How to make love
Why make love?
In today’s culture, we’re mostly shown just one kind of sex: hot, intense, and fast. It’s the kind we see in movies or porn — where everything is leading towards penetration, orgasm, and ejaculation. This kind of sex is so deeply embedded into our collective psyche. That ‘successful sex’ has to include penetration and ‘finish’ with orgasms so if any of these pieces are missing, we can feel that sex has somehow failed (or we have!).
I call this ‘regular sex’.
When people tell me that their sex life has become ‘boring’, ‘routine’ and feels ‘mechanical’, 99% of the time they are having regular sex over and over again. They think there is something wrong with them for not enjoying it and they are SO relieved when they hear that they are not the issue – it is the type of sex that they are having!
It is important to say that there is nothing inherently wrong with regular sex. You may have enjoyed it many, many times! However, if it is the only way that you’re experience sex it can feel limiting. There’s a whole different world of pleasure, connection and depth available when you begin to explore making love.
What is making love?
Making Love – also called slow sex, conscious love making, relaxed love making or Soul Sex – has a completely different focus to regular sex.
Have you ever had a moment that felt timeless? When you are so absorbed in the present moment that everything else just fell away? Whether those timeless moments were making love, watching a stunning sunset, holding a new born baby, dancing or hugging a loved one.
It’s inviting that quality of presence and consciousness into your love making. That’s the energy of making love. It’s not about speed or performance. It’s about bringing presence, and conscious attention to each moment. It invites you to move from “doing sex” to truly being with each other — heart, body, and soul.
What are the benefits of making love?
I have seen time and time again how making love can transform your sex life. Here are just some of the benefits.
Making love can:
- Deepen emotional and physical intimacy
- Reduce stress and anxiety
- Increase trust and safety between partners
- Awaken your full-body sensitivity and pleasure
- Shift sex from something you do to something you feel
- Reignite connection in long-term relationships
- Support healing after pain, trauma, or transitions in life like menopause.
It can also completely reframe what sex means in your relationship — from performance-based to presence-based. From mechanical to meaningful. From goal-oriented to heart-led.
JOIN US FOR THE MAKING LOVE RETREAT
The differences between regular sex and making love
When clients come to me saying their sex life has become boring, routine, or mechanical, they’re almost always having regular sex — over and over again.
They often think something is wrong with them. It is a relief it is to discover: the issue isn’t you — it’s the model of sex you’ve been given.
Here are some of the key differences. This is not a definitive list – there are more!
10 common qualities of regular sex
- Goal-oriented — The focus is on heading townwards the goal whether it is Penetration, orgasm, and ejaculation. These are seen as “success.” If the “goals” don’t happen, the experience may feel like a failure.
- Performance pressure — Focusing on the goal can create performance pressure, even at a subtle level. You cannot fully enjoy the present experience if even a small part of your awareness is on ‘what next?’ or what has previously happened. This leads to an internal dialogue like “Am I hard enough?” or “Are they enjoying this?”
- Predictable and scripted — You know what’s coming.
- In your head — You might be distracted by thoughts, fantasies, or worries.
- Chasing intensity — There is a searching and chasing for stimulation, excitement and hot experiences. This can create an urgency to get to the goals which leads to everything getting faster. If the pleasure drops, there can be a sense of frustration or panic that the pleasure has gone.
- Peak-and-release arousal — Sensation builds to a climax, then it’s over (hello, roll over and sleep). People often feel relaxation after an orgasm rather than during sex.
- Sympathetic nervous system activation — Can produce stress based hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. Patterns in the body can include shallow breathing and contraction in the body. Most people have a ‘tension pattern’ – the places they contract in stress and/or goal based pleasure which limit what you can feel. This can be in specific places like the jaw, the buttocks and the inner thighs.
- Mostly physical — Emotional and energetic layers are often left out.
- Making your partner responsible for your arousal — “You need to turn me on” can become the unspoken expectation.
- Desire is expected to be spontaneous — It is expected that you ‘should’ be ‘in the mood’ and have desire for sex. If not, you can feel there is something up with you, your partner or your relationship.
