I like to divide sex in a long-term relationship into three types:

Cup Of Tea Sex – simple and comforting
Sensual Sex - luscious and bonding
Spicy Sex – exciting and adventurous

Cup of Tea Sex is that nice snuggle under the covers, nothing unexpected, nothing wild. You know each other, you know what works, you have a satisfying time. No great fireworks, but it’s good. Like a cup of tea: simple, warm and comforting.

But a sexual diet of just Cup of Tea sex is pretty dull. And if there’s not a good connection, it will feel empty.

Sensual Sex is when you take the time to create a gorgeous atmosphere and take the time to enjoys each others’ bodies in a sensual and loving manner. In this way the sex becomes very connecting, very bonding, very deep. This is the essence of Tantric sex, and with practice can lead to ecstatic states of being.

Which is wonderful and wholesome, but can do with some spicing up at times.

Spicy Sex is when you push your boundaries and do things that you find a real turn on (if a little intimidating!). What that is will depend on you and your own desires.

Spicy Sex could be as simple as introducing a sex toy to your sexual play, or starting with a slow striptease. It could be planning a weekend away and then visiting the vineyards knowing you or your partner has no knickers on. It could be visiting a sex store and bringing home something new and unusual (now how does this bondage tape work…) It could be visiting a swingers lounge. It could be having a nude dinner party, either the two of you alone or inviting friends… The possibilities are endless. But keep in mind that Spicy Sex doesn’t just ‘happen’, it requires your creativity and your intention.

Now, given the reality of modern lives, it’s unlikely that every sexual encounter is going to be Spicy Sex. (Apart from the time involved, it would be like eating gourmet food all the time, which can get a little wearying.) Depending on your circumstances, Spicy Sex could be an annual weekend away, or it could be a monthly ‘challenge’ where you take it in turns to create a “Spicy Saturday In”.

However, if you think Spicy Sex is the great aim, you’ll have trouble getting there without the Sensual Sex. Because as I’ve so often written about before, I believe that for a couple to be open enough with each other that they can be real about their desires, they have to be truly open to each other, and you need sensual connection for that. I encourage couples at least once a week, to have a sexual encounter that focuses on the sensual. Start with a bath, light candles, play music that moves your soul, spend time touching each other, hold each others’ gaze as you move slowly together in intercourse. Experience the ecstatic sensations of the valleys of sex, rather than the intense peaks. Feel the yumminess of it all. Experiment with blindfolds or restraint to heighten the sensory arousal, add sensory elements of taste, sound, touch and smell. Really lose yourselves in the experience.

So, maybe you could aim for Spicy Sex once a month, Sensual Sex once a week and Cup of Tea Sex once or twice a week. I can’t be prescriptive though. So let’s say plenty of nice Cup of Tea Sex, regular Sensual Sex, all interspersed with some Spicy Sex.

Having said that, the three categories don’t have to be mutually exclusive. A late night quickie under the covers is Cup of Tea Sex, but it can also feel very sensual if for example you light a candle by the bed and look into your partners eyes as you make love. Or a quickie in the bathroom while your kids are having their porridge can certainly have elements of Spice (a la naughty teenagers trying not be caught). Ideally a Sensual Sex session will be highly erotic and you can swing between the intensities of the peaks of sex and the exquisiteness of the valleys.

It’s all good! So allow for all types of sex in your life, from the simple to the spicy (whatever that is for you) and you’ll keep your sexual connection strong and your life so much more satisfying.

Three things a man need to come into a positive masculinity:

1) Self-worth through Purpose

It’s critical for a man to have a clear sense of purpose in his life. I so often see men having relationship and sexual problems in part because they don’t have a strong sense of purpose. This leads to a dependance on being satisfied from his partner, manifesting as an unattractive neediness (a self aware woman will not find neediness appealing). Or it will lower his sense of self-worth, creating a wimpish energy causing his partner to be too strong and controlling, just to survive. Other men do the opposite, feeling a lack of purpose and therefore a lack of self worth in themselves, they make up for it by becoming dominant and aggressive.

A man who is centered and in purpose will move purposefully through life, not needy of validation by others, less blown around by the whims of others, less given to maudlin self-doubt, and less prone to denial covered by aggression.

