Tag Archives: somatic therapy

Entherapalgia

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There is a particular emotional state, which through my years as both a therapist and a client of therapy I have come to recognize as a distinct state that we don’t seem to have a name for. It happens in the milliseconds following the experience of getting something we’ve needed for a significant length of time, almost in tandem with the needed relief. I’ve decided to begin calling it entherapalgia, meaning “the pain within healing.”

Somatically-speaking, it tends to show up as an opening sensation in the chest and/or stomach, often accompanied by a little gasp and a sigh that brings some muscle relaxation. Sometimes that relaxation is the softening feeling that precedes crying. Similarly, entherapalgia can feel like a sigh of relief and a punch in the stomach in tandem. As you might imagine if you can feel into those particular sensations, it can be difficult to tolerate.

Because it involves a lot of vulnerability, we will sometimes tense up when we predict that an experience will evoke the feeling of entherapalgia, or we try to clamp down on it once it’s begun. Both pleasure and pain share one entry point in vulnerability, so even though staying open is how we heal, it doesn’t always feel safe enough to do so.

Since I began using this word for myself and my clients, I’ve found that it’s quite helpful to expect healing to be a little painful. Why shouldn’t it be? Physical healing almost always is, especially when what we’re healing is something that we’ve been organizing ourselves around for a long time (my posture-correcting physical therapy comes to mind). When something pleasurable or relieving makes contact with something that hurts, of course we’d feel both. It’s an extra challenging one to be sure, as it seems that the experience of being vulnerable doesn’t really get easier, just more familiar. Though familiarity does bring some amount of comfort.

Part of the beauty of somatic work is in making space for healing by learning and practicing how to experience pain in a tolerable way. The aim is always for experiences to be embodied rather than solely intellectual, and the intellect and senses can be helpfully bridged with the right words. So I hope this term and its framing can be a support in our ever-progressing process of learning how to be vulnerable.

Befriending Wildness

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For reasons that are just now becoming conscious for me, I have been steeping myself in wildness more than ever. And because of that, I’ve begun to notice that many others are doing the same. It’s as though nature is finally managing to vine its way back into many of our lives.

When I use the word wildness, I mean that which exists in parallel to our lives: plants that grow in cracks in our sidewalks and at the edges of our yards, the coyotes that come down into urban neighborhoods from the Santa Monica Mountains, and, of course, the night sky. These things are not separate from or unaffected by us, and yet they have this entire existence onto themselves that we typically know very little about. Like the body, where we can look for some of the clearest and simplest information, the wildness of nature offers us tremendous wisdom.

My re-acquaintance with wildness seems to have begun through gardening. More and more plants are showing up in my yard, in my home, and in my office. My clients can certainly attest to this change, which became especially apparent when a tree in a twenty gallon pot appeared atop my filing cabinet. I’ve realized that this shift in me is in direct response to what I’m seeing happen in the states and on our planet in general. It’s a place to put my care and attention that’s both needed and well-received. As a fellow therapist in my office building said, “My garden has never been so free of weeds as it is under this administration.”

It can be difficult to articulate the ways in which interacting with wildness is good for the psyche, partly because the gifts are simultaneously simple and vast, but especially because it’s such a felt experience. That in itself is a huge part of why it’s important; it’s embodied. It requires us to be present, to be tuned in, to be hands-on. We have to be aware of ourselves, the space we take up, and the impact we have. With gardening in particular, we must be committed witnesses who take action on what we see. We have to experiment to find the right course of action. Sometimes we have to be patient as a process unfolds. And all of this gets to happen alongside enjoying the beauty, oxygen, medicine, and food that plants have to offer.

