Transformational Pleasure

Have you tried talking dirty to a partner? Think of your imagination and your voice as fun sex toys that you always have with you, cost nothing, and don’t require a trip, virtual or otherwise, to the sex store. You just need to be brave enough to bring it out. If you are a little nervous to try, here are some tips:

Take a breath – You know that squeaky, croaky voice thing that happens when you seem to run out of air while talking – not sexy. Start by taking a slow breath, there is no rush. You will feel calmer and, as a bonus, no pubescent voice cracking. Oh, and laughter is a great way to get yourself breathing.

Picture it in your mind – Your words will come more easily and be more juicy if you let yourself form images in your mind. As they used to say in writing class, “no turn on for the writer, no turn on for the reader”, Wait, that wasn’t quite what they said…Well, anyway, use your imagination to turn yourself on and it will be more fun all around.

Try different perspectives – Some of you will love telling a sexy tale from a first person perspective, what you want to do to a partner, what you imagine being done to you. But some of you will have more fun talking about imaginary other people, which can go anywhere from what the naughty neighbors are doing next door to what Marie Antoinette got up to. I suggest you try shifting it up and see what stokes your fantasy creation best.

Do it in the dark – Phone sex works for people for a lot of reasons, but a major one is removing the pressure of being seen. Just letting yourself be a voice in the dark, lets you both close your eyes and indulge in imagining. No one can see you blush and you can still touch, get in close and whisper so your breath brushes your partner’s ears or neck.

Have a safe word – Yes, even for talking sexy it is good to have safe boundaries. Each of our fantasy realms are different with borders that are in scary territory for some people. If you really want to get into talk as turn-on, it can help to establish some turn-offs first. Get a sense of what is off limits (possibilities might be talking about people you actually know, adult/child scenes, violence or humiliation, describing your partner’s body as different than it actually is or…). People’s limits are different when it comes to fantasy, but we still have our limits. 

No pressure to do – Remember that just because you get hot thinking about it, that doesn’t mean you want to do it. Talk about this with your partner ahead of time so there is no misunderstanding. Fantasy is fantasy; part of the fun is to go out to the edges. Just promise to let them know what you DO want to actually do when that time comes. Maybe promise to tell them in exquisite detail…

I have already written about the pressures to be sexy and desirable at all times, so let’s look at a different angle. What is it about costumes that invites people’s sexy out? What is it about Halloween that gives people free rein to set aside their respectable straight laced (and I don’t mean a corset) personas?  

Halloween allows, no, embraces, the taboo. It is a time to show the shadow, the normally unacceptable and so it frees us to push the edge a bit. It is ok to be over the top on this night without expecting to be judged. It is not “real” so it is all ok.

And that I think is a key to why this side of people comes to the surface on Halloween. It is a safe time to let it show without having to take it seriously. The play aspect of costumes allows a risk-taking that is good for us. We can bring out a fantasy or a previously hidden persona within us without the worry that we will be rejected – because it is only in play! We set down the burden of having to process - is it ok for me to express this, to like this, to want to be seen this way? We are not asking our partner to incorporate this into our sex lives from now on or to change their image of who we are. It’s just for tonight. Oh, and everyone else is doing it too.

I wish we gave ourselves permission to play like this more often. Why reserve one might a year for experimenting with sexual expression? What if you and your partner agreed to not take things too seriously, to show up in ways that are silly or risky or possibly over the top? Like on Halloween, in the privacy of your bedroom no one should misinterpret you as saying you want to behave like this in every setting. And like Halloween costumes, there are thousands upon thousands of ways to express yourself. You can just try them on and see how it feels. What if we didn’t have to be embarrassed about wanting to step outside of our day to day roles and rules and share something different with our sexual playmates?  

Invite the freedom of, “hey sweetie, it’s only a costume…”

Blondes, Brunettes, Gingers. Bears, Twinks, Dykes, Femmes. Clean Cut, Thick, Skinny, BBW, MILFs, GILFs, Androgynous. Many of us find ourselves drawn sexually to a particular look in partners. Luckily human tastes vary greatly so truly everyone will have a few admirers. But still, the concept of a type can make people uncomfortable. Is it ok to have a type? What does desire consist of? When does a type become a fetish? What about love, can it overcome a type, should it?

It’s probably pretty uncommon for someone to really not have a type at all. If asked to imagine a fantasy partner most people will have some set of attributes that frequently come to mind. But many of us have also found ourselves attracted to someone that at first glance we might not have thought would draw us in and our desire patterns shifted to include this person, maybe the way they move, or smell, or the way we feel when we are with them. There are so many components to desire; it is rare that it can be defined clearly.

And how we become attracted to the people or characteristics we are attracted to is largely a mystery. There are elements that are innate to us, elements that may be based on early memories, partners who imprinted us with positive or negative feelings, tendencies to be attracted to difference or to the familiar, all kinds of factors. It may be important to ask ourselves about our types to clarify if they are based on stereotypes about character –which may largely turn out to not be true about individuals. If you are drawn to bad boys because you think they will show you a secret soft side or asian women because in your fantasies they are submissive, you are probably in for some frustration and some angry partners. The fantasies themselves are not a problem, so long as you are aware that real people in the real world may not play these fantasies out just the way you imagined it.

And what if you have a distinctive feature that some people are searching out sexually? Does that change the nature of how you think of their bond with you? For example, if you are visibly disabled, there are people who specifically are looking for disabled partners. Does this feel ok to you? How do you assess if someone is fetishing an element of your look or body? Would you feel differently if the person is looking specifically for someone with large breasts? Why or why not? I believe some of our concern about distinctive types that people may be drawn to is based in discrimination against variations to the “normal” sexual model. If a big beautiful woman wonders how anyone can be attracted to her because she believes she is not the right kind of sexy, then she will question partners who openly seek out women with large bodies.

But even if we have come to peace with our own characteristics that people see initially, not many people want to feel that their partner picked them strictly for a physical characteristic, especially for one they have no control over. And some of these attributes we may age out of or may change over the course of our life. So people looking for long-term partnerships may be worried that sexual desire will disappear with changes in the way they look. We want people to be strongly attracted to us sexually, to love our attributes, but we also want to be seen as unique. Some flexibility in our attraction patterns will probably serve us well. Fine tuning our ability to recognize our own signs of physical desire is important too and may allow us to be surprised about who or what turns us on. So many beautiful people out there, keep your eyes and mind open.