2) Communion with the Masculine

Men need other men. Not in the sitting around drinking cups of tea and chatting way that women need other women. Men more generally will ‘do’ things together; tinker in the shed, throw a ball around, go sailing, fishing, motorbike riding, play war games. It may or may not involve much talking, that doesn’t matter. It’s being with other men, what I call ‘communing’ with other men that matters.

3) Union with the Feminine

Yes, a man in a relationship needs sex. More so than women do. In fact, after talking so intimately with so many men, I actually believe that men are much more emotional about sex than women are. For a start, men’s sexual drive tends to be more physical than a woman’s, so the urge is stronger. If this was all it was though, then masturbating would be enough.

More importantly, men need sex with their woman to connect with her, to feel her, to know the deepest realest side of her. They crave union with her. A man who has this connection will feel so much more satisfied with himself and his life.


But to achieve this is not easy.

Too many men go straight for the third, looking to sex to give them fulfillment, without working on the first two. But without the first two he won’t be the type of man that allows for true union and therefore powerfully staisfying sex. The more on purpose in himself and in communion with other men a man is, the better able he will be to be the centred open man required to enable his partner to come fully into her feminine and through that have powerfully connected and erotic sex.

Just as in my last post I wrote about how we undervalue the feminine in our society, I believe we get the masculine just as wrong.

Since we’ve had a few thousand years of not valuing the feminine, in place we’ve had an unnatural, overly arrogant masculine. A masculine more defined by the ability to dominate and control than one defined by true strength and openness.

So there has been a complete imbalance in society with a weak feminine and dominant masculine. With the social changes over the past decades, many people are changing. But just as I pointed out in the last post that now too many women have rejected the weak feminine, but have instead adopted masculine traits without honouring and expressing their feminine; so are many men these days rejecting the dominant and negative masculine, but unfortunately instead are embracing an overly soft, let’s face it, fairly insipid energy.

So many people are confused by how they should be, and I believe this is because we have polarised the masculine and feminine so strongly. No woman wants to be a pathetic doormat, but is the only alternative to be an arrogant domineeering male clone? No self-aware man wants to be a macho shit, but is the only alternative to be sensative new age wimp?

Not at all. But it is only when we understand the masculine and feminine energies as equal complements, yin and yang, that we can embrace both of them within ourselves, and through that within our society.

Both are strong, both are soft, both protect, both nurture. But the essence of each is different. That is what every man and every woman has to find within themselves to become whole.

So many of my female clients complain that their man is not a man, and so many of my male clients confess that they don’t really know what it is to be a man.

The essence of a man is to be strong on the outside and soft on the inside. It is his place to go off and fight dragons and save damsels in distress, but it is equally his place to come home and honour his woman, to write her poetry, bring her gifts and love and adore her. In this way she knows she can depend on him, yet he also opens himself to her, lets her inside. In doing this, he allows her to let go and show her real self too.

If he is too much the wimp, she’ll have to do the holding herself, and won’t be able to let go. If he’s too much the macho shit, she won’t be able to get inside him and they’ll stay separated.

These are variations of dynamics I see all the time. But once the man ‘gets’ it, and the woman ‘gets’ it, then magic starts happening. Particularly sexually.

I believe we strongly undervalue the feminine in this society. It’s a theme I deal with over and over again. Yes, we had women’s liberation in the 70s, and that was a great thing which has led to a definite improvement in the status of women. So far so good. But…to achieve that status women had to prove that they could be like men, which they did. That’s fine, but what it did was show that women could be masculine and meet masculine values. It didn’t raise the value of the feminine. Which is why several decades on women have to be like men to succeed in society , ie embody the masculine.

Now everyone does have masculine and feminine in them, and a well-developed person will have a pretty good balance within themselves. But the essence of each is different, and if we reject one thinking the other is somehow better then we reject a major aspect of ourselves. (The new age snags are the reverse version of this.)

The essence of the feminine is to be soft on the outside and strong on the inside. In fact it’s only by being soft on the outside that your inner strength that emanate. Otherwise as a woman you’re creating a false strength on the outside, which is hard to sustain, is brittle and prevents your true strength from blossoming and showing.

