never have to work a day in your life. I wanted my work life to be as meaningful as possible and it didn’t take me long to realize and accept this.
I had explored prostate massage (PM) in my personal life on and off since my late teens and then continually throughout my time as a pro-domme. However, over the last few years it became apparent that half of my clientele were seeing me for the benefits of getting their prostates massaged and not for the kink element. Was I imagining the significance of the situation I found myself and my clients in? Was it wishful thinking on my part that I was playing such a significant role in relieving them of their peeing and erection problems like they said I was? I needed to delve deeper…
The Low Down on Prostate Massage
Prostate massage (PM) is an off the wall subject. The idea that if a man agrees to anything 'back there' means he must be a little bit gay or that it makes him less of a man is standard thinking for many people. This is of course utter nonsense, anyone who truly thinks this through knows neither of those things to be true. Let's not forget the whole idea that the anus is an ‘Exit Only' orifice. This commonly held idea by many men is a major contributor to the fact they don't get their prostates checked by their doctors, which leads to many aggressive cancers going unchecked till it is too late. What a sad state of affairs.
For those of you in the dark about what exactly a prostate massage is then let me shed some light on the topic. It is the stimulation of a man's (or trans woman’s) prostate by either a finger or a device that has been specifically designed with the male anatomy in mind. The toy/device needs to bend up at a certain angle to reach the prostate properly. The prostate itself is never actually touched during a PM. The gland (it's a muscle too!) sits directly under the bladder, the urethra runs from the bladder through the prostate and through the length of the penis.
The prostate’s role in men’s ability to perform sexually, to ejaculate and to reach orgasm is integral. The prostate, like breasts on a female is full of ducts that fill up with prostatic fluid which forms part of the man’s semen. These ducts can easily get blocked up with dried up prostatic fluid and sediment (yes, I said ‘sediment’ check in my findings). Prostate massage is thought to dislodge these blockages which keeps things flowing nicely!
Without a fully functioning prostate men slowly develop problems in these areas. Erectile dysfunction (ED) stemming from a poorly functioning, blocked up prostate might show itself as inability to get aroused (hard) or to stay hard. It might mean pain in the area on arousal, during sex itself and even pain during orgasm and ejaculation. You see, this condition doesn’t just affect the man’s body - it has a direct impact on a couples sex life.
The prostate can be massaged externally and internally. It's the internal method that gets the finger the closest, and I believe, gets the best results. It is not a difficult thing to learn how to do. It’s just about taking the plunge, mentally and physically!! Other conditions of the prostate include - prostate enlargement, prostatitis and of course prostate cancer. Please Google these if you are not aware of these very common conditions.
Educating Myself
There was no real plan as to what I was going to look into each day but I knew I wanted to soak up as much as I possibly could. My office walls were covered in large pieces of paper so I could brainstorm and write down my ideas. Everything new I learnt about prostates, (enlarged prostates, inflamed prostates, prostate cancer, libido, erectile dysfunction, chakras, massage therapy etc) went on the wall. And every time I added a snippet of information I had a new question in my head that I needed answering. Questions that I have no idea if anyone has asked before let alone answered and published for others to read.
Talking with people who were connected to my research was, and is still is, very important. Some of the people I spoke with included: men who had gone through prostate cancer; two med school doctors; a physiotherapist in the US who focuses on the pelvic area; a local man who is deeply involved with Tantra and a female Tantrika in BC; a research professor at the University of Lethbridge; an investigative reporter; a biochemistry student who was able to help me with the practical side of my research and a writer who was knowledgeable of Eastern Cultures. I appreciated everyone who was willing to speak with me during those early months about my ‘special interest’. Each person I shared my thoughts with helped me in some way. Some conversations left me speechless, others left me with a list of questions that needed answering or more people to try to connect with.
During my two months of research I was able to read most, if not all, of the studies on prostate massage that have taken place in the Western medical world over the past hundred years or so. Honestly, there are so few that it wasn’t hard to do. Almost all of the evidence and information about prostate massage and its benefits is anecdotal. But, and it’s a big but, there are a handful of studies that I unearthed that I feel are absolutely integral to my mission to bring prostate massage out of the darkness of the taboo and into the light of natural healing. Those studies were too important for me to ignore. Please remember that I read everything with a mom medically trained brain. I hope that I was able to interpret the results of these studies properly. If anyone reading this knows that I did not please contact me and tell me what I have misinterpreted.
MY FINDINGS
Here are the studies I found to be the most interesting, and in the same breath the most frustrating. Frustrating because I believe that if the prostate was situated in another, more accessible part of the body, there would have been multiple studies on its benefits, and the number of men who have to suffer (I would say needlessly) would be fewer.
Prostatic Massage: A practical and theoretical discussion
Almost a hundred years ago prostatic massage was mentioned in a medical journal.
Dr Lewis - “I often wonder whether we give as much time and thought to the details of carrying out this treatment as we should. Those who teach in the medical school have been neglectful of this subject. In teaching students we should try to instruct them to massage the prostate properly.”
