Exercise 109. GENITAL CARESS WITH VERBAL FEEDBACK
Remember the genital caress you did with your partner in Chapter 22? It was important that it be pressure-free, with no verbal communication. But now, in order to learn more about each other’s sexual responses, you and your partner may also want to do a version of the genital caress in which you give each other verbal feedback about the types of genital touch you enjoy.
Start with spoon breathing and focusing caresses. Begin by doing a sensate-focus genital caress with either manual or oral stimulation, or both. When you are the passive partner, at the end of the caress tell your partner one or two things that he or she did that you found particularly pleasurable. Be specific. Then ask your partner to do these things again. (This is a bit similar to the Asking for What You Want exercise in Chapter 34, but easier to do.)
Allow yourself several minutes to enjoy what you asked for. If the touch is not exactly what you wanted, gently guide your partner’s hand or face and give him or her more feedback until the caress is being done in exactly the way that pleases you. Then tell your partner something that he or she didn’t do, but that you would like. You may take your partner’s hand and gently guide it so that you can receive what you want. Enjoy this new caress for a few minutes.
When you are active and your partner asks you for more of something he or she especially liked, there is a constructive way to hear this feedback, as well as a way that’s less constructive. Let’s say your partner asks for a particular form of genital touch. You could think to yourself, “Of all the things I did, that was the one she liked the best?” Don’t second-guess your partner. Instead, try to reframe the situation so that you think, “I’m really lucky, because my partner wants me to repeat something that I already did.” Remember, as the active partner you always have the ability to say no to a request.
Similarly, if you are the passive partner and it’s your turn to ask for a repeat of a caress, don’t second-guess yourself. Trust yourself to think of something you want on the spur of the moment without having to plan your response. Try not to think, “Well, I’d really like a repeat of this, but he might not want to do that.”
End the exercise with spoon breathing and partner feedback.
Now that you’ve had some beginning practice in verbally communicating your feelings in a positive and constructive way, you may want to go back and do some of the earlier sensate-focus exercises, adding in the dimension of verbal communication.
chapter 36
Be a Sexual Healer with Intercourse
Now is the time for you and your partner to come together in the ultimate healing connection. Intercourse means communication; depending on a couple’s intentions, intercourse expresses a deep connection between two partners, among other things. This chapter will show you several ways to have intercourse with different healing mindsets and different healing goals.
As part of healing your other sexual problems, you and your partner have probably already had intercourse at some point in this program. The peaking and plateauing processes, which can benefit all of the sexual problems, can all be used during sexual intercourse. The exercises in this chapter are advanced exercises that use intercourse. Although I’ve provided short descriptions of different ways to have intercourse, these are not descriptions of different positions per se, as you would find in a typical sex manual. When you have intercourse, use whatever positions are comfortable for the two of you. The suggestions I make are simply that, suggestions. They are based on my experience with the positions that seem to best convey healing.
Before you try any of these exercises, it is very important that you have spent time spoon breathing and caressing each other with both nonsexual and sexual caresses. You may also wish to spend time with oral caresses and sensual oral sex. You need to spend time doing these things to get centered within yourself, to relax and focus on your arousal, and to get in sync with your partner. After intercourse, maintain physical contact and take time to spoon breathe together or nurture each other in an embrace. You will need a coming-down period to reground yourselves after the experience of healing intercourse. Finish with partner feedback.
If you decide to have intercourse after doing another, nonintercourse exercise, remember your basics. Relax and enter the healing mindset. Allow enough time so you do not feel rushed. And get centered together by beginning with spoon breathing, focusing caresses, and genital caresses.
Exercise 110. GOAL-FREE INTERCOURSE
The theory behind goal-free intercourse is to escape the pressure to have, or to give, an orgasm. Intercourse without orgasm nurtures the mindset of continuity between skin sensuality, foreplay, and intercourse. As you enjoy goal-free intercourse, you learn to be more flexible and indulgent in your lovemaking, and to move away from thinking of intercourse as the result of foreplay, or of orgasm as the necessary end result of intercourse.
Decide who will be active and who will be passive. When the woman is active, she will begin by doing a sensate-focus caress with her partner—a front caress, genital caress, and oral sex. When he gets an erection, she will climb on top of him and begin intercourse using slow, sensuous strokes—as many as she desires. Her partner will remain passive and not move. His only responsibility is to focus on the pleasurable sensations he experiences.
There should be no performance pressure, no goals, no thinking ahead, and no orgasm. After this short exercise, the woman will maintain the sexual connection by lowering herself into an embrace with her partner and covering his body with hers.
When the man is active, the woman lies on her back. Her only responsibility is to focus on her own sensations. Her partner does a front caress and then genital and oral caresses. He can kneel between his partner’s legs and use his penis to caress the outside of her vagina if this arouses him. When he is ready for intercourse, he can put a pillow underneath her, raise her legs, and enter her. This position, in which the woman raises her legs and the man kneels between them, brings both partners into a lovely face-to-face connection and offers greater stimulation for both. If you have trouble kneeling for any period of time, you can use the missionary position. The man does a few slow, sensuous strokes, as he desires, and when finished, lies lovingly on top of or beside his partner.