So much of my work with women is essentially around this. It sounds esoteric, but once you ‘get’ it it makes such a difference at so many levels.

I want to stress that I am NOT talking about women being soft and weak and pathetic. That people think that’s what I’m talking about is just proof that our society devalues the feminine. It is strong to be soft. We need more of the feminine in this society. We need women to embrace their essential selves.

You can then express your femininity in many different ways – I’ve come up with 14 different feminine archetypes, many of them very strong (Dominatrix, Vamp, Ice Queen, Amazon). There is no limitation in how you express yourself as a woman. The important thing is that you be real and embrace the power and glory of being a woman.

To find the light you have to face the darkness. There is no light without darkness. The darkness is at the base, and our sexuality stems from the base.

So we have to face our sexuality and the darkness there.

Otherwise we live in fear and the fear holds us in, keeps us small, keeps us tight. It prevents us from sharing our energy with others, with the world, with ourselves.

That energy is a positive thing. That energy is our power, it’s our magnificence, it’s our light. We need to free it and let it flow.

Then our light will shine and we will find the light, we will be the light.

Yesterday I had a wonderful meeting with a wise person. It was one of those meetings where two hours pass in a flash of enthralled conversation. I was sharing my views on sex and life and he listened in rapt attention, so pleased to have found someone who ‘gets it’. As a spiritual seeker himself he said that he had looked for someone who understood what sex was really about, to no avail. There were your sexpots, promoting a raunchy and generally superficial approach to sex; there were your spiritual hippie types who might get it but seemed too removed from modern urban reality; and there were your clinicians with their ‘jolly good, sex is a healthy activity’ approach which was all a bit dry and unsexy. All useful approaches in themselves, but not any of them holistic.

So to find someone who combined the scientific and the the spiritual and had a definite sexual edge, well, bring it on!

As he put it so well: Sex is the Base. It’s where life comes from, it’s where everything comes from. All these seekers of meaning and purpose and growth and development won’t get where they’re going unless they address sex. All aspects of sex. The dark and the light, the yin and the yang, the sensual and the sordid, the serious and the play. Sex is a microcosm of our lives. To put it to one side and get on with ‘the rest of life’ is simply not possible. Not if you want to be complete.

Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, energetically – sex is there in all of it. The poetry and the beauty, the distruction and the chaos. It’s all life, it all stems from sex.

I think that’s one of the reasons why seeing a sex therapist can be so effective in enabling change in people’s lives. Until that’s unblocked, there can’t be real change in people’s lives. The energy needs to flow through your bodies and out into your lives. It has to be unblocked at the base to flow freely, for you to be free.

Believe it or not, I’m sitting at an outdoor bar, mocktail at hand, overlooking a beach fringed with palm trees in Vietnam. It’s pretty special.

Last week I attended a Spiritual Retreat here. While it wasn’t specifically sexual in nature, you can’t separate sex and spirituality.

A key element of spiritual work, and of the Retreat, is raising your energy. You do this through meditation and mindfulness. But it’s not what we often consider meditation, which is a slowing of energy, a deep relaxation. That’s wonderful and good, but it’s different to raising the energy. When you go into meditation with the intent to raise your energy you go places. You feel lighter, spin faster. You get messages and have visions. It is an altered consciousness.

This is why conscious sex is so good for spiritual development, because sex raises your energy. Even if you have the most basic, unconnected sex, sparks of light will still fly. So if you approach sex with presence, intent and release of self, you really do get taken to extraordinary places of exceptional ecstatic pleasure.

In these realms the genitals barely matter, they’re just a means to feel with the whole of your body and beyond your body.

This applies to partnered sex, to solo sex, and to your relationship with life. Because life is is sex. As Paulo Coelho says “…the language of the soul is sex.” Life energy is sexual energy. We try and compartmentalise it in our society, but it’s part of everything. Living mindfully, consciously, with presence, is about raising your energy. That in itself is having a sexual relationship with life, with the universe.

Then in the microcosm of your sexual union with another, or with yourself, you hone and enhance your ability to raise the energy, to go to ecstatic places. Then that energy is taken back into the rest of your life, you emanate it, and life itself becomes ecstatic.

