Awareness
Becoming self-aware helps relationships. Not only what we want, but also which values and beliefs are unconsciously driving us. Knowing what matters, what we bring, for better and at our worst? Learning to be honest about who we are and to share our secret resentments and desires, takes courage. Discovering blind spots and adjusting allows us to let go of expectations of perfection of ourselves and our partners, and allows relationships with acceptance and depth.
Becoming self-aware helps relationships. Not only what we want, but also which values and beliefs are unconsciously driving us. Knowing what matters, what we bring, for better and at our worst? Learning to be honest about who we are and to share our secret resentments and desires, takes courage. Discovering blind spots and adjusting allows us to let go of expectations of perfection of ourselves and our partners, and allows relationships with acceptance and depth.
Timelessness
One of the signs of peak sexual experiences is the expansion or contraction of time. Rather than chasing peak orgasm, followed by a crash and disconnection, we can move into the territory of pleasure as an undulating wave. Learning to love the pauses in pleasure is key to this. There’s the breathing space and awareness that we’re enjoying the experience as we’re in it, rather than striving for the orgasmic goal as a way of pleasing someone else. Can we trust that if we’re naked in a room together, that might just be a pretty spectacular gift anyway?
One of the signs of peak sexual experiences is the expansion or contraction of time. Rather than chasing peak orgasm, followed by a crash and disconnection, we can move into the territory of pleasure as an undulating wave. Learning to love the pauses in pleasure is key to this. There’s the breathing space and awareness that we’re enjoying the experience as we’re in it, rather than striving for the orgasmic goal as a way of pleasing someone else. Can we trust that if we’re naked in a room together, that might just be a pretty spectacular gift anyway?
Artistry
There’s an artistry to pleasure. I’m not the Anglo-Saxon rough words type. Anything too explicit turns me off. Yet it is a struggle to be prissy and get lost in pleasure. And I want to be asked to try naughty, sexy things, so there’s a conundrum between the paradox of letting go and maintaining my outdated perceptions of dignity. Rather than getting my head into the game, it’s good to adjust course according to whether my body is enjoying it, banishing the judgmental part of me in favour of the responsive side that wants to be led into bad ways and enjoy them. Censoring myself stops the pleasurable haze I long for, yet I still put up all the criteria for entry. It’s confounding. I’m searching for beauty and avoiding sleaze, yet who’s having the most fun?
There’s an artistry to pleasure. I’m not the Anglo-Saxon rough words type. Anything too explicit turns me off. Yet it is a struggle to be prissy and get lost in pleasure. And I want to be asked to try naughty, sexy things, so there’s a conundrum between the paradox of letting go and maintaining my outdated perceptions of dignity. Rather than getting my head into the game, it’s good to adjust course according to whether my body is enjoying it, banishing the judgmental part of me in favour of the responsive side that wants to be led into bad ways and enjoy them. Censoring myself stops the pleasurable haze I long for, yet I still put up all the criteria for entry. It’s confounding. I’m searching for beauty and avoiding sleaze, yet who’s having the most fun?
Kissing
Isn’t kissing wonderful? I miss it —the sensuality, the slowness, and softness. The discovery and wonder of new lips, the shy welcome, the gentle biting of the bottom lip, my own and yours. Then there are the different moods of kissing, the longing kiss, the falling into the depths of kissing, and the desire of passionate kissing. The last time I kissed a stranger, I was wearing a blindfold. Being welcomed by a new mouth, the liberation to feel rather than talk, consensual, erotic, intimate, sensual delight, deep and endless, delicious and exploratory. I got lost in tongues and sensation and want, freely given and enjoyed.
Isn’t kissing wonderful? I miss it —the sensuality, the slowness, and softness. The discovery and wonder of new lips, the shy welcome, the gentle biting of the bottom lip, my own and yours. Then there are the different moods of kissing, the longing kiss, the falling into the depths of kissing, and the desire of passionate kissing. The last time I kissed a stranger, I was wearing a blindfold. Being welcomed by a new mouth, the liberation to feel rather than talk, consensual, erotic, intimate, sensual delight, deep and endless, delicious and exploratory. I got lost in tongues and sensation and want, freely given and enjoyed.
Spanking
False morality serves no one. How can you judge what you don’t know and what you’re conditioned to? All too easily. You might end up enjoying what you’ve previously judged if someone took the time to explain the point, sensuality and pleasure. You may think spanking weird, yet if someone slowly traced their fingers along your gluteal crease, (that’s the exquisitely sensitive line at the top of your thighs where it meets your bottom by the way), or the edges of your underwear, and hovered their poised hand gently above your bum, each move in anticipation of a playful yet lightly resounding slap, and then you tracked the after-sensations of prickles, warmth, surprise and dancing teeny pulses, you might be grateful for the joy of intimate connection and chosen risk. And to beg for it to happen again after a pause. Spanking doesn’t have to hurt. Unless you choose it to. Feeling pleasure and choice takes a knife to false morality.
