Weird News- Tap into One's Sensuality

[philly]

Posted on Mon, Dec. 09, 2002

Ex-stripper helps students to loosen up
By MICHELLE GUIDO
San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News

BERKELEY - On a recent Sunday night, Susan Bremer and five of her students gathered at a studio to rehearse a dance routine. There was a bank executive, a stay-at-home mom and a medical records technician. They ranged in age from 41 to 68 years old.

Not a typical batch of exotic dancers.

But with Bremer's guidance, they are tapping into the sensuality they say gets lost in their day-to-day routines.

The women wore lingerie, complete with feather boas and gloves, while they followed Bremer's lead through dance moves with names like the ``hip thrust,'' ``sensual slide'' and ``breast shimmy'' to the Marvin Gaye classic ``Let's Get It On.''

Celeste Barbic, a stay-at-home mom from San Rafael who has a 6-year-old son, said she took Bremer's class because she wanted to feel better about herself and get in touch with her femininity. Barbic said the classes have helped her loosen up.

``I have a whole new appreciation for myself and my body, and that allows me to open up more and have more fun,'' said Barbic, 48. ``Feeling good about myself is hard and it's daring for me.''

Bremer was a laser technician at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories when she started moonlighting as a stripper eight years ago. She recently quit stripping to teach the ``art of sensual dance'' as a way for women to feel better about themselves by loving and appreciating their bodies.

Barbic and the others said they signed up for the class -- which costs $250 for six sessions -- because they wanted to boost their self-confidence. Even though they say it's working, many of the women are still wary of letting others know they're taking the class.

``There's a sensual person inside me, but I don't allow her to come out because I'm not comfortable with my body size,'' said Lorene, a married mother of two from Alameda who asked that her last name not be used. ``I've been with my husband for 20 years, and if I can overcome some of this stuff, it'll be another 20 years.''

Bremer acknowledges that the class is not for everyone, but tapping into one's sensuality can be helpful to women in a variety of ways, said Al Cooper, director of the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Centre.

``For quite a long time, a lot of women's value was around their sexuality, and there was a backlash against that -- and rightly so,'' Cooper said. ``Then the pendulum swung a little too far in the opposite way, where women weren't allowed to celebrate their sexuality at all. Now, maybe it's moving toward the center, and I think that's OK.''