With the intention of finding more words for some of these felt experiences, I just took a pause from writing to go outside for a little gardening, and was reminded of a major component of tending to the earth. It’s humbling. I have two passion fruit plants, which I sprouted from the seeds of a few fruits that I ate last year. They grow rather slowly, but just recently have begun to really look like plants. After over a year of tending to them, it’s been very rewarding to see that, and to imagine that soon they’ll begin to vine up the fence I placed them near. I’ve been wondering how many years it’ll be before they produce fruit, and have imagined how special it will be to finally eat one. Last week I noticed a caterpillar munching on one of the plants, so I moved it as politely as possible. Just now when I went out to transplant something nearby, I saw that one of the two plants was completely eaten, and that my caterpillar friends (of which there are now four) have begun on the other. Therein lies the challenge that brings humility. Do I keep fighting the caterpillars? Do I kill them? That’s an easy no for me; I made a commitment some time ago to avoid killing other creatures, unless my health or safety would definitely be affected otherwise. Fortunately those moments are blessedly rare, and that was very important to discover. We so often approach situations with a zero sum mentality when in actuality, nature rarely works that way. When we give to it, it gives to us. We just don’t always get to choose exactly what we get back. So it comes down to: do I want passion fruit, butterflies, or to plant more of something or other that the caterpillars might focus on instead? I’m going with the butterflies. And chances are I’ll get to see them cocooning somewhere nearby and I’ll get to witness their growth instead of that of my plants. Seems like a pretty fair deal to me. In this way, gardening is both self-care and activism. I get to grow and so do plants.

It’s these sort of experiences that inform my way of looking at the world in general. If I always choose convenience, to prioritize my individual needs, or narrow-mindedly stick to my original plans despite receiving new information, I’m choosing a selfish and eventually destructive path. Selfishness accumulates and eventually it affects others before finally returning to us. That is what we’re seeing now. We’ve been selfish with ourselves, with each other, and in our relationship to Earth. It’s fairly clear what we’ve been getting wrong organizationally, but what we do on the large scale is but a macrocosm of what’s happening inside our hearts and heads.

So I find it very heartening to see what’s happening in two areas in particular: art and fashion trends. Now of course I know that as the curator of my own perusal of art, I’m likely seeing more wildness than is average. But it’s clear that earth-based elements have increased within popular culture. Plants are everywhere in our art. We’re bringing crystals and minerals into our homes in both old and new ways. Geometric shapes have dominated the furniture market for several years now. And the succulent craze has brought more plants into people’s lives than any other houseplant trend in the recent past. I’d offer that this might be rivaled by the macrame extravaganza of the ’60s and ’70s, but we’ve brought those back, too. Simple shapes, raw wood, brick, beautiful glass… we are surrounding ourselves with basic elements. We must need it. And just look at all of this grounding, evocative, nature-based work…

“Bathing Beauty” by Rachael Dean

art and tattoo by Lisa Cardenas

“Mama Bird” by Racheal Rios

“eternal return” by MerakiLabbe/ Vanja Vukelic

“connected soul. spirit sisters” by Marcy Ellis

Notice how many themes are repeated across the pieces: plants, intermingling, growth, the feminine, birth and death. I am most definitely a sucker for symbology, and know well through my studies and experiences what a profound impact it can have on our psyches. Notice how often heads are replaced by plants. I love what’s suggested by finding a plant where one would normally encounter the places where our thinking, seeing, and speaking originates. I won’t ruin it by over-defining it. Just ponder that. Feel into it.

My hope for this time is that this love for the natural world does not fade from us as trends do, that we understand how badly we need to make lifelong friends with nature and wildness, and that we incorporate this knowledge into our institutions in such a way that it cannot be lost again.

On Sex Therapy

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I had the pleasure of being interviewed by one of my favorite sexual wellness companies, Peekay Inc., whose line of female-centric boutique shops are all about sex-positivity, education, and fun. Together we’d like to share with you about the beautiful world of sex therapy.

Originally published as “The Life of a Sex Therapist: Heather Brewer” by LoversPackage.com on 3 April 2015.

“We met Heather Brewer at the Sexual Health Expo in L.A. this January. She stopped by our A Touch of Romance booth, where we talked briefly about her work. With a focus on listening to our bodies, she is a great resource for sex and gender exploration.

Heather Brewer is a registered Marriage and Family Therapist Intern; Therapist internships can be likened to a doctor’s residency status. After seven years of face-to-face client work, Heather is close to completing her required 3,000 internship hours. She works under the supervision of Mindy Fox, a Marriage and Family Therapist in Santa Monica, California. As for her education and training, she attended the somatic psychotherapy program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Without further ado, here’s our in-depth interview with Heather Brewer.

 

What do sex therapists do, exactly?

