I came out of the womb questioning. Apparently I was a ‘strange child’ who asked ‘strange questions’ and read ‘strange books’. From my earliest age I felt like I was the child pointing out that the emperor was wearing no clothes and was always puzzled and fascinated by people and their lack of awareness.

As a child I knew that when I grew up I wanted to be a warrior, a scientist and a priest.

I have, essentially, become all three:

The Warrior

I studied the martial arts extensively from my mid-teens through to my early 30s, becoming particularly adept at Aikido, the Art of Harmony. But even as a child I’d set myself tasks to build my will-power, and I’ve never been one to back down when I thought there was injustice or narrow-mindedness.

To do my work in the field of sex and intimacy has definitely required a warrior spirit - it’s not easy to face so much opposition and ignorance and still keep going.

The Scientist

I feel existence is a miracle and I am endlessly fascinated by it. Over the years I have done three academic science degrees, and believe strongly in the scientific method. I also believe there is a lot that science is yet to discover. I see no discrepancy between spirituality and science, and love that modern science is reinforcing ancient spiritual wisdoms. I consider myself a ‘Scientific Mystic’.

The Priest

I had a calling to be a priest, and was shocked as a young child to discover I couldn’t be one because I was a girl. That made no sense to me at all. So I quickly lost interest in religion and continued to explore and study all sorts of spiritual, metaphysical and philosophical understandings, and continue to do so - it’s a life-long work (probably many lifetime’s work). As a therapist and educator, I feel that my work is a calling, and that calling is to help people become more whole and be their beautiful authentic selves. which is essentially the work of a true priest.

*********

After school I studied biochemistry and human sciences at university. The former was a traditional ‘hard’ science subject and the latter a multidisciplinary science course. At that stage I had intended doing research into human potential but the professors felt my views were too outlandish - I thought that the brain could change and that food affected our health - both topics that are considered valid now but back in the 80s had me labelled a hippy herbal fruitcake who’d probably been smoking too much weed…

So I changed track and did graduate studies in environmental science because as a new field it was looking for open-minded creative thinkers. So I worked in that field for many years. But, as much as I care for the environment and have strong ecological sensibilities, it was never my passion. So, three children and another degree or two later I decided to change.

Everyone thought I was mad to leave a very successful career and move into the then quite unknown field of Life Coaching. A few years later I wrote my first book ‘Great Sex After Kids’, did a Masters in Sexual Health to qualify as a Sex Therapist…and I haven’t looked back!

I was definitely ‘guided’ into specialising in sexuality, the universe wanted me to head in this direction, and after my initial surprise I was quite happy to go there as sexuality has always been a topic of interest for me at so many levels - the physical, historical, anthropological, philosophical, social, relational, and spiritual.

I feel the spiritual in particular is of interest, and a necessity in our current stage of development as a species and culture. After such a long period of suppression, we are only just now starting to see sexuality as a fundamental part of ourselves as integrated, holistic, transpersonal beings. I have always had an intrinsic understanding of this concept, and have been drawn to studying Tantric and Taoist sexual philosophies and practices.

According to a shaman I had a session with a few years ago, in a past life I was a Tibetan Lama who was investigating the use of sexual energy for spiritual growth. Unfortunately in that life I inadvertently traumatised a number of women and so in shame I ceased my work. In this life I’m to continue the work - which explains why I’m female and why it took me so long to accept this calling. Whether this is true or not, it is a good analogy and describes the evolution of my work very well!

Now I have embraced my calling fully and I have an exceptional life working with couples and individuals clinically and in workshops and retreats, as well as through my writings and media appearances, to help modern people understand the importance of an integrated and healthy sexuality for fulfilment and meaning in life.

It is an area that is not dealt with much in academic sexology, which tends to be more about the physical and to some extent the social. The concept of how sexuality leads to personal growth and development is not well studied, nor is human sexual potential in general. My particular interest is in how sexuality within the couple dynamic contributes to growth and fulfilment in life.

So now I’m studying a Masters in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology with the intention of doing a PhD in my field of expertise, which I think of as Transpersonal Sexology, investigating my own transpersonal approach to relationship therapy and coaching. This will inform my own work and enable me to teach other professionals, sexologists and therapists in general, a truly effective and inspiring approach to working with clients around issues of sexuality.

Life in the 21st century is fast paced, so fast paced that it’s easy to get caught up in all the busy-ness.

