Erotic intimacy holds the double promise of finding oneself and losing oneself. It is an experience of merger and of total self-absorption, of mutuality and selfishness.
—Esther Perel
The body. Oh, the body! A book about self-awareness in the service of love must make space for the body. Touch, affection, and sex are integral aspects of being human, and they are essential forms of communication within an intimate relationship. Giving and receiving pleasure through the body grows, reflects, and sustains love. All touch, but especially sexual touch, requires a willingness to get naked—emotionally and physically—putting us in contact with deep truths about who we are and who we want to be. Although touch happens in the space between two people, happy sex begins with a compassionate and loving relationship with the self. Therefore, this lesson is about how to know and appreciate your erotic self—who you are sexually—in order to maximize your enjoyment of sex as a vital element of an intimate relationship.
For starters, you need to know what emotions you’re bringing into bed with you. The bawdy and bodacious actress Mae West famously referred to sex as “emotion in motion.” In fact, all touch—cuddling, affectionate touch, and sexual touch—is emotion in motion. Touch is an avenue for manifesting, embodying, and expressing to and with another person what we are feeling on the inside. Like an iceberg, the above-the-surface aspects of touch appear rather straightforward—a body in connection with another body. But there’s a whole lot more happening beneath the surface. Touch is both simple and complicated. Our reactions to touching and being touched can be quite profound, and our reactions offer us direct access to our deepest longings, stories, hopes, fears, and truths. Our reactions to touching and being touched are full of data that deserves our attention.
Like most aspects of our intimate lives, how we react to touch dates back to a time long before we were sexually active. As mammals, touch feeds, nurtures, and shapes us from our first breath to our last. The touch we received (or didn’t) from our caregivers taught us potent lessons about worthiness, closeness, safety, and soothing. If we were touched in ways that were gentle and respectful, our bodies learned to feel safe and relaxed in the presence of others. If touch was absent, minimal, or disrespectful, our bodies learned to feel defensive and on edge in the presence of others.
Later, as sexuality blossoms, those early experiences are the template upon which our journey into sexual touch maps. Sex becomes another venue for expressing ourselves, and sex is another way of feeling close to others and feeling valued by them. Yet sex never replaces our continued need and desire for affectionate touch and cozy touch. Kissing hello and good-bye, snuggling on the couch while watching a movie, holding hands during a walk—these kinds of physical interactions are related to and separate from sexual touch. All avenues of touch entwine, and all have a place.
How have you experienced touch in your life? Telling your “touch story” is illuminative and healing, and you will be supported in doing so at the end of this lesson. Although sexual intimacy is an important element of an intimate relationship, it is an element that is tender and complicated. We will never eliminate the complexities of sexual intimacy—and we wouldn’t want to—but self-awareness helps us navigate those intricacies.
Having a brave relationship with your sexual self is the work of a lifetime. Because our bodies and our minds are ever-changing, who we are sexually continues to develop from adolescence to old age. The work of sexual self-awareness simply can’t ever be done, because we are moving targets. In addition, it is very difficult to be whole-hearted and self-aware sexually in a culture that has a confusing relationship with sex. In lesson 6 we explored how cultural messages shape how we feel about ourselves. The messages we receive about who we should be sexually are loud and, quite frankly, incoherent. Companies use sex to sell everything from cars to hamburgers. Pornography can be accessed from our phones in the blink of an eye, anywhere, anytime. Religious institutions, schools, and families tend to talk about sex in simplistic black-and-white terms that leave no room for the many shades of gray that we tend to feel when it comes to sex. In this chaotic atmosphere, it is really hard to hear what is inside of us.
How many of us have received a wholehearted and comprehensive sexual education? Most of the clients I work with and students I teach have simply never been granted time and space to understand themselves sexually. The lucky ones learned the basics about reproduction, STIs, sexual assault, and sexual abuse, but that curriculum leaves much unsaid. It’s still about taking information in from the outside, rather than being taught how to listen to yourself from the inside. When it comes to sex, there are so many questions that can be answered from one place and one place only: within you. These worthwhile questions include:
Each and every one of us deserves the opportunity to think about, and to feel about, these kinds of questions.
But the journey can’t stop there. In an intimate relationship, two people, each with their own sexual story and sexual template, create something together. That creation is informed by each individual’s desires, ideas, and beliefs. As the quote from Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, at the beginning of this lesson suggests, sex is simultaneously selfish and selfless (2007). It’s a conversation of sorts with self and other, at the very same time. The quality of your “conversation” with your partner is shaped by the quality of the conversation you are having with yourself. And the conversation that your partner is having with him- or herself surely shapes your sexual experience too! Therefore, it is an important relationship skill to be able to listen to your partner’s sexual truths.