Exercise 111. SENSATE-FOCUS INTERCOURSE
This is intercourse with a different focus: sensuality. In previous chapters you have practiced focusing on skin sensations in all parts of the body. Now you will learn to focus on the specific, erotic sensations of the penis inside the vagina.
Men, when you’re in the active role, ask your partner to lie comfortably on her back. Do sensate-focus caresses, including a front caress, a genital caress, and oral sex. If you need direct stimulation of your penis to get an erection, use your penis to caress your partner’s vagina, or caress yourself with your hand. When you are ready, start intercourse in the butterfly position. As the active partner, you will control the speed of the thrusting. Thrust as slowly as possible—try to caress your partner’s vagina with your penis. Both of you should feel free to move, to thrust and roll with each other, while focusing on the exquisite sensations of your penis inside her vagina.
Next, try switching your focus to different parts of your penis. What can you feel? Both of you try to focus on the same sensations at the same time. Look at each other as you focus. There should be no pressure for either of you to have an orgasm, but if you do, that is okay. As the active partner, you decide when intercourse is over.
Women, when you’re in the active role, ask your partner to lie on his back as you do a front caress, genital caress, and perhaps oral sex. When your partner has an erection, climb on top of him, insert his penis in your vagina, and begin slowly thrusting on his penis. Think of yourself as caressing his penis with your vagina. Both of you should focus on the sensations of his penis inside your vagina.
As the active partner, you lead with regard to the speed and extent of the thrusting, and your partner follows. It’s
like dancing—in fact, it is a dance, a love dance. As you make love, look into each other’s eyes and try to match your breathing. The exercise is over whenever you decide to stop, regardless of whether either or both of you have orgasms.
Exercise 112. HEALING INTERCOURSE
This is another version of intercourse that is free from pressure or goals. In healing intercourse, you visualize and project healing sexual energy in a focused way.
If you are a woman in the active role, caress your partner while you both center your energies together. When your partner has a partial or full erection, climb on top of him and begin intercourse. While thrusting and focusing, visualize your vagina as a vessel that surrounds your partner’s penis. Imagine that your vagina is hot, giving out a white, healing light that flows into your partner. This visualization will convey a positive healing energy from your vagina to your partner’s penis. If your partner focuses on the same visualization, your vagina will actually begin to feel hot during the exercise. There is no goal, no pressure, and no time limit. You decide when the exercise is over. If you are able to reach a climax, give your partner the ultimate healing energy gift: you having a very intense orgasm.
If you are a man in the active role, begin with a front caress, a genital caress, and perhaps oral sex. When your partner is aroused and lubricated, begin intercourse in the butterfly position. Visualize your penis as a healing instrument, radiating white-hot healing energy to your partner. Or think of your sexual energy as a blue or white light flowing into your partner. Both of you should focus on this visualization. You can continue with intercourse as long as you want to, with or without an orgasm. You may actually feel your penis become hot.
Sometimes it is easier for a man to do this visualization than it is for a woman, because if he has an orgasm he actually is pouring something into his partner. So if you are a woman, when you have an orgasm, picture it as an energy gift—powerful, hot, and healing.
Exercise 113. HEART-AWARENESS INTERCOURSE
This form of intercourse creates an incredible bond, especially if one or both of you have orgasms. During heart-awareness intercourse, you listen to your lover’s heartbeat as the rhythms of your lovemaking build and climax. The exercise will sharpen your awareness of the rhythms of your bodies, your arousal, and, ultimately, each other. Alternatively, you can adjust your position so that your hearts are against each other and beat together as you make love.
Begin the exercise with focusing caresses. If you are the woman and you are active, when your partner has an erection, straddle him, begin intercourse, and thrust sensuously. While making love, lean over and rest your ear on your partner’s chest. Feel his warmth. Listen to his heartbeat as you both become more and more aroused. See if you can cause your partner’s heartbeat to speed up or slow down with the speed and force of your thrusting. As his heart beats faster, does his breathing quicken? Does your arousal climb? Does your heart beat faster?
If you are the man and you are active, when you have an erection, kneel between your partner’s legs and enter her. As you slowly and sensuously thrust, lean over so your ear rests on your partner’s chest. Feel her warmth and listen to her heartbeat. Does the speed and passion of your thrusting affect the beating of your partner’s heart? Does her breathing quicken? Does your arousal climb in tandem with hers?
Exercise 114. MUTUALITY INTERCOURSE
For this exercise, you can have intercourse in whatever position you choose. The idea is to try to see and feel the act of intercourse from your partner’s viewpoint. In doing so you will find that you cannot tell where you end and your partner begins. You will feel ultimately unified, a greater whole than each of you individually.
There are two ways to experience mutuality intercourse. The first is to begin with peaking, so you are both at high arousal levels when you start intercourse. As you penetrate or are penetrated, ask yourself, “Is what I feel the penis or the vagina?” If you are a woman, see if you can put your consciousness in your partner’s penis. If you are a man, see if you can put your consciousness in your partner’s vagina.
