Transformational Pleasure

What keeps erections healthy? That’s right, circulation, the right balance of hormones, and pleasure. But we have many common misperceptions about how each of these things might help or hurt erections.

Foundationally erections are about blood flow and blood containment. As the spongy tissues in the penis fill with blood, they swell and create the hardness of an erection. Blood has to be able to get into the penis and to be held in there for the erection to last.

Because of the concept of capturing blood in the penis to hold erection, many men unconsciously tense their pelvic muscles, willing blood into the penis and willing it to stay there. This does not work. The muscles in your body do not send blood flow into the penis. In fact, flexible, relaxed muscles in the pelvis will facilitate more blood flow to the penis. You want the muscles in your hips, thighs, and pelvis to stay relaxed while you are getting erect. Practicing stretches for the hamstrings, buttocks, and psoas muscles can be helpful to keep yourself flexible. (You may find this helps your sexual functioning in many ways!) Try to become aware of your PC muscle, the muscle you can use to stop the flow of urine or to cause your penis to twitch. Learn to feel your PC and relax it, along with surrounding muscles, while getting erect. Your PC muscle should stay relaxed until the final stages of orgasm when it can potentially increase sensation and ejaculation. When you feel you are going over the edge into orgasm, then tighten your PC and see how that feels.

For men who are struggling with inconsistent erections, there are some other simple things you can consider and experiment with to improve circulation. One common factor - Digestion requires circulation to go to your stomach. Eat lightly before you plan to have sex; you can binge on whatever your stomach desires after. Also consider using sexual positions that facilitate circulation such as you standing or kneeling. Missionary position, when your weight is in your arms, can compromise circulation to your pelvis, so you might avoid it. And, if your partner is on top, make sure they are not putting all their weight onto your pelvis.

Ok, what about hormones? For many people this is the first thing they consider if erectile difficulties come into play. Hormone levels vary considerably person to person and throughout our lives. Getting testosterone checked can be helpful but often is not the answer. Focusing on general health, eating well, sleeping enough, lowering stress, exercising, may all have positive effects on hormone health. But we are still learning about how to access and supplement for the right balance of sex hormones for each unique person.

Which brings us to pleasure, an often ignored part of the equation. Yes, your body is wired to be inspired by pleasure which feeds the erection process. In the past you may have gotten an erection with just visual stimulation (pleasurable!), but now you may need the more direct physical pleasure of manual stimulation to get erect. Relax and enjoy this part of the sexual process. Allow yourself to focus on what you are feeling, breathe deeply, and tune in to your own pleasure. When sex becomes stressful, because it has turned into a performance or a race to please your partner or an obligation to get over with before you can fall asleep, the body responds. If you lose track of your own sensation of pleasure, your body assumes you don’t need an erection anymore. Having positive interactions with your partner and enjoying a sexual repertoire that doesn’t always rely on an erection for you to have pleasure together is key because it reduces stress and keeps sexual play fun. You can have and give intense pleasure without an erection. You can orgasm and ejaculate without an erection. Your pleasure is important. Explore new ways to feel it without pressure.

So for my friends with penises out there and those who love them, here’s to you! Relax, enjoy and happy pleasuring.

One of the things that is important to talk about when we talk about desire is WHAT we are desiring. One size does not fit all for sexual pleasure and within ourselves we have diverse and sometimes even conflicting desires that call to be fulfilled. One day we may desire to be touched gently and another day to be pushed to our knees and made to beg. Subtle gradation’s of desire that can seem to shift without our understanding, we feel longing or find our minds wandering to erotic landscapes or surprise ourselves with the impulses that arise as we are engaging with a partner. Desire, past the intensities of puberty anyway, is rarely just for genitals to meet in a prototypical sex act. We desire a sensation, a mood, an interactive dynamic, a way of being seen or received, a way of seeing our self.

But this critical piece of the sexual equation often gets left out of the discussion, at least among clinicians who are tasked with helping people have healthy, satisfactory sexual desire. And this is especially true when we talk about low desire – an ill defined category for a time when one’s sex drive is lower than someone thinks is appropriate or lower than one would like. It is true that many people over the course of their life will recognize within themselves a flagging or even disappearance of their active sexual energy. They may say, “I just don’t desire sex anymore”. But this is often an overstatement or a conclusion based on minimal information.

