Welcome to Next Level Intimacy

Workbook

Being Where You Are

Moving Forward - What it Really Takes

Blocks to Intimacy

Holistic Pleasure Principles

Touch Skills for Couples

Elemental Touch - Demonstration

Elemental Touch

This is a guided audio for couples: elemental touch. There is a video with a demonstration of this practise and an explanation. I encourage you to watch that first before listening to the audio and doing the practise. If you haven't watched it yet, you and you are going to choose a giver and a receiver for this practise. You'll be standing. So once you've decided on who's giving and who's receiving, you can stand facing each other and for a moment close your eyes and just give yourself space to land in your body in this moment. Maybe you've come from work or some other tasks. Noticing if you feel a bit of stress or tension or whatever. That's totally fine. Bringing your attention to your body, feeling the ground underneath you. Seeing if there is a movement that you could do that would help you to arrive a little more fully in this moment. So maybe it's a little stretch or rolling your shoulders or having a wiggle. Letting yourself land in your body. The person who is receiving is going to close their eyes or keep their eyes closed. The idea of this practise elemental touch as a recap is that you're exploring different types of touch that you may not be used to. You're exploring touching in the manner of different elements. So I will guide you through it. You're going to start behind the person as the giver. You're standing behind the receiver. You're going to start with your hands on their back in any position. Resting your hands there for a moment and letting them get used to the touch and the contact. Kind of arriving together in the contact. This is really nice to do because often we don't do that. We'll just kind of launch into moving touch. It's nice to just have a moment of stillness first. And you're going to start touching their body as water. So water retouch. That might look like long, flowing downward strokes. Water can be cooling and cleansing, flowing, soothing touching as water. It could be like a gentle stream, like a really light shower or ocean waves lapping at their body. Or it could be like a little waterfall, more rushing water. If you feel like making sound effects along with your elements, how does water sound touching their body receivers remember, you can say if something doesn't feel okay or you're uncomfortable or in pain, but otherwise you're just relaxing and receiving it. We're going to shift the element now to the element of air. Touch is like almost not touching. The air is soft, might be like a really light breeze. It feels expansive and spacious. Peaceful might be quite slow. Touch. If it feels too ticklish or they're kind of flinching, you can do it on not on skin, but on fabric, on what they're wearing. Or you can slow it down even more. Receivers if you notice that there's tension in your body, see if you can relax a little more if that feels comfortable. See if you can soften into the air touch. The element shifts again. Now to fire. Fire touch is often upward strokes. It has a bit more passion, a bit more heat, a bit more energy. How does fire energy engage with this body? We're not here talking about actual flames, but just that fiery energy of passion, fire as an element and and now we shift the element for the last time to connect with Earth Touch. So Earth touch is often pressing. Holding and grounding can involve like quite a bit of pressure. You could use different parts of your body to engage in Earth touch, but how can you bring that sense of grounding and earthiness to your touch? Earth Touch can bring stillness, grounding and really deep presence. Sanding a position chin where you can comfortably just hold in contact. So it might be one hand on either shoulder, might be both hands on the back, but just some position where you can comfortably pause in contact. Bringing your touch to stillness and closing your eyes, both of you, and just feeling. How was that? What are you noticing? Your body now? Having been the receiver or as the giver? Which element did you enjoy the most and which one wasn't as interesting? Just noticing in your body before you talk about it. This is as the receiver and then taking a moment together to share your experience. Mainly the receiver sharing how it was, what they noticed and remember that it's not about it needing to feel good. It's not a pleasure practise, it's an exploration practise. You're exploring different types of touch, so just noticing what you liked, which type of touch wasn't as enjoyable, which element was your favourite. So sharing that with your partner briefly and if you both feel open to it and you have time, you can swap over with the giver and receiver and start the audio again. This is the end of the elemental touch practise.

