Tag Archive for: “Succulent Sexcraft”

Sexual Breathing for Sensational Sex

Sexy Breath

Your breath is the most central and simple tool you have to shift your state of consciousness. You can use your breath in a multitude of ways. Your breath is one of your most foundational inner tools. You can breath to get more present, to relax, to expand your awareness of sensation, to turn off your chattering ‘thinking’ brain and to turn up your turn-on.

More Enhancement Tools In Your Well-Hung Toolkit

Your brain is a powerful erotic engine that can either help or hinder your arousal. You can engage it in ways that amplify your sensual and sexual awareness. Your mind can help you center your focus on pleasure and sensation.

Another powerful way to use your mind is by engaging your imagination. Your gullible brain believes that whatever you imagine is true. You can employ that knowledge by making-up all sorts of lovely imaginary experiences to play with your erotic energy.

Movement is another one of your inner tools that can heighten awareness, increase sensation, and rev up your body.

Joining conscious breathing with movement and imagination is a winning combination for easier arousal, more sensation and pumping up your pleasure! You can use your inner tools to orchestrate your awareness and attention, electrify your thrills and inspire awesome pleasure.

The Sexual Breathing Practice

the-act-of-1419363Here’s a simple way to harness these inner tools. Do a Sexual Breathing practice. You take deep breaths while you pump your pelvic floor muscles (PFMs) and imagine that you’re breathing in and out through your bottom (genitals, anus and perineum).

You can pull up your PFMs on the inhale or the exhale. You can coordinate the pattern in whatever way is easiest for you, but the rhythm I suggest may work best. (Try it this way and if it doesn’t work for you, do the reverse.)

Take a deep breath in and pull up on your PFMs. Exhale and release them. Continue this pattern of coordinated breath and pelvic floor muscle movements. Relax into the rhythm. Begin to imagine that your breath is actually being sucked in through your bottom as you inhale and is being released from your bottom on the exhale. Imagine that you feel the air flowing into your genitals as you pull it in on your inspiration and flowing out as you exhale and release. Feel the sensations of the air rolling in and out, all the way through your whole body.

Play With Patterns

Find the rate that is easiest for you. Practice and play with it until it feels natural and effortless.

You can use this practice with a slow rhythm to relax. Get a nice easy rhythm going and bask in the calming practice.

Play with using this practice during erotic play. See what happens when you start slow and slowly increase the speed until you’re really rocking it.

Try it at a fast rate to turn up your turn-on. You’ll probably notice that the combination of breath, muscle work, and focused imagination intensifies your arousal.

Add it to your next climax and see what happens when you direct several streams of mind and body energy into your orgasm all at the same time.

4976972267_dcb24dabaa_oSolo or Partnered

You can do sexual breathing alone or with a partner. When you do it as a duo, you can synchronize by both doing the same pattern at the same time. Or you can do opposite patterns, with one of you inhaling while the other exhales.

It’s All Good

There’s no right way and no way to do it wrong, so go ahead and experiment. Play with breathing through your bottom and pulse your way to more pleasure.


Succulent_Sexcraft_Sheri_Winston
This is a teasing, tempting taste of my book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play & Practice which is jam-packed with games, exercises and practices like this one.

Find out more about this super useful, inspiring and visionary guide to extraordinary and empowering sex for everyone.

 

“Succulent SexCraft is an adventurous, practical, and delightful guide to owning and operating your sexuality – with or without a partner. This book is superb.”
-Christiane Northrup, M.D., ob/gyn physician & author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom & The Wisdom of Menopause

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Breath: Your Most Basic Body Tool

In the Beginning Was the Breath

Breath. It’s the foundation of life itself, one of the unchanging rhythms of existence. When you were born, the first thing you did was breathe—you ‘inspired.’ When you stop breathing, you die—you ‘expire.’

Breath: The Bridge to Somewhere

No one had to teach you how to breathe. The pattern of your respiration is determined by your actions, emotions and energy. If you’re anxious, your breath tightens, becoming short and restrained. Panic makes it rapid, shallow and frantic. If you run fast, you breathe hard and deep. As you relax, it lengthens into a regular sweeping flow. Most of the time, your emotional, mental and physical state are the engine of the train, pulling the car of your breath behind.

