There’s a lot of stuff about being a good lover.

And lots of people, men and women, want to learn how to be good lovers.

There are so many courses offering many sexual skills. And a lot of them have valuable information for us. We need to learn about our bodies and our partners’ bodies because anatomy is important.

Learning about where the pleasure spots are is important.

Learning about how to touch, lick, kiss, suck, and more is important.

Learning how to breathe is important.

Learning how to communicate is important.

I’d like to offer a few things here about being a good lover. The first is this:

We’re looking for a formula, but our bodies, our sexuality, our pleasure, our intimacy, are not formulas.

Our desire is a vital, alive, living, breathing energy that expresses itself differently every day, sometimes even from moment to moment.

And for its expression in authenticity, it requires freedom to dance in all the ways it does—which is different all the time.

And every person—man or woman—is different.

Let’s take a step back. Because we live and work in patterns, there are things that will work for us a lot of the time.

There is a particular touch and stimulation that will often bring us to orgasm. And we think this is what it means to be a good lover. But it’s only being a good orgasm giver.

You see, orgasms and pleasure are not always the same thing. It’s not that orgasms are not pleasurable; they are, mostly.

The thing is that pleasure is so much more than orgasms. Orgasm, the way most of us experience it, is the right stimulation, in the right way—the formula, the pattern. And a lot of times, it works.

Pleasure is deeper, more.

Pleasure is in our hearts, in all of our bodies, in intimacy, connection, and more.

From this I’ve learned that one of the most important elements of being a good lover, in more of an expression of that phrase, is presence.

And amongst other things, intimacy is an element of presence, an expression in presence.

In presence there is a connection that allows us to go beyond the formula—the technique—into the moment.

It allows our pleasure to become an expression of all that we are—body, mind, heart, and soul.

It allows our pleasure to deepen—expand—into the fullness of possibility.

It allows us to dance into the space within us.

The space between us.

The space that’s moving like the wind and the ocean.

The space that’s filled with fire and passion, gentle and tender, slow, fast, quiet, sweaty, sacred.

When we’re in the orgasm pattern, we narrow who we are, expressing a small drop of our sexual and pleasure potential.

There is so much within us, so many ways for us to express ourselves.

Our presence is what allows more of us to be there.

So what does presence mean?

It means we’re in ourselves, in our own bodies, in our own hearts, in our own feelings.

It means we’re intimate with ourselves and we’re acknowledging more of who we are.

It means we’re connected to our partner in the same way.

It means we’re allowing ourselves to be seen, to see, with openness, vulnerability, and strength.

It means we’re allowing ourselves to be with what arises, what’s present, what’s within us now.

It means not having to make something happen, not having to do something, but be something.

It means not having to go anywhere but where we are.

It means allowing ourselves to be open to wherever the dance of our bodies takes us.

It means not having to perform, not having an outcome, not having a result.

It means a little more being, and a little less doing.

And the doing flows from the being.

Sexual presence is sexual being.

Sexual presence is sexual possibility.

And being a good lover is just that: a lover.

A lover of making love, exploring love, experiencing love. Being present.

To love in this way is to go beyond the pattern and the formula.

To understand them for what they are—a way in, a beginning.

And to be a good lover is to go within, to find the presence there, to meet ourselves, to meet the lovers that we are, in all the ways we express that.

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