My last post was on moving from a lust-led to a love-led approach to sex. It’s an approach where you come together not because you’re ‘horny’, and already feeling aroused, but because you want to co-create an experience of connection and pleasure, which may or may not include the genitals.

The challenge with this approach is, without the lust, how do you get started?

As a client of mine said recently, the lust is the ‘first domino to fall’ and then the rest just flows naturally, without effort. So, he was very perplexed as to how to get started if he wasn’t already feeling lustful.

It’s a common problem in long-term relationships. It doesn’t matter how much you love and desire your partner, you’re not always going to both be feeling lustful at the same time (if ever!)

So, create the time and space – don’t leave it until you’ve collapsed into bed exhausted and just want to sleep, and make sure the atmosphere is relaxing and inviting. This isn’t ‘scheduling sex’, it’s ‘creating us-time’. And you’re making the environment work for you. You’ll have the lights dimmed to a comfortable level, the heating or cooling will ensure the temperature is just right and you’ll probably have some music playing.

Then greet each other, honour this space you’re creating. Check in and see where each other is at. You might want to start with some touch or massage, you might want to do a simple eye gaze, you might want to have a connecting conversation, or simply start with a kiss. You might start with a bath, or a shower. You might read together or listen to a story or podcast – erotic or otherwise. You might tease each other as you undress. You sure as hell aren’t going to discuss logistics or bring up difficult conversations. Don’t worry if it feels awkward at first, it probably will, and you’ll get better at it, especially as you discover how enjoyable the results can be.

This approach is relaxing and connecting. It allows the ‘chilled build’ where arousal can grow slowly and steadily. It might get you to where you both want genital connection, our general concept of ‘sex’, or it might not, it might be some other form of intimate, pleasurable connection. But chances are, with this approach to getting started, you’re way more likely to find yourselves having genital sex regularly than if you’re hanging around just waiting for the lust to descend.

If you both happen to be feeling horny at the same time, great, have sex. But chances are you’re not always feeling horny at the same time. So, what do you do? Nothing?

So often couples come to me claiming ‘mismatched libidos’ when all that’s really happening is that they’re not both feeling horny at the same time. One is horny, the other isn’t. Too often the response to that situation is not to have sex, in fact not to have any intimacy at all. This becomes a big problem in the relationship, often resulting in power struggles between one who often feels spontaneously aroused and one who feels aroused less often and less spontaneously. And for many couples, neither of them feels spontaneously aroused, they’ve both “lost their mojo” – and so they aren’t having sex.

Actually, this is only a problem if you think that you have sex because you’re feeling horny, ie you are already aroused. This belief means that if you’re not feeling aroused you think you don’t want sex. So, people wait for the lust to descend…

Waiting…

 waiting…

 waiting…

Sigh. No lust. No sex.

But, if rather than waiting for lust to miraculously descend, you come together out of love, out of a desire to create connection and pleasure, then you can start and see where it goes.

This requires the non-linear approach I always advocate. There is no pressure for anything to happen other than connection and pleasure. Those are the only two KPIs. If, through that connection and pleasure you find yourselves feeling aroused enough for genital engagement and orgasms, great. But it doesn’t have to. In fact most of the time you won’t be connecting your genitals, but you are certainly more likely to if you frequently come together out of love for conversation, passing touch, cuddles, having fun together, being interested in each other, looking at each with soft eyes. When you fill your relationship with these small frequent connections of love and pleasure, you’ll find it so much more likely for your genitals to want to join in some of the time, and you’ll be feeling loved-up and connected most of the time. You will be creating the conditions for arousal to occur rather than waiting for arousal first.

I call this love-led sex rather than lust-led sex. In fact, I just call it lovemaking, because it is literally making love. And this lovemaking isn’t something that occasionally happens in the bedroom, it’s happening all through life.

When it comes to sex, we tend to buy into the myth that bigger, harder, faster is best. While that approach might make for entertaining viewing on screen, what looks good is not necessarily what feels good. What feels good is a balance and a flow between the yin and the yang elements of sex. 