But you don’t have to breathe on auto-pilot. You can use your breath to alter your state. Your respiratory system is innervated by both your involuntary and voluntary nervous systems—it’s the only system in your body with that overlap. It’s where conscious choice intersects with unconscious programming. That means that your breath can become the ‘engine,’ pulling the ‘train’ of your state along behind. Anytime you want, you can become aware of your breath pattern and have it take the lead. While there are limits—you can’t breathe once an hour or 300 times a minute—within those bookends, you have a great deal of flexibility.

There are innumerable ways to use your breathing to shift your state, including many ways to use it to enhance your pleasure. You can use your breathing to relax, get present, turn off your inner chatter-box, to turn on your body and to expand your orgasms. While there are no right or wrong ways to breath and to use your respiration as a conscious tool, it is possible to have less then pleasurable effects.

Hyperventilanne-anderson-wind-blowsation

When you play with your breathing, you can ‘over-breathe’ or hyperventilate, disturbing your body’s critical balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Your inner warning sensors will respond when you’re exhaling too much (when you have too little carbon dioxide) and not inhaling enough, (not enough oxygen). At that point you’ll start to have symptoms of hyperventilation such as dizziness, tingling lips and fingers, and spasms of your hands, feet and face.

 

Hyperventilation Prevention

Prevent hyperventilation with the following practices:

  • Keep your inhale and exhale the same length.
  • Even when breathing rapidly, make sure to take deep breaths.
  • Alternate fast breathing practices with slow ones.
  • Intersperse a few deep slow breaths with fast breathing.
  • When breathing fast or doing long exhales, reinforce your breath with other tools, especially sound and traditional ‘hands-on’ stimulation. The more you use your whole toolkit to build your arousal, the less likely you are to hyperventilate no matter how wildly you breathe.

Hyperventilation Treatment

Feeling woozy and tingly (and not in a good way)? To treat impending hyperventilation, you can:

  • Make your inhale long and slow and do shorter exhales.
  • Take a breath in, hold it for a count of three, then release slowly.
  • Breathe into your cupped hands.

Play with your breathing. Run experiments and see how it can fire you up or calm you down, expand your awareness and bring you into your pleasure. Breath is the centerpiece of many spiritual practices and mind-body disciplines because of it’s power to consciously shift your consciousness. It’s your most basic and flexible body tool. So remember: you can use it anytime, anywhere, to go wherever you want to go. And don’t forget to practice safe breathing!


Why SexCraft? Because sex isn’t just natural, it’s a craft, and awesome sex is learnable!

SSC-3D-150x214Want to learn more about how to use your breath and other ‘SexCraft’ tools? This blog is an excerpt from my book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play & Practice. It’s the book that can guide you to discovering your awesome erotic potential!olc_succulent_sexcraft_product-image

Would you rather get personal teaching direct from me? You can get the online course of Succulent SexCraft. Go here for more info about this enlightening erotic education course.


 

The Elusive Female Orgasm: 3 Tips to Awesome Orgasm (Part 1)

Three Tips to Experience and Expand Female Orgasm

Orgasm is a learnable skill that every woman can acquire—and then expand upon.

Gervex - Woman Tossed by a Wave

Gervex – Woman Tossed by a Wave

Orgasm School?

Not having rip-roaring orgasms when you’d like to? Or at all? Don’t despair! Orgasm is a learnable skill —and every woman can become proficient at getting there. And if you already have your basic orgasm abilities down pat, you can use the same tools to expand your climax-ability.

Orgasm Challenges

Although sex is both natural and learned, for women, learning our path to orgasm is not always easy or natural. Just consider these statistics. Ten percent of women have never had one (yet!), while over half of women don’t have orgasms from intercourse, despite what you see in the wacky, unreal worlds of porn and romantic movies. Many if not most women are what I call “orgasm challenged”—sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, and it’s a mystery why that is (or isn’t). So what’s a girl to do if she longs for delicious climaxes to her solo or partnered erotic experiences?

Relax–You Are NORMAL!

For starters, relax. There’s nothing wrong with you—these are simply skills you haven’t learned yet. That’s right: sexual abilities are learned, just like playing the piano, speaking French or any other complex set of skills. You can learn how to improve your orgasmic capacity if you want to. It will probably take some time, and you’ll definitely have to practice, but sooner or later you can be exclaiming, “Oui, oui, oui!” or “Whee, whee, whee!” Ultimately, the choice is yours.

