6 Ways To Have Radically Intimate Sex

Zoe Kors

“Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.” ~ Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

We want intimacy and avoid sex. Or we fear intimacy and crave sex.

There is a pervasive confusion about sex and intimacy. We use the words interchangeably, but purely physical intimacy stops way short of a meaningful experience or a sustainable connection. The more we focus on the physicality of sex—how we look, what we wear, toys and techniques—the further we get from true intimacy.

Here are my six suggestions for having radically intimate sex.

1. Shhhhh: No Talking

Often when we think of intimacy, we think about the sharing of secrets. There is something intimate about verbalizing our innermost thoughts and desires—especially when it comes to sex. However, as alluring as fantasy can be, by its very definition, it’s a way of escaping reality. And we tend to hide behind our words, using conversation as a means of avoiding vulnerability. We tell people who we are instead of showing them.

True intimacy with a lover happens in the silent moments of presence and connectedness between words.

Practice #1: Set a specific time to meet in the bedroom without speaking a single word. Spend an hour together, not talking, before any physical intimacy begins. Show up clean—physically and emotionally. This is an opportunity to let our stories fall away—as individuals and as a couple—making room for a deep, non-verbal, energetic connection.

2. Make It Anti-Climactic: No Orgasm

When Emerson said, “Life is a journey, not a destination” he meant that when we focus on getting to a particular goal, we miss value in the moments along the way. And so it is with sex. There are reports that women can have 11 different kinds of orgasms. From the time men are boys, they are fascinated with ejaculating (it’s a built-in, biological preoccupation on which the survival of the species depends!). We have misunderstood the destination of sex to be orgasm, and by doing so, robbed ourselves of some potentially powerful opportunities for both pleasure and intimacy.

Practice #2: Agree upfront to forgo reaching orgasm. Take the possibility completely off the table, for both of you. By doing so, you provide space to be present and find appreciation of each moment for the pleasure and connection it brings, without distraction. Take turns bringing each other close and backing off. Notice the powerful bond created as you hold each other on the brink of ecstasy.

3. Like a Lava Lamp: Slow It Way Down

We live in a fast-paced, over-stimulating, 140-character-status-update kind of world. As a culture, we are usually focused on “doing” rather than “being.” Because we juggle so many responsibilities, sex tends to become just another thing on the “To Do List.”

Rushing through the “doing of sex” does not encourage the “being” of intimacy.

Practice #3: Create a bubble of time and space to climb into together. Do whatever it takes to enable getting lost in your own world together. Make a conscious decision not to rush. Let energy flow between  you like a lava lamp. Moving verrrrry slowly, savor each moment of sensation and allow intimacy to rise.

4. Sealed with a Kiss: Undress Each Other

Whether it’s your first time together, or you’ve been having sex for 30 years, giving your body to your lover is a gift. To receive your partner’s body is a privilege. Don’t let modesty or habit stop you from honoring this generous exchange.

Practice #4: This practice is most comfortable done with the lights dimmed or by candlelight. Undress each other by taking turns removing one article of clothing at a time. As each piece comes off, gently kiss the part of the body revealed in gratitude.

5. In and Out: Breathe Life Into It

It is a technique in meditation to turn the focus from thoughts to the breath. In Tantra, partners will “match breath” as a way of forming an energetic connection that is not based on the giving and receiving of physical pleasure.

Practice #5: Begin in a simple embrace. Spend a few minutes slowing and synchronizing your breath. Silently negotiate a rhythm that is comfortable for both of you. Pause at the top of each inhale and at the bottom of each exhale, creating a moment of mutual stillness. Breathing together is facilitated by cooperation and consideration for each other. Try to maintain this collaboration as sex unfolds.

6. Windows to the Soul: Eye Gazing

Eye contact is a distinct point of connection. Yet, it is common to keep one’s eyes closed during sex. Extended eye contact reveals vulnerability, and so it can be a powerful facilitator of intimacy.

Practice #6: Sit on the floor facing each other and gaze into each other’s eyes without looking away for 20 minutes. Shifting from eye to eye helps sustain the gaze. Maintain eye contact as much as possible as sex unfolds. Play with looking into each other’s eyes all the way through orgasm. It is nearly impossible to climax with open eyes (like sneezing).

Gazing into your lover’s eyes at the moment of release just might be the very definition of intimacy.

Ready to bring something new to your sex life?

Ready to bring something new to your sex life?

Robyn Vogel

Wondering where the playfulness has gone from lovemaking, the deep intimate sharing in the bedroom, the pleasure you used to feel in your body?

Energetic sex (or energy-based sex) is a little known secret that I have recently discovered. Yes, it is something you need to learn from a teacher, or a book, but I thought it would be interesting to share what it is because just reading about it can bring something to your love-making that perhaps you don’t even know you are missing.

Energetic sex is not the practice of having sex with lots of acrobatics or jumping all over the bed and twisting yourselves up into pretzels to penetrate. Quite the opposite: energetic sex is the subtle practice of harnessing your inner feminine or inner masculine (not gender specific) and using your energy body to communicate with your partners’ energy body. Imagine that outside of your physical body you have an invisible energy body. Now imagine your energy bodies making love.