False morality serves no one. How can you judge what you don’t know and what you’re conditioned to? All too easily. You might end up enjoying what you’ve previously judged if someone took the time to explain the point, sensuality and pleasure. You may think spanking weird, yet if someone slowly traced their fingers along your gluteal crease, (that’s the exquisitely sensitive line at the top of your thighs where it meets your bottom by the way), or the edges of your underwear, and hovered their poised hand gently above your bum, each move in anticipation of a playful yet lightly resounding slap, and then you tracked the after-sensations of prickles, warmth, surprise and dancing teeny pulses, you might be grateful for the joy of intimate connection and chosen risk. And to beg for it to happen again after a pause. Spanking doesn’t have to hurt. Unless you choose it to. Feeling pleasure and choice takes a knife to false morality.
Fingers
In the search for sensation and sensuality, your skin is uncharted territory. Have you felt how exquisite it is to slowly and barely touch between the fingers of one hand with the tip of the middle finger of the other? Or a cheek, or the neck just under the hairline. It gives a whole new meaning to fingering.
In the search for sensation and sensuality, your skin is uncharted territory. Have you felt how exquisite it is to slowly and barely touch between the fingers of one hand with the tip of the middle finger of the other? Or a cheek, or the neck just under the hairline. It gives a whole new meaning to fingering.
Wanted
Passion is a blessing and a curse. While the frenzy of lust is an exhilarating ride, the deep satisfaction of wanted conscious touch is a gift thatʼs longer-lasting, sweet and deeply nurturing.
Passion is a blessing and a curse. While the frenzy of lust is an exhilarating ride, the deep satisfaction of wanted conscious touch is a gift thatʼs longer-lasting, sweet and deeply nurturing.
Initiate
One of the greatest ways to receive more satisfying experiences is to learn to initiate the touch you’d like. To learn to slow down with the touch so you can actually feel what’s happening to you. To let the focus move to sensuality rather than sex. To begin to understand how you’d love to touch another, to understand the joy of placing your hands on someone with full consent, staying still, feeling the warmth of their skin, to have time to decide what you’d like to try, do or feel. To create touch that is exquisite, ecstatic and rapturous relies on the ability to notice and trust yourself, to value what you notice, the voice to express requests, adjustments, and slow down. This means not relying on chemistry, magic or telepathy, each of those somewhat dubious indicators or guarantees of satisfying or nurturing touch.
One of the greatest ways to receive more satisfying experiences is to learn to initiate the touch you’d like. To learn to slow down with the touch so you can actually feel what’s happening to you. To let the focus move to sensuality rather than sex. To begin to understand how you’d love to touch another, to understand the joy of placing your hands on someone with full consent, staying still, feeling the warmth of their skin, to have time to decide what you’d like to try, do or feel. To create touch that is exquisite, ecstatic and rapturous relies on the ability to notice and trust yourself, to value what you notice, the voice to express requests, adjustments, and slow down. This means not relying on chemistry, magic or telepathy, each of those somewhat dubious indicators or guarantees of satisfying or nurturing touch.
Discovery
There’s a freedom in erotic pleasure that can take you to places in yourself of enhanced awareness, that seem private and inaccessible in other areas of life: places of courage, neediness, vulnerability, expansion and longing. A doorway into the self that can feel violating and liberating, a breakthrough not to go back from. Yet who can we tell of this discovery, when the weight of glimpsed delight or depth of suffering is hard to bear alone? If sex is unspoken, desire seeps out sideways, sublimated into quiet despair, bad flirting, secret liaisons, and disappointment. There’s a force to longing that may be unrecognisable at first, and it’s driving more than sex. The more we meet our longing and find skills to intimately connect, the greater chance and charge we have of living fully, of enjoyment without shame, guilt and pent-up conformity.
There’s a freedom in erotic pleasure that can take you to places in yourself of enhanced awareness, that seem private and inaccessible in other areas of life: places of courage, neediness, vulnerability, expansion and longing. A doorway into the self that can feel violating and liberating, a breakthrough not to go back from. Yet who can we tell of this discovery, when the weight of glimpsed delight or depth of suffering is hard to bear alone? If sex is unspoken, desire seeps out sideways, sublimated into quiet despair, bad flirting, secret liaisons, and disappointment. There’s a force to longing that may be unrecognisable at first, and it’s driving more than sex. The more we meet our longing and find skills to intimately connect, the greater chance and charge we have of living fully, of enjoyment without shame, guilt and pent-up conformity.
The Sliding Door
Feeling like there’s more than you’ve experienced in sex is natural. Of course, there is more: healing, fun, eroticism, better touch, better relationships, better communication and understanding. Rather than complaining about where you’re at, the decision is only whether you’re going to take the time to explore what that ‘more’ could be. The decision is the sliding door.
Feeling like there’s more than you’ve experienced in sex is natural. Of course, there is more: healing, fun, eroticism, better touch, better relationships, better communication and understanding. Rather than complaining about where you’re at, the decision is only whether you’re going to take the time to explore what that ‘more’ could be. The decision is the sliding door.