While traveling through Thailand with my 12-year-old son, we kept running into the same confronting image: older white men sitting in bars, flanked by young Thai women. The cliché was everywhere — and he was disturbed. “Why would such a young, beautiful woman want to have sex with that man?” he asked, genuinely confused.
I didn’t give him an answer. I gave him questions. I used the moment as a doorway — not to shut down the discomfort, but to open it up. To explore. To let his heart and mind stretch into something deeper.
Seeing the layers of sex tourism up close brought me right back to my early anthropological work in Amsterdam’s Red Light District. Back then, in my mid-twenties, I was researching sex as a commodity — as something consumed. Over time, the project transformed, as did I.
And what I’ve learned, from my own inner prostitute, is this: yes, it can be arousing and even empowering to sell (parts of) your body for money — if (and the if is everything) the woman has the real freedom to say no. No to the man. No to the money. And yes to herself.
My inner anthropologist was lit up again in those conversations with my son. I wanted to talk to the women. To the men. To get to the heart of it all. But I also know from experience: getting to the source — the truth — requires passing through layers of shame, fear, and protection. Vulnerability doesn’t just reveal itself. It needs safety, curiosity, and time. One clumsy question can slam shut a door that was just beginning to crack open.
Still, I let myself dream a little.
A woman who knows how to work with her sexuality as a force of creation, not transaction. Who uses pleasure to connect rather than perform. Who channels erotic energy into art, leadership, intimacy, healing. Who knows how to feel and express her boundaries, and honors her body as a sacred temple — not a commodity.
Together with a small group of women in Amsterdam — all connected through the Slow Sex Movement — we’ve spent the past few years experimenting, learning, and unlearning. We've been researching how to offer sex work in a sacred, embodied, trauma-informed way. Not from theory. From practice.
We are now at the edge of something new — something both ancient and revolutionary.
In the next email, I’ll share more about what we’re creating — for women who want to step into their power as sacred sex witches, for men ready to meet sexuality as a path of transformation and devotion, for couples to re-ignite the spark and to deepen the sacred bond of commitment.
For now, I just wanted to open the door. Gently.
With love and fire,
Katjalisa
on behalf of the Sacred Sex Witch Collective