This mysterious and deep practice is one that assists us in healing the inner masculine and inner feminine aspects of ourselves. To put this simply, we all have masculine parts and we all have feminine parts. What is very clear to me is that the inner masculine and feminine aspects (and in psychotherapy we call it our Internal Family or “parts”) need to be in a healthy balanced relationship internally before we are able to create a healthy sustainable relationship externally.

We truly cannot give what we do not have. So for those that are seeking partnership and feel like it eludes you; or for those of you in relationships that are not meeting your needs or your days are filled with resentment and strife, the place to look is inside (and I am not saying that what your partner is doing/saying is not triggering you.)

This deep spiritual practice and a psychological healing will powerfully support you in generating a beautiful alive relationship on the outside and a peaceful feeling on the inside.

Cuddle Party Facilitator, Monique Darling says, “Regardless of what belief system you subscribe to, our bodies are giving off signals. These cues and clues can be read and tracked with practice, especially during sex! Engaging these subtle and powerful energies, and interacting with them in a focused state, can make for a deeply transformative experience.”

10 Energetic Sex Practices to get you started:

1.  Sit face-to-face and look into each others’ eyes.

2. Breathe in and out together.

3.  Whether you believe it or not, know that you have an energetic body outside of your physical body.

4.  Monitor the cues to arousal that you feel – what do you notice when you feel excited about something?  Turned on?

5.  Breathe alternating inhaling and exhaling (one of you breathes in, while the other breathes out.)  Get close and do this.

6. Imagine, without touching, that your partner is moving towards being inside you.

7.  Alternatively, imagine without touching, that you want to be inside your partner.

8.  Decide who will receive (feminine aspect) and who will give (masculine aspect.)

9.  Feel what it feels like to embrace only one aspect of yourself fully.

10.  Sit with your partner and allow yourself to make love without touching.

There is more pleasure available to you than you realize.  Learning and practicing using the subtle energies in your body will open up your capacity for play, healing, deep intimacy and a divine connection that you may be longing for.

Why Affairs Happen

Understanding Affairs and Why They Happen By James Earl

Affairs are like hand grenades under relationships.

When a couple asks me to help them repair the damage, I usually offer them some plain facts first.

• In the UK, about 50% of long term relationships end in separation or divorce. (Most people have heard that statistic). But more surprisingly:

• The estimated incidence of infidelity of one or both partners in long term relationships isover 50%, according to one reputable UK source.

If this latter figure is right, infidelity is much more common that normally acknowledged.

This fact can sometimes help a couple understand that the crisis they are experiencing is part-and-parcel of many, if not most, normal relationships – not so-called failed ones. And thatthousands of people have trodden this ground before and have managed to get back on track, together.

John and Julie, who I saw recently, are a good case in point. John asked me, ‘doesn’t it make you depressed how bad humans are at keeping their promises?’ I replied, ‘you can look at it that way if you want. But how
about considering how impressive it is that we struggle with really,really difficult ideals despite our weaknesses, and keep on trying?’

Is marriage a ‘difficult ideal?’ Well, experience tells us it is. We ask ONE person to be our best friend, to be our business partner (most couples share the biggest financial commitment of their life in property), to be a co-parent in raising children, to be the centre of our community circle: and then also to be our lover. That is one incredible demand: difficult to ask, and difficult to deliver.

Most couples find, after the first five years – though the honeymoon phase varies enormously – that the relationship settles down to a comfortable normal life offering warmth, security and a feeling of home (the sort of experience we last had when we were kids, if we were lucky). At the same time, we may start complaining that despite the feeling of love and stability, desire has started to diminish, and that the intimate side of things is not exactly ‘hot’. In fact, it may be quite difficult to see your best friend/business partner/co-parent as a lover at all: or perhaps you become aware that they aren’t seeing you like that any more.

Either way, it isn’t really the diminishing of sex that is the issue (that’s just a symptom): it is more the loss of a side of oneself that the other person once brought out, and now seems swept aside by everyday life.
Julie said: ‘the thing is, I still love John.’ He snapped back, ‘how come you did what you did if you still love me?’ She said, ‘I think I just felt re-connected again with some part of me I’d forgotten.’ ‘You mean, sex?’

‘No, not sex, just a sense of youth, difference, excitement, unpredictability.’
It is worth trying to understand why affairs happen, if you are going to recover from them, or to avoid them. The person that strays rarely does it for (just) sex. Nor do they do it in the hope of a new relationship. It is usually down to a lost sense of self that can happen even inloving marriages. A lost sense of self that often another – even random – person can accidentally reawaken in you. (I believe Julie when she says he still loves John. The affair was not to do with her loving John. It was about another side of herself that the marriage had inadvertently crowded out.)

We all want stable marriages, yet complain about them being boring or routine. This is a built-in paradox: security versus excitement, or love versus desire, if you like.

I work with couples all the time who ask me how they can avoid the hand grenade of an affair.The best general advice I can give is to realize that, alongside stability and certainty, we all crave excitement, change, individuality, difference and growth.To achieve this, the most successful couples let the other person develop as an individual, not just as a half of a couple. It means a degree of unpredictability, and even risk, to allow your partner their own space to grow as themselves. But it can be our best security, in the long term.
You might expect a relationship counselor to say ‘it’s good to be close’. I would suggest: ‘it’s even better to make space for each other.’