“Sex therapist” is a bit of an umbrella term for slightly different types of healers who make sexuality a central focus of their psychotherapy practice. While sex is the topic of exploration, the modalities differ amongst us. I work somatically, which means that I have extensive knowledge of the body, and that I use it as a diagnostic tool as well as a vehicle for healing. Because the body speaks very clearly, what goes on for a person in their sexual life is both an excellent source of information about how they move through the world, as well as a wonderful place for growth and healing to occur. What I do in session depends on the wants and needs of my clients, but it always includes tracking of sensations and gestures.

“Heart rate, muscle tension, and the nature of one’s breath are major indicators of what’s happening in a person’s emotional landscape… Somatic work takes you beyond the ‘why’ into the ‘how.’” – Heather Brewer

 

What makes you, and your practice different from other therapists and sex therapists?

My specialization in sex and gender definitely sets me apart from many other therapists. Sometimes this is simply due to my knowledge base, but clients often seek me out for my willingness to explore these realms without judgment. Sex can be so evocative that people sometimes won’t engage in a process with it, or fail to see it as symbolic of a larger dynamic.

Most sex therapists are very familiar with the inner workings of the body, especially the nervous system, but not all of us work somatically. For instance, let’s say a couple comes to me because neither one of the partners is adept at initiating sex. This dynamic will inevitably play out in our sessions (they might both experience discomfort with starting to talk when the session begins, etc.), and they will be gently and safely guided through becoming conscious of it, and practicing better ways of relating. Somatic work is really effective and long-lasting, because it’s systemic. You can’t hide from sensation.

Also, I often quote Seinfeld or refer to Star Wars for analogies. And actually, that brings an important point to mind. I’m very big on being myself in the room. It’s the relationship between therapist and client that is the most important in therapy, so it matters that my clients and I like each other. Therefore, I have to show some of myself and my emotions. So our particular ways of being will inherently differ from each other.

 

Can you pick three words that describe the world of sex therapy? Can you share how these words are important?

Beautiful, intense, and complex. These are the things that come up for me the most often both in my own explorations, and in my work with my clients. I think they kind of speak for themselves, and they’re necessarily subjective anyway. It’s such a vast landscape.

 

Who can benefit from seeing a sex therapist? Who might it not help?

I truly cannot imagine anyone not being able to benefit from exploring their sexuality, because everyone has one. It is simply part of our being. And it is my belief that all therapists ought to be comfortable making this a part of their practice, and I hope that “sex therapist” will eventually be a redundant term. But perhaps this is a good time to clarify that sex therapists don’t always or only focus on sexuality. There are many realms I explore with my clients. Letting people know that I’m a sex therapist is more of way of saying, “We can talk about that, too,” because it’s not yet a given. That said, sometimes a person isn’t yet ready to talk about sex directly, or they desire to focus on it too narrowly. But as long as a person is willing to invest themselves, there is always a way to do therapy that’s right for them.

 

Can you describe your journey towards this type of work?

I find that I have slightly different answers for this each time I’m asked, so there are probably a great many reasons. But what often comes to mind is this conversation I had in high school with some of my friends. I can never remember how it started, but the topic of masturbation was being skirted around, and I decided to just disclose that I did indeed masturbate. Each of our reactions was this fascinating mix of astonishment, relief, and excitement. I also had a really potent desire to discuss it more. And to get other people to discuss it. The desire to do so had obviously been getting squelched for all of us, and it was so easy to just name it and get things rolling. I guess that sums up a lot: it’s really important to most people, yet most people don’t talk about it. I really wanted that to change, and it’s been an honor be on that crusade since.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

I guess I’d just like to add that the point of this work is to uncover who you already are, and to maintain an environment that nourishes you. That can look so many different ways, and I really want people to understand that. Find the people, places, art, books, music, and explorations that feed you. In some ways it’s a very simple path.”

 

Interview conducted by Aleesha Alston. Aleesha and I share a passion for sexual education and healing, and Peekay is lucky to have her! Check out the company’s own killer mission and browse their website for all kinds of sexy time resources.

Read This Book: Healing Sex by Staci Haines

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I should have written this review ages ago, because I’ve been recommending this book for ages! Haines’ work is not only an excellent resource for moving through difficult experiences into having fun and fulfilling sex, it’s also one of the most well articulated descriptions of somatic work that I have come across. If you’re interested in having a firmer grasp on somatics, you can stand right there in your library or bookstore and read just the introduction.