Busy isn’t bad, not if you’re relishing life as you busily experience it. But, and it’s a BIG but, if you let life carry you along on an endless wave of manic activity, then you won’t even notice you’re living, you won’t be enjoying it, and you won’t be making the time to savor all the wonderful things that life offers – including sex!

Wouldn’t you love sex to be a blissful haven away from all that frenetic stuff?
Wouldn’t you love to have sex that leaves you renewed and refreshed, that leaves you feeling fabulous?

Here are the seven fundamental sex tips to help you as a busy person have that blissful haven of fabulous sex. Read them, and, if they make sense to you and you want practical advice on how to use the Secrets in your life, buy and read my full book Sex Secrets for Busy People (don't worry, it's short - it's designed for busy people!)

Sex Tip Number 1: Sex is Energy

Why would a busy person bother to have sex anyway?
Because sex recharges you.
Have fantastic sex and you can hit the fray running.
People often moan to me about not having enough energy for sex, so they don’t do it (or at least, don’t do what it takes to make it good). Well, here’s the thing – good sex frees up your energy. So if you’re feeling depleted, have some sex and liberate your energy.
Instead of running on empty, run on full. Use sex to recharge yourself (and it’s a lot more fun than filling up at a petrol station!) We’ve all got access to this energy. It’s a matter of accessing it.

Sex Tip Number 2: Sex is Awareness

Sex happens from the inside out. It’s something you experience from within you. It’s an act of sensuality that you experience and gets better and better as you become more connected to your own sensuality.
All of us are born with an inner sensuality and an exquisite capacity for pleasure, but if you’ve been busy and exhausted for a long time you may have lost touch with your inner talent for feeling good.
You can reconnect again and so get more in touch with all your senses, heighten your sensuality and heighten your experience of sex.
Experience the sensuous spoon – take any spoon and just feel it, stroke it, fondle it.
And practice really and truly eating a peach.

Sex Tip Number 3: Sex is Attitude

Forget your genitals! Well, not entirely, but did you know that the neo-cortex is the most erotic part of our bodies? That’s the front part of the brain. It’s the part that animals don’t have, or don’t have much of. Other parts of our brain deal with the more instinctive sides of sex, reproduction and so forth. But the neocortex is special. It allows the sublimely human part of sex, the part that raises us above the animals and takes us closer to the angels. The neocortex provides us with the ability to think and imagine and fantasize and desire, to use our minds.
The bad news is that the ability our brains have to engage our imagination is the same ability that causes us embrace limiting beliefs that put so many blocks in the path of our enjoyment of sex.
The good news is that you can learn to make your fabulously human brain work to cut through all those worn-out, wet-blanket beliefs and limiting myths and misconceptions about sex and take on new, life-affirming, sex affirming beliefs.

Sex Tip Number 4: Sex is Part of the Rest of Your Life

The first three tips are all about how even as a busy person you can create the space in your heart, body and mind for sex. But it would all be theoretical and it will all stay in your heart, body and mind and go no further if you’re too frenetic, frenzied and frazzled in the rest of your life to even think about sex, let alone actually do it.
You have to make space in your life for sex.
You have to make time in your life for sex.
You need to learn how to make the space and time in your life to make sex happen, and that means learning how to be a little bit more organized so that you’ve got the structure in your life to allow that space and time to open up for you. It’s all about integrating sex in your life so that sex compliments and enhances the rest of your life.

Sex Tip Number 5: Sex is a Time and a Place

Once you’ve freed up some time and space in your life for sex, you have to create the moment.
This is about making the most of the time and space that you’ve freed up for sex. Turn your bedroom into a boudoir. Use your environment to do the work for you, let it get you in the mood.

Create the moment for sex. If you think sex ‘should’ be spontaneous, you’re probably putting up with mediocre sex (if you’re getting any at all) when with just a little more planning and effort you could be having brilliant sex.

Sex Tip Number 6: Sex is Intimacy

Now we’ve got your mind in the right space and we’ve got the space in your life. What’s missing? Your partner!
It (generally) takes two for sex and a certain kind of two to have fantastic sex.
It’s true that great sex between complete strangers has been known to happen, but it’s so much better to have fabulous sex with a partner you love. Extraordinary, energy-enriching, life-enriching sex requires genuine intimacy. That’s intimacy where two individuals come together with honesty and integrity, free of judgment and free of the need for validation from the other.
When you have this kind of genuine intimacy you can express your true eroticism.