Making Time for Intimacy

Sense Ritual

Communication about Sex

Consent

This audio is about consent. Consent is absolutely essential for any intimate experience. Even with a partner you've known for years. We can think that, oh, we've been together for ages, we don't need to, this doesn't need to be a thing. It is a thing and it is important. And there are a few reasons for that. So people, most people have experienced some form of boundary violation in the past. Maybe that was in the form of abuse of some kind. Being with a partner who was maybe subtly pushing edges or coercive control dynamics or just feeling not quite respected. And then of course, a lot of people have been on the other end of that. People who are perpetrating the abuse, pushing the boundaries, forcing things or feeling that they were entitled to their partner's body. And because many of us have had challenging or complicated experiences with this stuff, finding that safety and intimate relationship is so, so important, it can seem like it's frustrating or boring or pointless. But what we know is that both people feeling content and safe together in an intimate experience creates space for much deeper intimacy. And what that means is more pleasure, more aliveness, more connection, more fulfilling orgasms, more mind blowing sex. And you can have an experience of safety with someone who is not a long term partner, right? There are some people who are really great at creating a space that feels fairly safe and can really listen to you. And you can feel very respected and held even if you may not have known them for very long. And then there are some people where you may have been in a relationship with them for a long time, but that things feel maybe a little bit volatile or unpredictable or you don't feel fully safe in the relationship or generally in their presence. And then that can translate into intimacy together. You are not entitled to another person's body or to sex from another person no matter what. Even if they're your intimate partner, even if you've known them forever, even if they were fine with it yesterday, they don't owe you sex on the other side of that. You don't owe anyone else your body or sex or any intimate act, no matter what. This is something that took me a long time to learn. For a long time I believed that I owed men sex, that that was something I had to offer and I was something that I owed an intimate partner. That if we were in an intimate relationship, my duty was to have sex with him with a certain regularity. And that is really sad because what it caused me to do is override my boundaries a lot and disconnect from my body and disconnect from my pleasure and to feel like I was having sex done to me. So basically, letting a partner masturbate in my body in a way that was not fulfilling for me at all really a lot of the time and was very disconnected and numbed out and was me doing my duty as a partner. And I think part of that things are different, right? As we move forward, a lot is changing. And with younger people today, like I'm 38 now, there are people today in their early 20s who are having very empowered experiences of sexuality. Some are still really, really struggling with it. So there's a lot of other stuff that impacts younger people today, like the prevalence of porn and that kind of thing. But I was raised by my parents generation, there was a sense of like sex is something that women owe men. Sex is something that you give your partner and he supports you financially and you just lie there and take the sex because that's what he needs every so often, right? So that stuff is really damaging and there is a separate training and I've spoken about libido, right? Libido and sex drive and all that kind of thing. I'm not endorsing being in a relationship with no intimacy or no sex unless you are asexual. That's a separate thing. But if you identify as a sexual being and your partner identifies as a sexual being, it's probably not healthy longer term to not be having sex and not engage in intimacy of some kind. But it's really important we're not doing that out of obligation or out of a sense of duty if we don't feel like sex very often. There are lots of things that we can do to engage in other forms of intimacy or to connect with our bodies and our pleasure and our sexual selves so that we can feel more open to intimacy with a partner. And there are things that you as a couple can learn so that you can be having more fulfilling sex. Right? Because a lot of the reason why many women that I work with, a lot of the reason why they don't feel like sex that often is because the sex they're having is really unfulfilling. Because the sex they're having is like four minutes long and focused on their male partner ejaculating and being done, like focused on penetration ejaculation as the goal, the other person having an orgasm finished. For most people on the receiving end of that, for most people who aren't the ones ejaculating, it's not that exciting, right? It's not that inspiring. It's not like, oh wow, let's have three minute sex. Sure, quickies can be fun sometimes, right? But it's hard to feel inspired when there is not a lot of deeper intimacy skills in the relationship. When your partner doesn't know your body that well, when there's not a deeper connection to pleasure, when you're not really empowered in communicating and exploring together, the sex is going to feel less inspiring, right? So there's a whole thing around that and you can look into that in lots of other content in this programme, but here. I'm speaking more specifically about consent and that it is important and necessary. Consent needs to be freely given. You can't pressure someone into giving consent. You can't guilt someone into giving consent. You can't make someone feel that they're obligated to give consent. It needs to be freely given. It needs to be like, I want to connect with you, yes, but it also needs to be reversible. It's a little bit laughable, some of this in Australia, we've had some stuff in the media recently about consent and there's been conversations around consent laws and how do you get consent before sex? And the tricky thing is, even if you sign a piece of paper saying, yes, I, this person, am willing to have sex with you, your name on this day, whatever it is. And then you start having sex with that person, and you're like, whoa, actually, hey, they're being a little bit violent. Or oh, God. They're suddenly they have their hand around my throat. That's not feeling good. Or wow, they're just like, pumping away at my body in this weird mechanical way and they don't even feel present with me. Suddenly. I'm not really into this anymore. Actually. I thought that I wanted to have sex with them, but this is not feeling good. I withdraw my consent, right? The consent needs to be reversible and the consent can change. Throughout the whole intimate experience. It might be like, I consent to this, I consent to this kind of thing, but not that kind of thing. I consented to it before and now that it's happening, I'm realising that I'm actually not having a good time and I don't consent anymore. And that's important, right? When you're on the receiving end of that, if you're the person who wants to have sex and the other person consents because they're open to it, and then they suddenly become not open to it, it is not your place to pout or complain or feel annoyed with them that they said yes and now they're saying no. You want to get curious about that? What's going on for that person? Are they feeling unsafe with you? Are they shutting down emotionally because there's some deeper stuff going on for them? Is there some other layers in