When I work with clients who are struggling with this state, I invite them to unpack what it is truly that they are not desiring. What is getting in the way of sex being an enjoyable, pleasure that they could look forward to right now? People are often surprised by the question but quickly find they can identify crucial things that they are specifically not desiring.

One person has low desire for sex that feels pressured and uncreative. Another for sex with someone with whom they are angry and resentful and just had another fight this morning. Another person finds they have low desire for sex when they feel like a failure if they don’t get an erection and sex that is surrounded by misunderstandings and hurt. Another has low desire for sex that hurts and another for sex when they are exhausted and another for sex when the kids might walk in and another for sex when they feel trapped in an emotionally draining relationship…You see where this is going.

It is rarely some generic “Sex” that we are talking about really. It is something specific for this person. Or multiple things. But once we know what they do not desire, then we can help them find a way to get excited about what they do desire.

Are you a clinician wanting to learn more about helping clients who present with low desire? Now you can take Melissa Fritchle’s webinar, Working with Sexual Desire Issues with Couples, online anytime, anywhere, for only $35. 1.5 CE hours through AAMFT. Find it here

This is not a conversation that should only happen for girls...

It should be about you – This should be treated as a special and vulnerable moment for you. There needs to be attention paid to you, your feelings, nervousness, excitement. It is important that your partner is able to hold that space for you. If it is the first time for both of you, this is space you need to hold together, but neither one of you is more important than the other. I talk to many men who feel shame years later because they ejaculated quickly with their first partner. Of course, you did! This is perfectly ok. Your first time is not for performing to please someone else. It is overwhelming and your body will respond accordingly. Give yourself the chance to be a virgin who is having a first time.

Choose a partner you can trust – Ideally your partner is someone you feel comfortable with, who is honest with you and wants that from you in return, someone who respects you and who feels like an equal. If you feel like a partner expects you to take care of them without any awareness of the needs you may have, be careful. If there is a power differential, be careful. If you feel like you have to play a part that is not really you, be careful. It doesn’t have to be a forever partner or a committed partner but it should be someone who is there for you and who you can trust.

If you have to get drunk to get the courage, WAIT. – First, sex is much better when you are present. Second, being nervous is not a big deal; being so nervous you can’t imagine doing something unless you are only semi-conscious is a sign to stop. I promise you, you will not be cooler about things if you are drunk. It will not make things better.

You are not less of a man if you actually don’t want to right now. – The idea that men must want sex indiscriminately at all times is very damaging. A healthy man will have times when he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t like the other person that much, the environment is stressful, he is enjoying doing other things, the 5 slices of pizza he just ate are not sitting well. Whatever the reason, you have a right to decide if this is the right opportunity for you or not.

There will be other chances – No matter how nerdy or undesirable you feel at the time, it is highly, highly unlikely that this will be the only chance you have to have sex with another person.

The pleasure with a partner is different than the pleasure with your hand – Masturbation feels great because you know exactly what you want and you can immediately provide that. How much friction, how fast or slow, what you are looking at or thinking about, all can be matched to your desire in the moment. Partnered sex has different pleasures than that, pleasures that in some ways are more subtle or diffuse. With a partner, you might focus on their excitement, the slippery warmth of your bodies together, the feel of hip bones pressing into you, the connection you feel with them. The path to your orgasm may be more circuitous but there are more diverse pleasures to enjoy. Let yourself be surprised.

There might be a little pain – If you have an inexperienced female partner, it is helpful for her to take some time to build to intercourse as her vagina is not used to stretching to accommodate a penis. If you or your male partner have foreskin, the more forceful friction of penetrative sex can sometimes cause a bit of tearing at the base of the foreskin. In either case, you should only feel a little brief pain, not a lot. If either of you are feeling significant pain, enough to disrupt all pleasurable feelings,  stop and relax and agree to try again later and take it slower.

And of course – Yes, you can get STDs your first time. Yes, a girl can get pregnant the first time. And if either one of you is unable to directly say “Yes, I want this.”, Stop. Otherwise, enjoy this part of your evolving relationship with your sexuality.

As I write this I am 2 weeks away from having a hysterectomy. I was going to write “my first” but that goes without saying; it is a once in a lifetime experience. This decision comes after 5 years of struggle with endometriosis. I have had a previous surgery, monthly hormone injections, and a huge gamut of alternative treatments chosen from states of stubbornness, desperation, and hope. I have read and researched. I feel very good about my decision to have a hysterectomy now. In fact, I am even looking forward to the new start it should give me healthwise.