No doubt you are familiar with the Taoist concept of yin and yang, that the whole is made up of complementary opposites. Yin represents the softer, flowing side of life and yang represents the firmer, directed side. Too much of either puts us out of balance and life is not as harmonious as it could be. This applies just as much in our sex life as in the whole of life. In fact, we need the balance in the whole of life to have it in our sex life. Part of the problem is seeing sex as something separate from the rest of life. Thinking of sex as just what happens between two sets of genitals is a big part of the problem, it’s too linear and too detached, too yang.

When we take sex out of the ‘box’, and look at it less as an isolated behaviour separate from life, and view it more systemically, then we stay in a more balanced state sexually. Let’s look at this more specifically.

Starting with the physiology of our bodies, a lot of people would consider the yin and yang of sex as bluntly as being turned on or turned off, which is way too binary - there’s a lot more going on behind all that! What turns us on and turns us off, what enables desire and what dampens it, is a complex interplay within and between our nervous and endocrine systems.

Our nervous system is constantly flowing between the yang, up-regulated sympathetic system and the yin, down-regulated parasympathetic systems. If we are too much in the sympathetic, we’re stressed and we can’t become sexually aroused. Yet if we are too much in the parasympathetic, we’re so down-regulated we fall asleep, and can’t become aroused that way either. We need to be in a balance between the two, in a state of alert-relaxation, and from there flow between more yin parasympathetic romance and tenderness as well as more yang sympathetic system passion and excitement.

Now, in parallel within our nervous system there’s a balance between what we could consider the ‘yin’ hormones of oxytocin and vasopressin, the bonding hormones that give feelings of connection, as well as the endorphins, the feel-good hormones, that are released by tender, cuddly, yin activities; and the yang hormones of dopamine, the reward chemical, that leads you to want more (including more of your true love), and norepinephrine which makes you feel excited.

We need dopamine and norepinephrine, which are stimulated by novelty and interesting activities, so it's important that your relationship is stimulating and not complacent. And we need oxytocin and vasopressin as they are connecting and keep you feeling safe and connected and generally good about each other. So, both the tender affection and interesting activities are necessary in a relationship to produce the balance of bonding and desire. You need to be both tender and flirty, having cuddles on the couch as well as exciting adventures, to create both connection and interest. 

You need the balance in the lead up to sex and you need the balance during sex. Intensity is fine, but if all you’re having is shagadelic sex, striving for orgasmic intensity, then it’s yang without yin. Particularly if it’s tense intensity, which tends to happen if you go too fast too quickly and aren’t ready for it, as this produces cortisol, the long-term stress hormone, which is not good for feeling positive about yourself or your partner.

The focus on intensity, tension and orgasmic climax can also cause a dopamine drop after the big O, leading to a feeling of withdrawal from your partner as well as feeling irritated and disconnected. You need the oxytocin and vasopressin so that you balance out the dopamine drop and keep the happy feelings going. 

What’s happening physiologically then manifests experientially as a flow between the yin and yang emotions – tenderness and passion, romance and eroticism. 

When I talk to clients and others about this approach to sex, many people are so mired in the linear intense approach that they have no concept of what I’m talking about. So, I use metaphors to convey the concept.

A very simple metaphor is music. The standard view of sex is like heavy thrash metal - only intense. Very few us like that kind of music, it’s way too much! Yet we tend to approach sex like that. So ,think of sex more like a symphony, where you have quiet passages as well as more intense passages. There’s a journey in the music, not just one long lead-up to a grand finale.

My favourite metaphor is to think of sex like a picnic. There are no rules as to what you should eat in terms of order, pace and quantity. As enticing as pavlova might be, you don’t have to eat it to have a ‘successful’ picnic, and eating pavlova is certainly not why you’re having a picnic. You’re having a picnic because the whole experience is enjoyable, even if you only eat the dips, and even if you don’t eat at all and just enjoy the conversation.

When you get into a flow, instead of taking a linear direct approach to the main KPI of orgasm, and instead sink into a flowing encounter, each encounter becomes a unique co-creation of mutual pleasure and satisfaction.