A client recently shared with me that he tried to open up to his wife about a sexual worry he was having. He felt it was taking longer for him to become erect, and his erection was feeling “less reliable” to him. He reported that she responded by giggling and rolling her eyes. It seems that his vulnerable self-disclosure triggered discomfort in her, leading her to respond in a dismissive way. Even when it feels uncomfortable to meet your partner’s sexual truth with openness, intimacy depends on your ability to do so. My hope is that she will explore the story she began to tell herself when she was confronted by what he shared.
Sexual self-awareness is vital, as it lays the foundation for the creation of self-aware sex—sex that is mindful, intentional, and conscious. Sex that is brave! Here are some qualities that capture a self-aware sexual experience:
In contrast, here are some qualities of a sexual experience that happens in the absence of self-awareness:
These are qualities to ponder rather than hard-and-fast rules, and they are offered in the service of reflection. Moving toward creating and engaging in sexual experiences that are brave, mindful, intentional, and conscious begins by naming what is getting in your way. For the rest of this lesson, we will explore some practices that can move you toward greater sexual self-awareness. The “Guide to Self-Aware Sex” at http://www.newharbinger.com/35814 contains tips, suggestions, and additional resources for a happy and healthy sex life.
In my work with young adults in the classroom and the therapy room, I spend a lot of time talking about “hookup culture,” and, as it is usually practiced today, hookup culture is a barrier to brave and self-aware sex. By way of definition, a hookup has three elements:
Hooking up is not new. My friends and I engaged in a hookup or two while we were college students in the 1990s…while wearing oversize flannel and listening to Pearl Jam. But today’s young adults have taken it to a whole new level. It seems that today’s hookups involve more alcohol—students often talk about being “blackout drunk” as if it’s normal or common. It seems that today’s hookups involve more sex (versus a dance-floor makeout). Finally, it seems that hooking up is the predominant form of coupling, whereas in the 1990s we saw lots of couples in exclusive or committed relationships (Solomon 2016).
A number of forces converge to create and maintain hookup culture:
Hookups feel like an extension of the wish that love could be simple and easy—and therefore not painful. Hookup culture reflects a fear of getting entangled, a fear of getting hurt, and a fear of screwing up. In this way, hookup culture is an effort to stay emotionally safe, reflecting and perpetuating anxiety, ambivalence, and pessimism about love.
But there is a cost that comes along with clinging to a story that love ought to be “chill.” When you operate under this belief, you are required to ignore the many emotional layers that exist beneath the facade of “chill.” Woven into the story of the hookup scene is shame when someone “catches feelings.” To catch feelings is to fail! When I am talking with students or clients, and they express disappointment and shame that they fell for the person they were supposed to be just hooking up with, my response tends to be, “Of course you did! Sex is powerful magic.” We fancy ourselves to be high-tech and evolved, but we are hardwired to emotionally connect to those whose bodies we dive into via sex. Orgasm triggers oxytocin, the “cuddle hormone” of attachment, so it is cruel to reprimand yourself for catching feelings despite your intention to keep it easy breezy. The very situation has you set up to fail!
A hookup is usually neither a cocreated nor an honest contract. Often both people are drunk and/or high during the hookup, and, as mentioned above, being under the influence of alcohol or drugs compromises your ability to fully participate in a sexual experience. It can even compromise the ability to affirmatively give and receive sexual consent, meaning that a hookup can be more than just unconscious or mindless. It can be a sexual assault.
A hookup is also not a cocreated and honest contract when intentions are misaligned. Many people (especially women) have shared with me that hooking up feels like the only avenue into an intimate relationship. People participate in a hookup in the hope that an intimate relationship will result—giving sex to get love. Sometimes hooking up does lead to an intimate relationship. However, since disconnection from self seems to be a prerequisite to hooking up, this gamble seems awfully risky.
It is, of course, possible to create conscious, aligned, and authentic sexual experiences outside of the context of a committed intimate relationship. From a place of self-awareness, you may choose to engage in a sexual experience in the service of adventure, curiosity, play, and/or growth. This is different than hookup sex. A student of mine, Mitch, is an example of this.