Eliminating sedimentation for the treatment of chronic pelvic pain syndrome.
Such positive results in this study. I had no idea that the prostate could be so blocked up by different things. It would seem that having so many blockages in the prostate was bound to be causing mischief down there. No wonder the removal of any sediment saw such good results.
Challenging the inevitability of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia
Here’s a video on it - https://youtu.be/RECO6jJfrf4
It is just accepted that as men get older the likelihood of developing BPH, the medical term for an enlarged prostate, is extremely high. This study questions whether we should just accept this as fact.
Repetitive Prostatic Massage and Drug Therapy as an Alternative to Transurethral Resection of the Prostate (TURP)
The study took a sample of five men who all were all catheterized because the pharmaceuticals were no longer working. They could not urinate. These men’s only option, at the time, was to undergo the TURP procedure. This procedure is considered major surgery, with a 3 to 6 week recovery time and is not without risks. Thankfully there are other options for men now which are less invasive and have fewer risks attached to them, but after reading this study I wonder how many need surgery at all.
In this study, non-surgical treatment was a prostate massage every day for four days and then three PMs a week for the next three weeks. All five were given additional drugs (ie. antimicrobial, alpha-blockers). Guess what? 100% SUCCESS. All five men saw immediate results and were surgery free at least till their last follow up 2.5 years later.
So, here's my big question - why was there not a follow up study? A bigger study with more participants, one with half the group taking placebo drugs to see how much the role of the drugs played? It's not like there's a shortage of potential participants! These men’s situations are all too common. Just baffling to me.
I'm including a few more links to articles and websites that I found to be very interesting. If you have got this far then maybe you might want to check them out!!!
High rate of prostate cancer in Utah https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC156634/
Decent article on medical and sexual applications of prostate massage - https://www.verywellhealth.com/things-to-know-about-prostate-health-4066015
Prostate massage may reduce the risk of prostate cancer- blog post https://sperlingprostatecenter.com/massage-prostate-health-makes-great-combo
My Questions
What if something as simple as massage was the key to keeping the prostate healthy? What if it could reduce the vast numbers of men who suffer with pain down there? What if it was the first thing a doctor advised when a patient came to see him because he was showing signs of ED - prostate massage instead of a Viagra Rx? Could prostate massage be used as an alternative to the strong medications and invasive surgeries that men with enlarged prostates have to go through just so they can pee like normal? What if encouraging better blood flow to the area saw a significant effect on PSA levels and subsequently prostate cancer numbers? I know these are pretty ballsy questions that I want answers to. I’d be happy if any of these studies took place even if the results showed that prostate massage didn’t have an effect on these conditions. If I was proven wrong it would at least mean that the medical world had looked into it.
If I had a big pot of money and some open minded research acquaintances I have a few studies I'd like to see take place. But I'm just a crazy, barefoot, former dominatrix who has some strange goals concerning an inherently taboo subject. Who would listen to me? Why would they listen to me?
My Musings
I’ve lived outside the box my whole life and I suppose I feel comfortable there. I don’t seek validation from anyone. I strive to live authentically as possible and my preference is to spend time with those who live authentically too.
Living in the Bible Belt has been challenging at times, not gonna lie, and there are many people around here who could not even start to understand how I roll in life, but that's okay. I don’t lose sleep over how they spend their time so I would never want anyone to stress about how I live my life.
The one eighty I took at the start of the lockdown threw my life up into a thousand pieces. And as I sit here in my basement I can look back on my journey with a deep sense of gratitude and acceptance knowing that I caught the pieces that, I believe, needed to be caught and let the rest fall to the floor. The hard times seemingly weren't as hard as they could have been and my future, well, I've no idea how it will pan out.
For a long time I wondered if and when I might regret the choices I’d made and the paths I’d taken. But right now I know categorically that I regret none of them. Had I not made those choices, had I not immersed myself in the role of a professional dominant in the world of BDSM and kink and had the experiences I had, I truly don't think I would have connected the dots between prostate massage and its "possible" integral role in the overall health and functioning of the prostate.
Whether or not the medical world gets on board, I am committed to working hard as a prostate massage proponent and practitioner. Sharing what I know and reporting on what I have seen is important to me. Someone needs to speak out about this, and I have nothing to lose. Showing couples how to incorporate prostate massage into their lives, and being a surrogate finger for those men who don't have a willing partner to help them with this will provide me job satisfaction to see me through to my retirement. There are a few alternative practitioners who have similar thoughts as me but until the medical world sees that it might be worth looking into more, and we see large scale studies then the benefits of prostate will remain in the dark, you know that place, where the sun don't shine.
IF you got this far… Thank you
Lily Morley
(PS. I started writing this at the start of November 2020, and had it ready to go up online by February 12th, 2021)
Recent Posts
See All"A session with Lily is like nothing you have likely ever experienced before. She draws from multiple modalities including Massage, Reiki, spiritual healing, as well as conversation and sharing wisdom