So Sad Today - Melissa Broder Page 0,2

in San Francisco. At night he was very warm toward me, because we were drunk. We talked about a possible move to the Bay for him. He went down on me to the sound of my housemate’s drum and bass (everyone in SF is a DJ) always thrumming from the next room. But during the day, he would be cold and withholding of affection.

After he left, I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, alone. I remember the giant mountain moss, rust and rocks, the kind of gargantuan beauty they didn’t make back East. I couldn’t believe the fairy-tale magnitude of it. I wanted someone to turn to and just go oh my god, but I had only myself. I was not enough.

The founder of Electric Yoni, my boss, was a shipping heiress from New York City who had moved to Marin in the eighties in search of something bigger. She had renamed herself Judy Moon. Judy Moon’s signature look was anorexic homunculus in spandex. When I arrived, Judy Moon was deep into studying what’s known as “nonviolent communication,” which she rigorously incorporated into the Electric Yoni course curriculum. But interpersonally, Judy Moon’s communication style was still absolutely terrifying. She frequently made hissing sounds. She hissed that my behavior made her feel insecure. All of my behavior.

For years Judy Moon had run Electric Yoni out of her Belvedere mansion, which was 100% pink. The rugs were pink, the walls were pink, the “zafus” for seating were pink. She was known for writhing on the pink floor to demonstrate varying states of Tantric ecstasy (she did this, naked, at our “board of directors” meeting). Eventually, neighbors complained to the local authorities about the blocks and blocks of VW Bugs and Priuses with Visualize Whirled Peas bumper stickers jamming up the street. Or perhaps it was the people arriving in various states of undress that bothered them: Renaissance Fair costumes, medieval bikinis, appropriated Native American dresses, and African dashikis. Whatever it was, the Belvedere rich were finally like, What the fuck is going on? So Judy Moon opened a second space—a small center in a neighboring, less ritzy Marin town—where some of the workshops would be held. She called this the Moonrise Center.

Judy felt she had “transcended” from her root chakra to her crown chakra with age. She now sought to expand the course catalog from The Ecstatic Body; 12-Handed Massage; Watsu Rebirthing; Paths of Transcendent Loving; Yoni Yoga; Love Circle; Tantra Levels 1, 2, and 3; and Sacred Dance into a more diverse roster that included Angel Therapy, Life After Death, Reclaiming the Divine Feminine, Anti-Aging Medicine, and of course, Nonviolent Communication.

Through Craigslist, I was hired as an administrative assistant to try to rent out the space of Moonrise Center, to register people for workshops, and to answer all of their questions by phone and email. Judy encouraged me to sample all that the Electric Yoni and Moonrise Center communities had to offer, so that I could better describe “the curriculum.”

One of my first experiences engaging in the Electric Yoni oeuvre was to receive a vaginal massage by a man named Jeffrey Kivnik. Jeffrey offered to trade me three hours of vaginal massage in exchange for helping him promote his “practice.” Jeffrey was in his fifties and wore a do-rag on his balding white head. I was twenty-one, very pretty, and an active alcoholic and addict. The trade sounded perfect.

I’ve always had difficulty setting boundaries. And I’ve always had difficulty reaching orgasm with another human being. So, when faced with an offer to allow Jeffrey to finger me for three hours in exchange for giving him publicity, of course I said yes.

The vaginal massage began with a one-hour full-body massage. Then, for the next two hours, Jeffery caressed, stroked, kneaded, and tenderized my vagina—or as he called it, my Yoni—using Reiki breathing (I think) so as to aid in the healing of “past vaginal trauma.” I never reached orgasm, but I did leave there floating. I think it was the only night in San Francisco that I didn’t drink or use drugs.

At the time of Jeffery’s vaginal massage, I had begun dating women. I still slept with cis men occasionally. But I referred to myself as a dyke. Somehow, I convinced one of my lesbian friends to get a vaginal massage from Jeffery in exchange for her help in promoting him as well. Open-minded and vaguely woo-woo herself, she, too, left Jeffery’s chamber of Yoni floating. But a