Easy to say perhaps, sitting on a tropical beach with mocktail in hand! But how do you think I got here…?

Raise your energies: live mindfully, love consciously.

Today I’m going to talk about solo sex. That’s right, masturbation, wanking, self-pleasuring, or as they refer to it in the ancient Taoist sexual tracts, self-cultivation.

The reason for this is that it has been a recurrent theme over the past two weeks.
I gave the final talk at a singles expo in Sydney, and then I ran a Luscious Woman 1 workshop a week later. Solo sex was a prominent topic in both the presentation and the seminar. And as ever, it has been a common topic in work with private clients too.

Why is this? Because the ability to self-pleasure is an important aspect of sexual empowerment and of sexual development.

Unfortunately it has had a bad rap over recent centuries, seen as something unpleasant, even sinful, and done furtively and secretly. How many of you have had in-depth conversations with your friends on your favourite masturbatory techniques? Or as adolescents did your mothers encourage you to self-pleasure to explore your budding sexuality? I doubt it. Shame, because it would have made a positive difference to your experience of sex.

It’s never too late, and I encourage everyone to enjoy the pleasures of solo sex. It’s a healthy part of everyone’s sex life, whether you’re single or partnered. People often think it’s secondary to partnered sex, and only something you’d do if you weren’t getting ‘the real thing’. But solo sex is fabulous in its own right, and when done well can enhance your ability to have better partnered sex.

For men, through masturbation you can learn to manage your level of arousal and control your ejaculation. For men who want to learn the skill of having orgasm without ejaculation, self-cultivation is an essential part of the practice.

It’s unfortunate that adolescent boys tend to masterbate so furtively and quickly; no wonder so many adult men have problems with premature ejaculation – they’ve trained themselves to come quickly! If this is your problem, or your partner’s, you can retrain yourself through solo practice. And if you have sons, tell them to take it slowly! I told my own 12 year-old this the other day, his response was a disgusted: “Aw, Mum, do you have to talk about that….(thoughtful pause)… really?!” (It must be hard at times having a sex therapist as a mother. Although he did top the year in sex ed – I was so proud!)

Ladies, solo sex is essential to your sexual confidence and heightened sexual response. Too often we only experience ourselves as sexual beings in relation to a man. That is, we need a man involved to feel sexual. The first step in sexual empowerment is to feel sexual just as ourselves. Once you have this feeling you can take it into partnered sex for a far more satisfying experience.

So ladies, make love to yourselves regularly. Set the scene with music and light, enjoy the feel of your body with creams or oils. Then take your time to arouse yourself. You can do it on the bed, in the bath, or as one previously anorgasmic client of mine did, on the shag pile in her walk-in robe surrounded by all her favourite clothes!

The goal is not just orgasm, but also the sensations en route to orgasm. As with the men, you can learn to manage your arousal and your orgasms (although in contrast to the men, who in general will be learning to delay orgasm, you’ll generally be learning to bring on orgasm and to expand and multiply orgasms, lucky women that we are!).

And while you’re enjoying your self-pleasuring, let your mind roam free. You don’t have to fantasize, but it can be a great way to bring on and enhance orgasm. Hey, it’s just you and Brad Pitt (or in my case, Johnny Depp – there’s no Keira Knightley in my swash-buckling fantasies…)

If your reaction to this post is one of aversion, or ‘I couldn’t possibly’, I wish you could see the radiant beams of clients who couldn’t orgasm until they learnt to self-pleasure (and the radiant beams of their partners!). As one of the participants boldly stated in the closing activity of a recent Luscious Woman workshop, as we all danced around in a circle and took turns to make our statements: “I dare to expand my sexuality through embracing self-pleasure!”

