As with the five languages of love, I also believe there are seven languages of sex. These ‘languages’ represent our eroticism, our sexual taste. So perhaps rather than ‘languages’ it’s better to think of them like flavours or ‘cuisines’. Different cuisines use ingredients differently and the seven ‘cuisines’ of sex experience sex differently.

As with the languages of love, these seven flavours of sex are all important, yet most people will have their preferences, with some being more important than others, in life in general and at specific times. 

The seven flavours of sex are:

Physical

People with this eroticism love the physicality of sex. They like the rumpy-pumpy. They are particularly focused on the genitals and genital orgasms, anything else is a distraction or just the lead-up to the main event. They tend to have an intense sexual energy and are direct and to the point when it comes to sex.

Playful

People with a playful eroticism like to play! Their energy is upbeat. They might actually like to play sexual games, role play, dress-up, use toys., always with a sense of ‘Ooh, what fun!’. They are cheeky and flirty.

Sensual

People with a sensual eroticism love to engage all the senses. Atmosphere is important, with music, lighting scent and textures important (and no mess!). Their energy is slow and languid. They take their time and focus on sensation.

Mystical

People with an energy eroticism love the ‘spaces in between’, the very subtle, not quite there. This could be a sense of anticipation or what is to come, or the sinking in to moments of stillness and presence in order to feel more. They focus on subtle internal sensations. This is the opposite to the physicalists and is a flavour that is not well appreciated in our culture of bigger, harder, faster,

Wicked

People with a wicked eroticism like the thrill of danger, power exchange, playing on the edge. They enjoy a sense of transgression. This can take many forms: exhibitionism and voyeurism, playing on the edge of pleasure and pain, exploring the polarity of dominance and submission.

Romantic

For people with a romantic sexual flavour, it’s all about the romance, the heart connection, the love. They are less concerned about ‘what’ they are doing and more about the fact that they are engaged with their beloved. Or it might just be a simple cuddly kind of sexual encounter.

Mental

People who have a mental eroticism get turned on by the mind. This could be the classic sapiosexual who gets turned on by brilliant minds. Or they might feel connected and loved up through conversation in general, or they might love to talk about sex and their sexuality;,or they might like thinking about and planning sexual exploits.

How do we apply these in life and love? Well, to use the food analogy, an ingredient is used differently depending on the flavour you’re wanting to create. An onion, for example, will be used differently if you’re cooking a stir-fry, a curry or making a salad, yet it's the same onion. It’s the same with the Seven Flavours of Sex.

Let’s look at an example, outdoor sex:

• For someone with a sensual flavour, outdoor sex will be about the sensation of the outdoors, the sun and breeze on their skin, the scents.
• For someone with a playful flavour, it could be that they want to play hide-and-seek (and who know what will happen when you’re found…!).
• For someone with a romantic flavour it could be that ‘oh, we could have a picnic together and it would so beautiful and connecting, and then make love on the picnic rug…”.
• For someone with a wicked flavour it could be that “mmm, someone might see us…”.
• For someone with a physical flavour it could be that “we could do it up against a tree, yeah, never done that before!”.

Another example could be using rope:

• For someone with a wicked flavour (the one we tend to go to when thinking of rope) it could be the enjoyment of tying someone up and having power over them (with their permission of course).
• For someone with a mystical flavour it could be the blissful space they go into when being tied up.
• For someone with a sensual flavour it could be the sensation of having rope running over their skin.
• For someone with a playful flavour it could be role-playing captor and captured.
• For someone with a romantic flavour it could be tying themselves together like an extension of cuddle.
• For someone with a physical flavour it could be: tie this ankle to one side of the bed, this ankle to the other side, and bingo, easy access!

So, a couple could be engaging in sex outdoors, or using rope, but having different experience of the behaviour. Therefore, questions like: “Do you like sex outside?” or “Do you want to try using rope?” are too limiting. Once you know your own and your partner’s flavours, you can speak to the eroticism. If you’d like to try using rope for example, you might ask your partner: “How do you feel about rope, how would it be for you?” And if you know that you for example, would experience in a more wicked way, ie the thought of having control over your partner while they are tied up thrills you, yet you know that they are very sensual, then you would discuss it from a more sensual perspective to get them engaged with the idea.

You might also find that you in the mood for different flavours at different times. Or that you start with one flavour before you move into another.

And of course, these aren't seven discrete types, you might be in the mood for romantically playful connection, or wickedly mystical, or any other combination.