And yet…there is this lingering shame. In writing my yearly holiday letter I found myself avoiding saying what kind of surgery I am having, something I would not do if I were having back, knee, heart surgery or if they were removing my appendix. I hesitate to tell people. Since I am therapy minded and not embarrassed about body parts in general, I have been curious. What is this shame about?

There are the ghosts of the medical establishment past in my head. Old messages, from generations back (although still lingering around the world no doubt), saying horrid things about “female troubles” and the weakness of the female mind and body. The idea that somehow I am unable to handle the potency of the female body, that the female organs themselves are sources of neurosis and weakness, are haunting me. This is surprising, since I rationally disagree with these old men who perpetrated crimes against women through the guise of healthcare back in the day. I rationally resist. I know better. I probably initially read these ideas in a state of indignant, feminist rage, critically minded, thinking of the words as a piece of history. But they got in my head.

And then I realize, there are ghosts whispering from the other side of the aisle too, although these ghosts are a bit more fleshy and contemporary. These are the ghosts of feminist theory past that tell me that women have just been pawns in the patriarchal rush to remove our female organs, as though this can remove our female power. That the uterus is a sacred part of who we are and should be preserved like some internal icon. They shame me too and make me doubt that I know what is best for me. Even as I am encouraged to be empowered, they whisper, “Are you just another woman giving in, giving up a piece of themselves?”

So I am writing this now because I know I am not the only one haunted by these extremes. I know I am not the only one who feels like everyone has a say about how I should care for my body. And I am not the only one who has been taught that her body defines who she is. No more. Not for me. I am a grown up, wise women, who has a unique body with unique needs. I know what is best for me. I know who I am. And that is what I have to remind myself as I stand in the face of so many invitations to doubt my own mind and to feel like my body belongs to a larger cultural conversation that doesn’t regard the individual that I am.

So if you relate, even a little, for reasons of your own, feel me joining you in solidarity. It is important to acknowledge how insidious these old messages can be, even when we have consciously rejected them. It is an ongoing process to ignore their whispers in our heads. We can get rid of the ghosts if we trust ourselves. We can do more if we trust and encourage each other to make our own choices. Wish me luck!

I was meeting with a new client who is concerned because she is not feeling much in the way of sexual desire and it is causing problems with her husband. As we are talking and I am getting the bigger picture of her life, she mentions that she brought up her lack of desire with her psychiatrist and the psychiatrist told her to “drink a glass of wine” and that should help. HEAD EXPLODING. Now aside from this being pathetic advice and not related to increasing desire in any way (more on that in a bit), I should mention that the client in this story is 5 years sober. So I can only imagine that this psychiatrist was so thrown by the topic of sexuality that she gave this knee-jerk inappropriate, if not unprofessional, piece of advice.

So for those of you reading, let’s clarify why this was bad advice, for anyone, not just a client in sobriety. Alcohol – in small amounts! - can lower our inhibitions and help us relax. True enough. But sexual desire is not equivalent to low inhibitions. If someone is not feeling sexual, it is just as likely that a glass of wine will only make them uninhibited enough to say, “no way, I just want to watch the game”. Supporting someone who wants sex but feels inhibited or ashamed about it is totally different than helping someone who wants to want sex but just currently doesn’t.

There is so much to explore and consider when you are working with someone with desire issues and so many deep and insightful places that conversation can go. What a waste to stop the exploration with a throw away, impersonal “solution”. Desire is mysterious. It can require us to look deeply and with compassion at the intersections of our needs, identities, life phases, and relationships that all pull and draw us in sometimes conflicting directions.

Bottom line : We can do so much better than this. We should be doing so much better than this. For therapists and other professionals out there, the time is now. You don’t all have to be sex therapists. Hey I want to keep my job. But it is part of your responsibility to be sexually aware enough to provide someone with a clear-headed space to bring up sexual concerns without getting shut down. If you feel lacking in this area, be compassionate with your own place in a sexually uninformed culture and then seek out good training and education. Have good referrals; take sex seriously as the nuanced and valuable thing that it is in our lives.

And if you are someone looking for sexual support or exploration, there are people who are able to be supportive of you as a unique person. They are out there. I promise. Keep looking.

