The Key to Kicking Stress Out of the Bedroom

Because sex is about pleasure, not performance

Editor’s Note: “The Key to Kicking Stress Out of the Bedroom” is the answer to the questions raised in Part I “The Mistake That’s Costing Us So Much Pleasure.”

I want to tell you what I love most about sex, and it might surprise you. It’s not the steamy romance, nor the breaking of taboos, and it’s not even my own orgasm.

What I love most about sex is watching my lover melt when he climaxes.

Try as I might, I can’t seem to convince him that he need not hold up the world when he is out and about in it, but in bed, at the moment of orgasm, he cannot help but let all of that go, even for just a moment. I love it even more than I love the rush of ecstasy and relaxation that comes with my own orgasm. For me, sex is about surrender, and I don’t want anything to stand in the way of that.

For me, sex is about surrender, and I don’t want anything to stand in the way of that.

The single greatest inhibitor of surrender is anxiety. This is true from the nervous system on up. The reptilian brain, which among other things, controls our fight/flight/freeze response, has the ability to hijack our parasympathetic nervous system, which is activated during sex. When we are panicked, we cannot surrender.

There is a common misconception in heterosexual sex, which I explored here, that puts men at war with their own bodies. I hate watching that inner turmoil play out on my lover’s face when we’re in bed. I want his full attention on me, and on his own pleasure.

The misunderstanding that is depriving good men and women everywhere of untold amounts of pleasure is the idea that great sex requires an erect penis.

It’s simply not true.

If the idea that good heterosexual sex requires a hard penis is erroneous, then what is the key ingredient?

The answer is playfulness.

Great sex is not dependent on a hard penis or big boobs or a certain amount of cellulite. It’s not dependent on any single body part, which is why even those who are paraplegic, who have no control or sensation in their sexual organs, can still be orgasmic. In some beautiful cases, the body will develop new erogenous zones that are capable of orgasm when sex organs become incapacitated.

All that is necessary for really great sex is two consenting adults ready and willing to devour one another. It is play in its purest sense. Just like children, or puppies or kittens, when we humans feel loved, safe and truly free to follow our desire, good sex emerges. We grab and lick, suck and caress our lovers, just as we might have as babies at the breast. It’s natural and it’s playful.

Moving from Body Parts to Play

In his revolutionary book Passionate Marriage, sex and psychotherapist David Schnarch reports a conversation with one of his patients who struggled with erectile dysfunction, and yet regularly initiated sex:

“An embarrassed Bill explains, ‘I have nothing to make love to her with. I lose my hard-on during intercourse…I guess I look at it as Joan giving me another chance to redeem myself. You know, measure up. I feel really terrible about letting Joan down — and letting myself down too.’

Dr. Schnarch responded:

‘I didn’t know you could let Joan down with your penis. I’ve never seen a hard-on strong enough to support anyone. And as for needing an erection to ‘make love,’ how much love have you ever found in a penis?’”

Once we let men off the hook and stop believing that a part of their body has to behave just so for good sex to happen, then true pleasure can really begin.

Great sex is playful, and it is based on the exchange of pleasure between the parties involved. That means that in order to have it, we have to know the bodies of our partners. We have to know what makes them feel good and what type of touch brings them to orgasm. We have to know their erogenous zones, fetishes and fantasies. And, we have to face them in love.

Your job is to love them in their wanting.

Unless your partner is asking to hurt you without your permission, then your job is to love them in their wanting. Whatever turns them on is fine by you! And, if you find yourself feeling otherwise, then it’s time to remind ourselves of the other two culprits we identified as being responsible for this misunderstanding in The Misconception That’s Costing Us So Much Pleasure — porn (probably where she got that idea…) and religion (probably where you got the idea that it’s gross or wrong).

I don’t want my love stopping himself from climaxing for me. To the contrary! I welcome the quick arrival of his first orgasm because I love the time between the first and second, and love how long he can stay hard before the third. I want him to show me just how he likes it, and then I want a turn to do the same. I want him to orgasm as quickly as he needs and as often as he can.

If he doesn’t want to climax yet, that’s his call, as long as his desire is coming from a place of self-love, and not a place of anxiety or shame.

In exchange, I take responsibility for my pleasure and my orgasm. We women need to know what feels good and we need to drop our fears of saying so. While nearly all women say they can bring themselves to climax through solo sex, they generally report achieving orgasm with a partner around 60% of the time. Courage and self-love are the ways to bridge the gap in these numbers.

Courage and self-love are the ways to bridge the gap.

Ladies, our bodies are made to experience tremendous pleasure. I’d argue that just as our pain thresholds are higher, which allows us to push something the size of a football through an opening the size of a peach (vaginas expand during labor), so too is our pleasure threshold. It is time for us to own our pleasure.

And guys, you need to stay in the game with us, regardless of what your penis is doing at the moment. As Dr. Schnarch points out, no man makes love with just his penis. He makes love with his desire, and with all of the parts of his body that can express that love. Lucky for you, women can be brought to climax with fingers, toes, tongues, toys and yes, penises.

There is one caveat here. As a lover who’s interested in the pleasure of your mate, it’s your responsibility to know yourself and know what orgasm elicits in you. Orgasm is generated in the body through a powerful synergy of the autonomous and somatic nervous systems, which is to say, it’s total. It’s one of the most overwhelming physical sensations we can experience. Because it’s so powerful, for many orgasm can bring up strong feelings and reactions (that’s why sex is such fertile ground for healing), and some lovers feel an overwhelming need for space or for sleep immediately after climax. If this is you, then it’s your responsibility to be self aware (and perhaps curious about what’s coming up for you), and to communicate your needs to your partner. With communication, you can agree together about your preferences and patterns for pleasure, closeness and space.

Great sex is about the give and take of touch and pleasure between partners. Ideally, anxiety has no place in the bedroom. More than anything else in adult life, good sex is the setting where we get to feel love through each of our many orifices, where we get to caress, suck, lick and kiss our lover. Sex should feel as good as nursing felt, way back when we were at our mother’s breast. Erect penises are invited to the party, but the party is not dependent upon them, something lesbians know well.

Like so many lessons of the 21st century, here too, it’s time to realize that guys, your penises are not the center of our universe. They’re beautiful, awesome sexual organs, but they don’t rule the world and they are not the perquisite for great sex. So, let’s take the pressure off of them, so that everyone in the bedroom can get down to the real business of sex — the giving and taking of mutual pleasure.

Don’t miss Part I of this two-part essay…