the relationship to look at? Is it that maybe you don't know each other that well and they maybe consented out of some sense of obligation and then they realised that it wasn't feeling okay because I don't know about you, but I don't want to have sex with anyone who is not present with me. I don't want to be with someone who is not fully a yes to engaging with me intimately. That feels kind of pointless to just have someone there like, okay, I'm just doing this, but I'm not really present, I'm not really into it. In fact, I'd rather it wasn't happening. In fact, I don't want it to be happening. It's wild to then think that you're entitled to it or to go ahead with it when the other person doesn't want it to be happening and is not enjoying it. And there is a point where that becomes sexual abuse, right? And it's a fine line. So consent needs to be reversible and it can be sexy. It doesn't need to be some weird, complicated thing that's really mechanical. Do you consent to have sex with me? It can be flowing and comfortable. And there is a line here as well, because it doesn't always need to be verbal, right? With a new partner, I would always encourage verbal consent. With a longer term partner, consent can sometimes be verbal and it may sometimes be nonverbal. And there are different ways to engage in that. So let's talk about verbal first. So consent can look like obviously before engaging in the intimacy, making sure that you're both open to go in that direction and then checking in, like, how is this feeling? Are you okay? Would you like? X-Y-Z-I would love to. ABC? Are you open for that? I would love to go down on you. Would you like that? How is this speed or this pressure? Do you want to try doggy? Like that kind of thing? So that's ways that you can cheque in for consent throughout an intimate experience. And responses that are appropriate to any of these kinds of things include no, I don't want to I need to pause for a moment. Can we slow down a little? Yes. Fuck yes. No. Anything is an appropriate response, right? It's not like, oh, they said no. That's a big problem. It's like, okay, what would you like? Can we try this? Do you need to not be engaging at all intimately? All of that needs to be okay because we want to create a world where people feel empowered in an intimate experience. And we don't feel that we're pushing or forcing them in any way. We feel that it's a co creation, it's a collaboration, and everyone is content and consenting to what's happening. You could also ask, what would you like right now? Or would this feel good? Or is there something that you don't feel okay with? So this is helpful if your partner is feeling a bit sensitive, if you're feeling a bit uncertain, if you haven't had sex for a while, if it's with a new partner, or if you just really want to honour them and be really respectful, you can see is this something that you're not feeling comfortable with? Like, okay, you're open to be intimate, but how would you like to engage? Is there anywhere you don't want me to touch? I know some people who have been having sex and suddenly their partner is choking them or has a hand up their anus or finger. I mean, not hand. Oh, that would be intense. So it's really important to cheque in, especially as you go into, for example, more challenging positions. You're touching areas that maybe you don't touch that often, particularly the anus. But I think it's good to cheque in before touching someone's gentles at all, asking permission, like, hey, I would love to touch your cock. Is that okay? Or I would love to stroke your pussy with my hand. Would you like that? And you can say it in this way that conveys your desire. You're like, oh, I would love to do this to your genitals. Are you open to that? Would you like that? Can I please do that? Those are some ways to ask for consent. And I found that when there is that checking in and that consent before penetration and before genital touch, I feel like my body relaxes more, I feel safer, I feel more respected, I feel held, I feel this relief of just like, oh, okay, this is totally fine. And what that means is I'm much more likely to feel pleasure and have fulfilling orgasms and feel really connected in that experience because I feel safe and respected. So those are some ideas around verbal consent. And just a little point here. Someone who is drunk or under the influence of mind altering drugs of any kind, right, whether they are legal or not, cannot effectively give consent. So that's something to be really, really aware of. And that doesn't mean that you should never have sex when you're drunk, but it should. I believe it makes sense to only have sex under the influence of things with someone who you both feel like, where you both feel very comfortable in that intimacy and being careful because your judgement is impaired. So I'm not here to say don't have casual sex. And I know a lot of the time when people have casual sex, it is under the influence of something. But if your judgement or awareness is impaired to the point where you feel that you cannot fully give consent or you maybe wouldn't have made the same choice sober or you feel your partner may be in that situation, it's something to be very careful with. I had a lot of really drunk sex in my early 20s where there's no way I would have done anything like that if I was sober. And that was really confronting and that was really something that I engaged in willingly, right? But I was really overriding my own boundaries and that really impacted me later on in life. So it is something that's important to look at our tendencies and our patterns around that stuff and then ways to give less kind of specific verbal consent. So ways to work with the body. You can use your voice, but not with words, right? You can be like or you can say that feels good, or more please, or yes. Right? So that's using words, but not in this kind of how is this feeling? Or would you like that? It's just like yes, or God like, yes, good, fuck me. Like all of that, right? Lots of different ways to share. You can also show your body opening if someone touches you. And I've spoken about this in the communication section as well. If someone touches you in a way that you enjoy, you can show your body opening and you enjoying that touch, right? You can show your body authentically responding to pleasure and opening. You can also show if someone touches you in a way that you don't enjoy or feels uncomfortable. You can show your body closing, you can say ouch or Ah, or that hurts. You can show your body closing to that touch. And that is a way of consent, in a way like showing them, hey, this doesn't feel good, I'm not okay with this, this is not cool. And if they don't respond to that well, which is sometimes a problem, you can say, hey, I need to stop, this hurts, I need this. This is not okay. So that's general communication, but it is also interwoven with consent. Yeah, I think this is mostly what I want to say about consent. The main thing is just knowing that consent can be sexy and sensual and fun and playful and it can come from a place of desire rather than obligation, that you aren't entitled to anyone's body and they are not entitled to yours. And we need to be really respectful and gentle with each other around cultivating safety and intimacy. Because safety creates a foundation for deeper pleasure, for deeper intimacy, for feeling amazing and really softening and surrendering into an intimate experience. And if we want to be able to have mind blowing sex, we need to get good at consent. So I hope this has given you some useful ideas or support. And here's to having lots of mind blowing, consensual sexual experiences.

