Do you remember the scene in the Titanic when Rose and Jack are in the car and Rose says, “Put your hands on me, Jack?” Rose knew how to own her own orgasm.
She made a clear and seductive demand, right?
Young girls are taught to be good: don’t be demanding. Sit quietly and serve others. These girls are encouraged to defer their desire for the sake of others’ happiness.
Since the Me-Too movement, I notice a new reticence on the part of the male clients who come to my office. They’re hesitant to own their desire because they truly don’t want to hurt the women they love.
What happens when you don’t feel comfortable in your sensual body? You can’t OWN your orgasm—or for that matter, feel any deep pleasure.
But would you agree that it’s magnetic to be with someone who knows precisely, exactly, definitively what they want and they reach for it? That’s powerful.
Focus on your own pleasure
One of the fastest ways to find the corridor of your sweetheart’s pleasure is so focus on your own pleasure.
Rose knew precisely what she was giving up: her place in society. She knew exactly what she wanted: the carefree honesty and integrity of the person in front of her. And, as a result, her body said, definitively, “I want your hands on my body.”
This is the kind of clarity allows you to live YOUR unique life. And when you live your own life, you invite everyone around you to do the same.
But we defer our desire.
Wanting and receiving pleasure comes before an orgasm
We defer our desire because we’re confused. We defer our desire because we worry what others will think of us, and we’ll no longer belong to our herd. We defer our desire because we’re terrified of the vulnerability inherent in getting what we want.
If you’re struggling to own your own desire and truly receive the pleasure you crave, you are not alone.
There are two things we’ll talk about to help you own your own orgasm. Wanting. And Receiving.
You can’t feel pleasure if you don’t know what you want. First comes the wanting.
Then comes the receiving.
A story about looking for desire
To illustrate how your desire hides from you, I’m going to tell you a story. It is not a story about an orgasm. I’m inviting you to practice with lesser desires and practice where the stakes aren’t so dramatic.
But getting good at receiving pleasure of any kind will help you in bed. I promise.
Recently I had a client text me after we’d had a session about opening to her desires. I’d been coaching her to notice her desires. Her text came and I could feel the frantic panic as I opened the text, “I’m terrified! I want to escape my family. I don’t want the life I have. Please tell me this is not my true desire.”
As with every text I receive like this my first response was, “Take 3 deep breaths. After you’ve allowed your breath to calm you, text me back what just happened.”
Breathing grounded her in her body
The return text came five minutes later so I knew she’d taken time to calm herself before responding. “I just got out of the bathtub where I was asking myself what I want and I was overwhelmed by the flood of desires that poured in: I want out. I want time to myself. I don’t want to be touched anymore ever again by anyone. I want to have an hour to myself to focus on nothing but myself. I want out. I want out. I want out.”
Have you ever felt this way? This panic surge of wants that terrify you?
My return text: “Tell me about the temperature of the water. Was it hot enough to make you sweat? How hot do you like the water? What do you like in the water: salt? Or bubbles?”
I could tell I’d made her angry with my question. She didn’t feel like I was taking her seriously. “Did you hear me say I’m about to leave this marriage I’ve worked so hard to create?”
“Why did you take a bath?” I text.
I ask this question to penetrate the confusion she’s feeling in this precise moment. She has the noise of a lifetime ringing in her ears, but a bath is a sensual experience. Her brain was spinning and as a result, there was no clarity between her thought I want to take a bath and her body I am experiencing a bath. She was confused. She wasn’t letting her body experience the bath her brain had designed for her.
She’s frustrated with me as she texts, “I’m desperate for a break!”
I text back. “But it doesn’t sound like you let yourself have a break. It sounds like you went into the bathroom, ran a tub of hot water, then climbed in to soak in your fears.”
Silence. Then desire.
Then came the return text: “You’re right. How am I ever gonna get the break I want?”
I invited her to start over. Run the water again. Fill the tub again.
We had a flurry of texts back and forth about the ridiculousness of filling an entire tub for the second time. But after I said, “Did your BODY have a bath or did you just go through the motions?” She agreed to try again.
This time, put your hand under the running water and notice the temperature. Is the water too hot? Not warm enough? Keep dialing in the temperature until it is precisely, exactly, definitively the perfect temperature for you. This is no one’s bath but yours. You dictate the temperature.
After a long while she texted me back. “I didn’t realize I liked such a tepid bath temperature. I started out super hot because everyone always says, ‘I wish I could take a hot bath,’ so I kept turning up the temp. But as I noticed, I kept hearing the message too hot. Too hot. Still too hot.’ Finally, the temperature was cool enough to cool me off. I felt refreshed. Calm. Soothed. And, would you believe it Rebecca, I WANTED to get out of that bath and join my family at the dinner table. I actually looked into my husband’s eyes and told him I love our life.”
Confusion, the herd, & vulnerability keep you alienated from your orgasm
Later, I heard from her that, when she and her husband made love that night she was able to feel both the physical pleasure of her body and the emotional intimacy of the moment with this person she loved so much. Previously, she was able to feel one or the other, but not both simultaneously.
She started out confused: she wanted to exit the pressures of parenting, but while in the bath –rather than exiting—she just soaked in everything that made her want a bath in the first place rather than letting the cooling water refresh her.