Sex Tip Number 7: Sex is an Art

Sex might be natural, but GREAT sex is an Art.
Like any other art, the Fine Art of Sex takes understanding and practice to master. And like any fine art, the results can be sublime.

The Fine Art of Sex means merging genuine, unfused intimacy with erotic tension, then adding the final element of playful creativity. The result is endless masterpieces of awesome sex that generate an on-going level of energy to keep even the busiest of people going!

The Fine Art of Sex combines all the Sex Secrets – Energy, Awareness, Attitude, Integration, Environment and Intimacy into a creative whole.




Find out more. Read my book Sex Secrets for Busy People!

My parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this week. Congratulations Mum and Dad!

They’ve had a great relationship. It’s had its ups and downs of course, but they never flat-lined or became complacent. They maintained their zest for life. And as I often say: you’ve gotta love life to have a love life.

What I do want to talk about is how much my father loves my mother, and what a positive impact that has had on me. You see, as a girl, having a father who loves, respects and admires his wife, your mother, is the best thing possible for growing up with a positive self-image.

There is nothing better a man can do to ensure his daughters grow up with a positive self-image than to love their mother, with equality and respect…

To the girl, her mother represents ‘woman’ and her father represents ‘man’, so when her father truly loves and respects her mother, she learns deep in her soul that ‘man’ loves ‘woman’, and therefore relating sexually becomes a positive and desirable thing.

So guys, for the sake of your daughters, love your partner. Then, no matter what challenges you have with the parenting, your underlying respect of ‘woman’, will ensure that your daughters grow up feeling positive about being female.

Hopefully your partner grew up with a father who respected her mother. It's often not the case though, so you need to do what he didn't: relate to her with such a balanced respectful masculinity (not a wimp, not a macho prick) that you reprogram her underlying beliefs. Then she can find her sense of equality and worth as a woman (something my father did for my mother, as her parents had a very troubled relationship).

To be like this means you need to be a good, strong loving man. If your own father wasn't like this, well, you've got some work to do on yourself too. You have to break the generational dysfunction in your family. You have to become a man who is fully, positively in his masculinity, so you can help the women in your life, particularly your partner and daughters, to be wonderful women.

Even if you are no longer with your daughter's mother, you still need to show her this respect - for your daughter's sake if not your ex's.

Girls need fathers who are loving, confident men; women need respectful loving men who are their equals; the world needs men to be all they can be.

We are equal. But does equal mean we are ‘the same’?

I’ve written elsewhere about how men and women are essentially the same - see one of my all-time favourite blog articles ‘Men Are From Earth, Women Are From Earth’. But we’re not identical.

Vive la difference!

Sure, we should have social, political and economic equality between the sexes. But that doesn’t mean we are or should be the same. Quite the opposite, it’s in part the dynamic tension between the male and female energies that keeps sex strong and powerful in a relationship.

Ideally in a sexual encounter the man opens up his strong yang exterior and invites the woman into his tender yin interior where she can completely let go, safe inside the space he’s created. There she can let her strength manifest, resulting in extraordinary sexual responses.

Interestingly, what is happening energetically is the opposite of what’s happening physically: physically the man enters the woman, energetically the woman enters the man (and how scary and vulnerable can that make the man!)

Similarly, in a relationship, the man holds the space in which the woman can blossom and reach her potential. He’s like the pot and she’s the plant. It’s essential that he is a pot big enough to hold her or her growth will get stunted in the same way that the growth of a bonsai is stunted when you plant a tree in a pot that’s too small. If the man is too restrictive for her, she’ll be held back and not reach her full potential. Either that or the pot will crack from the pressure. Fortunately, the analogy has its limitations, and unlike pots, men can grow and develop to become big enough for their partner!

If a woman tries to be like a man, and puts up a false yang on the outside, she denies her yin softness and hides her true yang inner strength. She can’t enter into him and feel his support. She’ll feel she’s doing it all on her own, which is tiring and makes her brittle. Ultimately, if he’s too busy maintaining his yang on the outside and won’t let down his defenses enough to let her feel his interior softness, she will feel the lack of connection with him and they will bounce off each other. On the other hand, if he’s turned too soft and put up a ‘false yin’ on the outside she’ll feel nothing from him either, it’s like a marshmallow and makes for comfort but not necessarily connection.

Now, everyone does have masculine and feminine qualities 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.