Despite having his family’s support and the support of his friends when he came out as gay in high school, Mitch spent his college years on an emotional roller coaster. He felt “obsessed” with the idea that he shouldn’t hook up because that would fulfill the stereotype of the promiscuous gay guy. Instead, he thought he ought to only be interested in a serious intimate relationship. But he struggled to find a guy to date, so he would get drunk, make out with someone, and then feel awful about it for weeks.
Today, at twenty-four years old, Mitch is still single, and he decided to experiment with casual sex. He met someone on a hookup app. Before meeting, they talked on the phone and said out loud to each other that all they were interested in was sex—they cocreated an honest contract. He went to his house completely sober. They talked for a few minutes and then had sex. “I was interested in my experience,” Mitch told me. “If he had fun too, that was even better, but this was about me. If the sex was bad or if I felt uncomfortable at any point, I knew I could have stopped it and left. I’d never have to see him again if I didn’t want to. It turned out to be a great experience that helped me understand myself better sexually. Afterward, I got in my car, called my best friend, and declared, ‘I’m in my sexual renaissance.’” Mitch’s experience has all the elements of a self-aware sexual experience even though it occurred outside of a committed intimate relationship.
Body image concerns pull you out of your present-moment experience, dampening the pleasures of sex. Celebrating the body you live in, exactly as it is today, can help you leave your self-critical voice behind so you can show up for fun! Our minds and bodies are intricately connected, so judgmental thoughts about yourself—“My belly is too fat”; “My hips are too wide”—get in the way of physical pleasure. Stopping negative self-talk is easier said than done, but recognizing that you are having negative thoughts is a vital first step! You are not your thoughts, so start by naming negative thoughts as they creep in during sex. For example, you have the thought, “My belly is so fat.” Train yourself to have this thought next: “I am not the negative thought I just had.”
Once you have recognized that you are having a negative thought, you can make the choice to transform it. You will have to play around and see what works for you. Perhaps imagine plucking the negative thought like a weed and sending it down a river. Replace the thought with a loving and affirming thought about yourself (such as “I am strong,” “I am worthy,” or “I am beautiful”), and bring your attention back to the present moment. Feel your partner’s skin against yours. Focus on where your body is feeling pleasure, and imagine that feeling growing and spreading through your body. When it comes to sex, there are plenty of exciting places to put your attention—places more worthy of your attention than negative self talk!
If you grew up being told that sex is bad, dangerous, or dirty, those old stories can play in your head during sex, making it difficult to let go and seek out or surrender to pleasurable sensations. Much as we did earlier in this lesson with negative self-talk about body image, it is really helpful to name those stories as such—old stories that once had a time and a place in your life but that do not serve you in the context of your intimate relationship today. Create a new story for yourself about how good sex enhances your life. You are entitled to pleasure, play, escape, and erotic connection with another person.
Unfortunately, it’s difficult for many of us to feel entitled to pleasure. Feeling good can feel bad. Sometimes old messages about seeking pleasure as greedy, selfish, and “too much” can make you feel bad about wanting to feel good. If you feel uncomfortable declaring that you are worthy of pleasure, you may not feel okay doing what it takes to understand how your body works and what feels good for you, and this may manifest in hesitation around exploring masturbation or giving feedback to your partner.
For a number of reasons, women are especially at risk of minimizing the importance of their own pleasure. They may wait silently and passively for an orgasm to arrive. They may end up faking an orgasm because they feel guilty about how long it’s taking or ashamed of not being able to get there. Faking orgasms is an attempted solution to a difficult problem but with unintended consequences. People usually fake orgasms in order to keep the peace and/or to protect their partner’s feelings, both of which are noble intentions. Even if your faked orgasm smoothes the moment over, the long-term consequences can include compromised sexual desire, resentment, and a nagging sense of dishonesty in your intimate relationship.
You deserve to learn what works for your body, and you deserve to be able to talk with your partner about what makes you feel good. If advocating for yourself sexually feels frightening, embarrassing, or hurtful, return to the previous practice (Shed Old Sexual Stories)and uproot the old story that supports the idea that silently waiting or faking beats self-advocacy.
Reaching for erotic materials is common. Pornography is a multibillion-dollar industry, and the Fifty Shades of Grey series of books has sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide (Bosman 2014). Throw in Nicholas Sparks books and movies, and you’ve got the economy of a small nation! What fuels our desire to turn outside of ourselves and our relationship for sexual inspiration and arousal is a book unto itself. When a sexual partner is unavailable, erotic materials can fill a void. When couples are curious to explore, watching something sexy together can reduce self-consciousness and heighten excitement. But caution is warranted, as much of the readily available, high-speed Internet pornography shows sex that is coercive, dehumanizing, and antirelationship. What we consume affects us, shaping how we experience ourselves, our desires, and our relationships. Stay in close contact with your gut as you consume erotic material, carefully tracking how you feel emotionally within your body. Erotic materials ought to enhance rather than replace intimate sex.
