Being a master sensualist is knowing how to tune out the world and tune into your body, your senses, your sensations, your experience of pleasure. As we all know, it’s easier said than done.
The feelings of betrayal that come from an affair being discovered or revealed can be overwhelming. Our world that felt safe in one minute, now feels dangerous and threatening. We can’t think straight, adrenaline is coursing through our bodies, and we shift from a calm, logical mind into fight, flight or freeze. When we feel triggered, or threatened, our amygdala brain is running the show. It’s purpose is solely to protect us from a perceived threat and keep us alive.
I woke up this morning feeling emotionally battered by the bullying behavior in our first national Presidential debate this week. I thought about how many people who currently live, or have lived under the same roof with an adult bully. I wondered how many of them were left triggered by the bullying behavior that is all too painfully familiar.
You may not identify with having sexual shame. You may be quite liberal when it comes to the sex you see on screen and in advertising. You may support honest and truthful sex education, and have a tolerant, accepting attitude toward less conventional sexual expressions. The shame I’m talking about is found less in spoken opinions and more in unspoken feelings and beliefs. Not wanting to talk about sex in our relationships is how we carry forth our ancestor’s sexual doctrine, and I see it in many of my clients.
Teri and John (we’ll call them) came to see me a few months ago. They described their 15 year relationship as compatible and loving, except when it came to sex and intimacy, neither of which they were able to figure out how to change for the better. They reached a point where they could see three roads ahead of them...
Sharing fantasies with your partner is the 2.0 of sexual communication. In order to support each other’s sexual growth and learning, ask your partner if they’d be interested in sharing their sexual fantasies, for the purpose of deepening your sexual connection and expanding your erotic experience. When we’re tuned into our partner’s erotic mind, we can support them having the experience they’re drawn to.
“When was the last time someone touched you?” I asked him. “It’s been 6 months”, he said, looking shocked at hearing his own words. Something so natural as touching a friend in a happy moment has been taken away from us, unless we’ve joined in a pod with one or more equally cautious others. One of life’s great pleasures is suddenly dangerous to ourselves and to those we long to touch.
If you’ve been dealing with sexual challenges in a long-term relationship, talking about sex may be full of blame, guilt, regret, embarrassment, and a whole host of other emotions that have built up over the years. If your partner suggests sitting down to talk about your sex life, your first reaction may be to brace yourself for the inevitable bad feelings that will come out of that talk. I designed Your Erotic Menu to guide you through this conversation in a way that bypasses the blame game and supports curiosity and exploration.
Most people will understand an ‘erotic menu’ to mean the activities they engage in during sex. But if I ask a client what’s on their erotic menu, they’ll often look perplexed. They’ll start with intercourse, kissing, touching, oral sex but, after these more obvious activities, they realize their list is pretty short actually. “I mean, how many things can two people do during sex? Was what someone said to me a few weeks ago.
When I first saw Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues in 1996, One of the monologues stood out to me. It was a woman’s account of being with a man named Bob. This is some of what she wrote. “…Turned out that Bob loved vaginas..."