10 common qualities of making love
- Present-moment focus — You follow the experience moment by moment, taking time and savouring the experience. Everything is slower and there can be a sense of timelessness.
- No pressure to perform or get anywhere — You can to relax and be present with what is. Penetration may happen or not; orgasm may arise or not. It is about the quality of intimacy, not the outcomes.
- Curiosity and wonder — Every time can feel new. You bring a beginner’s mindset and heaps of curiosity to each experience.
- Authenticity — You’re real with yourself and your partner about what you feel. You don’t override your body, push through or fake anything.
- All sensations are embraced — There is a relaxation into the cool, warm and subtle sensations throughout the whole body.
- Arousal naturally ebbs and flows — There’s no chasing; just allowing. Arousal is relaxed and it moves through the whole body.
- Parasympathetic nervous system — You’re in a state of relaxation, safety, and connection. Oxytocin and other feel good hormones flow. This can result in an increase of qualities such as empathy, bonding, trust, safety and increased sensitivity.
- Embodied, deep intimacy — You feel more — not just sexually, but emotionally, spiritually, energetically. The heart opens. This is loving sex – making love.
- Shared responsibility — Each person takes responsibility for their own experience and together you attune and refine your experience with connection and communication.
- You don’t need to feel desire. There is nothing wrong if you don’t feel desire as your desire style may be ‘responsive’ rather than ‘spontaneous’. With responsive desire, desire can arise through connection.
How to make love
Making love isn’t a technique. It’s a practice — and for most of us, it requires unlearning years of conditioning – but it doesn’t have to take years!
Most people are on autopilot during sex. As with driving a car for years, you don’t think about it, you just do it. By starting to notice how/who you are during sex (whether with your partner or on your own), you begin to unlock your habits and create space to for a different experience.
We don’t live in a culture that teaches us to practice and explore sex. But making love, like music or art, gets richer with practice.
When you create time to explore with curiosity, you are both learners together. It takes the pressure off getting it right or wrong. You can explore with a partner or lover and on your own.
I invite you to notice these areas not just in love making, but in your day to day life too.
Some places to begin:
- Slow down — The slower you go, the more you feel and notice.
- Breathe deeply — Notice if your breath is shallow or you hold your breath. Breathe into your belly.
- Notice contraction and tension — Soften your jaw, your belly, your thighs, your buttocks… again and again.
- Let sound move — Make sound when you exhale. Just a sigh can be a release.
- Come back to the moment — If your mind wanders, gently return to sensation. You may do this many times.
These simple practices are powerful — but that doesn’t mean they’re always easy. Especially if your body has been conditioned by years of goal-oriented sex, where pressure, performance, and predictable scripts have taken the lead.
Making love takes you into new territory. It asks for a different kind of presence, vulnerability, and intimacy. And it invites you to develop new relational and emotional skills, such as:
- Knowing what you enjoy — and feeling confident to ask for it
- Saying when something doesn’t feel good — and knowing how to gently shift the experience
- Giving and receiving feedback in a way that deepens connection rather than creating distance
- Being at ease in the unknown — because making love isn’t linear or scripted
- Staying connected to your inner world — and trusting your body’s natural impulses
- Being willing to clear the air — so unspoken tension or resentment doesn’t block intimacy
And what my clients discover time and time again is this – as their sex life becomes deeper and more nourishing, so does their relationship.
Because when you transform how you make love, you transform how you relate — with yourself, with your partner, and with life.
Enjoyed this? Here are some more blogs for you:
How my clients explored relaxed love making
How slow sex helps at menopause
Ready to Explore?
If you’re curious to reset your sex life and explore a more connected, nourishing kind of intimacy, I’d love to support you.
You can read more about Soul Sex, my bespoke programme for couples, or The Making Love Retreat®, which I co-facilitate with my partner.
Together, we explore the art of making love — not as a technique, but as a path of transformation – deepening intimacy, connection and pleasure.
If you haven’t already, sign up to my newsletter to get a free ebook called ‘How relaxed love making can transform your sex life.’
I also offer Soul Sex as a 1-1 programme for women.
