Warning: adult-themed naughty language ahead! 

Women are the gatekeepers of sex.

Our minds and bodies need to be skillfully navigated or else this thing doesn’t go. Even if it starts out well, often the feeling between us shifts, and all of a sudden it’s a no-go. So many men assume we just weren’t that into them or that we don’t like sex. But my experience is that most guys are doing things that they have no idea are turning women off and ending their chances of going deeper together.

These guys don’t realize that we really liked them and were crossing our fingers, hoping, praying, that they wouldn’t do one of those things that we hate, one of the things that totally conflicts with our instincts and our anatomy, just this once, so that we can open the gates and finally have some good sex.

Occasionally there is a man who totally gets it. But mostly, and I know this sounds harsh but it’s honest, even the best, most legit men are making some fatal blunders when it comes to seduction, arousal and sex, and many women are tolerating it because we want the intimacy.

I want for men to be successful with women so everyone can have the best sex.

Since I happen to be a woman who has had a lot of terrible sex, I thought maybe I could help us all. Mine has been a journey from disliking sex, even dreading it, to, after years of focused practice, training (yes, training), and a lot of personal reflection, absolutely loving it and being able to understand what feels good and put language to it. And through my work I’ve spoken to hundreds of women about their sex and found that I’m not all that unique in what works for me.

So for the benefit of men and women who want to have great sex, but mainly for the benefit of myself, I have written a manual on the energetics of sex (you’ll soon see why there is no technique in this manual).

1. Great sex is more than just sex.

We often hear that men want sex and women want intimacy. I think both of us want both. It’s just that men tend to believe that sex will lead to the kind of intimacy they want and women tend to believe that intimacy will lead to the kind of sex they want. We’d do well to foster both.

The reason I will be compelled again and again toward you isn’t simply because of how good our bodies feel together. What we do with our bodies is only one part of what makes me excited about sex with you. The rest is what our minds and souls do together. It’s in how we flirt, the way your eye contact sends pulses of electricity straight to my pussy, the way I feel emotionally safe with you, but still challenged, the conversation we have, and the energy and electricity between us. I want to feel you fucking me with your eyes, your words, and the quality of your attention long before we take off our clothes.

My sexuality isn’t one-dimensional. It permeates every part of who I am (so does yours). If we try to relate to one another sexually while leaving out the rest of who we are, we’ll be missing out on so many flavors of our sex and I won’t have the truly truly rich experience I want. I find myself backing away from any connection where I can tell I’m going to be barred entry to the best parts of you. I won’t tiptoe around your off-limits areas. That’s not what animals do. I want all of you or none of you.

I know it can feel dangerous offering so much in a world full of connection-starved people who, out of deep hunger, will attach themselves to anyone who feeds them this vital nutrient. But I promise, this is my default level of connection and I am well-fed. I can tell the difference between love and starvation.

2. Let me yearn for you.

There can be just as much sensation in the yearning as in the having. I am used to being devoured before I get a chance to truly long for it. It’s rare that I ever get to be the one doing the devouring.

Be the one to let me. If you don’t, I will likely end up warding you off just so I have the chance to feel my longing and desire for you again. Please don’t be impatient and let your hunger back me into a corner where I have to decide prematurely whether or not to proceed. From there, I’ll likely decide not to. If you try to turn my maybe into a yes, I’ll have the breaks on the whole time. Be willing to walk away and let me come to you. Go slower than you’re comfortable with so that we are going at my pace. Trust me, you’ll like my pace. Letting my desire for you ripen will be worth the wait.

3. Don’t give it to me until I’m begging for it.

Unlike your arousal, which is fueled by visuals, and direct genital stimulation, my arousal is fueled more by the tension of flirting, teasing, longing, kissing, and making out. If you move on to the direct genital stimulation before my body is heaving with desire and begging you to touch me, it will have been too soon. I will feel like I missed out and I’ll spend our sex not quite turned on enough to feel much.

You’ll probably climax but I will have no chance of doing so. The train will have left the station without me. This is the number one reason women will stop sex from progressing with someone we like. If we don’t get time to warm up, there’s little chance the sex will be any good for us. So trust me, you can never go too slow.

4. Feeling over formula. 

There is a realm of sex that’s available without requiring much connection or vulnerability and it’s as far as many ever get. It’s called Mechanical Sex and it’s all about inserting this part into that part and laboring toward the finish line. Since it doesn’t benefit from the resonance that arises through connection and presence, this type of sex tends to rely on formula over feeling. We plug a complex, feeling human into our sex formula and try positions on them, show off our technique and use the moves that have worked in the past without actually feeling where they (or ourselves) are at in the present.

If we’ve got ideas about the bases we need to cover in sex, if you’re switching up your technique so I don’t get bored, if we’re acting more turned on than we are, or if one of us is laboring to get the other off, then we’re likely in our heads instead of in our bodies and therefore having mechanical sex. And when either of us is disconnected, performing, it pulls the other out of the moment, too.

If you find yourself in your head, all you need to do is stop and don’t start back up again until you feel present and your every move can be honest and connected. I need to do the same sometimes, so I promise I’ll understand.

5. Nothing about sex should ever feel solitary.

Sex may be the only experience in which I entirely lose my sense of self-consciousness and become completely present with another person. The instant I feel left alone, that you have gone off on a thread of thought or action of your own, I feel the entire buzz and flow of the scene melt away and suddenly our sex feels mechanical.

It’s incredibly hard for me to have sex that feels lonely. Through years of having disconnected sex, my system has become exacting at detecting it. I can feel every moment you are in your head or on auto-pilot. I feel incredibly abandoned when you’re hammering away, unable to sense that you’ve lost me. My body is unforgiving, not in an intolerant way, but in that my pussy dries up the minute I feel you are not attuned and present with me.

6. There’s no place we’ve gotta get to and no hurry to get there.

When we approach our sex without an agenda, when we don’t guide it toward an idea of what we’re supposed to do, we get to tap into something better than the experience we would have designed for ourselves. I want so much more than checking off check-boxes, doing it so we can say we did.

I want to deeply immerse in and be present for something, anything, with you. Even if our cloths never come off, we can have better sex than most of the sex people are having as long as we give ourselves fully to the present moment. So let’s never rush through anything to get to the next thing. Let’s remove the goals and the pressure to have a certain sort of experience and see what naturally arises between us.

Author: Summer Engman

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Miss A/Flickr