One of my favorite things about Healing Sex is the author’s optimistic and sex-positive tone, and this has been echoed by many of my clients. And what makes Haines’ optimism so enjoyable is that it stems from clarity about the need for therapy, and the simplicity of the somatic process. Sexuality is complex enough without trauma, so the necessary focus is on allowing your body to be your guide. Sensations bring clarity, and offer direction. The body is a very useful guide in any process, but it’s essential for overcoming body-based difficulties. Haines further inspires engagement in this healing process by reminders that the end result is, not just better, but awesome sex.

The heavy somatic component also invites a lot of empathy from readers who have not experienced any sexual trauma, making it an excellent resource for partners. We all have bodies, so being educated about the body’s sexual response processes is pretty darn relatable! And the book is filled with anecdotes, which serve to ground the author’s points in visceral awareness. These are also great for partners who sometimes can’t quite “get it.” That said, while I would not say that they’re at the level of re-traumatizing, some of the anecdotes are especially difficult to hear, and I have recommended to some clients (particularly empaths or the highly sensitive) that they skip over these parts. All the stories and quotes are italized, so this is fairly easy to accomplish. I myself feel things very easily, and I’ve gone back and forth with reading them when reviewing a particular chapter.

I also love this book for its political savvy. Healthy sexuality is hugely important to a society, and yet we don’t get to engage much in intelligent and useful discourse about it. Haines emphasizes the importance of finding community, and/or supporting people and organizations that foster healthy relationships to sex, whether it be support groups, anti-rape coalitions, or sexual educators. More education and more conversations will mean healthier and healthier sexuality for current and future generations.

To boot, Haines finishes with a wonderful list of resources, which I myself have gone back to over and over.

Staci Haines’ own wonderful organization, Generative Somatics, offers therapy, workshops, and social justice opportunities.

The Science of Somatics

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*Hello! This article has been getting a lot of traction lately, and I love what that suggests about where we are with deepening our embodied experience. However, I have so much more I want to say here than I did when I wrote it eight years ago! So, I’m working on that for you. Please come back in, say, late March (2022), for a richer take.*

Soma is an ancient Greek word, once used to describe the whole person.

Somatic psychotherapies are modalities which utilize the body’s role in diagnostics, as well as the healing process itself. Somatics combines the realms of the body and the mind, which were never to be divided in the first place.

Diagnostically speaking, working somatically means paying attention to the body. Heart rate, muscle tension, and the nature of one’s breath are major indicators of what’s happening in a person’s emotional landscape. When you start tracking these things, you are organically placed on the path to vibrancy, because the body speaks in simple, clear terms. Somatic work takes you beyond the “why” into the “how.” Knowledge and insight seldom exact major changes. You can absolutely know why you’re doing something, yet not understand how to stop or change.

Everyone has had the experience of hearing a sentence spoken with an emotional tone that negates the words themselves. Take the classic childhood interaction of being made to apologize. “Sorrrrrrryyyyy.” Are you really? If you’re the receiver of this kind of apology, you know you’re being ripped off. In the therapy room, we follow these inconsistencies. The body always has something to say. Somatic therapists are adept at helping you listen to the body and follow its messages, because it’s easier said than done. That is a major tagline of somatics! We’re trained in the doing, not only the saying.

Professor Don Hanlon Johnson, eloquently writes, “language emerges from the body, if we only wait and allow it to happen, with ever-fresh solutions to seemingly intractable problems.”

What’s happening in the body tells us both about the specific nature of a problem, as well as how to move through it. If, when taking deep breaths, you find it difficult to let your breath all the way out, this tells us something about your body’s ability to relax. An inability to take in enough air can point to tension that is restricting space. Typically, my client and I both have a sense of why this would be happening from our explorations about their past experiences. But again, now what? For the person struggling to exhale completely, we practice incrementally increasing their ability to relax. This is almost guaranteed to trigger emotions, because of its tie to past experiences. For that reason, somatic work is gentle and incremental. Like learning to play an instrument, you are invited to try something that is at the edge of your range of ability. Each time you practice, your range expands. Sometimes we find that certain contexts, people, or beliefs inhibit that expansion, and we deal with those as we encounter them. Therapy is about learning what it takes for you to feel like yourself, and to express who you are to others.

It’s not magic. It’s basic biology. If you don’t take in enough air, your body signals your brain that it’s in danger. If you don’t break this cycle, you are kept in a perpetual state of low-grade (or not so low-grade) anxiety. The more difficult experiences you’ve had, the more convinced your body becomes of perpetual danger, and the harder it is to recognize safety. Somatic work is very effective for exacting needed changes.