It's all about having language and concepts to become more self-aware and to be able to communicate your needs and desires to your partner, so that you can co-create intimate/erotic/sexual encounters - just the way you want them.

I find that too much of our language and concepts around sex imply that speed is good and slowness is bad. This is really not at all helpful in creating great sexual experiences. Instead of people relaxing and chilling and opening to each other, there’s pressure to get aroused quickly and have intense experiences. And if there’s one thing that gets in the way of being able to become aroused, let alone to actually enjoy sex, it’s pressure.

For example, recent additions to our sex vocabulary are sexual ‘accelerators’ and sexual ‘brakes’, with the accelerators being good and the brakes being bad. Now I know that the intention behind the language is to identify what things are helpful to you sexually and what are hindrances. But why use language that implies speed is good and slowness is bad? Why not use terms like enhancers and detractors? Or as I like to think of it, in my usual evocative style, things that make you go ‘mmm’ and things that make you go ’ngh’.

Less overtly, so often people have a speed-based concept of sex. Take the concept of libido, more often ‘high libido’ is attributed to people who get aroused quickly and  ‘low libido’ is attributed to people who become aroused slowly. And of course those with ‘low libido’ are seen as the problem. Why, because they are too slow. Which often leads to the slower one having sex before they’re ready, which,as  I’ve said before, is like eating food that’s undercooked – there’s nothing wrong with the food per se, it’s just not ready to be eaten.

But, like food, sex is best enjoyed slowly, with presence, savouring the experience of the eating. Not scoffing it down to get to the end. Or any other activity you do for pleasure together, like going for a walk or enjoying a show – you enjoy the process of the activity, not race through to the end of it!

So, whether it’s in the getting to sex phase or the having sex phase, take your time, enjoy the process, no pressure! Remember, the point of sex is connection through pleasure, so make every part pleasurable and connecting. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it, how you’re experiencing it.

There is already so much speed in modern life. Take the pressure off, particularly in the bedroom, and take your time, savour your lovemaking. You’ll find it so much more enjoyable, connecting and rejuvenating – all the things sex is supposed to be!

The best sex is rarely spontaneous. Or if it is, it’s because the conditions were right for it be ‘spontaneous’.

People often complain to me that their sex isn’t spontaneous. As though that’s a bad thing. They often reminisce about the early days when sex was so easy and apparently ‘spontaneous’. But, I challenge them, was it really spontaneous? I point out that back then sex was anything but spontaneous: there were days of anticipation, thinking about your new love interest, you’d spend time preparing to meet, looking good. Then when you met, you’d be doing interesting things, you were fascinated in each other, you’d spend hours talking or dancing or having fun. So, by the time you got home you couldn’t wait to rip your clothes off….

That wasn’t spontaneous. There were days and hours of looking forward to, thinking about, engaging with, before you got sexual.

Then time passes and people move in together, and all of life comes into the relationship: work, logistics, kids, finances, etc., etc. They work all day, deal with life matters, maybe sit in front of a screen for an hour or more… then collapse into bed exhausted, totally spent… and think they should suddenly turn into some ravenous sex fiend and have spontaneous sex!

No. It wasn’t spontaneous at the beginning. It was good because the conditions were right. Like anything else good in life. Think about it – how often has an experience been spontaneously good? Occasionally perhaps, but not regularly. You want to catch up with friends, go to a show, play some sport, have a holiday, cook a good meal – it all takes planning, making space in your life, making sure you have in place the elements that make it good. If you want a good meal you have to make sure your kitchen is stocked with the right ingredients, you need the time and energy to cook, and have the knowledge and skills to cook well. If you have all of those, then yes, you can spontaneously cook a good meal.

So, if you want to ‘spontaneously’ have good sex, you can if you’ve set up your life to enable sex to happen easily. That means you need to:

• create the time and space in your life
• not be too tired
• not be too distracted
• be feeling connected with your partner
• be in a relaxed, appealing environment
• pace the approach and interaction so that you both become aroused, don’t rush it
• know what each other likes and needs in general
• be able to communicate what you want and need in the moment
• not have expectations that cause pressure and anxiety
•  enjoy the pleasure of connection and co-create a lovely experience moment by moment

Have all that happening, and you’ll live in what I call the ‘simmer zone’, where you’re feeling loved-up, connected, relaxed and alive. From that space sex can be spontaneous, because you’ve made your life and relationship sex-friendly.

