A while ago, I wrote a piece called What She’d Like You to Know.

It sparked some deep and intimate sharing and discussion about pleasure, relationships, and communication.

It also led to some beautiful exploration of what we want, for both men and women.

And from this, something emerged that has such power in a few ways.

The Receiving Man.

For many men, sex and pleasure have an element of control.

As a man, I can receive for a while and then, I go into the mode of touching you, making something happen, moving toward penetration, or making you come, while taking control in some way, initiating in some way.

And for many women, this ends their exploration, their discovery, their expression of touch, of sensation and of pleasure.

Of giving pleasure.

Not from a place of needing to, having to, but from a place of expressing her energy, her desire. And to explore your body—all of your body—with time, with being fascinated by the texture, the shapes, the smell, and the taste of you. With nothing other than the beauty of your body.

And as soon as we reach out for her, we often cut that.

The Receiving Man is in a space of vulnerability, openness, presence, and power.

In conscious touch, there is an offering.

I offer my body to you, for you to experience and express yourself, through me.

You offer me your hands, your touch, for me to experience myself, through you.

We offer each other sensation.

There’s a conversation here, and when the touch is from the heart, it’s a conscious conversation.

It’s a space for us to express ourselves, in touch, in sensuality.

There’s no giver or receiver; there’s simply the touch.

And many women don’t often have the space to simply explore, discover, feel, connect. With curiosity, with excitement.

And in this, we find so much that turns us on, that arouses us. We fall in love with the beauty of the body, the outline of a muscle, the curve of a shoulder, or the feel of a thigh.

Many of us men don’t really know how to receive. We’ve been so conditioned to do sex and pleasure.

There’s this model that we’ve bought into of goal-oriented, contractive orgasm sex, in which I have to make you come, and along the way move into 64 positions and have a huge erection and last for so long and ejaculate all over your body and…

We don’t know how to simply and deeply receive. It makes us uncomfortable, and we have to do something, instead of being still. Instead of opening the space for her to express so much of herself in touch, in pleasure.

There’s a freedom in this, for both of us.

We can open into many different experiences of pleasure, of touch, of sensuality, and of sex.

There’s nobody we have to be; there are no roles for us to play other than what we choose.

There’s no performance.

There’s no goal.

And this is big, because it means there’s no end. We can flow into an experience of possibility.

And it frees us from the patterns, the conditioning of what we think sex has to be, and the way we think it has to be.

Learning to receive, as a man, opens your body, opens your heart, opens your mind.

There’s strength in that and deep humility.

It’s an acknowledgement of the power of the feminine, of the creativity of a woman, of her desires expressed in so many ways.

And just as we, men, get turned on by touching her, she has the same experience.

In this freedom, in this exploration, we both open to a limitless world of discovery.

We find the things that we know about both of our bodies, and we keep finding more. Because more opens up within us. And the desire to share, to give, to receive, to touch each other grows, depends, expands.

Intimacy deepens amazingly, and our connection opens to new levels.

And we see more of what possibilities there are in our pleasure.

Freedom sums it up beautifully.