The second way to experience mutuality intercourse is to pretend your physical positions are reversed. If you are on top, close your eyes and imagine that you are on the bottom. If you are on the bottom, close your eyes and imagine that you are on top. As you have intercourse and you mutually focus on this sensation, you may get the sense that the two of you are spinning or whirling through space.
A third option is to try to place your consciousness in the body of your partner and try to imagine what intercourse feels like for him or her.
Mutual and Multiple Orgasms
I am sure you have heard the phrase simultaneous orgasm, which refers to both members of a couple having orgasms at the same time during intercourse. In sex therapy, for a long time simultaneous orgasm was touted as the be-all and end-all of lovemaking. It eventually fell out of favor with sex therapists because many of them realized that this point of view placed too much pressure on couples, especially on men who had premature ejaculation problems and on women who had difficulty having an orgasm at all during intercourse.
Some of us, however, have not given up on the rare potential of simultaneous orgasm, which I prefer to call mutual orgasm because the term reflects so much more than simply two orgasms happening at the same time. The phrase mutual orgasm also reflects the idea that each lover enjoys his or her partner’s orgasm as well as his or her own. With the techniques in Sexual Healing, especially peaking and plateauing, you and your partner can know so much about each other’s response that you will be able to have mutual orgasms.
Exercise 115. MUTUAL ORGASM
Begin with some unstructured foreplay or focusing caresses to awaken your senses. Then decide who will be on top. Bring your bodies together in an intercourse position in which you are face to face. Whoever is on top controls the speed of the thrusting and should start as slowly as possible.
As you roll through slow, sensuous thrusting, peak together up through levels 6, 7, and 8. Relax, breathe, and focus on the sensations in the penis and vagina. Men, think of yourself as caressing your partner’s vagina with your penis. Women, think of yourself as caressing your partner’s penis with the walls of your vagina. Keep your motion shared and mutual as you thrust together and slide apart. Gaze into each other’s eyes as you move. If you’ve done many peaking and plateauing exercises together, you are probably very aware of your own and your partner’s arousal levels. The best cues to your partner’s arousal level are heart rate and breathing.
When the person on top climbs to the brink of orgasm, the other should follow. As you plunge into orgasm, take a deep breath, relax your body, open your eyes wide, and look into your partner’s eyes. With practice you will find that you have the ability to either hold back slightly until your partner is ready or to accelerate your arousal slightly to match your partner’s.
If you frequently experience mutual orgasm with your partner, you may think this is as good as lovemaking gets. But what if you could experience multiple orgasms together? Read on.
Exercise 116. MULTIPLE ORGASMS FOR WOMEN
For women, the way to trigger multiple orgasms is similar to the plateauing exercise described in Chapter 26. Multiple orgasms may be strong, quiet, somewhere in between, or a combination of all of these. You can have multiple orgasms in any position. Most women find that being on top allows them to be more active and gives them more ability to control the strokes and the level of their own arousal. Other women find that having their partners kneel while they lie on their back provides more stimulation, particularly of the G-spot. I encourage you to try different positions and different types of orgasms with different trigger sites. You may want to try multiple orgasms alone first, with genital caresses or oral sex or a dildo, before trying them during intercourse with your partner.
Peak to levels 4, 5, and 6. Then, plateau at level 7 with breathing, pelvic movements, the PC squeeze, or switching focus. When you reach levels 8
and 9, instead of plateauing, let yourself go over into orgasm. Then continue the stimulation with peaking until you reach another orgasm. The more you are able to let yourself go and revel in your sensations, the more likely you will be to have multiple orgasms. The secret to multiple orgasms for women is when you reach an orgasmic peak, don’t let your arousal go down very far before you start the stimulation again.
In How to Make Love All Night, I wrote extensively about multiple orgasms for men, but I would like to explain the basics of it here, because for a couple, it is really the icing on the cake of mutual orgasm.
Contrary to popular expectation, it is possible for men to have multiple orgasms the way women do. To learn how, you have to realize that orgasm and ejaculation are two different bodily processes. An orgasm is a full-body response that includes spasms of the long muscles of the body, rapid heart rate, rapid breathing, and an intense feeling of release and pleasure. Ejaculation is a localized genital phenomenon that occurs when the PC muscle spasms and forces semen out of the penis.
Men can learn to become multiply orgasmic by learning to let their bodies go over into the sensations of orgasm while delaying or withholding ejaculation. You can do this by being intensely aware of the sensations that happen right at your point of ejaculatory inevitability (or “point of no return”) and then keeping yourself from going over that point. Because you don’t ejaculate, you can maintain your erection and continue making love, during which time you may go on to have one or several more orgasms. Many men especially enjoy having several nonejaculatory orgasms and then having an ejaculation with their final orgasm.
Becoming multiply orgasmic holds several benefits for men. By understanding the power of orgasmic potential, you gain insight into your partner’s response and it becomes easier for the two of you to communicate about sexual matters. Also, women whose partners become multiply orgasmic delight in the sharing of this very special experience.
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