Orgasm, Pleasure & Goal Oriented Sex

Libido and Desire

Non-Penetrative Intimacy

Initiating Sex

Enhancing Penetrative Sex

Your Sexual Menu

This audio is about creating your sexual menu as a couple for your relationship. The idea of this is that you create a living document. So a document that can be added to over time with inspiration and ideas for your intimate life together. Why would you it? What's the point of this? So it can remind you of a bunch of options that you wouldn't normally think of. It can give you inspiration for when you're tired or stuck in a repetitive pattern. It can help you remember that it doesn't need to be only penetration. There's lots of other ways to engage in intimacy, and sometimes those can be good for when you're a bit lower energy or you want something that's not the same thing that you do regularly, or something that is specifically not penetrative. It can give you permission to explore different flavours or types of intimacy. And it can allow you to consider options for when you're wanting something really low key or something super spicy, just to have some inspiration or some ideas. And the point also is that you're creating something you can add to as you explore, as you get fresh ideas, as you have new experiences. Creating your sexual menu can feel like, oh, this is some prescriptive list and this is rigid and we have to do it in a particular way. This is not what the intention is. The idea is that it is playful and fun. It can be a little bit silly or exciting, and it's not this rigid, prescriptive thing. It's not like things need to be a certain way, or when you're about to have sex, you have to bring out your little menu and be like, right, choose something from column B. It's not like that, but it's about just expanding your repertoire and just being like, oh yeah, there's all these options. And you might use it regularly, you might not bring it out that often, right? It's up to you how you engage with it. So if you are a little bit techie, you could create a shared Google Doc. Make sure that you don't create it in a work folder. That's something that I could very easily do because a lot of my Google folders other people have access to. So make sure it's something that only the two of you have access to. And you can create a shared Google Doc. Or you could get out a big sheet of paper and do like, old school texters, kind of mind mappy stuff, or just columns on a big sheet of paper. Let's talk about how to do it. First, you want to be open to it being an exploration, something that can be fun. You're not like, this is an annoying homework thing, right? I'm going to do it, but okay, how can we have fun with this and make it exciting and see what we discover? And you're going to initially brainstorm all of the lovely intimate things you can think of things you have done and enjoyed, things you are curious about trying maybe some more intense things, some lower key things, some simple things that can be done in just a few minutes. Maybe some things that are a bit more involved, that need more preparation, right? Like for example sensual massage you're going to need oil in a warm room and a playlist and vibes for a sense ritual. Again, you also need some props and things like that so if something's a bit more involved, like a roleplay scenario or something like that, they will need more preparation. So you can also write those things down and you're dumping them all out on paper or on your document, just dumping them out and as you start to see them all emerge knowing that there's more you can add so that's okay, you're seeing if there's a pattern of how you want to organise it. For example, you might as a couple decide that you could organise your sexual menu between three columns like vanilla or mild, medium spicy and hot spicy. So the really gentler, simpler things kind of in the beginning, building up to the more wild stuff. Or you could arrange it in the form of energy levels. So you might have a column for low energy or kind of untired. I've got a bit of energy, have a bit of time, feel kind of open or high energy or longer, or like date night. I worked with a client at one point where we devised this in the form of like as if it's a meal or an eating experience. So you could have entrees for when you are peckish but you don't want a whole big meal. You can have mains for the whole enchilada. And these might be like, deeper intimacy or longer periods or things that take a bit more time or pretty standard kind of main course stuff. And you can have like, a dessert column, so that could be like special, exciting moments or something that's a bit more central or exotic in a way. Or you could divide it in. You could get super nerdy with this, right? If you wanted to do it online you could cross reference things. I get really into spreadsheets, I've never made a spreadsheet for anything like this but I can see how you could categorise things in multiple zones which could be interesting. You could categorise them in terms of how enthusiastic you feel about it. Like the stuff that we'd love to do regularly, maybe sometimes not quite sure yet. Like things I'm curious about or want to try. And the idea is that you would split it up. You would map it out and split it into zones or columns, giving space to be able to add new things as you think of them. So on your Google Doc you could do it horizontally with columns so that it's kind know the space moving down if you do it on a piece of paper, make sure it's a fairly big one and you write fairly small so that there is space to add. And in terms of using your sexual menu, you don't need to constantly refer to it. So it's not a rigid thing. You don't have to pull it out every time you have sex, but it's there to inspire you. If that might be supportive, you could cheque in with it if you'd like an idea for a direction, you could take things, you could add that cool thing that you're curious about. Maybe you read an article or you saw something in this programme, or you heard something from someone and you were like, oh, that'd be kind of fun to try. You could add that onto your menu, maybe cheque in with your partner first, or maybe just add it and you can cross it off later if you decide that it's not for you. But being able to have it be a living document and to play around with it as you both have fun designing your intimate life together. So you're bringing intentionality to your intimate life rather than just expecting epic sex to magically unfold. There can be a lot of pressure on our sex lives. Like it should just magically be amazing. Yet if we are engaging in things a similar way again and again, it can feel a little stale. Sometimes. It is nice to mix things up, so this can be a way to be more