How to do this? Most importantly, keep the balance and flow in the whole of your life and relationship. I call this beforeplay. It’s the bulk of life, making sure there’s a balance of the calm, cuddly, safe yin elements as well as the more exciting, flirty, active yang elements of relating. In this way your relationship never becomes complacent, you are always focused on keeping yourselves connected and engaged.

Then when it comes to more intimate engagement, don’t go racing straight to the genitals! Make sure there is plenty of non-genital engagement – which includes having good conversation and connecting mentally as much as engaging with your entire bodies and enjoying the feeling of kisses and touch and whole of body skin contact. Don’t get genital until your body really wants it.

Pay attention to how you’re feeling on the inside, and make sure you are letting each other know how you’re feeling and what you’re wanting. Never make assumptions. Learn to communicate both verbally and non-verbally at all stages of engagement, so that you don’t fall into the same old tired linear script.

Focus on pleasure rather than orgasm. Orgasms are great, but they are an outcome of sex, not the purpose of sex. When you focus on the pleasure, rather than just ‘getting each other off’, you’ll find sex way more satisfying. Not that there is anything wrong with orgasms! But don’t assume you have to have them, or else you’ve ‘failed’. Nor limit yourself to one and think you’re done if there is more love-making to be expressed in an encounter! And when you do orgasm, focus on opening and releasing rather than tensing and forcing.

Never underestimate the importance of a conducive environment. Let your surroundings help get you in the mood. Having a beautiful tidy bedroom with music and soft lighting really does help a lot of people sink into the enjoyment of erotic connection (not to mention practicalities like having a lock on the door!)

And make sure that when the encounter comes to a close you continue to cuddle and chat so that you keep your nervous systems relaxed and the calming pleasure hormones flowing.

This approach to love and life means that you are priming your body to have balanced neural and endocrine systems on the inside, which manifests as pleasure, connection and all the good things about love and sex on the outside!
 

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!

There’s a belief that only queer people need to come out. It’s as if heterosexual is the default, so there’s no need for heterosexuals to examine their sexuality.
 
Even if you are LGBTQI+, coming out is often more about your sexual orientation, which is who you are attracted to, or your gender identity, which is what your internal sense of your gender is, and less about who you really are as a sexual being.
 
When it comes to who you are as a sexual being, well, that’s a totally individual thing. There are eight billion sexual identities on this planet, as we all have a unique sexual identity.
 
And that sexual identity is not a static thing, it changes and evolves over your lifetime. Who are you as a sexual being at 18 is going to be different at 80. Who you are as a sexual being when you have babies and toddlers is going to be different to when you’re an empty nester. Who you are as a sexual being at the start of a relationship is going to be different to who you are fifteen years into a relationship. Importantly, no stage is better or ‘more sexual’ than another, it’s just different.
 
At least, it is if you are actively engaged with the concept of who you are as a sexual being, rather just being in default mode. Default mode is when you are simply responsive to what comes to you, either in terms of what happens to be going on in your body, or in terms of what your partner is or isn’t presenting to you. And much of this will be based on a lack of quality sexual understanding but rather a whole lot of myths around what it is to be ‘sexual’ or not.
 
To be actively engaged in your sexuality is to really pay attention to what is right for you, both in general and in the moment. And you need to be equally aware of your partner’s sexuality, both in general and in the moment.
 
And while much of that is to do with behaviours, what you like to do or don’t like to do, it’s actually way more subtle and layered than that. What style of sexuality do you prefer – more playful, more sensual, more raunchy? What about the pacing – faster, slower? How do you like it at different stages of a sexual encounter, particularly in the lead-up? What even is a lead-up for you? How about time of day? What you’ve eaten? What kind of atmosphere? What do you need to not be distracted, to not be tired, to feel connected? How do you need your relationship to be? How do you know when you’re done? What do you like to do or not do afterwards? How is your sexuality different during the week versus on weekends, when you’re on holidays versus work weeks? How frequently do you tend to want to engage sexually and how do you like to relate in between? What even is ‘sex’ to you and why do you do it?
 