Read my article on the science of the orgasmic cycle for an example of working somatically in the sexual realm.

The body is really good at doing what it needs to do to thrive. When it acts up, it’s for a reason. Listen. Somatic therapists are here to help you make sense of what you feel, and to teach you how to meet your body’s request.

If you’d like to do a little reading on the research, check out the journals listed below. And for even more somatics resources, visit www.usabp.org.

The International Body Psychotherapy Journal
Somatic Psychotherapy Today
Hakomi Forum Professional Journal
Journal of Authentic Movement and Somatic Inquiry

Clitoridiennes

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Not only that: téleclitoridiennes, mesoclitoridiennes, and paraclitoridiennes! While it’s not unheard of for me to make a Star Wars reference to a client, I’m not talking about science fiction here. The clitoridiennes are names for women according to their vagina type. Vagina type?! Yes.

In the 1920’s, Marie Bonaparte took it upon herself (quite literally) to study her lack of vaginal orgasms. She concluded that distance between clitoris and vaginal opening greatly affected a woman’s ability to orgasm. She grouped her study respondents into the aforementioned categories.

Paraclitoridiennes have a distance of less than one inch between their C and their V. They tend to have regular orgasms from vaginal sex.
Téleclitoridiennes have a distance greater than one inch, and thus infrequently to never orgasm from vaginal sex. This is what fingers, tongues, and wands are for.
Mesoclitoridiennes land, you guessed it, at right around one inch between C and V. As the lovely Mary Roach puts it in Bonk, “They fell on either side, depending on their mood, their husband’s compensatory skills, his feelings about Greek sprinters, and what have you.”

I bring this up because it’s a reason to approach one’s own struggle to orgasm with more matter-of-factness. Most women are either téleclitoridiennes or mesoclitoridiennes. Struggling to orgasm vaginally should be expected, and accommodated. So have other kinds of sex, too!

This sort of thing is a good example of how increased knowledge and communication between partners can assuage a lot of heartache and stress. Learn about yourself. Learn about your partner. Learn how to talk to each other clearly and openly. This is what couples therapy is all about!

Her own publications are in French, but you can read a bit more about Marie Bonaparte here.

The Orgastic Cycle

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You will often hear me say that sexuality is a deep and complex landscape. That is largely why it’s wonderful- it’s rich and expansive and can bear our multitudes, if we tend to it successfully. There is one aspect, however, that isn’t so complex, and that is the orgastic cycle.

Some of you may be familiar with the work of Virginia Johnson and William Masters in Human Sexual Response from 1966 (a great year for cars), because it’s what most of us who were lucky enough to have sex ed learned in school. It’s good and valuable work focusing on the physiology of the sexual response. I highly recommend reading it. It’s your body after all. Why not understand it?

Here, I will give an overview of the orgastic release cycle as defined by the Integrative Body Psychotherapy (IBP) Model. This model allows us to understand the emotional landscape involved with each physical response. Here’s the TLDR version, but good luck stopping there!:

Without further reading, you probably have a sense of what each of these stages means. Each of us has a particular relationship to this cycle and therein lies the material point. As Rosenberg puts it, “The way you do your orgasm is the way you do your life.”

For a happy, healthy, and fun sex life, it’s important to have a sense of which phase(s) you’re adept at managing and which ones are more difficult. These phases show up in nearly every aspect of our lives. So let’s look at each a little more in depth.

Intimacy

Intimacy is absolutely essential to this process. It’s necessary that you feel comfortable and safe, that you genuinely like your partner, and that you open up to them. Only with intimate familiarity can you have flow into desire.

Desire

To understand what’s happening in this stage, I like to think of it as an analysis of your raw materials: are you working with a healthy body, and do you let it do its thing? Your body must have the ability to be aroused, and you have to be willing to let it. Factors like clinical depression and “hangups” (a word I don’t love, but it makes its point) greatly affect our ability to become aroused. When I have a client who is struggling with this stage, we begin by ruling out physiological factors via a visit to the doc, endocrinologist, or psychiatrist. While physical symptoms are not at all separate from our psychology, we must know what we’re working with and what resources will aid our journey. After all, if we can’t get the engine started, we aren’t going to get anywhere.