So, let’s look at what is the ‘feminine’ and the ‘masculine’.

Valuing the Feminine

We grossly undervalue the feminine in this society. 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. But in order to achieve that status, women had to prove that they could be like men, which they did. That’s fine, but all that did was show that women could be masculine. It didn’t raise the value of the feminine.

Which is why several decades on women find they have to be masculine to succeed in society.

True strength in a woman comes energetically from being soft on the outside and strong on the inside. In fact, it’s only by being soft on the outside that her inner strength can emanate. Otherwise, she’s creating a false yang on the outside, which is hard to sustain, is brittle and prevents her true strength from blossoming.

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.

A woman can then express her femininity in many different ways (I’ve discovered seven different feminine Sex Goddesses or Sexual Archetypes, ranging from ‘tough’ to ‘gentle’ and everything in-between). There is no limitation in how she expresses herself as a woman. The important thing is that she is real and embraces the power and glory of being a woman.


Valuing the Masculine

Just as we undervalue the feminine in our society, we also get the masculine 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 defined more 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. However, just as too many women reject the ‘weak’ feminine and adopt a harsh and controlling energy; too many men reject the ‘dominant’ masculine, and adopt an overly soft and, let’s face it, fairly insipid energy.

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 yang on the outside and yin on the inside. A nice analogy is the knight of old who would go off and fight dragons and save damsels in distress, but equally would come home and honour his woman, 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.


Finding the Balance

So many people are confused by how they “should” be, but what they’re really asking is, “How can I truly express myself in the fullness of my masculinity or femininity” 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 domineering male clone? No self-aware man wants to be a macho shit, but is the only alternative to be an overly sensitive new age wimp?

Not at all. However, it’s 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.

We are not “opposite” sexes. We are “complementary” sexes.

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 in order to become whole.

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. If she’s too much the hard case, he won’t be able to open up to her. If she’s too much the helpless maiden, he won’t be able to meet with her power.

These are variations of dynamics I see all the time. But once people get it then magic starts happening.

Note: this has been written for a heterosexual audience. A balance of the ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ (I prefer the terms yin and yang) also needs to apply in same sex relationships.

• They think you’ve got the problem not them;
• They assume anything to do with sex will be sordid and so doesn’t want to be involved;
• They don’t think sex is important so can’t see why you’d want to change or improve anything;
• They are unwilling to go to sex therapy because they are too embarrassed to talk about sex in front of another person, even a professional psychosexual therapist;
• They are unwilling to attend a workshop or retreat because they think it’ll be embarrassing.

 

It seems to me that too much porn is making men less masculine and it’s making women less feminine*.

To have the ecstatic sexual experiences all women are capable of requires a woman to be soft, receptive, yielding. She has to feel safe enough to be completely vulnerable and thereby open herself up utterly.

Is that what we see in porn? Uh no.

Now don’t get me wrong, when I describe a highly sexual woman in this way, I don’t mean the only sex she likes is incredibly soft. It can also be wild and wanton and absolutely full of abandon.

In fact, when a woman gets to her ultimate sexually, she becomes wild and free and completely unconstrained. That can lead to frenzied, passionate, delirious responses or it can lead to utter stillness with ecstatic sensations infusing the body with delectable pleasure, or anywhere in between. The thing is that it’s a true and real expression of a woman who feels confident enough in herself and in her partner to be able to go there.

Porn can be confusing, because the female actors are often portraying a female response that is very wild, and this is incredibly appealing to men as they innately want to take their partner there, they want to give her extreme pleasure as that will give them extreme pleasure.

The trouble is that in porn the route to get her there is not mapped out. It appears to be immediate, and it appears that the woman can get there by focusing all the attention on the man.

A woman can’t get there that quickly. Not if she’s being real. She can act it, and plenty of women do. And if she has to be the one in control, doing all the doing, then she’s not going to get there either as she won’t be able to let go enough.

A common client type I see is women who’ve been doing the “porn star” act for so long they are now turned off sex and often find it shameful and abhorrent.

Other women have shut themselves off because they don’t want to go the “porn star” act route and see no other option than to be the prude.

In both cases the women have hardened themselves to sexuality. This is not feminine and will prevent her from feeling the pleasure she’s capable of.

Just as excess porn prevents a man developing in his masculinity and growing into his potential as a great male lover, so it prevents a woman from developing her womanliness and blossoming into a sumptuous female lover.