All these questions and more are so important to clarifying who you are as a sexual being. You might like to go through the questions above alone or with your partner. Consider how you might have answered differently in the past and how you might answer in the future. You’ll probably find that your discussion ranges wider than these questions alone. You might find yourself identifying beliefs that may or may not be helpful, events from your past that have affected how you see yourself as a sexual being either positively or negatively. You might find you’ve made assumptions about yourself and very likely you’ve made assumptions about your partner if you have one.
 
This process will highlight and clear negative energies around shame, guilt, fear, compulsion, entitlement, sadness, trauma, and through that will enhance positive energies of pleasure, connection, joy, bliss, zest, contentedness. And you will also examine your lifestyle to make changes to enhance the good and remove the bad. It’s a fascinating and wonderful process.
 
Try it on your own, and if you find you’d like some support, see me or my colleagues at the LoveLife Clinic, do one of my online courses, or attend one of my wonderful retreats!

It’s amazing how when you focus on improving your love life, the whole of life improves. Health, wealth, career, friendships, family – it all starts shifting when you start looking at yourself, your primary relationship (if you’re in one), your sexuality and everything that goes along with connection, love and intimacy.

Sometimes it is just about sex and engaging in it from a more authentic, more meaningful place. But that’s rare. More commonly I find that life shifts far more broadly and deeply.

You see, in the process of examining connection, meaning, relating, understanding, pleasure, purpose, there comes a clarity and a freedom to be your authentic self. It allows for clearer communication and deeper understanding, you find more mutuality and support. This brings joy and openness, so there’s a greater pleasure in the existence of life. While life and love doesn’t necessarily become easier, there is a greater ease. There’s less stress and more flow, less worry about what’s ‘not’ and more appreciation of what ‘is’. More mindfulness. More love.

And along the way there’s a lot of letting go of things that are no longer aligned. A client just this morning used the analogy that it’s like in nature where there’s a burning off of the undergrowth to allow new growth to come through. He has been finding that strange things are happening around jobs, projects, friendships. Stuff is clearing. What’s emerging for him personally and within his relationship is clearer, simpler and richer.

Another young woman I’m working with is finding the same thing. She was stuck in anxiety caused by belief systems that just weren’t aligned with who she is really is. As she becomes clearer about herself and her truth, old friends and old ways of being are going and she feels lighter and free to welcome in new people and new possibilities and to create an authentic life for herself.

I recall a client who once said “I came to you for premature ejaculation but it’s been an entire existential shift!” or an attendee at a couples retreat who said “I was expecting you to improve our sex life, but you’ve turned it upside-down and inside-out and I’m looking at the whole of life in a slightly bewildered but exciting new way!”

It’s why I call my brand LoveLife, because by transforming your love life you really do transform your love of life.

Sometimes relationships are so bad it’s clear you need to run a mile – there’s violence, coercion, repetitive cheating, they’ve gambled your life savings away… But actually, even in the worst of relationships it can still be hard to end them. There’s often the remembrance of when it was good, the magical thinking that if only, not to mention the fear of what’s on the other side of separation.

So, when a relationship isn’t right, but isn’t horrendous, it can be even harder to end it. You like each other, you get on well most of the time, but you’re not a great match. Maybe your values are different, maybe your wants in life are different, and you get in negative patterns that aren’t anyone’s ‘fault’, but they repeat over and over and over.

In those situations, you are even more likely to get stuck in an endless weighing up of the good and bad. As the title of an excellent book by Mira Kirchenbaum puts it, it’s too good to leave too bad to stay.

Some people get stuck, others do something interesting, generally unconsciously: they force a crisis. A client came to this realisation in session the other day. She was stuck in a relationship where they are both good people, but they want different things in life. She had been working with me to clarify what she does want in life and in a partner, and it had become clear that this relationship wasn’t it. But even with this realisation, she was still compelled to engage in the relationship even more, to move in with the partner, even though she knew it would be a disaster. It didn’t make logical sense.

Then the light bulb moment hit – she realised she was trying to force the relationship to explode. If the relationship became so toxic, so unbearable, it would be easy for her to end it. But while it would be easier, it would also end with bitterness and hurt and probably a good deal of trauma to deal with after! She realised it would be far better to end it now, maturely, with love and respect.