intentional with that. Now, a little caveat once you have your menu, I mean, you could, for example, say, hey, I'd really love to do this thing from this column. How do you feel about this tonight? And your partner might be like, yeah, okay, let's try it. Like, I'm not sure, let's see how it goes, but I'm open to try it. And you might kind of start engaging in that thing. And for whatever reason, it feels a bit too edgy or not quite comfortable or a bit awkward. An awkwardness and edginess is okay, right? But it might be like too much. It might be like, oh, I don't feel fully safe in this, or this feels like too edgy for where I'm at today emotionally. And then you might default to something that feels much more familiar and easeful and that's really okay. So it's not like once you've decided to try something, you have to do it that way. And if you change, it's a problem. The thing on the list is an inspiration and it's okay to start somewhere and end up completely somewhere else. It's okay to start somewhere and then do a massive pivot to something that feels safer. It's okay to start with something safer and end up doing something that's really edgy or different. So there's no particular way it needs to look. It's about co creating it together. But this can be a really supportive tool for couples it's something that sex coaches do often give their clients and it's to help you to have an ongoing exploration, remind you of these options, give you inspiration and help you to branch out into new intimate experiences together. So enjoy creating your sexual menu and I hope it brings you lots of fruitful experience together.

Aftercare

I'm going to talk a little about aftercare, what it is and why it's important. Sexual intimacy can also be deeply vulnerable emotionally. Sometimes it can feel very physical and very much purely sexual or sensual or erotic. But there are times when sex can bring up big emotions. We might feel a lot of grief or sadness or joy or we might have touched layers of intimacy with someone else that we haven't felt much in our lives or allowed a part of us to be seen, that we normally keep hidden or seen parts of ourselves that are unfamiliar. And it's really important that in intimacy with a partner we find a way to care for each other and support each other after an intimate experience that we don't just disconnect, but that there is a space to really acknowledge and share and feel whatever that looks like for you. So when I talk about aftercare, I am referring to the ways in which we connect after an intimate experience. What happens after the sex bit? So normally what a lot of people do is finish the sex, have an orgasm. Often that's the thing, right? There's the leg sex, then's in orgasm there's the orgasm and roll over and fall asleep. That's one pathway that happens pretty commonly. Sometimes there is one partner who rolls over and falls asleep and the other partner is just lying there kind of feeling some emotions moving or a desiring connection and not really getting it. So it's important to talk together and find out what works for you both. The idea of aftercare is that it's a space to care for your partner and for the relationship after an intimate experience. And this could look like, for example, just cuddling or touching and staying connected. It could be sharing a bit about what you enjoyed just mentioning here. This is not a time to debrief the sex and be like well, this bit I didn't like and you could have done that better, or whatever. It's not a performance meeting or anything that just to share like oh, I really loved this, or this felt really good for me. Some people like having a shower together. I am not those people. But apparently it's a thing and some people quite enjoy that. It can be just chatting, right? Just lying in bed and just chatting together. Maybe it's having something to eat or drink, maybe it's watching a show together, right? It doesn't need to be like right now we're having an official conversation or we need to do some spiritual thing or touch each other in a certain way, but just something that you do afterwards to stay connected or to kind of gently come down from the intimate experience. And the idea of this is that it's about helping both people feel respected and safe in the intimate connection after opening themselves deeply on a personal level. I have had many experiences during sex that were very emotional or deep or cosmic or mind blowing or very intense. And in the past, there have been times that that's happened with someone that I didn't feel completely safe with or where, after opening myself on that level, I didn't feel like I was met with respect or I didn't feel that I was met with someone else's presence. And that felt really scary and really vulnerable and unsafe for me, really opening myself in intimacy with someone and then feeling like afterwards they just completely disconnect and fall asleep. That felt like, almost like being abandoned or really just like, whoa, okay. I just really shared a part of myself that is very, very personal and vulnerable and scary to open into, and now you're not even here with me. And that's not to say that falling asleep is bad or not, okay. Sometimes you are tired after sex, and you want to just go to sleep, but doing your best to stay connected in some way and even just cumbling for a few minutes or something, right. Not to feel like, right, I'm done with you, and that's it. Yeah. And I know that when I have been relating with someone with whom I feel very safe, that aftercare can feel it can bring a whole other dimension to the sex. It can feel really nourishing and really spacious and relaxing and connecting and joyful. I know for me, after sex, I can feel a lot of energy in my body. I can feel creatively inspired or just really open or really expanded in my being in a different way to my everyday experience. And there's something really delicious and beautiful about that to share with someone. And it doesn't need to be, like I said, anything intense or that takes ages, but just some gentle, simple way to connect that feels supportive for both of you. So my question to you and to explore, to chat about with your partner is what kind of aftercare feels good for you? Thinking about some options, thinking about what has previously happened after sex, what you've enjoyed, what you don't enjoy so much, and what you'd like to explore sharing with your partner what kind of aftercare feels good for you and what doesn't feel so great immediately after sex, what's not really that nourishing or what feels a bit disconnecting? Yeah. You can answer those questions with your partner and see what you come up with and see if you can weave in some gentle, supportive aftercare to your intimacy together.