Approach

Approach is about your ability to ask for what you want. Successful approach entails being willing to ask, having different ways of asking (plenty of verbal and nonverbal), and being approachable yourself. If you’re struggling here, you might never be the one asks (or you always are), you feel rejected easily, you let yourself get overtired at night, etc.

Charge

Where desire is the ability to feel drawn to aliveness, charge is the ability to experience it directly. Sexual charge is created by all the lovely touching, kissing, smelling, tasting, thinking, seeing, talking, dancing, holding, hugging, etc. Struggling with this stage can manifest as a need for conflict to be aroused, a feeling of overwhelm, checking out/dissociating, etc.

Containment

Containment is your ability to tolerate the charge that’s been built. Successful containment means savoring the charge for a while. The term “plateau” from Johnson and Master’s work is fitting here. Can you hang out in the nice feelings for a while, allowing for a plateauing effect on your arousal level? One obvious example of containment difficulty is premature ejaculation, but struggling here can also mean making attempts to lower your charge by talking, wiggling, holding your breath, etc.

Release

Now that all that lovely charge has been built up, it needs to go somewhere. Releasing means allowing the charge to flow out of you. I don’t mean just ejaculate, either! The release stage is where the heart opens its gates without knowing just when they’ll be shut again. Holy vulnerability, Batman! Because of how vulnerable you must be, two main problems often arise here: refusal to let go, and the need for super duper specific conditions for orgasm. Releasing successfully means letting go, and staying present while doing so. This is where all that hard work pays off. It’s no wonder we can be “orgasm-focused,” is it? What a beautiful experience this can be when we execute it well.

Satisfaction

I like to think of this stage as your ability to take a snapshot of your sexual experience and carry it with you. After orgasm, your body is being flooded with oxytocin. Will you allow it to wash over you or will you try to run away from it? Achieving satisfaction means staying present a while longer to take in this wonderful experience. Appreciate it. Let it brighten you up. Look your partner in the eyes and store this memory. Sometimes we block our ability to feel satisfied by immediately distracting ourselves, picking a fight, feeling abandoned or guilty, etc.

Intimacy

Completion of the orgastic cycle should bring feelings of increased love, closeness, and relaxation, which fuel us in moving forward. We carry these things with us until the next stage begins again.

Earlier, I said that this cycle applies to just about everything. And I meant it! That’s part of what makes it less complex than all the rest of what might be included on the topic of sexuality. The cycle always has these stages and the same stages show up in different contexts, including nonsexual ones. The experiences that we have, both good and bad, strengthen and weaken our ability to execute different stages. That’s why it shows up all over the place! I’ll leave you with some considerations.

Think about how you typically decide what to eat and what factors affect your process. How exact does a dish need to be for it to be appetizing to you? Think about how you actually consume the food (how quickly, how neatly or messily, how much). And consider how you feel afterwards.

To understand our sexuality is to understand ourselves. Individual and couples therapy is a gift that you give yourself in order to live your life as you should for you. Call or email to schedule an introductory session.

For further reading on this and other IBP models, check out their website and books. I particularly recommend The Intimate Couple.

How to Tell Your Partner What You Fantasize About

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That scenario you imagine so often when you fantasize? Consider the impact it could have on your sex life to be able to successfully communicate what you like about it to your partner.

It is with staggering infrequency that we share our fantasies with our partners. And for good reason: it’s scary! We risk being misunderstood, embarrassed, or causing offense. The first step in avoiding those things is having some depth understanding about ourselves, so that we can communicate the specifics.

Understanding the primary emotional motivation for a fantasy is essential for your partner to be open to it. Let’s look at a common fantasy that has remained pretty taboo: bondage. Suppose “Kelly” likes to imagine what it would be like to be tied up and then pleasured by her captor. Just that one sentence is pretty vague and into your mind may sweep all kinds of scary things: pain, abuse, disrespect, etc. So we need to get more specific. We need to know what Kelly likes about this scenario. Her partner may be overwhelmed with questions or assumptions about what this means to Kelly, and if we end the communication here, this will likely result in the aforementioned icky emotions. What she really needs to say is that she likes to imagine being completely vulnerable to her partner and having experiential proof that she’ll be well cared for- even pleasured- in that space.  Relinquishing (or conversely, having) control in a safe space is one of the most common elements of bondage.

