We live in a world full of constant sex advice:
"Try this new acrobatic position to have a stronger orgasm!" "Do these three things to drive him wild in the bedroom!" "The ONE thing to say to get her in the mood!"
If we want to have better sex we are told to buy lacy lingerie, try
new sexual positions, engage in role play, use vibrators, eat
aphrodisiacs, experiment with flavored lubricants, watch sexy videos,
make sex a priority, but don't focus on it too obsessively. The list goes on and on. And it’s enough to make your head spin.
And while experimentation and novelty can be fun, what if the most
helpful thing you could do for your sex life is, well, nothing?
Being Mentally Present
Over the course of my research, I interviewed women who
self-identified as having higher levels of sexual desire. And while
these interviews almost never focused on surprising, unusual or erotic
sexcapades, most of these women indicated that simply being
“mentally present” during sex was one of the most important components
to their ability to experience higher levels of passion and desire. For
example:
“If we decide we want to have sex, it’s just like, forget about
everything else right now. I’ll just concentrate on pleasing my partner
and he’ll concentrate on pleasing you. Like being in the moment”
As this quote suggests, being "mentally present" is the ability to
keep our mind on the activity at hand. To focus on having sex, on your
partner’s touch, on the physical sensations. And not worrying
about what you’re doing, how your body looks doing it, what your partner
is thinking, or what list of things you have to do tomorrow. Simply
being there, taking it all in, and not judging or evaluating.
The finding that mental presence is important to sexual satisfaction, has been replicated in other studies as well.
Optimal Sexuality
Peggy Kleinplatz, a Canadian sex researcher at the University of
Ottawa wanted to understand what people who reported having the most
passionate and enjoyable sex were doing "right" so that others could
learn from them. Her team interviewed 44 people who self-identified as having great sex as well as 20 sex therapists (considered sex experts).
The researchers developed a list of eight things that nearly all
people in the study described doing to have "great sex" (which she
refers to as "optimal sexuality"). Spoiler: there weren't any specific
acrobatic positions or high sexual frequencies documented. Instead, one
of the prominent themes included was “being present.”
It’s an interesting thought: that people who are having the best sex
are simply present for the sex they are having. That just "being there"
and not getting caught up in how we look or what position to try next be
enough to make sex better.
But as simple as being "in the moment" during sex sounds, it’s not
such an easy thing to do in practice. So how do we turn down the noise
of all of those things that tempt our mind to wander – like how we look,
whether there is enough money to take a vacation this year, the
disagreement we had with a colleague at work and so on?
Mindfulness
Mindfulness has become more and more prominent in the western world through yoga, meditation
practice and the slow sex movement. Mindfulness essentially is the
process of focusing on our breath and observing our thoughts come and go
and not judging them.
Interestingly, more and more research is discovering that by being
mindful during sex men and women, but particularly women, are
experiencing increasingly high levels of sexual desire.
Dr. Lori Brotto and her team at the University of British Columbia in Canada is a leader in
this research. Study after study Dr. Brotto has found that women who
practice mindfulness report higher desire. She has also implemented
mindfulness as a treatment strategy for women who struggle with
problematic low desire and low desire related to gynecologic cancer.
Through her research, she has found that the benefits of a mindfulness
course (i.e., three 90-minute sessions) were found to produce positive
impacts on desire, arousal and satisfaction even six months after the treatment.
So, if we notice our mind wandering
while we're having sex, from thoughts about whether we could lose
five pounds to making a mental grocery list, the best thing to do we let
the thought pass and bring our thoughts back to our partner and those
sexual sensations. In other words, instead of worrying, planning,
latching on to and evaluating distracting thoughts we just invite
ourselves to be in the moment.
Take Away
Experiment all you like with sexual positions, outfits, toys and fantasies.
Those things can be fun and exciting in the bedroom. But, if you're
feeling overwhelmed with too many sex tips, your sex life might just
benefit from slowing things down, breathing, focusing on the moment and
and doing a whole lot of "nothing."
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