Does Your Sex Life Enhance or Diminish You?

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For most people, sex is among the most intimate acts of their lives. That's a big deal: It means that sex holds the potential to be a powerful force in your life, even outside the bedroom, by expanding and enriching your experience of being alive. Of course, not all sex feels intimate or even noteworthy, and sometimes sex is a difficult and problematic part of life. But research consistently suggests that people who are more satisfied with their sex lives are more satisfied with their relationships and with life in general. That’s another big deal, because that means that enhancing your sexual experience is probably worth much more to you than simply better sex.

If you are in a relationship and your sex life isn’t all you want it to be, it’s easy to identify what your partner is doing (or not doing) that interferes with your experience. If you are single, you may be limiting your sexual experience to what’s most efficient – often, masturbating with porn. But single or coupled, enhancing your sex life starts with you – that is, your relationship with your sexual self. Your “sexual self” is those aspects of your personality and body that are reserved for intimate experiences. When I ask people about their sexual selves in my therapy room, some people say they lost touch with their sexual self after college, or after they got pregnant the first time, or when work took over their lives. Others say they are uncomfortable with their body or their genitals and have never felt connected to their sexuality in any meaningful way. All this limits the ways that sex can enrich their lives. But activating that potential requires making the choice to explore and expand your relationship to your sexual self. There is always room for improvement – to enhance pleasure, creativity, or adventure between the sheets. Here are a few ways to deepen your relationship with your sexual self, making your sex life a more enriching experience.

1. Spend time alone naked. A rewarding sex life requires you to feel connected to your body, and comfortable with it. Strange as it may sound, what better way to connect with your body than to spend intimate, unguarded time with your physical being? Take extra time in the shower, sleep naked, or don’t get dressed so quickly in the morning. Meditate naked: What do you feel? See if you can find tenderness and compassion for your physical self. I’m guessing that the stranger these concepts sound, the more likely you are to benefit. Ultimately, the more at home you feel in your body, the more open and accessible you’ll be in the bedroom, better able to give and receive love freely.

2. Make masturbation a sensual experience rather than just a sexual one. It’s easy to diminish masturbation to the simple goal of relieving sexual tension. Masturbation is efficient – most people can orgasm faster when masturbating alone than when having a dyadic sexual experience. But what if you used masturbation to access a deeper connection with your sexuality? This means making the experience about more than just an orgasm. Instead, bring all your senses into the picture—what you are seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and touching. Play music that makes you feel sexy and use lighting that sets a mood. I’d avoid porn in this circumstance, because that will only hijack your attention away from your sensual self. Slow everything down, so that touching yourself becomes a sort of body meditation. You may feel silly at first, but why limit your experience to just your genitals when you can amplify it? Plus, as you develop comfort with your sensual self, you will have more of yourself to share with your lover, making your coupled sexual experiences feel more intimate and exciting.

3. Cultivate greater comfort with sexual vulnerability. Vulnerability is usually a necessary component of hot sex. Think of your most memorable, exciting sexual experiences. Were they with a new and exciting partner? Were you doing something risky, or something you weren’t used to doing? Maybe intense emotions were involved. What all these scenarios have in common is that you were feeling vulnerable. The problem is, vulnerability — especially sexual vulnerability — is a scary word these days because we associate it with sexual abuse. But abuse happens when vulnerability is taken advantage of. In a safe sexual scenario with a trusted partner, vulnerability will enhance your experience. (Of course, too much vulnerability will close you down, so be smart and monitor yourself.) If the idea of being vulnerable sexually makes you uncomfortable, you can start by practicing on your own. Lock your bedroom door and practice hip-opening yoga poses. Focus on the sensation of your body feeling open and relaxed. Finding the pleasure in these vulnerable poses can be the first step in allowing the pleasure of vulnerability into sexual experiences with your partner.