Cultivating Attraction

Porn and Fantasy

In this audio, I want to speak a little bit about our relationship with porn. So not everyone is into porn. A lot of people don't really engage with it much, but it is very, very popular. Someone told me the other day that 60% of all data on the internet is pornography, which I was surprised by. I didn't realise it was quite that much. So porn is big business and it has changed over the years and there are lots of different ways to engage with it. And the thing to remember, really, with porn is that it's a performance. The people in porn are actors who don't usually know each other, often before even that same day, and they likely wouldn't have chosen to be intimate if they weren't being paid for it. A lot of the time they are performing for an audience and it's a performance of sex. So it's not about how they're feeling or their pleasure or their emotions, or feeling close or intimate or connected. It's about it looking a certain way for an audience. And the tricky thing with that is that as people's desires change over time and sometimes they may be interested in more and more intense things. There are these themes that come up in porn and some of them are quite damaging. So there's a very strong focus in mainstream porn on violence or rough sex in a lot of cases. Often it's men dominating, women choking. And then a lot of the women in mainstream porn are, apart from being forced into things or having violent experiences perpetrated upon them, they are also pushed to look a certain way. So there's super heavy makeup, fake boobs tucked in, vulvas so that you don't see the labia, or either they've had surgery so that the labia looks quite tucked in, or they have that kind of labia already. Faking, orgasms, taking massive cocks into their vaginas. And all of this can be quite full on and can really impact the way that we see sexuality and intimate relating. So when someone has watched a lot of mainstream porn, they can be conditioned by some of these themes and measure their own experience of sexuality against them. So I don't need to tell you why this can be problematic, but just to kind of spell it out a little bit. And it's good to know that there are different types of porn. A lot of what I've spoken about so far is pretty mainstream porn. There is what's called ethical porn, or feminist porn or female focused porn, and that is about censoring women's pleasure in a lot of cases, or made by people who really care about each other, sometimes people who are in a relationship. Feminist porn tends to be made in a way that is respectful and consent based and more ethical, in that people are being paid a fair wage and their content is being used more respectfully. And there is more creative porn that's made for people who appreciate really good stories, or porn that shows diverse bodies, or porn that shows people experiencing genuine pleasure rather than faking orgasms or performing pleasure or making all the sounds that make you think that they're experiencing pleasure. So that type of porn is not always free. It's not as accessible or as easy to find. It does exist. I am not the person to recommend it because I'm not really into it personally. And then there are other ways to engage with erotic media. So some people really enjoy like sexy audio stories. There are apps that read the stories to you. There are people who have a connection with their own sexuality, who've created audio erotica, erotic stories or just sharing their erotic expression, which can be quite interesting because they're very real people's experiences. There are erotic novels and I know that some couples quite enjoy reading erotic novels or stories to each other. So these are some ways that you can explore some kind of erotic media. And then of course, we see there are sex scenes in movies or certain TV series that might have quite strong sexual themes and that can also create some kind of stimulation or input that can be interesting for us. So the questions are, and this is something to reflect on as a couple, if you are interested in engaging with porn together or separate, what kind of porn is inspiring to you? Not like what's your go to because it's familiar or easy, but you kind of disconnect from yourself. But what feels actually interesting, what feels actually inspiring, what might uplift you or give you a supportive view on sexuality? And then how are you engaging with the porn? Because for a lot of people when they engage with porn, it's video porn. They are maybe sitting in front of their computer, maybe quite numbed out and just focused on intensely stimulating their genitals in order to have an orgasm. And within this space you can kind of cheque out of your body. It can be just like how do I manually make an orgasm happen? Extract an orgasm from my body in a way where I might not feel completely connected to myself. So then the inquiry becomes how can you if you want to engage with porn, how can you experience it in a way where you stay connected to your body and that might look like as a couple? It might look like watching something together and connecting with whole body pleasure and touching each other and kissing and making out and being playful and exploring in a slow and gentle way. It might be if you're watching it on your own, like really moving your body and staying really connected to yourself within the experience of watching the porn and touching yourself in a whole body sense and really creating a deeper experience. And then it's interesting to reflect on. What does it give you? Because for some people, they have quite strong habits when it comes to porn and it can be this sense of like well, I've just always used that. It's what I do. So it's interesting to reflect on what are the benefits, what are you receiving from this? What does it give you? Does it give you anything? Is it useful? And if it is, how is it useful? What does it give you? Fantasy can be healthy and natural and it's normal to sometimes fantasise when we're being intimate with a partner or generally it's normal to sometimes fantasise about other people, right? I don't believe that that is wrong or not okay necessarily. I think there are sometimes conversations to have in your relationship and let's also clarify that some people there are lots of different relationship styles, right? Some people are monogamous, some people are polyamorous, some people have various forms of open relationships and I don't think that it helps to moralise any of them. It is really just about what people's personal preferences are and obviously that there needs to be consent and respect in all ways that we engage intimately with anyone else. But looking at your tendency towards fantasy and if you find that you often get swept up in your head or you are fantasising quite a lot during intimacy, it could make it more challenging to connect deeply with your partner. So that's something to look at and it could be interesting to really intentionally bring your awareness back to the intimacy you're experiencing with your partner. So real human sex when we as humans choose to have sex with each other, obviously it's nothing like most porn. It's not a performance. Usually no one is watching. It's not about trying to look a certain way. You don't need a certain type of body to have sex. You don't need a certain length penis. You don't need a certain type of tucked in vagina. It is messy and awkward and silly. There are moments of clunkiness and weirdness and discomfort and needing to have challenging conversations. There might be tears at some point, there might be big emotions moving or points of vulnerability or insecurities coming up. And all of that is really welcome and really normal. This is what I'm interested in supporting and promoting, looking at. There may be some conditioning that we have received from porn and other things over the years that make us believe that sex should look perfect, that we shouldn't need to communicate, that it should all just flow amazingly, that it should look amazing, that there should never be any awkwardness or messiness or clunkiness, that emotions don't belong in the bedroom. And I think all of that is really unhealthy and not supportive. And if we want to have a nourishing relationship with sexuality that does involve embracing the human parts of us, the acknowledgment that we are not actors, we are not performing, pleasure is not a performance. Orgasms don't need to be faked we need to embrace the awkward, clunky, messy, screwed up, weird parts of our sexuality and be honest about them and explore them together. So there are some ideas within this for what you could chat about together and you could explore how you each feel about erotic media and what role fantasy plays in your intimate life. Some people also really enjoy things like roleplay. That's a way that you can bring fantasy into intimacy together or playing around with your partner's. Erotic fantasy. And just because someone has an erotic fantasy doesn't mean that they want it to be a reality. Some people have fantasies that they would like to remain a fantasy that is just a nice little mental go to with self pleasure, for example. But the idea of it actually happening in real life is like, whoa, that would be way too much, or I'm actually not really interested in that, it's just a fantasy. So don't think that any fantasy of your partners is something that they absolutely want. It's good to talk about it, but it's nice to explore. What fantasies do you have? What would be interesting or inspiring to you? What are you curious about? And, yeah, are there any of those that you would like to explore together and what might that look like? And as I said, role play is one way to play with that to be. I know of a couple who do like strangers at a bar, getting ready separately and meeting out at a bar and pretending they don't know each other. Or there's always the Doctor or the fireman or all of those different kind of playful, the tradie role plays where someone comes to your house and then something unfolds that can be quite interesting and fun to play with. So that you're bringing an element of performance in a consensual way into your connection together, but without it needing to be pressure filled or without everything to be about performance. So I hope that this has given you some ideas or inspiration or things to talk about up when it comes to porn and fantasy and enjoy your ongoing exploration together.

