When I think about the Slow Sex Movement, I think of Elena. She is, to me, its very embodiment. With her presence, her wisdom, and her gentle yet powerful way of being, she reminds me again and again why this path matters.
Elena has been walking alongside me from the very beginning—often quietly in the background, with humility, depth, and an open heart. What most people don’t see is how often she has been the one holding me in moments of despair, whispering encouragement when I doubted, and reminding me to continue even when the path felt too heavy. Without her unwavering presence, the Slow Sex Movement would not be what it is today.
What touches me most is her courage. Elena tends not to step into the spotlight, though she carries inside of her a richness and wisdom that are rare and precious. The fact that she now chooses to share herself more openly—vulnerably, authentically, and fully—is something I hold with the deepest gratitude.
To me, Elena is not only a colleague and co-facilitator, but a soul companion. Her trust in this work is a gift, and her essence is a constant reminder of why we do what we do: to create spaces where our truest selves can come alive again.
Elena, thank you for being you. Thank you for dancing this path with me.
Hi dear community,
It’s been a while since I’ve written something this personal and vulnerable for the public eye. In truth, I didn’t have much choice—these words wrote themselves first in my trembling heart, then rose into my mind, and now they are finally ready to be received.
I’ve been facilitating Slow Sex Practice evenings and co-facilitating Specials with both Anneke and Katjalisa for over a year. Yet, I have not appeared on social media nor been included as a facilitator on the website. All of this was at my request. And now, also at my request (with a gentle nudge—don’t we all need that sometimes? :), I am deciding to come out…to myself and to the world. For this process to feel complete and truthful, I want to share the ‘why’ behind both of these decisions.
I am five years old. It is a warm summer evening, that magical in-between moment when daylight passes the throne to nighttime, and the skies are sugar-candy pink and soft peach. I hear the opening rhythm of Ravel’s Bolero and am instantly entranced in my own inner world, where dancing feels as natural as breathing. I grab my Mum’s silk scarf. The last rays of the sun glow through the red fabric, reflecting on my skin. A choreography arises from deep within me. No thinking, no planning—only pure presence and expression. My Dad lifts me up onto the roof of our camper van. He turns up the music. People gather to watch. I am unaware of them—there is only the music and my tiny body moving.
Someone asks my Mum, “Where does she train?” My Mum laughs and answers, “She doesn’t. This is just how she is.” The person replies with the words that would determine the course of the next two decades of my life: “She should.” A few months later, I became a classical pianist in the “class for specially gifted children” (the name still makes me cringe).
Long story short: I was so good that suddenly there were a thousand rules to live by. The girl with the scarf—dancing in her pure, sensual expression—was forgotten. In her place stood the good girl who played piano flawlessly. And she was suffocating. The better I became, the more rules appeared: how to speak, how to dress, how to behave. At my prom party, I danced freely for a moment, lost in sweet oblivion with my best friend. The next day, we were lectured about how inappropriate it was for pianists of our caliber to dance that way. I can still feel the razor-sharp cut of shame and guilt. I felt as if I had offended God. No extra “Hail Marys” were required, but I remember putting in extra hours of practice to prove I was still the “good girl,” despite my dancing. When I reread my diaries from that time, my heart aches for that confused, lonely, and scared girl. No one knew the truth of my inner world. No one.
All of this unfolded in Macedonia, my motherland, where strict spoken and unspoken rules define what it means to be a girl—and later, a woman. My father raised me with the idea that I could either be pretty or smart…and that I should always choose smart. My Mama, a natural beauty herself, lived under his influence, embracing a kind of martyrdom in “all natural—no makeup, no nail polish.” And guess what I was secretly obsessed with? All the women daring to wear too much lipstick and extremely long nails.
It took me two decades to gather the courage to face my truth and defy much of my family’s expectations. I left behind the pursuit of a classical pianist career. I moved to London for a Master’s program in community-based arts, working in hospitals, with homeless people, and in schools in deprived areas. Later, I went to Argentina and Palestine to immerse myself in their folklore. Singing with my dear Palestinian friends, I rediscovered the Macedonian folk songs burning in my heart. Many in my family and the music community still don’t understand—or support—these choices.
I found a deep love for teaching at an early age. I struggled with the politics of schools, the lack of values, and the disregard for mental health awareness. Yet I adored my students. I vowed always to prioritize their quirks, their free expression, and never to train children into living out their parents’ unlived dreams. Education—true education, which I don’t believe happens in the classroom—remains one of my deepest passions. I teach people to find their own “silk scarf,” their creative spark that institutions and culture so often smother under the iron fist of “talent.”
I am deeply grateful that I reconciled parts of my true nature with my parents before they passed away. Caring for them through illness and holding their lifeless bodies transformed me. When you change your mother’s diapers, when you watch your father’s body fade under chemotherapy, when you kiss them goodbye, something shifts. At least, it did for me. I saw through the illusion of cultural conditioning around bodies, nudity, and shame. It all melted into the pure Love I found through grief.
I was still deep in unbearable grief when I met Katjalisa—and soon after, the Slow Sex Movement. Meeting her felt like encountering the version of myself I had never allowed to exist. We connected immediately, with hours of conversations in which I blushed, trembled, and yet resonated fully with her views on Life, Ecology, Beauty, and Sensuality. I ran out of my first Slow Sex Practice with a pounding headache. It felt like home—but a home so terrifying I feared losing everything familiar. Yet something stronger kept pulling me back: my essence. The little girl dancing at dusk with her scarf, making love to Life itself. She needed to be welcomed back. The Slow Sex Movement did exactly that.
For me, the Slow Sex Movement is as essential as personal, mental, or even dental hygiene. It is one of the most liberating and real tools for personal development I have discovered. It has guided me through loss—death, divorce, even changing my nationality. It has amplified my love for everything that makes me me. It has made me a far better educator—attuned to nervous systems, able to read body language and subtle shifts in energy. Most importantly, it has given me practical tools to regulate myself.
I still love teaching children of all ages (7 or 77) and I still fear how parents might react if they knew about this part of my work. I also don’t know how my family will meet and receive this. But I know this: I no longer want to live in hiding or let fear rule me. I choose to trust my accountability, my responsibility, and my worth. I choose to trust Life itself—that it will bring me students, work, and connections aligned with my full expression.
With love,
Elena
https://www.slowsex.me/elena/