Client after client sits on the couch in my consulting room wishing they didn’t have their sexual difficulties and were ‘normal’. After hearing their stories, I give them both the bad news and the good news – they are ‘normal’. In our society sexual struggles, difficulties are confusions are the norm. It’s a rare person who is totally comfortable in their sexuality.

Which isn’t surprising as we get no sex education. If we’re lucky we get a bit of reproduction education, which let’s face it, isn’t that complicated. And that’s not why humans have sex – we predominantly have sex to connect through pleasure. But we’re not taught anything about connection nor about pleasure. We’re not taught about how to be in tune with our needs and desires. We’re not taught how to communicate those needs and desires. We’re not taught how to listen to our partner’s and co-create experiences based on both parties needs and desires. We’re not taught how sex changes with different stages of life and how to enjoy all the different phases, nor how it can evolve for the better over a long relationship. We’re not even taught what quality sex is. And we don’t talk about it.

Imagine if we did that with food! Imagine if you couldn’t tell your partner you didn’t like eggplant even though they served it up frequently. Imagine if you weren’t sure if it was ok to have afternoon tea. Imagine if you couldn’t obtain any information about broccoli and how to cook it. How many people would have good food-lives?

It sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous. But that’s how we are with sex. We don’t know, we don’t talk about it and it’s very hard to get good information. Yet we are surrounded by “sex-positive” messaging that says we should be having good sex, we should be enthusiastically and frequently engaging in that good sex, and there’s a problem if we’re not.

Well, I certainly agree that we should be engaging enthusiastically and frequently in good sex! But I also know that we need to develop the sexual knowledge, self-awareness, and relational skills to be able to create that good sex.

Which is where I come in! Having devoted my life to understanding the art and science of sex, I know that with quality information and loving support it’s generally not that difficult to ditch the myths, shift the negative blocks, get in tune with yourself and learn to communicate positively about sex with your partner. It’s what keeps me going in this work.

I do get despondent seeing the anguish and the aloneness people feel in their ‘problems’, but I also love seeing the shifts as people free themselves to enjoy this gorgeous part of life. Whether it’s through private sessions, or attending retreats, or even just from reading this blog (I love the feedback!), I love to help people discover just how wonderful their sexuality can be and to become what should be ‘normal’ in what is still an abnormal society.

Just by reading this you are part of the shift in society to understanding quality, life-enhancing sex and relating. Go you! Be the ripple that spreads a truly positive sexuality until everyone is loved-up and feeling the joy of an authentic expressive sexuality. What a great world that would be! Let’s all do our bit to saving the world – one love life at a time…

We tend to think that the definition of ‘libido’ is sex drive, how much you want sex, or how often you get horny. But the original meaning of the word libido is life force energy. I think that is a much better way to conceptualise libido.

In the oriental traditions they say that the sexual energy is transformed into the life energy, the chi or ki. That’s what I notice clinically too. When people are flat, exhausted, stressed, depressed, their life force is low and they tend not to want sex. When people are engaged and joyful and connected, then they tend to be open to sex. Interestingly, I do see people with low life force who want sex, but it’s usually to relieve stress or because they’re bored and want a ‘hit’; and I see people with high life force who say they don’t want sex, but that’s usually because their concept of sex isn’t appealing or their experience of it hasn’t been great.

So, anything you do that enhances your life force will enhance your libido.

Being is nature is a great way to do this. Nature is full of life force – it’s where life comes from! Bathing in nature’s life force is so enhancing of our own.

I just spent two weeks camping in central Australia. It was a total experience of this libidinal life force! There was the vast open desert, incredible rock formations, hidden gorges, oases, towering river red gums, multitudes of wildflowers, wallabies, emu, and so many different birds… Waking up to the dawn chorus of birdsong, walking all day and sitting around an open fire as the sun set, were such connected, spiritual experiences.

It's bathing in nature. It’s cleansing the spirit and the soul with nature. It’s allowing freshness and goodness and joy to permeate and fill your being. It’s libido, being in tune with life and nature, untarnished with the stress and negative energies of modern living.

The more you can bring this into your life the better. With plants, art, good food, beautiful relaxing spaces, music. And making love in the way I advocate! Not some sordid pornfest but connected, slow, intimate (which can also be playful and wild and wicked, the two aren’t mutually exclusive) – real, authentic, deep and light, blissful and transcendent.

Sex like this is also life force-enhancing, libido-enhancing, so it becomes a positive feedback loop, enhancing all of life and love!