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Interested in trainings on sexuality and relationships? Get on the mailing list for Melissa’s upcoming trainings, follow along on the Facebook page or bring Melissa to your area or organization by coordinating a training. Send Melissa an email to connect - melissa@mf-therapy.com

When I am teaching professionals about being open to and aware of the broad spectrum of the kink community, I often feel people’s discomfort or struggle to understand pain play in sex. For those not so inclined, this can seem contrary to what they are hoping for in their sex experiences. But for others, the sweet intensity of being taken to a physical edge is incredibly exciting.

Most of our experiences of pain come without our consent, with lots of unknowns attached. These experiences of pain involve fear as well, fear of what is happening to us, fear of how long the pain will last, fear of the pain getting worse, fear of our lives changing because of this pain, fear of losing control. This type of pain feels like damage is being done to us. And it is out of our control, something that is happening to us and all we can do is try to tolerate it as we wish for it to stop.

Pain without fear is something else entirely. Within a sexual exploration, if done appropriately, everything is done completely within the context of choice. In receiving pain or intense sensation, you first choose a partner you can trust to stop if you ask, to go slow enough for you to take in the sensation and track your responses and edges, and who is there to give you something you want. You know sensation will stop of fade when you need it to and so have a freedom to experience it differently.

Let me put it in a sensual, but non-sexual context. When I studied deep tissue massage, I got to experience people digging in to just about every part of my body. Sometimes this caused pain, more pain than I had yet experienced at that point in my life. Strong fingers reaching in to get underneath your Achilles tendon – this is a special kind of pain, trust me. But I was never afraid, so I was able to feel the intensity, breathe, and open to it. And I knew that if it got too intense I could say, “stop” and it would. This ability to open to the sensation without fear blew my mind. And I learned to love the clear focus this provided me, totally in the moment, and the shift in my mood, energy, and awareness that came with it.

Some of you may have experiences of intense sensation that appeal to you, times when you could note the difference between fearful pain and exciting intensity. You may never choose to bring this into your sexual exploration, or maybe you will. Either way, maybe this understanding will help you be more aware of a range of sensation play, including pain, that can be available to each of us.

I recently watched an old movie starring James Caan. Quite a manly man, he was clearly the rough and tough sex symbol for the movie. In it there is a scene in which he has his shirt off. This is a hairy man, chest hair, back hair, all displayed proudly as he cleans his manly wounds in the mirror, the camera inviting us to admire him, to desire him. What struck me as I was watching was that I will never see this in movies or TV now – body hair has become such a taboo, we just don’t see how a natural human body might look.

Whether you like body hair or not, I think it is important that we take a moment to acknowledge the path we are going down in censuring its existence out of our lives. An up and coming male actor now would have to wax his chest and back to even get an audition, much less a part. And a woman with any body hair at all – the horror! And what we see becomes more and more constrained to one version of the human body, an adapted, smooth, youthful image.

Body hair for humans is a sign that one had passed puberty and has the sexual maturity that implies. It protects our skin and genitals from the external environment. And it may collect scents that signal to our unconscious sexual desire and possibly even compatibility of a partner. Pubic hair for women can increase clitoral stimulation during intercourse as the light tugging on it spreads to the network of clitoral nerves under the surface of the skin.

Trends are one thing, they come and go and embrace variety and change from one generation to the next. But completely rewriting, or re-imaging, how humans look by erasing certain natural variations is something different. Already most children probably have no idea that women also grow hair on their legs and underarms; they just have never seen that represented. Before we surrender completely to a world in which hairless bodies are the only bodies we see or even imagine, we might want to remind ourselves that sexiness comes in all kinds of surprising packages. Viva la difference!

Desire can be a mysterious thing. We can’t simply conjure it or focus it exactly where we want it. Such that, many people feel confused and frustrated by their own desire levels or patterns. Now sex researcher and psychologist, Meredith Chivers has added some important research to the picture and a name for something many people never even knew they had – responsive desire.

The traditional model of sexual desire told us that we would all naturally walk around thinking about sex and wanting to have it – spontaneous desire. This version of the desire story requires very little external stimulation, it feels internally motivated or bodily motivated (being horny) and inspires a person to initiate or seek out sex, or at least be excited about it. Many of us have experienced this type or desire. This model of desire is “I want to have sex irregardless of my environment or current situation.”

Responsive desire, which Chivers research ascribes to women – although what I know about sex at this point, is that it would be silly of us to think that anything will remain in its neat little box of gender or whatever – is desire that is stirred by first getting sexually aroused. This type of desire is dependent on the environment and what is currently going on. This notion of desire really changes perspectives on “normal” desire patterns.  