*Note: when I say ‘feminine’ I don’t mean any particular stereotypical view of ‘feminine’, I really just mean ‘in the fullness of her being as a woman, whatever that is for her’. I actually don’t like the word ‘feminine’, or ‘masculine’ for that matter, as they are too loaded these days.

 

I see a lot of male clients who watch a lot of porn, and one thing that strikes me about these men is that they are not very masculine.

A man who is mature in his masculinity is:

• Connected
• Confident
• Contributing, and
• Creative

A man like this is able to make love in a way that they both have an amazing time.

I don’t have a problem with porn per se. People have always liked to watch other people having sex. The problem happens when porn becomes a substitute for real sex, or when it becomes considered normal sex, rather than just something that is visually titillating.

The heavy porn watchers have an immature masculinity.

Let’s look at how porn interferes with a man’s sexual growth:

1) Connection: Porn teaches men nothing about connection. A man is never going to learn how to connect deeply and intimately with his partner if porn is his main source of sexual information. Yet without connection a man will never be a great lover, not even a good lover, especially over the long term. Connection is absolutely at the basis of all good sex.

2) Confidence: Porn reduces men’s confidence sexually as the images portrayed are of men who are unnaturally well endowed, who can last for unnaturally extended periods of time, and who can cause extreme responses in their female partners without warm-up. So many men, particularly young ones, take porn’s fantasy portrayal of sex as “normal” and feel inadequate in comparison.

3) Contribution: Porn tends to portray the man as the recipient of ardent attention from females. Which might be a lovely fantasy, but women generally respond better to a man who contributes, than one who sits back and expects her to do all the work. The lazy male lover will never get the response from his woman that both of them deserve, and he’ll never learn how to evoke this response through watching porn.

4) Creativity: Porn does not teach creativity. Creativity has elements of subtlety that you will never see in porn. Being a visual and aural medium it tends to be in your face: bigger, harder, faster, louder, rather than softer, sensual, playful and exquisite. Creativity is not about learning a trick or a new position; it is far more subtle than that.

So given that porn reduces these four key elements of a man’s ability to be a great lover, that it generates in men an immature masculinity, is it any wonder than so many women are unsatisfied by their lovers, not wanting the third-rate sex their partners can offer them? And is it any wonder then that the men can stay trapped in that infantile sexuality and remain hooked on the screen where it’s so much easier, rather than becoming a better lover through experimentation, research and practice?

Porn is like the fast-food equivalent of sex, it’s easy, it’s immediate, and it’s all done for you - but ultimately it’s not truly satisfying, which can lead to a need for more and more in a futile, endless quest for the satisfaction that constantly eludes.

By all means, watch a bit of porn for the titillation, there’s nothing wrong with that - just don’t get hooked in and grow backwards!

I detest the use of the word “penetration” in relation to intercourse.

It’s such an aggressive term. Think about it: what’s a woman going to do if she’s about to be penetrated by a penis? Raise the barricades! Batten down the hatches! Start defensive maneuvers! She’s certainly not going to open up, invite in and welcome the penis into her depths.

I’ve helped numerous women overcome their fear of sex, painful intercourse and vaginismus simply by changing their language around sex.

Even for women without sexual fears, thinking about intercourse as penetration can cause a hardening of the vagina and tensing of the genital area. And causes her to guard herself against the man.

For good sex you want the woman to open herself to her man and invite him in. She needs to be good and ready so that she really wants his penis inside her. If she’s not ready and yearning for it then sex is not going to be good.

Good sex is about two people connecting. The penis enters the vagina and the vagina envelops and embraces the penis.

It’s a two-way, mutual experience.


There are many aspects to becoming sexually empowered, whatever your gender, and one of the key elements is pleasure. And the thing about pleasure, is that it's not a nice-to-have or reward-if-you’re-good. In fact, our bodies thrive on pleasure...

… if we are open to them.

Our bodies thrive on pleasure. When we experience pleasure we keep the happy hormones flowing. We feel calm, connected, in the flow, so life is good.

But so many of us busy, harried, stressed-out modern humans have lost touch with the ability to enjoy simple pleasures. So we go into a mad oscillation of stress and tension counteracted (or so we think) with intense “pleasures”, such as partying, porn, drugs, high-energy work-outs, entire tubs of triple choc ice-cream, or vegetating mindlessly in front the TV. We seek out pleasure through either zoning out or through hyper-intensity.

