Pleasure Mechanics

Stress and Arousal

For most people, the single biggest roadblock to experiencing pleasure is stress. Doctors and sex therapists agree – stress is the number one threat to your sex drive and intimate relationship. Stress damages your health, puts you in a bad mood, and kills your sex drive. Your body physically can not get aroused if you are stressed out!

Stress has a negative effect on both male and female libido: this much is simply fact. The question has become, what do we do about the fact that our stressful lives are one huge turn-off?

The stress of daily life wears at us, literally, causing physical damage to our bodies and creating negativity in our relationships. Stress comes from many sources: work, family, concerns about money, health, global issues and personal worries. It is important to locate the top stressors in your life and begin creating strategies to minimize stress at it’s source.

But let’s face it: we can’t always quit a stressful job or get away from a stressful family situation. So the essential strategy is learning how to cope with stress and minimize it’s effect on your life and health.

There are many great ways to reduce stress: exercise, meditation or prayer, dancing, whatever activities make you feel relaxed and happy.

There are two surefire stress reducers that also serve the dual purpose of strengthening your relationship and bringing you more pleasure: massage and mindfulness.

Massage is one of the best ways to relax, unwind and get rid of stress. If, like most people. you find stress is getting in the way of your sex life, we recommend several 5-10 minute massages a week for maximum stress reduction.

By spending this time with your partner, exchanging massage and relaxing together, you may find that not only are you less stressed out, but you may also be more turned on.

Many couples find that by sharing quality touch, they are more likely to be in the mood for sex, and the sex they have becomes way more exciting. This combination of massage and sex is a surefire way to counteract the damage of stress and live a more healthy, relaxed and pleasurable life.

What Are Your Sexual Scripts?

What are your primary sexual scripts? Most of us have a few scripts that guide the majority of our sexuality. It may be a role or archetype that you try to fit into. It may be a peak sexual experience from the past that you are trying to recreate. Our sexual scripts are informed by and in relationship to the culture we live in. Ever since we were born, we have heard stories, seen movies and witnessed sexual scripts all around us.

Most of us can recall a scene from a movie that permanently shaped our sexual development – a scene that effected us so deeply that we try to emulate it, or capture the emotions of that Hollywood scene. TV shows, rock stars, books, and celebrities can all serve as fodder for the development of our own unique sexual scripts. For some people, sexual scripts are heavily influenced by our family life – either trying to live up to our parents model or trying hard not to recreate our parent’s failed marriage. Most people have a sense of what a man “should” be like – handsome, successful, powerful, muscular, charming, funny, daring. . . the list of “shoulds” goes on and on. We also have a story about what kind of partner we “should” love and what that relationship “should” be like.

Against this cultural background, our own sexual scripts are formed early in life and many of us never even notice that our relationships begin playing out like rehearsals, trying to fit ourselves and our potential lovers into roles that will satisfy us. With the easy accessibility of pornography online, we can narrow our sexual turn-ons into the most specific category as we wish – you can easily find a site of red headed cheerleaders if that is what turns you on. Or librarians with glasses. Online, it is easy to peruse page after page of explicit images and videos and discover new turn-ons – and yet many people stay within a narrow range of stimulation, living out their scripts in fantasy as well as in their real life.

Our sexual scripts are not just about roles, romance and relationships. We all have sexual scripts hardwired into our bodies – ways of being touched or touching ourselves that are our quickest routes to orgasm. Some of these scripts begin with childhood masturbation – if you masturbated under the constant threat of parental discovery and punishment, you may masturbate quickly and quietly long into adulthood, even when you have your own place and can be as loud as you wish. Most of us masturbate in basically the same way every time, or have sex with our partner using the same sequence of events.

The “porn classic” of a few seconds of kissing, followed by sucking on the female nipples, leading quickly to oral sex as a warm up for intercourse is one of the more common sexual scripts that couples find themselves repeating again and again. Our bodies respond to repetition. This can be a good thing, providing a sure way to get aroused quickly and providing a direct path to climax. But these patterns can also be too dependable, landing us in a sexual rut that is too much of a sure thing to try anything new.

Scripts can be comforting and useful – if we are truly in touch with who we are and what we desire, it can be comforting to stay within your self-determined script and seek satisfaction. The problem is many of us never take the time to examine our sexual scripts and ask if we are truly being fulfilled, or if a wider range of pleasure is possible. We do the same sex acts over and over again, with the same fantasy in our heads, and then wonder why we are still dissatisfied and unfulfilled.