Then she was influenced by the herd: she was told hot baths are the thing she was supposed to desire. She listened to the herd—because we all want to belong—but her desire, in this one particular case, was different than the herd. Instead of hot water, she preferred cool.
Finally, she was afraid of the vulnerability that pleasure brings. When we sink into pleasure, we are sinking into the life we have. It can be terrifying to realize how much you want the life you have. Intimacy is so revealing. So private. So naked. And then, what if you realize you have what you want, then you lose it?
Will my sweetheart reject my deepest desires? Will my sweetheart scoff at me? Disapprove of me? Abandon me?
To keep ourselves from this naked truth of having precisely, exactly, definitively the life we want, we float above the truth of our desire. We exit to take the bath. But we don’t let the cooling temperature of the water penetrate our skin. We think this will defer the pain of what we worry might happen when we’re vulnerable: the scoffing, the disapproval, the abandonment.
Ready to own your desire?
Owning your own orgasm—truly owning—skin deep—the pleasure of your desire means risking so much:
So, of course you don’t let yourself feel that desire penetrate.
But what is it costing you to keep pleasure at bay?
What does it cost you to be constantly confused? Are you truly a member of the herd if you can’t be yourself while you’re there?
Is it possible to sense real pleasure if you close the door on the vulnerability of a desire?
This is what you’re risking if you want to OWN your own orgasm. It may not be worth to you right now to take that risk.
Be patient with yourself. Let yourself off the hook. Instead of owning your orgasm right now, perhaps you want to own your ambivalence and keep desire and all that vulnerability at bay for a bit. That’s OK.
You’ll know when you’re ready.
And when you’re ready, your desire will be waiting for you.
Try this:
Calm the confusion. Then allow your desire to speak up.
Think of a time that you felt like my client in the bathtub, soaking in your own confusing soup of conflicting desires. Bring your body into that memory-moment. Notice where that confusion is located in your body.
- Is your head hurting or spinning?
- Is your throat tight or sore?
- Is your stomach churning or heavy?
Where do you feel this confusion in your body?
Now, place your hand on this part of your body and take three DEEP breaths. Inhale all the way down into your back body. As you take your next breath, expand your low back, letting your breath swirl around your sacrum. Take one more breath and feel that sea of confusion calm.
Now, bring your attention to a sensual pleasure. My client used the temperature of the water—dialing down the heat each time she tuned into her desire. But perhaps for you it is the weight of the blanket on your lap and you’re noticing the position that is most comfortable for you. Legs crossed or uncrossed. Blanket pulled up to your nose or only just covering your legs.
Maybe your sensual pleasure is watching the flame of a candle. The scent and wobble of the fire.
Maybe your sensual pleasure is knitting. Or holding a warm mug in your hand. Or tossing basketball after basketball at the net above you.
You will know you’re experimenting with a sensual pleasure if one or more of these 4 senses are engaged: touch, sight, sound, or smell, I don’t use taste to wake you up to your desire, because anything you injest can change your bio-chemistry and add to confusion.
Adjust your behavior with the basketball or the position of the blanket ever so slightly and notice if you like it better or not. Adjust again. And notice again. Keeping adjusting until you feel your body say, YES. This is just what I wanted.
Then notice how the weight of the confusion has lifted ever so slightly or perhaps the entire weight is gone.
Viola! Desire speaks up!
This is called sensual engagement. You’re interacting with the physical world with your physical body to calm your mental state. The more you do this, the more ownership you have of your own orgasmic pleasure.
If this feels tedious to you, I want you to stop and ask yourself how many fights you’ve had with your sweetheart because you haven’t received what you want? Getting what you want begins with knowing precisely, exactly, definitively what you want.
With all the messages you’re fed in the world, tuning into your unique desire takes time and attention. No one was telling my client, “Go take a luke-warm bath to refresh and calm yourself.” She had to discover that for herself.
But discovering her true desire in the bathtub led to opening herself to sexual pleasure later that evening.
So what sensual pleasure helped you notice your desire? Tell me about your process. Text me at 970-210-4480.
Try this:
Notice how you defer desire so you can belong to the herd.
Let’s look at the next impediment to owning your orgasm: the herd and your desperate need to belong.
Remember my client in the bathtub? She kept making her bath hotter and hotter because she’d heard from the herd that a hot bath would be nurturing. She thought she SHOULD want a hot bath. But that’s not what her body told her.
As you continue to experiment with sensual engagement, notice how your specific desire is different from the herd.
Allow yourself to notice your preferences and practice by substituting “I want…” instead of what do WE want?
Instead of “We like spicy food…” allow yourself to notice, “Actually, I like a tamer taste.” You don’t need to change your menu right now. Simply notice how your desire differs from your sweetheart.
Instead of “What do we wanna watch tonight…” allow yourself to notice, “Actually, I want to watch…” You don’t need to change the program. Simply notice how your desire differs from your sweetheart.
“Actually, I want…” are key words to find your orgasm
It often helps to practice this phrase, “Actually, I want…” when you are alone. Then you can choose to voice it aloud or not depending on how much it matters to you.
Many of my clients think that they need to want the same thing as their sweetheart in order to feel pleasure together. But I’ve watched couples light up their adventure lives and their sex lives when each person is truest to their personal desires.
Staying true to your personal desire brings vitality and energy to your relationship.
Tell me about how you are unique in a herd of pleasure. Text me at 970-210-4480 and tell me what you learned about your desire.
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