I remember my first time touching a cervix. I remember the unexpected thrill of discovering the secret inner chamber of a woman's sex, its smooth exterior and its firm feeling against my fingers. It felt a little like a stalk, like a cock and like a root. Then, next, there was the ecstatic, decisive movement of her body as I massaged her inside and outside, and she pressed right back to me, seeking stronger contact. It seemed to be the deep core of her desire I was touching and moving, as if I was pumping from a well of heat and raw pleasure that had nothing psychological about it. Unlike the vulva, which can have a delicate and elastic feeling, her uterus was solid and strong and at the same time very much a center of pleasure.

Over the years I've explored with other lovers, learning to apply pressure just above the pubic bone and massage the uterus from above while pleasuring her clitoris and vulva. Some women seem to like a really deep-in touch, almost to have their uterus squeezed. In every lover I can remember, her womb seemed to yearn for touch, for love and for attention. The awareness of it pulsating and contracting with pleasure as she orgasmed has always felt like deeply wholesome sexual contact, like something I just adored and understood. In most lovers with I've whom I've experienced a deep erotic affinity, her womb has been at the heart of how I identified and experienced her both physically and emotionally.

When I read during the research phase of this project that Chinese medicine considers the womb to be the 'second heart', I was not surprised. It's always felt that way to me, though I never said it. And what a beautiful image for our first home, for the sanctuary where life begins. They say it's blissful in there, suspended in space and time, leading to this is a gateway called the vulva. This, the scene of so much worship, and of drinking from the well at the source of existence. The soft, smooth vagina by which we are embraced and stroked while entering the world.

My old friend and lover Maria is pregnant. She's roaming around Europe with a baby growing inside her belly, as she says it. Maria always seemed conscious of her womb when I was spending time with her, and she felt the capacity to birth life as a daily reality. In contemplating her beautiful little body pregnant and her feelings flooded with the knowledge of pregnancy, I tune deeply into her sex: her smell, her color, what's happening to her breasts, how beautiful her face will look when she is birthing. Vividly erotic, it is also lusciously reproductive. My curiosity becomes hot and soft and melts into love.

I can feel the new life growing inside her, her love for her child, the fulfillment of the sexual process and the beginning of existence. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.