By examining your arousal patterns, you can map more consciously that which turns you on. If you choose, you can begin paying attention to a wider range of stimulation and arousal so you can feel even more pleasure. You don’t have to give anything up – your major turn ons and desires can still play a large role in your sexuality. But by widening the sense of what is possible, and taking a close look at your routines, you can enjoy a wider range of relationships and pleasures, and possibly discover something even more satisfying

Is Fingering Sex?

We often hear the question: Is Fingering Sex?

We think a better question is: How Can Skilled Fingering Make Sex Even Better?

Fingering is an essential part of foreplay and can also be a sexual experience unto itself. A lot of women have orgasms most consistently through manual stimulation with the fingers. So why are so many men hesitant to acknowledge fingering is sex?

With skills and confidence, fingering can be a central part of your sex life. Our incredible fingering techniques for better sex are part of the Foreplay Mastery Course. Discover how you can pleasure a woman with your hands, so you can integrate fingering into the sex you enjoy.

Sex Advice: My Boyfriend is into anal – on him!

Hi Pleasure Mechanics,
My boyfriend recently downloaded your Prostate Massage video and asked me to try it out with him. I’m a little freaked out but also kind of excited by the idea – he seemed really turned on by it. Do other women like doing this? Is this a normal thing for straight people to do? I guess I just never expected my jock guy to be into this kind of thing!
Thanks,
Sarah

Hey Sarah,

Fabulous that you are willing to consider offering this pleasure to your man. We assure you, it is a totally normal thing for a straight guy to be into – our Guide to Prostate Massage is a bestseller around the world for a reason! Men are discovering that this can be a highly pleasurable addition to their sex lives, and a lot of women are quite enjoying it as well!

Learning more about the anatomy may help you get used to the idea. For example, did you know that up to 2/3rds of a man’s penis is situated internally, and can be stimulated through anal penetration? The anus (on both men and women) is one of the most sensitive parts of the human body, and is linked up to the same pleasure receptors as the genitals. Anal pleasure is a totally normal, totally natural experience for men and women of all sexual orientations. When you combine prostate massage with handjob techniques, you can literally stimulate all parts of the male sexual system at once – an experience all men should experience at least once in their lifetime!

Prostate massage is a very pleasurable practice for most men, and there is growing evidence that it also helps maintain prostate health. So go for it! Our guide will help you take it slowly and make it a completely pleasurable experience for both of you.

I would also encourage you to feel into the pleasure of being the Giver, the Penetrator. Many women find this incredibly sexy,empowering, exciting. . . Let us know how you find it!

For other women who have given anal stimulation or prostate massage to their boyfriends, husbands and lovers – how did it make YOU feel?

Wishing you lots of pleasure,
Christine

Give Your Man a Hand

Your hands are sensitive, dexterous and capable of giving your man intense pleasure and powerful climaxes.

With a little skill and confidence, you can fully satisfy your man and leave him feeling saturated with pleasure. Many women enjoy having the option of fully satisfying their lover without being penetrated.

Let’s face it, sometimes the idea of intercourse or oral sex is just a little too much. But you may be turned-on enough to kiss, cuddle and give your man a fabulous orgasm with your hands!

Today’s challenge is to add this skill to your sexual repertoire, and then notice the benefits of bringing manual stimulation back into your bedroom. We’re going to help you out by showing you that touching a man goes way beyond the “one stroke wonder” kind of touch you might have used back in the day.

Once you give yourself permission to explore new ways of touching him, begin noticing his reactions. Pay exquisite attention to his responses. How does he respond when you touch ever so lightly around the head of his penis? Do faster or slower strokes peak his interest? Can you tell when he is really into it? What happens to his breathing? Does he make sounds to let you know when it feels good? By paying attention you’ll gain valuable information about your lover’s patterns of arousal and in no time you’ll be proficient in giving him pleasure.

Using your hands is also the best way to explore prolonging his arousal and delaying ejaculation. Your hands can quickly respond to feedback, allowing you to back off on stimulation before he reaches the point of “no return” and climaxes. After you gain confidence using your hands to pleasure him, begin playing with prolonging his pleasure. Work together to notice and communicate as he gets closer to ejaculation, and play with backing off and building up as many times as you can before he simply can’t wait any longer and wants to experience his climax.

With a little skill and a lot of confidence, using your hands to pleasure your man can add a whole new dimension to your sex life. Many women find this to be an exciting and sexy addition, as they take control and are able to pleasure their man in a whole new way. All too often we forget about our hands as the amazing erotic tools they are designed to be – we are built to give and receive pleasure and touch is our primary way of communicating with our lover. We invite you to explore the pleasurable potential of making love to your man – with just your hands!