True pleasure though, is not about zoning out, it’s about being very present, very aware of sensual feeling; and it’s not about intensity, it’s about honing in to the exquisiteness of subtlety.

It’s like sex. Too many of us have lost the ability to feel subtle sexual pleasure, we feel it has to be intense or we don’t feel anything. But that approach to sex actually numbs us to true sexual, sensual pleasure, and requires ever more intense stimulation to feel any pleasure at all.

The more you develop your skill in experiencing subtle pleasure (yes, it is a skill), the more powerful the sensation will be. You’ll find that one mouthful of triple choc ice-cream will be a delight, a whole tub will be revolting; you will find the crassness of porn a turn-off in comparison to delightful connection with your real-life lover; a walk in the evening will be far more appealing than hours of mindless TV; you’d rather go hungry than eat fast food; you’ll get high on life and not need artificial stimulants.

Wake yourself up, physically and mentally, to true pleasures. Most of these are small, simple and subtle. They are also frequent. You’ll be healthier and you’ll be happier. These pleasures make you smile, you laugh freely and have an open, kind and generous spirit.

And sex, well, sex enters a whole new dimension of sensation…. 

I was chatting to a good friend recently who, like many people, loves sex and loves the general topic of sex. He was musing on whether he might possibly be a sex addict given that he’s so fascinated, possibly even obsessed, by the topic. My reply was: “I hope not, because that would make me one too!”

It got me thinking, because I have done on-line “Are you a Sex Addict’ type quizzes, and according to some of them I certainly would be a sex addict because thinking about sex takes up so much of my time and sex in general plays such a big part of my life.

But there’s a big problem with these quizzes, and this extends to our attitude to sex in general, and that is that the questioning tends to be around the quantity of sex or sex-related activity and thought, rather than the quality. Lots of sex does not a sex addict make. It’s the approach that matters.

I got to thinking about a food analogy. I often use food analogies when talking about sexual issues. I do this mainly to remove the social stigmas, assumptions, beliefs, and so forth, that get in the way of assessing sexuality in a non-judgemental manner.

If someone watched Masterchef assiduously, never missed Iron Chef, subscribed to a myriad of food magazines and poured over them for hours on end, planned elaborate meals, experimented with new ingredients, loved to talk about food as much as preparing and eating it – would that make them a food addict? No.

If someone couldn’t stop eating and didn’t care about what they ate, craved eating, needed it to satisfy an unending hunger, to the point that it affects the quality of life, would that make them a food addict? Yes.

It’s essentially the difference between being a gourmet or a glutton.

A gourmet is a connoisseur of food, someone with a discerning palate. A gourmet savours food, enjoying the intensities and the subtleties. A gourmet is closely in touch with the effect of the food on their own well-being, he or she won’t overeat because that would affect their enjoyment of the food. A gourmet might enjoy the exotic and elaborate but will equally revel in the simple. A gourmet will also pay attention to the context of the food, the presentation, and the atmosphere, understanding that the experience of eating is more than just the food itself.

A glutton is a gorger of food, all they’re interested in is the quantity. There’s no self-restraint, it’s just a matter of if they want it, they’ll eat it. A glutton is not able to appreciate the finer nuances of food, is oblivious to the surroundings, doesn’t care. Food is not indulged in to add to the overall and long-term quality of life, only the immediate gratification of eating.

It’s the same with sex. Someone who is a connoisseur of sex is interested in savouring sex, regardless of the type of sex - whether it’s a late-night cuddle under the covers or a weekend of erotic delights. It’s the quality that counts, not the quantity. They know how much is enough because they’re in tune with the subtle aspects of sex.

A glutton of sex just wants more and more and is never satisfied, so it impacts on the quality of their life.

I was explaining this to a client recently, who was telling me how his sexual self-confidence was non-existent as his recently ex-partner insisted on hours of sex at a time and was never satisfied, no matter how many orgasms she had or what they did, she always wanted more, more, more. The thing is that they both liked lots of sex, both liked a wide range of sexual activities, the difference was that she went at it with avaricious intensity and could never get enough – your typical glutton, whereas he wanted to take it more slowly and savour the experience as they went – your typical gourmet. That was a big sexual mismatch, which had nothing to do with quantity and everything to do with quality. He was much relieved when he realised this and his confidence came back stronger than ever.

In summary, it’s not what you do that matters, it’s how you experience it.