Slow Sex: The Path to Fulfilling and Sustainable Sexuality (23 page)

People often think that ecstasy is something hot and overwhelming, but this is not really true. Ecstasy is, in fact, exceptionally cool and peaceful, and arises when there is a silent receptivity, porousness, and ease.

We cannot expect bliss from the first footstep we take on the journey. Many steps have to be taken, but these are not arduous; the way is one of fun, curiosity, and exploration. Become sensitive and attuned to yourself on the cellular level first. Put the foundations in place and build on that solid base.

Making Rules Out of Tools

A very common error is to turn tools into rules. When we get serious, tools become rules and exploration is no longer possible. Women, especially, tend to point their fingers—do this, don’t do this. Loving, playful cooperation is absolutely essential, otherwise we don’t get anywhere.

Trial and error is what you are after. Teach yourself, explore, and establish the truth of each tool instead of making it a rule. Finding the truth also means exploring tried and tested ways (as in conventional sex), so do not deny your past experience. Use the past as a bridge to the present. Return to known experiences in order to discover the truth, and don’t rush to conclusions, as in, “It’s like this because of that.” Check it out again and again, and see if the same holds true over time. Only then is a truth truly your truth—when it has stood the test of time.

Lack of Time

The time factor is a common complaint from couples. Even with the best of intentions, between the joys and stresses of family life and work life there is rarely enough space for slow sex dates. In the end you simply have to carve time for yourselves as a couple and at least find time for the slow sex quickie now and then. Love has to be given some priority. Consciously creating love through slow sex will support you personally and as a couple, and put you in a better position to handle every other aspect of your life.

Arguing, Discussing, or Fighting

If you find yourself in some kind of argument, discussion, or blaming mode while supposedly having sex, then it’s best to take some space apart from each other. Or it may be more subtle—you may notice some kind of negative or unloving charge (hidden or not) in your communication. If there’s any kind of emotion in the air, then sex can easily move in the direction of excitement and discharge as a way of eliminating the emotional tension. Best is to tell your partner what’s happening with you, using simple, first-person words such as, “I feel emotional,” or “I feel disconnected from myself and you.” Then separate physically (after agreeing that you will meet again later), find a place to be alone, and do something active with your body.

Do something physically strenuous, and with intention, to rid yourself of the accumulated tension. When you have come back to yourself and can feel your heart again, return to your partner. Usually there will be an immediate sense of connection, but if for any reason you continue to feel slightly separate, you may need to move a bit more. Whatever you choose to do, do it with intention and self-awareness, not in a halfhearted way.

The danger of staying in the same place, not separating, is that the talking and arguing will be prolonged, perhaps going around in circles for hours. The unhappiness and tension that has arisen (for whatever reason) has to be dealt with differently in order to protect and pre-serve your love. If you continue fighting, too easily things escalate and hurtful, revengeful things are said to each other, which is a much less effective way to rid the system of tension. So if you hear yourself using phrases like “you always” or “you never,” this is a signal that you have moved from connection into disconnection. Or if you notice you can’t look your partner in the eyes, this too is a sign that the connection is out of order. (For more on this subject see below, “Separating Love from Emotion,” and the book
Tantric Love: Feeling versus Emotion—Golden Rules to Make Love Easy
by Diana and Michael Richardson.) Recognize what’s happening, announce it, and separate briefly to get a handle on the situation without acting it out on your partner. And then afterward come back together again.

DEEPENING YOUR SLOW SEX PRACTICE

Your experience will deepen through regular and frequent practice, not just leaving it for now and then (although now and then is infinitely better than not at all). You may reach various plateaus, which is perfectly fine, and also rewarding and beneficial. Regular meetings give rise to a refining of the polarity within and between your bodies—male more male, female more female. You become more finely tuned as time passes.

Unlike conventional sex where the thrills tend to dry up over time, slow sex is sustainable over many, many years and encourages togetherness. Sex can be a cohesive force.

This bonding element alone speaks loud and clear for the value of slow sex. I hear from so many couples after our retreats that the only reason they are still together is because they began practicing slow sex. Through the awareness required they came back into connection with themselves, and through that, with each other. The awareness made it possible and easy to be able to continue a loving relationship in happiness and harmony. When the level of awareness between any two people is raised, then love is the alchemical by-product.

PENETRATING INNOCENCE

Stay light, easy, and playful. These qualities of innocence will support you. A sense of humor is tantamount to a best friend when you explore sex. Very amusing situations can arise so the capacity to be light and see the funny side of things helps. A sense of humor gives you perspective on the situation; you are less identified with what is taking place. A sense of humor definitely means being able to laugh at yourself. When we are lacking in humor it may be because we are somehow trapped in the mind and identified with our sexual selves, our performance, or how the other person perceives us as a lover. Avoid taking yourself too seriously and don’t get serious about what you are doing. Make it a play, a dance. Be easygoing with yourself and your partner. Life and love are an unfolding mystery and adventure, so it doesn’t help to get too serious about them.