A male client sent me a lovely email the other day, thanking me for teaching him a specific energy circulating technique. This is what he wrote:

Dear Jacqueline,

Just want to really thank you again for the techniques you taught me… I've also been working on that circular technique you discussed with me and had my first real full success with it the other evening. I could actually feel the sensation go from the base of the penis, through the perineum, right up my back and into my head where I let it float around for a while and then down over my face (a sensation almost like fingertips gentling touching my face) and then (when I decided) feeling it float down over my chest, through my belly and then ultimately back into my groin and penis. I managed to get that circular motion to repeat a few times and ultimately the resulting orgasm was absolutely sensational and left me with such a sense of whole body well-being, it was just magic. I enjoyed it so much I can't wait for my next chance :)

The exercise he’s talking about is called the Microcosmic Circuit and comes from the Taoist Sexual practices. This is is a very simple description on how to do it:

1. Squeeze your pelvic floor muscles three times and imagine energy building up in your pelvic resion.
2. Breathe in and imagine the energy moving from your genitals, up your coccyx, up your spine, to the top of your head.
3. Breathe out and image the energy moving down the centre of your face, through your tongue, down your neck, chest and abdomen, to rest in your centre (just below your belly button).

Notes:
- Keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
- Do nine sequences.
- If you feel light-headed breathe normally a couple of times between sequences.
- If you find it difficult to visualise the energy going all the way to the crown of your head, do it in stages: up to lower back and down, then to upper back and down, then to neck and down, then all the way to the top and down the front.

The purpose of this exercise is to learn to move the sexual energy away from the genitals and into the whole body. Ultimately you can learn to have whole body orgasms rather than just genital orgasms. This is fantastic for men and for women. For men it has the added advantage of helping them to last longer and avoid premature ejaculation. Men can even learn to orgasm without ejaculation with this technique. It’s also very helpful in allowing better connection and intimacy with your partner. All in all, a good technique to familiarise yourself with.

If you’d like more detail, I suggest you purchase my info video Circulating Sexual Energy – Solo from the video page, it’s only $7.70 and you’ll see me demonstrating the technique.

Just because all the media hype promotes thin people as being ‘sexier’ doesn’t mean it’s true. Even if they were sexier, it doesn’t mean they have better sex than people with a bit more flesh on them.

I mean, do you prefer your partner built for comfort or for speed?

I remember a party I was at in my 20’s, talking to another woman who was a little on the plump side, rather voluptuous. She was bemoaning how unattractive she was and wishing she was thin like me: “Because men like thin women”. “Rubbish!” I replied – and went on to prove it by asking every young man in the room whose figure they preferred, hers or mine. All but one (including my future husband!) admitted they preferred her figure. She was astounded. She’d really believed the hype about thinness. It completely changed her attitude to herself in general and to her sexuality in particular. It gave her greater self-esteem. And that made her sexier.

Because when you think about what makes for sexiness and good sex – self-confidence is a major factor. If you think there’s something about you that’s not appealing, you’ll feel less sexy, and that means you will actually be less sexy.

Sexy is head stuff. It comes from within your head. How you feel is how you are.

It doesn’t matter what size you are. Full-figured, voluptuous people can be far more luscious than skinny twigs. All that flesh and softness and roundness – just like a juicy peach

And in one of those weird paradoxes that life, and sexuality, is full of – if you feel you’re unattractive you’re less likely to have sex so you’ll feel less attractive which means you’ll have less sex, and so it goes. In contrast, if you feel reasonably confident and have sex, you’ll improve your self-esteem which will make you feel more attractive and means you’ll have more sex and feel even better about yourself!

It’s your choice whether you buy into the media hype about sexy slimness and follow the negative feedback loop, or whether you tune into the luscious sexiness within you, regardless of your shape, and follow the positive feedback loop.

There might be a few positions that are trickier for a fuller figure – but you don’t need bells and whistles for great sex. But having said that, fuller figured people can use any number of props and toys to add comfort and titillation to their sexual activities.

One problem I have heard from larger people is that they get tired more quickly. Well, that’s only a problem if you make it one – it can also be a great reason for interspersing more intense sexual activity with some long, slow, sensuous activities. In fact, that’s what great sex is!

You’re only limited by your beliefs, and are as free as your imagination takes you. Whoever you are.

And for an added bonus, an active sex life helps keep you in shape. It mightn’t make you skinny – but it will help keep you fit, supple and toned, whatever your size.

So, what’s holding bigger people back from fabulous sex – being out of shape and low physical self-esteem? Well then – have some sex!

Big Sex is Beautiful Sex!!

(And for those of us on the skinny side – Skinny Sex Is Great Too! It’s All Great!)