Sexual desire ebbs and flows in an intimate relationship, and even very happy couples experience peaks and valleys in desire caused by everything from long work hours to the demands of parenting to age-related physical changes. There is no magic number for how often couples “should” have sex, and quality counts—not just quantity. Appreciate when sex is satisfying and bountiful, and be compassionate with yourself and your partner when it is not.
Although the partner whose desire is compromised can feel that he or she is to blame, low sexual desire in one or both partners is best viewed as a couples problem and addressed together as such. Low sexual desire that goes beyond normal relationship ebb and flow is a problem that tends not to resolve on its own, so be proactive and address it. Appendix 2 includes resources to help you find a therapist specifically trained to address sexual problems.
Our cultural story is that sex ought to be easy. If we base our sexual expectations on the images and messages we see around us—the covers of magazines that promise three tricks for maximum pleasure or the steamy sex scenes we see in movies—we are at risk of feeling somehow wrong or deficient. We are at risk of feeling as though we don’t measure up and judging ourselves harshly. In the real world, sex is complicated! Old stories can compromise our sex drive. Negative self-talk can block pleasure. Stress can make us feel downright unsexy. Plus, sex is created by two people together, so also in the mix are all of our partner’s core issues and stories.
The erotic self is sneaky, subtle, and ever-changing, and the erotic self deserves attention and understanding. When partners are emotionally able to do what it takes to create self-aware sex, sex within an intimate relationship can feel like a playground—a safe and exciting space of self-expression that connects you to yourself, your partner, and all of life itself. When partners are unable to connect with themselves and each other, sex within an intimate relationship can feel a whole lot more like a war zone, fraught with all kinds of danger. Committing ourselves to self-awareness and self-compassion puts us on the path toward meeting each other on that playground, where sexual intimacy creates and sustains good feelings within and between partners. Whether a couple commits to sexual monogamy or creates another kind of sexual boundary that allows for sexual experiences with other people, the foundation of happy sex within an intimate relationship is self-awareness.
Sex is developmental. How you relate to sex at twenty is not the same as how you relate to sex at forty, and it’s not the same as how you relate to sex at sixty. As you grow and change, what is possible for you sexually grows and changes as well. What remains true throughout your sexual journey is that your erotic self deserves the same brave exploration and illumination as all other aspects of your relational self. I believe that for all of us, the default setting is that the erotic self is a vital element of our humanity. “Stuff” gets in the way, for sure—traumatic experiences, cultural messages, and self-esteem and body image concerns can make it difficult to claim what is our birthright. Yet, the desire to touch and be touched, to give and receive pleasure, is universal.
Love is embodied—experienced within and expressed by your body. Knowing and embracing your erotic self fuels your intimate relationship.
Your Touch Story
Use the Name-Connect-Choose process to expand your awareness about your sexual self.
Sex Education
Reflect on how you learned about sex as you were growing up by answering the following questions:
Sexual Healing
Reflect on the most positive sexual experience that you have had in your life so far. Be specific in your mind about where you were, the person you were with, and what happened before, during, and after. Then write down some words and phrases in response to the following questions:
The Map of Your Body
Without deep awareness and understanding of how your body experiences sexual pleasure, your ability to experience sexual pleasure with another will likely be compromised. Make a list of your erogenous zones—the parts of your body or the areas of your body where you enjoy being touched—and the types of touch (light, deep, rhythmic) that feel good in those areas. Notice your gut reactions as you reflect on this.
If it was difficult to find much to say about how your body experiences pleasure, perhaps you would benefit from learning more about your erotic self. If you have never masturbated, or if you are very uncomfortable touching your own body, reflect on what that is about for you by completing the sentence: “Masturbation is.…” Notice your gut reactions as you fill in that sentence.
Finally, respond to the following questions:
Complete this sentence: “Pornography is.…” Reflect on your response. If you would like to explore this aspect of yourself more deeply, answer the following questions:
Note: If you have only or mostly masturbated with pornography and/or if you feel there’s something problematic about your use of pornography (such as using frequently or using images that are violent, coercive, or disturbing), it is worth bravely addressing the impact pornography has on you.