For Parents

This audio is specifically for parents. I know that reconnecting with sex after birth or prioritising sex and intimacy as parents can be really challenging. It's not just the two of you anymore, and kids have a lot of needs. Life can become wildly busy, complicated and exhausting. In this audio, I'll unpack some of the common challenges that get in the way with parents when it comes to intimacy and how you can navigate them. The caveat here is that I am not a mother. I do not have children, and it's something that I have worked with a lot with my clients. So I feel like I do have a pretty clear understanding of it. And I've supported many thousands of parents to navigate their relationship with their sexuality. But it's not something that I have very direct experience of myself. It can be hard to keep the spark alive. I want to unpack some of the larger patterns that I notice when it comes to parents and their challenges with intimacy and something to mention so people can think with some of the programmes I have that, well, I'm parent, so this doesn't apply to me. But really, I would say almost everything in my programmes applies to people with children. It doesn't exclude you, it just means you might need to do things slightly differently to someone with more time or more capacity for this kind of thing. So something I notice a lot when it comes to sex and intimacy is people having grief for the early days before kids feeling like, oh, it used to be so easy. And that's true, right at the start of a relationship, we often take more care to have fun together. There is less domestic pressure, there's more polarity. We spend time getting ready and creating a space or planning date nights. There's a lot of build up. So it's not that that stuff is spontaneous, right? Because you are spending more time, you're focused on doing things to prepare. It doesn't magically happen. And then we can feel like with kids, oh God, this just feels impossible. Creating space for intimacy when we have a lot on our plate is challenging at times for everyone, right? And feeling that grief for how things used to be is normal is totally okay. It's important, though, that you acknowledge that, that you allow it to be there. Sometimes we can be feeling that grief or like wishing things were how they were and just feel like a stuckness or a block or a heaviness around it without fully acknowledging that that's what's happening. In gestalt therapy, I talk about this a lot. There's a concept called the paradoxical theory of change, which means that when we fully allow ourselves to be where we are, it can create a little bit of space for it to shift. But when we deny where we are, or avoid where we are, or pretend that we're not where we are, it's really hard to actually move forward in any way. So when you feel that grief for the early days, acknowledge that it's there. Give yourself space to feel it and let yourself be there. It's okay to grieve for your former self. It's okay to grieve for how easy things felt with sex and intimacy, if that's true for you. And from there, you can see this time as a whole other version of yourself, to discover and to get to know, knowing that what may have worked before may work differently now. And that's not bad. You're not trying to return to how things were. I think that's kind of the pressure, right, with parenting. It's like they bounce back after the baby or they'll get back to whatever things were, and it's like things are just different now. They won't be the same. You won't go back to how things were. You will find a balance that will be vastly different to your life before being a parent. And that's okay. It's not bad. It's not worse. It's just different. So how can you be curious about getting to know your sexual self and your partner's sexual self as you both are now? So that was grief for the early days, but then also curiosity and willingness to discover and explore where you are now as a sexual being, an essential being, and where your partner is now with that as well. Another thing that comes up for a lot of parents I talk to is feeling touched out or having a partner who is touched out. So being touched out is if you haven't heard of it, you probably have, but it's the feeling of, like, you've got kids crawling on you all day. You may be breastfeeding. There's a lot of physical contact there. And then you just feel like when the kids aren't touching you, you want your body to yourself. You're just like, Leave me alone. Sex is the last thing on my mind. I've just had so much body contact all day with children breastfeeding and hanging off me. Just don't touch me. So of course that's normal, right? Of course. You're not likely to feel up for sex if you've been breastfeeding and had kids crawling over you all day. There's so much physical contact there. Sometimes too much. Sometimes it's overwhelming. And it would be really normal to want your body to yourself for once. Sometimes it can feel like a partner wants too much from you, that it's demanding, that it's like, God, I can't give you that. Like, I just need space. When you do have time, and I know that that's tricky sometimes, but when you can create a little bit of space, when your partner can support you to create that space, see if you can really make the most of it. Create some quality time with yourself that might be not just zoning out on your phone, but feeling okay. What would actually feel nourishing or supportive could I go for a little walk? Could I have a bath? Could I have some rest or do nothing time and just lay down and hold myself and feel my body without anyone touching me. Feel into what would help you and do your best together to find some balance so that the person who's feeling touched out which may be more likely to be the one who is breastfeeding if they are, or the one who's most in physical contact with the kids so that person can get a bit more space, whatever that looks like. However, you can swing it working together so that that person gets a bit more space. When you are touched out and your partner makes a bid for connection, your partner wants to be intimate with you and expresses that. So sometimes you might need to say I am not in any way open for like it's a no, I can't do any touch of any kind and that's okay, right? You need to honour that. But you can also reflect on what you might feel open for. You can see, am I open to be open? I talk about this in the initiation section as well. Am I open to be open to intimacy of some kind and to feel into? What would you like? Maybe you're not open for anything, Penetrative, but you'd be open to receive some pleasure or nurturing touch. Maybe you're open for your partner to give you a little massage or some gentle stroking. Maybe you would love a no pressure naked cuddle. That's not like this is going to turn into sex. You just want the naked cuddle and that's enough. Maybe you need to set a boundary with your partner and say, hey, I would like to just take Penetrative sex off the table this week because I'm feeling really frazzled and touched out and I just need space or I want to engage with you intimately, but these are the ways that would feel supportive right now. So those are some things to consider when it comes to being touched out. The next thing I want to mention is the mental load. I spoke about this in the video that's about creating time for intimacy. It's common that one parent so in a heterosexual dynamic, it's often the woman not always, usually it's common that one parent is likely to be the one that's holding the invisible job of the mental load. And that looks like keeping things together domestically, practically medically, with parenting, with school stuff, there can be a lot to manage. And here, I'm not talking about specifically like the cooking or the dishes or the putting the bins out or doing the washing, although those are things that need to be done and there should be some kind of collaboration that works for your relationship and both of you. But the stuff that is invisible and yeah, I'm going to refer you to the finding time for intimacy, because that does go further into it, but it is often the mental load. Holding the mental load is often a thankless job. It can feel overwhelming and because it's invisible, the other person's not really acknowledging it right a lot of the time until you really point it out. But it's mentally a lot to hold. It can feel very overwhelming because you're thinking like, right, the kids have to be taken to here and that's going to happen and then that doesn't work on Tuesday and there's a birthday party on this day, so it's scheduling stuff. But also, like, I've got to order more of the nappies and then the such and such has got to be picked up on that day and then this is happening for that purpose and someone's got to book an appointment for that thing and I need to make sure I've got some of this stuff. And it can feel never ending and very overwhelming and it can create a lot of stress. So you want to speak honestly about your dynamic, maybe even regularly and find a way forward that makes things more balanced and more spacious for both of you. If the person who's holding most of the mental load feels overwhelmed or is struggling or it's feeling just not right for them, which is fair enough. You want to see what you can do to create a sense of spaciousness around some of these things that might look like dividing certain tasks, dividing things up and making the other person completely responsible for things. So instead of them waiting to be told, hey, could you do this? Or this thing needs to happen, making sure that they know that that thing is completely their job and they need to arrange it and make the space and make the time and follow through on it without waiting for instructions or needing the other person to manage it in any way. So that is a little on the mental load. Let's talk about now self care. So in intimacy with a partner it's going to be tricky to really go deeper with intimacy and pleasure and connection as a busy parent if you are struggling to care for yourself in a basic way. People these days, many of us struggle to care for ourselves in basic ways and kids just make that even more challenging sometimes. So if you are finding it hard to make space for exercise or things that nourish you seeing friends in any way or doing little things that you identify as self care, little things that support you, that's tricky, right? That's a problem if you don't have any space for that. So talking together about what would it take to create small windows for self care for both of you, how can you support each other to make that happen? Sometimes this happens in parenting world where one parent it just turns out that one parent is a bit better at managing to make space for exercise or managing to make space for self care. And sometimes what that means is that the other parent is kind of picking up the pieces or the other parent is doing extra work to cover for that, but maybe not getting their own self care or maybe not getting their own space. So speaking together about how you can support each other to care for yourselves and that might look like giving each other space at certain times without kids, but it also might look like gently nudging your partner and saying like, hey, what would