Enhancing
Your Sexual Pleasures
A lot of people, when thinking about enhancing
their sexual pleasures, think just in terms of reaching
orgasms more intensely or more often. This is a great way
to go, but tends to become an overly focused preoccupation.
Here, we will provide some more general suggestions for
improving your sexual health and happiness.
Sexercise
Physical wellness is important to sexual
pleasure. Cardiovascular training usually improves sexual
performance, and exercises, such as yoga and dancing, that
promote spinal and pelvic flexibility, as well as facilitating
the movement of energy through the body, are helpful as
much for self pleasuring as for partnered eroticism.
As well, your enjoyment of genital pleasure,
both now and through the later years of your life, will
be greatly enhanced if you regularly exercise the muscle
system of your pelvic floor. This is called Kegelling. Find
the relevant group of muscles by stopping and starting your
flow of urine while sitting on the toilet. Then, at a time
when your bladder is empty, squeeze these muscles tight
and hold them for a count of three. Repeat this exercise
until these muscles feel tired (at the begining, you may
only be able to squeeze these muscles just a few times before
they feel tired, later you should be able gradually to make
up to twenty repeatings.) Practice these exercises twice
a day, at least three times a week, preferably daily.
Men will benefit from Kegel exercises in
terms of orgasmic intensity, the potential for control over
ejaculatory timing, and the general health of the pelvic
floor. Women will benefit from an empowering sense of comfort
and control over their vaginal canal, intensified orgasmic
capacity, and prevention of some of the health troubles
so often experienced by the older people (incontinence,
prolapses). More about Kegel
exercises
Avoid Anti-Aphrodisiacs
Most of us have heard that alcoholic beverages,
marihuana, cocaine, and other recreational drugs enhance
your sexual pleasure. The truth is that, at best, they disinhibit
sexual behaviors that are otherwise infused with anxiety,
guilt, or conflict and, in the long run, all these drugs
have serious negative effects on both sexual desire and
sexual functioning.
Great care must also be taken with prescription
medications. A lot of drugs that doctors use frequently
have adverse effects on your sexual pleasure. Basic medications
for ailments such as depression, hypertension, allergies,
and many others, will likely decrease your sexual desire
or impair your sexual performance, at least to some extent.
Before you accept a prescription for any medication, ask
your doctor, "How will this affect my sexual life?"
You have a right to know.
Honor All Your Senses
In this culture, our ideas about sexual
pleasure tend to be too focused on genital stimulation and
orgasmic release. Often, other sensual experiences are under-emphasized,
treated merely as "foreplay," a prelude to the
"real events." The individuals who are happiest
with their sexuality, especially as they grow and age, are
those who adopt a different attitude. Remember that sexual
pleasure is as much mental as physical and the sensuality
of your body extends to every part of you.
Create sensual experiences that cultivate
non-genital pleasures as well as genital ones. Touch every
part of the body in imaginative and varied ways. Use variations
in lighting (candles), smell (exotic scents), sound (music),
and setting (not always in the bedroom) to enhance your
excitement and playfulness.
Find Erotic Playtime
In his research on peak sexual experiences,
Dr. Jack Morin discusses how important timing is to erotic
life. Too easily, we get into routines that allocate a fixed
amount of time for sexual interaction. Whether it's ten
minutes three times a week, or a half-hour three times a
year, our sexual life gets routinized, perhaps because we
are all a little afraid of the spontaneous exuberance of
our sexual energies. When routinized, the quality of the
eroticism inevitably deteriorates. So breaking with routines
is usually a "turn-on"!
"Quickies" -- brief or unexpected
sexual encounters and stolen moments -- can be a wonderful
form of sharing. However, scheduling special extended periods
of time for relaxed erotic sharing is usually a blessing
that invigorates your sexual life. Make time for sex, solo
or partnered, when you are entirely unhurried, and not too
tired. Create special occasions in addition to the routine
pleasures.
Discover, Experiment, and Communicate
Sexual pleasure starts with your sexual
self. So enhancing your erotic pleasure means a commitment
to yourself, a commitment to your body, mind, and spirit.
Only if you feel playful, relaxed and open-minded, will
you discover the incredible potential of your body and spirit
for erotic pleasure. While you should not do anything under
conditions of stress or coercion, you will do well to spend
time exploring your own body to discover what sensations
you enjoy under what conditions. Then, under conditions
of mutuality and respect, discover what sensations your
partner enjoys, and tell him or her about what pleases you
or "turns you on."
If you like to dress-up (or dress-down)
and act out fantasies with your partner, do so, but always
under conditions in which expectations, rules, and "No-Nos"
are clearly communicated, preferably in advance. Your erotic
sharing should be playful, imaginative and enriched by fantasy.
Take time to make it so!
The secret of a happier sexuality lies
first in your personal commitment to create a more pleasingly
erotic life for yourself. Second, honor your sexuality in
all its varied aspects by being more playful, open-minded
and respectful in exploring what you enjoy. And third, practice
and communicate. Our sexuality is one of the greatest blessings
that life has to offer: make the most of it!
Dr. Barnaby Barratt is the Director of
the Midwest Institute of Sexology and is certified as a
Sexuality Educator and Sex Therapist by the American Association
of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, has served
on this organization’s Board of Directors since 1997, and
was awarded the Diplomate in Sex Therapy in 2003. The author
of three books, and about eighty scientific and professional
papers, articles and reviews, Dr. Barratt has also held
positions on the Editorial Boards of twelve national and
international scientific and professional journals. His
next book, Sexual Health and Erotic Freedom, will be published
in 2005.
Dr. Barratt is frequently sought as lecturer
and consultant, locally and nationally, on such topics as
sexual education, the treatment of sexual distress or difficulty,
the diversity of contemporary sexual practices, issues of
sexual rights, and tantric sexuality spirituality. He has
studied tantra for over thirty years, and currently offers
workshops and personal consultations in tantric sexuality
and spirituality. He is the author of The Way of the BodyPrayerPath:
Erotic Freedom and Spiritual Enlightenment (Xlibris, 2004).
More details about this aspect of his work are available
at www.BodyPrayerPath.org.
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