It's why my clinic is full of plants and has beautiful views of trees, why my own home blurs the boundaries of garden and house, and why I hold my retreats in beautiful locations surrounded by nature. I encourage you to create this in your own life too!

When a wine ages well it becomes more complex, layered, subtle. You want to savour the experience of drinking it, not guzzle it down. Sex that ages well is the same. Mature sex takes its time, appreciates all aspects of the experience, doesn’t set out to hit ‘goals’, just enjoys the experience as it unfolds.

Actually, ideally sex at any age should be like this, an experience you savour and appreciate moment by moment, rather than consuming it rapidly to get to the ‘end point’.

Yet I do think that this kind of sex, actually making love, can become easier with age.

That is if we’re aging well. If you’re caught up in the belief that only youthful physicality is good, that anything different from what we were like at 25 is somehow less, then you won’t age well. You’ll feel inadequate, slow, ugly, sexually ‘past it’. To age well you need to notice and appreciate all the positives that come with age – qualities like wisdom, confidence, patience, not to mention things like financial security and more time. When we take all of those good qualities into our sex life, we really can engage in the way I always promote – with a chilled build, with mutuality, without expectation, no KPIs other than pleasure and connection. With this comes the ability to have self-awareness to express what you want and like and the safety and compassion to hear what your partner likes and wants. From that you co-create beautiful, meaningful experiences, whether they are simple, brief loving encounters or hours of erotic interplay. A whole realm of sexual engagement is available to you, depending on what is right for you at that time. It’s what you co-create moment-by-moment.

That is an experience to savour, one to finish on a high with and to take that goodness out into the rest of life. If being able to afford and appreciate a good wine in this way is a benefit of age, well then, the holistic, life-enhancing advantages of mature lovemaking take the benefits way beyond those of a mere wine!

I had a client come to see me this morning. She opened up with: “I don’t want to be here as I know you are going to judge me.” She then confessed that she finds a work colleague attractive. And then went into a long, confused, fraught spiel about what it did or didn’t mean. 

I didn’t judge her. I did help her figure out what was going on for her.

To summarise: 

• No, you’re not a bad person if you find people other than your partner sexually attractive.
• No, you’re not being unfaithful if you find people other than your partner sexually attractive.
• No, it doesn’t mean there’s a problem with your relationship if you find people other than your partner sexually attractive.

It is totally normal and fine to have those feelings. The issue is what you do about them.

If you act on those feelings and are unfaithful to your partner then that is not good. That’s a problem. (Unless you have negotiated and agreed to a consensually non-monogamous relationship with your partner and this is within the parameters of what’s agreed to).

But what’s also not good is if you judge yourself. That’s feeding more negativity into what you are feeling and making the situation worse.

So, what to do? 

1. Accept the feeling. It’s actually a nice feeling. It’s not that dissimilar to seeing a nice slice of cake and thinking about how delicious it would be to eat it. It’s a good feeling to feel attraction and also to feel attractive if you sense the feeling is mutual, it’s a buzz, it’s tapping into a life force energy. 
2. But know if for what it is, simply an attraction, a fantasy, a nice feeling. It’s not a reality. The reality of acting on the feeling might be momentarily nice, like eating the slice of cake, but unlike a fantasy, the reality has consequences.
3. Choose not to act on it.

Now, it is possible that finding someone else attractive could highlight dissatisfaction in your own relationship. In which case, talk about it and improve your own relationship.

It’s also true that the feelings could be hard to deal with, especially if the object of desire is someone you see frequently. That’s where willpower and self-control come in. Just like with not eating a slice of cake even if it looks particularly delicious.

I would also suggest that it’s preferable not to be fantasizing about that person while making love with your partner. If the thought comes into your mind at that time, don’t panic, just open your eyes and smile at them and come into the present moment.

As humans, there really are many things in life that are attractive and appealing, including other people. And also as humans, we have the power of choice to decide on how we engage with those attractive and appealing things, whether it’s cake, pokie machines, online shopping, alcohol, drugs or the cute new colleague.

Download Audio: Get Off the Hedonistic Treadmill!

So many people consume sex like other goods. Like good little capitalists they crave and crave, wanting more and more: bigger, harder, faster, more diversity, more people, more orgasms, more toys, more excitement, more, more, more…

Popular culture encourages this with porn’s approach to creating craving for more and more.

