In my last column, I talked about clumsy lovers and how to help your spouse better understand what you need sexually and how you’d like it. This time I’m going to focus on what makes a good lover or, better yet, what makes for good loving.
The first thing that is required is that good lovers are present in the experience. Sex can and should be a full sensory experience. Smells, tastes, sounds, sights, and of course the experience of touch itself provide us with the experience of pleasure. If you are absorbed in all of your senses, you are present.
For many of us it is so easy to get off that we can have sex with our eyes closed and still have an acceptable orgasm. This is not an optimal way to have sex, however. Sex is more personal when you are looking at your partner and when he is looking at you.
It is more personal, yes, and also more psychologically “threatening” because it makes you vulnerable. But consider for a moment that it is this psychological threat and vulnerability in the experience that makes us more present and thus more completely aroused. Because when we go outside of our comfort zone our senses awaken.
(Please note that being present in an actual dangerous experience is NOT what I’m talking about here.)
This brings us to the topic of fantasy. Sexuality is guided by fantasy. There is usually a fantasy that brings about the desire for sex. I’m not talking necessarily about active thought out fantasies, though those certainly work. I’m talking about unconscious fantasies that drive our desire for sex.
There are two primary fantasies that fuel sexuality that most couples “play with’ at various times. One is the fantasy of tender love between soul mates. The other is a fantasy of power and submission or taking and being taken.
Most couples engage in some form of both of these and both can be “played with” within the same love-making. Thinking back on my last column, sometimes clumsiness is the result of one person wanting tender loving sex while the other wants to take or be taken, and neither wants to engage in the other’s fantasy.
Many couples will eventually drop one of the fantasies and just do whatever is the least anxiety-producing. These couples usually become bored with their sex life and one or both eventually loses their desire to be sexual.
Next time I will talk more about the normal human fantasy of power and submission.
Gerald Drose is an Atlanta-based couples’ sex therapist. Visit Dr. Drose at Powers Ferry Psychological Associates, LLC.
I concur with your blog and i will have returned to check it more later on so please keep up your work. michael kors outleti cherish your substance and the way that you compose.
ReplyDeletefemale enhancements