To be clear, this is not another sex expert saying, “Hey, women need more foreplay to enjoy sex.” Hopefully we have already covered that. That enlightened notion is addressing arousal and the fact that women’s bodies have a fairly complex arousal system and it can take more time to get fully cooking, but has always assumed desire to have sex was already present. The conversation around responsive desire is that some women may not feel like having sex at all until they get started and begin to be physically aroused. Desire that follows arousal. That is a new perspective.

This does not mean that women should be pressured into having sex they don’t want because they will warm up to it! Actively not wanting sex is different than feeling neutral or ambivalent. It does mean that some women may want to experiment with going ahead with otherwise appealing sex with an appealing partner, even if they are not feeling super turned on by the idea at the moment because the desire may build with the physical arousal. And for people who are wanting to increase their desire for sex, many of them will be best served by increasing their exposure to arousing stimulation, erotica, massages, dancing close, kisses, porn, all kinds of sensual pleasure. Build pleasure and desire may come (not to get too Field of Dreams on you).

Responsive Desire is a bit tricky and we certainly have more to learn. It will require that we listen to the subtleties of wanting and openness to sex. But for anyone who has ever leaned back into the pillows to let the sweat dry and thought, “Wow, I didn’t think I was that into it before we started but I am so glad we did that! Why do I keep forgetting that I enjoy sex so much!”, Responsive desire may help you understand yourself a bit better.

I had a thought the other day – how many people in America right now have never sat and watched a sunrise or sunset? I’ll bet the number would make me sad.

I read recently that the Chinese pictograph for “busy” is made up of the characters for “heart” and “killing”. Take that in for a moment (if you have one to spare). At this point in time, in the culture I live in, I believe that the trance of busyness is one of the most hazardous things to a happy sex life. There is little space for our hearts to fill with wonder, for our bodies to rest and replenish, for our minds to clear, for our sexual energy to build. I see clients everyday who are exhausted, believing that the solution is adding more to their days. They look at me with hope that I can help them find a way to squeeze in some satisfying sex.

The thing is, most often, what needs to happen first is to really look at your daily schedules and get serious about what you truly want to be included in each day. There is a point where increasing our velocity is just not possible and adding one more thing to the “improve my life” list not feasible. But we are told again and again that there is more we should be doing, more we can be doing, more, more, more. And at some point, the only sane response is to reorient and say, “I can’t do it all”. This is not failure, this is sanity.

Do you want more sex in your life? Then you will need to make time to not only have sex but to allow yourself to be relaxed and happy enough to be inspired to have sex. You may have to make choices about what you no longer want to spend your time doing. Let some things go. Don’t let yourself forget that this is important. Rest is valuable. Spaciousness is invigorating. Connection requires being present to each other.

Contemplative Thomas Merton wrote, “To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.” As you hear the siren song of “Do More”, be sure to ask yourself, “what might be harmed, in myself or my relationships or health, if I add this to my list. Some things that you want more of may come from doing less.

Have you granted yourself the sexual freedoms you deserve? How about these aspects of sexual independence:

Do you know how to give yourself a satisfying orgasm (at least most of the time) when you feel like it?

Are you confident stating what you like and don’t like sexually?

Are you informed about how your body works so that you can make educated decisions and advocate on its behalf?

Have you freed yourself from other people’s opinions about who you should be or how you should have sex?

Are you done chasing other people’s reactions to you and your sexuality, whether their reactions are lustful or shocked or anything else?

Can you look at your body clearly as a natural human body without expecting an airbrushed perfection?

Have you let go of that mean thing that your ex or the school mean girl or your brother said to you years ago?

Can you define your own sexuality based on how you feel rather than on who you are partnered with or not partnered with at the moment?

Can you honor and accept that your body is not meant to function like a machine but is affected by many variables and this is ok?

Are you familiar enough with your own values, beliefs and hopes that you can let them guide you, not require them to be reflected in the world around you?

Do you let yourself enjoy fantasies even when you would never want to enact them in real life?

Can you celebrate difference without telling yourself that you have to be different?

Is your open-mind excited about what might come next for you in your own pursuit of happiness?

What other elements make you feel sexually independent? Do you want to get more of this for yourself? You know what I am going to say, right?...Get The Conscious Sexual Self Workbook and claim your sexuality. Start with yourself.