I remember, as a young teenager, hanging out with my friends and talking about what we would do with a particular young teenage girl. We had no idea what we were talking about, but that was irrelevant. We were bonding, bragging and mostly B-S-ing. The more graphic you could be, the better.
It was all “innocent”—in spite of the fact that we would never use that word to describe our hyper-masculine fantasies. We would never admit we were going for bragging rights; especially since none of us had anything to brag about. We were laying down the tracks of masculine sexuality. We were setting up the skills and the protocols to succeed as a heterosexual male.
We didn’t know it, we never could have articulated it, but so much of sex for us as young men was about getting sexual “coup”; that is, winning at the sex game. It was not just how you performed with your partner–it was how you performed relative to your friends. Quantity and quality were the metrics we used.
The focus on performance certainly kept me from being present when I was with a girl. I was always thinking, “How am I doing?” Looking back, even those times when I thought I was doing well, I now know I wasn’t. I was any place but with that woman. In the back of my head was the latest article I read in Playboy telling me how to perform a particular technique that would drive the woman crazy. Or I’d be thinking how I would explain the “conquest” to my friends. Where could I embellish the story?
From teenager to man
I didn’t wake up until my body began to relax. Once I wasn’t so wired, I started to feel how I was so not there. I also felt the tease of a new kind of pleasure. Being a tough guy, this transformation wasn’t quick. When I had a lover who was more mature and present than I was, who could show me what it was like to relax and enjoy the process, I resisted. I continued to drive the experience, but these women were insistent – slow down.
I’ll never forget my first sexual encounter after I went through a series of Rolfing sessions (bodywork to release chronic stress and realign the body). Ann was an older woman, mother and business owner. She wasn’t my usual “young woman.” She slowly seduced me. I couldn’t decide if she was trying to torture me or please me. It was as if I had taken some drug where all my body senses were cranked up. Her gentle touch sent shock waves through my body. One moment her fingers felt like ice cubes, the next minute they were hot coals. My body didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run from what I couldn’t control and had difficulty receiving. I also wanted to completely surrender and be overwhelmed with pleasure.
I allowed myself to suffer through the ordeal until we were making love. For that point on, some instinctual force took over. Not one technique, thought or comparison came to mind. I was lost in the experience. My body was shaking, sweating and squirming in something beyond pleasure. I gave up.
My in-the-moment peak experience continued to a new depth of pleasure. As soon as I thought, “I never did that before” or “I never felt that before,” Ann would do something new that would start a new cycle of crushing pleasure.
All this came to an end with an orgasm that erupted from places in me I didn’t know existed. My entire body exploded for what felt like minutes. My body was not only doing things that I didn’t know a man’s body could do, it was delivering pleasure to me in ways that were unworldly.
What is the secret?
To this day I never had an orgasm like that one at twenty-three. I’ve certainly had great love making, but the magnitude of the shift from performance sex to Galactic sex could never be duplicated. This initiation into sexual manhood occurred for two reasons: first, my body relaxed, which allowed me to slow down and feel; second, Ann was a patient and strong woman who would not settle for less.
Like anyone who’s held the Holy Grail, I kept trying to find it again. When I started to apply what I had learned that night with Ann, I began finding sex was not what I imagined as a teenager. As I yielded to allowing whatever was happening to happen more and more, my sex was out-of-this-world love making. My head was trying to discover the secret alchemy of it. Gradually I realized it was simpler than any secret sauce of techniques, tantric moves or new age enlightenment.
If there were one word, it would be PLAY.
When I approached first myself then my partner from the innocence of a young man playing, it became more fun. Then the fun lead to more pleasure.
Recently, I was remembering Ann and all the loving women since who have opened their bodies and hearts to me. I felt great appreciation for their presence. Then I saw the dots of all those experiences come together in what was my alchemy of sex.
The secret to the alchemy, along with play, was also outside the realm of sex. As humans it takes a while to learn that the answer to the riddle is always outside the box it was put in. My alchemy of sex is not sexual.
Here’s how to have great sex and a kickass relationship. It’s a spiral down to the core of intimate relating. If you want to experience Galactic sex, experiment with traveling down this spiral of deepening your relating.
Penetrating the veils to deep love à penetrating the veils of self
- Intimacy – connecting beyond the physical
- Communication – speaking beyond the head, from the heart and body
- Vulnerability – revealing, being with what is happening in the moment
- Receptivity – openness, listening from a place of innocence
- Courage – emotional honesty
- Mindful – awareness
- Wants – what do you want?
- Feelings – what do you feel?
- Embracing – allowing all that is occurring to flow between self and partner
None of these are new. What was new for me was doing this with a partner. If an uptight guy like me can do this, so can you. Go for it. You may find your Ann or you may find several Anns.
These steps are not necessarily sequential. Once you open up, relax and surrender to what’s occurring, any of this can happen. Some of it might happen simultaneously. Good. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to add another element once your chemical reaction can handle it.
You can share the post with your partner. A discussion around playing and opening up emotionally will certainly raise the bar for you sexually and relationship wise.
Let us know your feelings about this. What works for you?
Photo by Chris Hall via Compfight