What is essential is sincerity of the heart, not seriousness of the mind. Sincerity keeps to the commitment, gives rise to curiosity and willingness, and knows the value of love.

Entering the inner dimensions and realms of the body is basically a feminine search. The spiritual inquiry is a feminine one because it looks inward; both man and woman are engaging with the feminine. This is an essential balance to our very extroverted, masculine, outward-oriented society with its material, external values. As a general shift, humanity needs to turn back inward to access resources that lie within and have sustainable value beyond the material.

When the dynamic and receptive sexual forces resting deep within are allowed to express themselves in slow sex, tremendous healing and regeneration is possible, both individually and collectively. Engaging in slow sex enables your system to come into natural flow and balance. As you heal and harmonize yourselves you will generate a powerful positive energy that becomes a contribution to society at large.

Developing Presence

Our first effort must be to arrive in the present. The present moment is most easily found in your body. Through being aware in the body, the senses, the breath, and the inner world, you being to develop the quality of presence. This quality has the capacity to develop and grow to the extent that your presence begins to have an impact on others and alchemically draw them into the here and now.

Don’t be concerned as to whether your partner is present or not; rather, look to see if
you
are present or not. And find ways to intensify your presence (using your awareness) so that it energetically draws and engages your partner.

I found it a great help to always try to change myself first, before considering what I could ask my partner to change. It’s not that you deny your needs or your truth, but first and foremost you turn back toward yourself and become curious as to what you can influence through your awareness and relaxation. For me, doing so has always had magical results.

A Shift from Doing to Being

The body is the bridge to the being, and when you relax into your being, you naturally connect with the source of love within yourself. The source of love is within you, not outside you. At times you may decide to drop verbal communication or close your eyes, because you have reached a stage where you can hold the awareness in the present and for a change wish to enjoy silence, closed eyes, and just being.

There are quite a few inner doings that can go on while you are being in your body. You might want to experiment with some of the following:

• Bring your awareness to your perineum (man) or breasts (woman) and notice what takes place on a subtle energy level.
  
• Travel internally with your breath and assist it in reaching deep into the genital tissues.
  
• Breathe incredibly softly with your awareness at the nasal openings and see how you can enter into your breath.
  
• Curl the tip of your tongue upward until it touches the roof of your mouth, and feel what inner connection happens when you leave it there.
  
• Bring your awareness to the third eye (midline forehead, just above the eyebrows) and feel the inner expansion.
  
• Hold the awareness in the solar plexus and see how a certain spontaneity arises in your body, or in the connection between you and your partner.
  

Little tricks like these, connecting energy circuits or connecting to energy points (using the awareness), will often intensify inner sensations and sensitivities, and they are great to play around with and explore. At the same time, getting too involved with this inner point or that inner point can turn into a subtle form of doing and create a slight but significant level of absence. So this by-product has to be balanced by simply being present to what
is
in the body.

Spontaneous Erection and Orgasmic Experiences

Spontaneous erection, one where the penis spirals upward by itself inside the vagina, can happen at any time. This phenomenon is based on a magnetic type of interaction between the penis and vagina’s dynamic and receptive forces, as we discussed in more detail in chapter 4. Avoid having expectations. It may happen, it may not happen. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. But do not use spontaneous erection as any kind of measure of success. Do not expect anything to happen because expectations form subtle barriers that block your potential experience. Expectation involves thought and judgment and removes you from your inner connection to the body. Spontaneous erection will usually be a by-product of deep merging with body and senses; it can never be a goal because it is an outcome of a certain constellation of factors. You can only create the situation and settle ever more deeply into your body.

Orgasmic states can arise for both man and woman, but they cannot in any way be engineered or expected. In the orgasmic state you experience an expansion beyond the physical boundaries where you come to exist as pure boundless energy through a deep relaxation and inner merging.

SEPARATING LOVE FROM EMOTION

Love is not an emotion, it is a state of being. Love is tremendous insight, clarity, sensitivity, and awareness, and these intrinsic qualities grow when we relax back into the body to touch the source of love that resides in the being. Taking responsibility for negative emotions and emotionality is a big step in maturity that permits us to behave as adults and not five-year-olds. With taking responsibility comes a newfound freedom in which we are able to preserve love and leave behind unhelpful patterns. A slow sex practice will definitely bring more harmony and reduce the level of emotionality between partners.

Expressing Feelings and Sharing Your Needs

It becomes necessary to communicate your needs and not expect your partner to intuit them. Sometimes it is difficult to admit to our needs, let alone express them, but if you don’t tell your partner what does or doesn’t suit you, you risk feeling unhappy a bit later on—like a backlash. Not getting needs fulfilled is a big source of our unhappiness and emotions. By speaking up in sex it is possible to eliminate at least one source of ongoing unhappiness and discontent.

When feelings rise to the surface, give way to them, let them move through you. Or tell your partner what you are feeling, making sure to talk only about yourself and avoid any form of subtle blaming or making your partner responsible for what you feel. Releasing or sharing old unexpressed aspects of yourself is integrating and deeply healing. Through purifying the tensions of old feelings that are stored in your body, you transform like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.