From here, Kelly can get even more specific and begin to speak to some of her partner’s concerns. In regards to pain, she may want there to be lots, some, or none. Often people desire to feel the pressure of the binding, but no pain. It’s important that she understands and communicates what she’s interested in, and why.

Understanding the particulars of your own desires is no easy task. I recommend beginning by exploring as much as you can on your own.

  • Spend some time journaling about it. This is a great place to begin articulating what you feel. We often surprise ourselves with what comes out in writing or speaking aloud. It can be a lot different and/or better articulated when it’s put into words instead of kept as thoughts.
  • Seek out the support of a therapist. Educated and non-opinionated support is the best kind there is!
  • Do some reading on the topic. Lots of people have done lots of work to help you with this process! Check out my blog post on Dossie Easton’s book on kink.
  • Shop for and try out the toys you might need. This is one of the best parts! But if it makes you nervous, be sure to limit yourself to the sex educated stores, such as The Pleasure Chest, Smitten Kitten, or Good Vibrations. You can shop online at all three.
  • Talk to friends you feel comfortable with. Our friends often know us best and can give some great ideas and advice. You’ll likely be surprised to find that, after some initial awkwardness, most people are willing, even eager, to talk about sex.
  • Post anonymously in the Reddit community. This is a fabulous beyond fabulous resource for learning about sex in all its beautiful complication. This online community is filled with friendly, non-judgmental, generally well sex-educated, and often terribly funny folk.
  • Get used to talking to your partner about sex by practicing doing so. Becoming comfortable with sharing vulnerably requires actually sharing vulnerably. (Damnit!) If you find you are often met with judgment, defensiveness, or misunderstanding, you would benefit from the support of a therapist.

As much as possible, do some exploring with your partner. It’s ok to not fully understand what you like and why. Having sex together can be a huge part of your explorative process. For this to go best, set some boundaries before you begin. For example, maybe Kelly isn’t sure if she wants pain or not. Let’s say she’s tried pinching herself a bit and has liked it, but feels nervous about having her partner inflict any pain. She can say exactly that: “I’d like to try having you pinch or bite me a little, but I might not like it, so I may ask you to stop. Is that ok with you?” If this kind of conversation seems impossible, seek the help of a therapist.

All of this can be tough work, but it’s also lots of fun along the way. It is so very worth it, because you deserve to have what you want. And a healthy sex life helps to sustain a healthy and vibrant you.

Sex Dates

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A sex date is just what it sounds like: a scheduled time to have sex. I highly recommend doing this, even if your sex life is already awesome. But isn’t that a little formulaic? boring? crazy? Nope. Here’s why:

  • You planned sex before.

When you are in the beginning stages of a relationship, you’re planning sex all the time! You knew how the night was likely to end, so you were making preparations for sexy time almost every night. And the anticipatory excitement was crazy hot! This is essentially no different. And now you have home court (or home away from home court) advantage.

  • It allows for the easier introduction of new things.

It’s very important that you communicate your sexual wants and needs to your partner. But it can be very difficult! When you have a date coming up, it gives you many opportunities to check things out with your partner in the days beforehand. You can text ideas, photos, articles, etc., which gives both of you time to ready physically, emotionally, and logistically for whatever it may be. Need ideas? Go visit The Pleasure Chest.

  • You’ll discover you have a favorite time of day for sex.

This is super important! Number one, we let ourselves get overtired often. Overworking is even valorized in our society. More importantly, our level of arousal fluctuates during the day and not always due to the presence of stimuli (or lack thereof). Just as some of us are morning people and others are night owls, some people want it right off the bat, some need a midday recharge and others prefers it at nighttime. And there are oodles of options in between.

Here’s a good test to discover your “prime time” before scheduling your date: when do you usually masturbate when you’re home alone all day? If you don’t masturbate, get on it, because you’re missing out. Somatic therapy can help you explore your blocks to masturbating.

  • No one gets stuck with the role of initiating.

Many couples fall into a pattern where one person or the other does all or most of the initiating. Interestingly, this isn’t correlated with higher desire. It happens for a myriad of reasons, which you can explore in therapy. Sex dates will mix up this dynamic. Yes, it can still show up a bit when it comes to setting the date or when the clock rolls around to your scheduled time. But simply knowing that you’re both committed to your sexy time makes an enormous difference, because it means you both want it.

