desire — Page 3 — Pleasure Mechanics

Naming Your True Desires

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Do you know what you want out of your sex life? Is naming your true desires something that comes easily?

If you have a hard time knowing what you want in bed, let alone asking for it, you are not alone. For many people, naming true desires is a challenge. Many times people settle for “good enough” when it comes to sex because it can be so difficult to imagine what your ideal sex life would look and feel like.

In this podcast, we share an invitation for you to experience a guided date night that leads you through the process of discovering your own desires.

The first guided date night in our course Kinky Sex Mastery is an interactive experience in discovering and naming your unique and specific desires. This date night is now included for free as part of our free course The Erotic Essentials. Click here to join The Erotic Essentials an unlock a treasure trove of free resources, including this guided conversation about fantasy, desire and asking for what you want.

The True Source of Desire

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The True Source of Desire :: Free Podcast Episode

This podcast features an excerpt from the book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex by Judith Levine

This is a powerful and much needed book about the perils of censoring sexuality from the lives of children. This was one of the primary texts I used when writing my thesis about sex education back in 2003, and it is just as relevant today as ever. I highly recommend this book to anyone involved in the raising of children. It covers not only sex education in schools but also the importance of how adults respond to incidents of sexual abuse, children’s masturbation, sex play between children and many other topics that tend to cripple a mature adult response. In this book, Judith Levine provides wise and much needed advice on how to handle children’s sexuality in a respectful and loving way.

In the final chapter of the book, Levine provides a section called What Is Wanting? This section offers up suggestions for what is much needed but seldom provided in sex education for children. Because these topics have so long been missing, many of these topics are highly relevant for adults as well.

In a section titled “Desire Resides In The Body” Levine reminds us that we need to remember that desire is within us, not just a response to a prince on horseback. Far too many women spend their lives waiting for someone else to wake up their desire rather than learning how to source it from within.

The truth is, no one can give you pleasure that you aren’t willing to receive. No one can wake up desire that you aren’t able to feel. So in order to feel more desire and more pleasure, we all need to practice feeling and receiving. This happens primarily in the micro-moments of experiencing sensual pleasures, in and out of bed. When you start noticing pleasure and allowing your body to fully experience it, you become much more adept at experiencing pleasures of all kinds. But it is also important to work through the emotional barriers that tell you that receiving pleasure is selfish, hedonistic or greedy. You must give yourself permission to feel the fullness of pleasure that you are capable of. You need to identify the shame and guilt that blocks your pleasure and gets in the way of you feeling authentic desire.

For more on responsive desire, check out our interviews with Emily Nagoski:

Unleash Your Desires

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Unleash Your Desire :: Free Podcast Episode

Sexual shame can cripple desire and kill your libido. Here’s how to clear away the roadblocks and unleash your deepest desires so you can have a fulfilling sex life.

Just as we were preparing to launch the Kinky Sex Mastery Course, we received this email:

My biggest struggle is that I find it hard to get turned on. I do have one very specific turn-on but I’m really really embarrassed about it. A few years ago I told my husband about it, and we have had a few conversations about it. He says he doesn’t find it weird and that it’s a turn-on for him too (in certain aspects), he tries to incorporate it into our sex life, but I don’t think it will make a big difference until *I* feel comfortable about it and can stop being so mortified.

The other thing I would say is that my husband is interested in me being “his slut” and controlling me (in bed!). I am not against that, but I think I have a hard time getting over the notion that it is disrespectful. I would like to let go of that fear that his sexual desires are a reflection of our loving relationship so that we could both enjoy ourselves more.
Love your podcast! 🙂

In this episode we share strategies and advice for overcoming sexual shame and unleashing your desires.

Spontaneous Sex

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Spontaneous Sex: Free Podcast Episode Want more spontaneous sex? Turns out, you may have to let go of the myth of spontaneous sex. This is just one of the paradoxical insights about desire and domesticity from sex therapist Esther Perel.

In this passage from Mating In Captivity, Esther unpacks the myth of spontaneous sex and invites us into a more conscious relationship with desire and erotic initiation.

Get the audiobook of Mating In Captivity for FREE with your free trial from Audible.com

Buy Mating In Captivity at Amazon.com

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How To Set Erotic Goals

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How To Set Erotic Goals

Setting Erotic Goals

The first step to having the sex life of your dreams is to define erotic goals specifically designed to fulfill your desires, one at a time. This is where thought becomes action, where you create practical goals and tangible steps towards enjoying a more fulfilling sex life, on your own terms.

First, you’ll define goals that move you towards fulfilling your desires. Then, you’ll prioritize those goals and pick one to begin working towards immediately. Many erotic goals are fulfilled on your own – through how you treat yourself, your attitudes and approaches towards your own sexuality, and actions you take in your own life. Other erotic goals require the participation of your lover.

For now, we begin by reclaiming the idea of a goal-oriented sexuality. Goals have become a dirty word when it comes to sex – we believe that well defined goals will help you optimize your experience of sexuality, just as they do in health, business and other areas of your life.

Goal vs. Agenda

We know, sex isn’t “supposed to be” goal-oriented. Our peers in the sex education field spend a lot of time getting people to give up having goals. We say HAVE GOALS! Greatness in all realms of life depends on setting and achieving goals. Why should great sex be exempt from this? Goals allow us to mutually agree on a desired outcome, to set our sights what we want to make happen.

Goals are essential to create a fulfilling sex life, but agendas can be toxic to your eroticism. Again, we turn to the dictionary definitions of Goal Vs. Agenda to discover the crucial difference.

Goal:

the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result: going to law school has become the most important goal in his life.

• the destination of a journey: the aircraft bumped toward our goal some 400 miles to the west.

• literary a point marking the end of a race.

Agenda:

• a list of items to be discussed at a formal meeting: the question of nuclear weapons had been removed from the agenda.

• a plan of things to be done or problems to be addressed: he vowed to put jobs at the top of his agenda | the government had its own agenda.

Here is the big difference: A goal is the desired result. An agenda is a to-do list. Most people approach sex with an agenda (kiss, touch boobs, blow job, fuck, orgasm – sound familiar?) instead of a goal.

As a culture we have lost our erotic imagination, and reduced the sexual experience into a predictable agenda.

The definition of “goal” has the key: desired result.

Remember the distinction between Fantasy and Desire. It is from the deep well of your desires that you will draw upon for your erotic goals. Your Desires (and your lover’s) are the inspiration for your erotic goals, determining what you want to experience sexually and how you might approach lovemaking to meet that goal.