really nourish you right now, what could you do that would be really supportive? It's easy when you feel frazzled or overwhelmed. I mean, I know this when I'm looking after my little godson, sometimes when there's a little break, I'm like, I just want to numb out and scroll on my phone because I want to kind of dissociate a bit because I've just been hyper focused for so long. And while there's nothing wrong with that, it's not actually nourishing. And if I needed to care for him every day, that would not be helpful, right? So noticing if you have some of those tendencies to kind of cheque out or numb out or just vague out on screens a lot and don't beat yourself up for that because that's normal and it's okay and we all do it even with our kids. But see if you can weave in some things that would feel more nourishing, some things that would support your nervous system, whether that's a bit of time in nature or eating something really nourishing, or just taking a moment to yourself and putting your hands on your body, or doing a touch practise or something that actually feels nurturing and supportive. The next point I have is about life getting overwhelmingly complicated. Now, I noticed this as someone without kids and I mean, I have heard and I speak to people with kids and it just feels like, whoa, things can not always, but things can and often do get crazily complicated. And kids do complicate things, right? You can't just have a kid and still do everything you did before in the same way. So I've spoken about this a few times before as well. If you don't have time for what matters, then stop doing what doesn't. So of course parenting your child is important. So what matters less these days now that you are a parent, maybe you've been a parent for a long time, maybe it's new feeling into what is actually less important, what matters less right now, and see if you can strip away some of that. Take something off your plate, simplify things, make more time in your week. And sometimes this is going to involve larger steps like working one less day or letting go of that project that you're really excited about but you just honestly don't have time for, or putting boundaries in place with family members or asking for support from someone in your life, right? But it might need to be done. Those things might be important if you want to be able to show up for your relationship, if you want to be able to deepen in intimacy and connection together. The next point I have is about desiring deeper sexual intimacy without emotional intimacy. So this can happen sometimes when life becomes more intense with kids. There are a lot of practical things to take care of. And you might struggle to open to sexual intimacy when you're not even feeling emotionally connected with your partner. So you want to create space for emotional intimacy and closeness and joy together separate from parenting, but also within parenting. And this could look like in terms of creating a space for emotional connection separate from parenting. That might look like cuddles in bed at night or a moment together in the kitchen or having that sense of generosity. Right. Instead of scrolling on your phone when you have a moment or taking a second to connect with your partner or asking them what would help them to feel connected in a non sexual way. When we don't feel emotionally connected to each other, we can put an overemphasis on sex. We can feel like, oh, if only we were having more sex, I would feel better in the relationship. And while sex can be important, there are times when it's not possible. There are times when you're both just completely too exhausted. Obviously after birth, there's quite a long period where you definitely don't want to be having penetrative sex. And that's very important to honour that and then to gently ease into it afterwards. And it's important there's not pressure around it. And so one way to take some of the pressure off the sexual intimacy is to have more emotional intimacy. So create those little moments to feel connected cheque in with your partner, ask them how they're feeling, tell them what you're feeling, be a support for each other emotionally. And that's something that a lot of parents obviously really naturally do. I'm speaking really generally. These are all things that you might already be doing, but just some things that come up really regularly with parents who I've spoken to and do think it's important to take the pressure off sexual intimacy by creating more emotional intimacy, which paradoxically creates more space for sexual intimacy. Now, the last thing I'm going to go into deeply is the insecurity and the fear of our bodies changing. I work with a lot of women who struggle with the ways that their bodies have changed after kids, after birth. Sex can sometimes feel very different for them. Their bodies might respond differently to sex, they might look different in the mirror and they might just feel very, very different in their body. And even a non birthing partner's body might change after kids, right, because their lifestyle has changed. Or if you are parenting children who you did not birth, neither of you birthed, right? Your body could still change because maybe you're experiencing more stress, you have different eating and exercise habits. So these changes to our bodies are very, very normal. I teach a lot about body confidence because it is really needed. We are taught in the world that we live in, we are taught to overemphasise our appearance and fixate on needing to look a certain way, seeing our value as what we look like. This is really common for women especially. So when your body changes after birth, it's a chance to get to know your new, different body. If you've birthed children, you've been through a huge initiation. So you are a different person now and your body is different and it's meant to be different. So doing what you can to let go of the media story of bouncing back and see if you can be with your soft body as it is now, listen to what your body needs at this point. So you might be someone who before having kids, did a lot of intense workouts and weightlifting and crazy adventure sports or something. And people do get quite addicted to very hard intense workouts. And you might find that at this point in your life that actually would create more stress in your body. And what you need is something that is fairly slow or gentle. So feeling what would feel nourishing or joyful in terms of movement? What's achievable with your kid or kids or knowing that you in this space as a parent, your time is different and the kids needs are a factor. So what's actually achievable in terms of movement and exercise? What's something you could do semiregularly or occasionally, what's easy and how can you nourish your body now within the busyness of your day? There's also something to be said for accepting your partner's body changing. So notice if you are someone who has judged your partner's body for changing as a parent. Notice if you have your own internal judgement or conditioning from society around a partner's body needing to look a certain way or being connected to status, or the body being valued on a deeper level that is kind of beyond how we should see physical appearance, right? Of course, we all have these fantasies of never ageing and being young forever, but I mean, in my late thirty s now, I know that's not a thing. And ageing is real and bodies changing is real and they change for different reasons and our worth is not tied to our appearance. And if you're in a long term relationship with someone, their body will change and it will not be anything like it was when you first got together over a longer period of time. And that's okay. And that's normal. So yeah, be accepting of your partner's body changing and love on their body as it is, especially if they have found it to be challenging or they struggle with confidence or they judge their own body. You can support them by loving up their body and showing them that you care for their body as it is. Finally, I want to mention the biggest thing that comes up with parents when it comes to intimacy and that is that we don't have time. So there is a separate video that's all about making time for sex and intimacy and all of the stuff in there applies to parents as well. You might need to do a little bit more tricky business to make it work and your experience of time is very different to someone like mine who doesn't have kids. But a lot of the resources and the tools in that video will still absolutely apply to you. So yeah, you can cheque that out if you feel like time is a factor and this is all for now. So these were some ideas and some tools for navigating sex and intimacy with kids or just looking at some of the things that come up. And really, I think the larger thing is around prioritising it, creating space for it, committing to regular date nights if you can, creating space to connect and feel and be present with each other and know that it's okay for things to come in waves, it's okay if things feel a little flat sexually for a while, that's fine. But you can both prioritise it and reconnect with your sensual and sexual selves as parents and you can have really fulfilling intimate experiences as parents. Another factor actually before I finish that I just thought of, so I talk to a lot of people who want advice about how to support their children related to sexuality. So as they have older kids or the kids start asking about sex, what they should say, or the kids start touching themselves, how they should meet that. And people often are like tell me, what do I tell my kids so that they have a healthy relationship to sexuality? Like I don't want maybe I was raised with some shame and weirdness around that stuff, I don't want that to happen to my kids. What should I tell them, what should I say to them? And my response is usually that kids learn from who you are, not what you say. And of course it is important what you say and you want to be careful with that. And there is lots of resources out there about sex positive parenting. But really the most supportive thing you can do is to have a healthy connection with your own sexuality. To have a healthy connection with your own body. To look at your own patterns of self judgement or shame or fear around sexuality or avoidance of it completely and find a healthy balance within yourself so that you can naturally show your children that you are a sexual being, but they're not experiencing having a parent who refuses to talk about sexuality, who doesn't meet their questions about it in a way that is healthy, who maybe brings shame to certain things, who judges their own body. All of that can really impact kids. So you doing the work to create a nourishing and supportive relationship with your sexuality, and your pleasure will support your kids definitely, and is really, really important these days. So I hope that this is giving you some inspiration. If you listen to this together with your partner, I would recommend chatting about it. There are some questions related to this in the workbook, and you can also chat about it and see, hey, what are the things that you noticed and what came up for you and what do you relate to and what can we do? How can we move forward together in a way that feels supportive?