Even in alternative, spiritual sexuality there’s often still this craving – for the cosmic orgasm, the kundalini rush, the bliss beyond.

Give us the tip, what’s the technique, show us the method… All wanting the bigger and better, the more.

It’s exhausting!

And it doesn’t lead anywhere. Other than an endless desperate yearning for some level of satisfaction that can never be reached.

It’s a hedonistic treadmill. As one male client who’d been on the treadmill for years, thinking he was cool and sexually open, said: “where was it all going to end – with a cock in each orifice and a zucchini up my nose?!” What an absurd situation!

As that client came to realise, sexual satisfaction doesn’t come from constantly chasing sensation on the outside. It comes from savouring sensation from within, exploring the subtle, the slow, the simple. And while that can of course include any activity or prop that takes your fancy, those elements are there to enhance an experience, not to chase a result.

Slow the fuck down! Literally.

Get off the hedonistic treadmill. Savour what you are experiencing in the moment.

And paradoxically, that will lead to better  sexual response, orgasm, kundalini flow and bliss…

I often see clients who have put their partner on a sexual pedestal. They believe their partner has their sexual act together, and somehow they have to meet their partner’s sexual level. I see this whether in long-term relationships or in casual encounters.

It’s this belief that you are sexual inadequate and your partner is sexually competent, and you set the sexual bar at the other’s supposed level of sexuality.

This approach is destined to fail.

• For a start, no-one is perfectly sexually proficient, we’re all fallible human beings who are never perfect or totally competent in any area of life.
• Secondly, sexuality is an ever-fluctuating thing, it’s never a static constant ‘level’.
• And most importantly, quality sex is never about meeting another person’s sexual needs/wants/expectations, it’s about two people co-creating a unique experience of pleasure and connection based on their own desires moment-by-moment.

I do see this a lot more in women than in men (including same sex attracted women). No doubt it comes from all those millenia of patriarchy where a women’s sexual role was solely to satisfy the husband. At least back then the demands weren’t so high, just lie back and think of England while he does his business inside you, and pop out a couple of heirs along the way. These days though, the assumed sexual bar is way higher. Women feel they have to provide all sorts of sexual services to satisfy their partner’s presumed expectations.

>And yes, there are men who are still caught up in a toxic masculinity of sexual entitlement. But when we really get down to it, it’s a rare person who wants to engage sexually with a partner who doesn’t want to be there, especially when it’s someone you love.

Often women don’t even realise they’ve internalised an assumption that they have to meet their partner’s needs. They are often shocked to realise they’ve unconsciously put him or her on a pedestal, and that that is why they are feeling inadequate.

Men certainly do this too. I see so many men who are also burdened by the weight of assumed expectations and requirements. The pressure and the anxiety it causes leads them either to avoid sex or to have erectile and ejaculatory problems if they do engage.

Can you see what the underlying problem is here? Notice all the words I’ve used – belief, supposed, assumed, presumed. You don’t know, you’re assuming!

So, the solution is straightforward – find out. Ask, talk, discuss, get curious.

My last blog article was about finessing your understanding of your partner, and there is no area of relational life that requires more understanding, than the sexual. So much of our sexuality is unspoken, unshared, unknown (often even our own, let alone our partner’s). Yet without that awareness of self and other, it’s impossible to co-create. In the sexual realm that means limiting ourselves sexually and generally falling into set scripts and often resulting in little, if any, sex at all.

It’s actually one of the things I love most about my work, seeing how people transform when they realise that they’ve been operating under a whole lot of assumptions about sex and about their partner, which has kept them closed-off, fearful, anxious, feeling inadequate and unsure. That’s a very heavy mantel to be cloaking yourself with in an area of life that is supposed to be light and pleasurable and connecting.

Just this week a couple I’ve been working with for some months came in. Despite her husband’s ongoing insistence that he didn’t want to have sex with her if she didn’t want it, and that he really wanted to know what she wanted, she was really struggling to believe him and remove her entrenched beliefs that sex revolved around his supposed requirements that she had to meet. She attended my Luscious Woman Workshop and came into the next session bright-eyed and beaming saying: “I get it! I totally get it!” Going on to explain how finally being able to let go of all those assumed expectations was such a weight lifted that she is now able to be free to feel and express what she wants. They are now loving the mutuality of sexual intimacy, the lightness and freedom, and are feeling it flow through the whole of their lives together.

This is such a good example of how profound and liberating it is when you can feel and express your authentic sexual self.