When you read it here, you’d think that it’s obvious that we should end relationships before they get so bad, before you’ve become bitter and twisted. But humans being the fallible creatures that we are, it’s hard to break strong bonds with another, and it’s scary to have to face the unknown on the other side.

It takes courage to end a relationship well. You have to let go of the future you’d planned, athe hopes you’d had. You have to let your heart break. It’s hard and it’s scary. But it’s not traumatic. And in being brave you are also giving yourself freedom to live the life you want with someone who is a good match – and you’re giving your partner the same freedom. So, if you're in this situation, and therapy hasn't worked, be brave.

Feeling awkward in sex is perfectly normal, natural and ok. Even if you've been with the same person for a long time, things can get awkward. Maybe you haven't been sexual for a while, and it feels awkward. Or maybe you're trying something new, and it feels awkward. Or maybe you've been coming to see me and I'm asking you to do homework that feels a little bit awkward. Maybe one of you is feeling awkward or you're both feeling awkward. It's all ok.

The best thing to do when you're feeling awkward is just to acknowledge it. So one of you might say: "I'm feeling a little awkward about this," and the other will reply reassuringly: "That's ok sweetheart, you're safe, it's ok, anything I can do to help?" Or maybe you're both feeling awkward, and one says "I'm feeling a little awkward about this," and the other replies with "Yeah, I am too!" and then you can have a nice chat and a cuddle, feel more secure and then give it a go. Admitting you're feeling awkward gets it out in the open, clears it.

Whereas if you keep it on the inside and push on through, the awkwardness tends to come through anyway, in ways that aren't very sexy. That's if you even push on through, very commonly the awkward feeling stops people from doing anything at all.

Sometimes people cover awkwardness with humour, but it's not funny humour, often it can be a juvenile, often blunt, attempt at sexual humour that feels cringy, coarse or sleazy: "He he, let's go play hide the sausage in the bun". It's not at all ressuring and soothing - and not at all sexy. So try not to make jokes to cover your awkwardness.

Another thing people do, again, it's juvenile, but this time in a coy, babylike way. Often they put on saccharine baby voices: "Ooh, let's go do naughty things in the bedroom". I see couples do this in the clinic, and it is very cringy. It's not mature and it's not sexy.

Just be honest. Be adult. Be clean. Put any negative feelings on the table. Let each other know where you're at and what you're feeling. And then you can genuinely give it a go in a mutual, supportive way - and that is sexy.

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.

I’m always hearing clients say that one initiates, or one doesn’t, or used to, or whatever. It’s always framed as though initiation is something one partner does, with a question, a suggestion or an action, to which the other agrees or rejects.

It’s a pretty limited, unidirectional way of thinking about initiation. It puts a lot of pressure on each partner. Both can feel pretty powerless. The one initiating has to be brave, hope the other is receptive, and risk rejection. The one responding to the initiation doesn’t have much scope to reply other than yes or no, with the yes assuming a lot and the no risking the other feeling rejected with all the consequential grumpiness or resentment that might follow.

No wonder people are reluctant to initiate, it’s fraught with anxiety, pressure, expectation, fear, guilt – none of which are in any way erotic feelings!

So, let’s ditch that approach to initiating and move towards one that is much more creative and explorative and allows for infinite possibilities.

Think of initiation as a dance between the two of you. It’s a lot more subtle and creative. It can start in many ways, usually less direct than a question or request. There is suggestion, flirtation, hints, without any definite outcome in mind. The other responds in kind. This dance both avoids the unsexy yes/no binary that unilateral initiating leads to, and allows for playfulness, sensuality, sexiness which can actually create interest, desire and arousal.

If you take on board the non-linear approach to lovemaking that I advocate, then there is no pressure for the dance to lead anywhere other than to connection and pleasure, so the dance is already ‘sex’ because it is already pleasure and connection. Then the dance continues until you’ve had enough, with or without genital involvement, orgasms, and the usual KPIs of linear sex.

This dance of initiation is a lovely way to connect, share, co-create, and live a life that in many ways is always the dance!