I am noticing the emergence of a new conversation about sex and one that I really welcome. One of the things I love about it is that it’s not about Tantra, or technique or toys. It’s what you might have heard of as slow sex (Slow Sex is also the title of Diana and Michael Richardson’s amazing book which I recommend.
The conversation I am noticing is there’s more people talking about sex that’s based in the parasympathetic nervous system, oxytocin sex, peaceful sex, loving sex. What I call relaxed sex, or relaxed love making.
Hot sex has been held up as the pinnacle of sex, as the best way to have sex.
As I’ve written about before, hot sex comes with pressure. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with hot sex, the problem is when you head towards hot sex every single time it can result in a lot of pressure. And it comes with a belief that anything less than hot sex is less than, boring, lukewarm.
Dropping into relaxed sex is an unlearning and an unwinding and it invites different parts of us to come online. Being rather than doing. Softening rather than tensing. Vulnerability rather than performance. Not knowing rather than certainty. Gentleness rather than hardness. Peacefulness rather than intensity. Feeling rather than thinking. Slowness rather than speed. It requires presence rather than fantasy.
These are qualities that we’re not used to in our culture. We learn performance, productivity, speed and the dominance of the mind, often from an early age.
Relaxed Sex invites us into different spaces inside and these can open up not just for sex. These are beautiful spaces to bring more into our every day. Vulnerability, presence, relaxation, slowing down, being.
Dropping into more relaxed sex we literally start to make love, the heart opens and the love flows and grows. It opens you to the exquisite subtleness of the human body, to depths and realms of pleasure and sensation that can never be found in hot sex.
Relaxed sex, relaxed lovemaking is a practice. It requires creating intentional space and time. Time to unwind the body and the mind.
Start with the next time you have sex, whether it’s with yourself or another, creating moments to pause, be and notice how your body is. If you notice tension or contraction in your body, take a breath, enjoy your exhale and soften your body and notice what happens. Let me know. I’d love to hear.