  • You can make your sexy time anything you want.

And you don’t actually have to have sex. Sex dates are about increasing connection and intimacy, and committing to this time together. Flexible sex dates can be especially important for anyone with a difficult sexual history. So make it whatever you feel like in the moment.

Need a few ideas from the infinite number of possibilities? Try snuggling, mutual masturbation, spooning, watching porn together, napping together, or one of my favorites- skin time (bare skin against bare skin).

Now for the hardest part: go do it. And enjoy!

 

Role-Playing Polyamory

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Polyamory is appealing to many and it is growing in popularity. But how can one explore this without actually opening their relationship, which can create conflict that is very difficult to overcome?

I had the honor of interviewing a couple who takes role-playing to the next level, essentially combining it with polyamorous sensibilities. Betsy and Sam’s inspiration for their frequent role play comes from people they encounter in their every day lives! So if Sam has a client to who he is attracted or Betsy finds herself turned on by one of their friends, that person is mentally brought into their sex play. Sam will pretend to be that friend, acting and speaking like him/her, so that Betsy can experience having sex with that person. *1 Then Betsy will return the favor on another occasion! How cool is that? It allows them to experience both themselves and each other in a variety of contexts and expressions.

One of the most powerful gifts of a polyamorous lifestyle is tied to the fact that different people bring out different parts of our personalities. This is something that most anyone can relate to, whether or not you have experienced having multiple partners at the same time in your life. Different friends and family members bring this sort of experience to our lives as well. Your brother might bring out your playful side where your best friend inspires your creative side, etc. The same applies to sexual partners. Think back through your partners. You had different types of sex with each of them, because they are each unique individuals. And, of course, some of the sex was the same no matter who you were with, because you are the common denominator throughout and you were bringing yourself to the table (or bed! or chair!) with each of them. So imagine being able to have that broad range of experience in your sex life right now. Anyone would want that! But polyamory is not for everyone (I realize some would argue otherwise), and opening your relationship can be a lot of work. Sam and Betsy have found a way to bring in that rich and wide breadth of experience with far fewer challenges and risks. Note: fewer challenges, not none!

In my work with clients who are interested in polyamory, one of the first things we explore is what might be keeping one person from experiencing themselves more fully with their current (or primary) partner. Sometimes this is simple: you want to try something for which you believe your partner will judge you, but when you voice it, you find out that you were wrong, and you get to go home and try it! More often, we find self-judgments or triggers in need of either removal or toleration. This part can take lots and lots of work. It can feel like so much work that one would prefer to just ignore their needs or get them met elsewhere. And sometimes that is perfectly fine. But I am a therapist and I advocate for expanding one’s abilities. I happen to believe this for a lot of things. Want some good jam? Why not try making it? Need a scarf? Knit one! Yes, it is more work. And sometimes you will end up back where you were: in need of outsourcing *2. But all the work you put in goes towards you becoming an increasingly awesome person.

Back to Sam and Betsy. Sam could wish forever that Betsy were as feisty as his client, because he loves how playful he feels with that person. Or he could (and does!) ask Betsy to try out being that feisty person. Then, Sam gets to feel more playful in their sex and Betsy gets to add a little feist to her expressions of self *3. This stuff deepens intimacy like crazy. Why? Because it takes both people making themselves pretty darn vulnerable. And it feels wonderful when you open up a part of yourself and experience someone being with you in that space. It is so worth all the work.

I have oodles of tangents on which to go off, because this is a complicated and topic. If you have questions, feedback or heated (but kind) arguments to make, please send me an email. I will surely be making future posts on this topic.

Find the interview in my next post, transcribed for your amusement, enjoyment, and inspiration.

My notes:

*1 Yes, pretending to have sex with someone is different than actually having sex with them. But we know (from science!) that conjuring up a context can be as powerful as the real one. Check out the recent empirical data stemming from research on the therapeutic benefits of theatrics.

*2 Outsourcing is a term I use for going outside one’s primary relationship to get an emotional need met, just like we do with products and services.

*3 While a large part of what makes it possible for us to express something is the context within which we find ourselves, I also believe it is necessary to expand one’s ability to express themselves the same way, regardless of their surroundings. In the case of Sam and Betsy, were they clients, I would challenge Sam to find ways to be playful even if Betsy is not being feisty. And I would challenge Betsy in the same way.