Female Orgasm Basics 101

Unfortunately, in this world of ours it’s a lot easier to find someone to teach you French than it is to find a good orgasm class. Don’t despair! I’ll get you started right now on the basic class: Female Orgasm 101.

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1.      Slow Down and Take Your Time!

Since the average time spent in foreplay for couple sex is less than 10 minutes, we have one root cause of orgasmic issues right here. For most women full, deep and complete arousal can take up to 45 minutes. That’s right, 45 minutes! That amount of time is quite shocking to most people. When I present this info in a class there’s usually a moment of shocked silence. Then all the women give a big sigh of relief and suddenly light up with the understanding of why things may not work so well or how they’ve been engaging in erotic activities that they aren’t ready for—like intercourse. Our cultural models of arousal and orgasm are male-oriented, based on common patterns of men’s sexual responses. The male arousal pattern is of quick hot genitally-focused energy, leading to rapid erection. By contrast, for most women, most of the time, our erotic energy starts cool and diffuse and takes time to heat up and coalesce in our genitals. What’s the rush? Do you have something better to do than taking your time to get totally and utterly turned on?

Now, it is true that we women can learn how to enhance our arousal process and speed that curve up. In fact, everything I suggest below about learning to develop your own erotic mastery can help women get going faster. And everyone, both, men and women, can benefit from slowing down and taking enough time for both partners to get deeply and fully aroused.

2.      Breathe

Breath is basic. You don’t have to remember any complicated esoteric formulas or worry if you’re doing it wrong. You certainly won’t forget to do it at all. Breath happens—and, if you want your orgasms to happen and then to expand, all you need to do is enhance whatever your breath is already doing by itself. Just do a little more. Breathe a little faster, draw it in a little deeper, let it out a bit longer, or open your chest and belly more. Enhance your breathing and you’ll augment your arousal. Don’t hold your breath or let anxiety tighten it up. Breathe into your pleasure, breathe into your body, keep it moving and you can breathe yourself right into a nice juicy orgasm. Keep breathing into it and your climax will be bigger and better.

3.      Focus On Yourself

Yes, in this case it really is all about you. In order to get turned on, you need to connect to your own experience and feel your own pleasure. You can’t become a master musician only by playing duets. In order to become adept at playing your own instrument, you need to spend time doing solo practice. Yes: I did just tell you to go play with yourself. Solo sex is where you can pay attention to yourself without the distraction of another person’s needs, desires, expectations and demands. When focusing on your self-pleasure, you can discover what works for you and explore new pathways. Repeating behavior and action is how you learn. Like driving a car or playing a musical instrument, you need to practice to get good at any learned skills, including (and perhaps especially) sex. Then, just like playing the piano, when you get the learning practiced, automatic and embodied, you can let go of thinking and just let the music flow out of you.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play with partners when appropriate and available. Go ahead — have fun with your playmates! However, if you want the most pleasure possible and the easiest access to your orgasms, you must also cultivate your own abilities, by yourself.

Now, go ahead and have some sweet sensuous succulent solo sex!


This is an excerpt from Sheri’s book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play and Practice.

Want more? Check out our free e-book Orgasmic Abundance!

Read Part Two for More Tips.


 OLC_Succulent_SexCraft_Website header_ProductAre you ready to have Sheri personally help you learn to play your own instrument with skill and passion?

You can do it in the comfort and privacy of your own home with Intimate Arts Online Education!

Join us for a 4-week deep dive into Succulent SexCraft: Supercharge Your OWN Pleasure for a lifetime of MORE!

Amplified arousal, easy orgasms, expanded orgasms and access to your own ecstasy awaits you!

 

Welcome to Sex 101

Sex 101: Learn Super Sex

Do you want to have fabulous, mind-blowing sex?
Here’s the key to having sex that exceeds your wildest fantasies.

Learning Sex

Want lessons in orgasmic abundance? Classes in accessing ecstasy? Perhaps a curriculum of the 3 C’s, climax, communication and connection? Could you benefit from innovative erotic education?

I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Sex Classes (Ya Sure?)

Think not? After all, if all that sex stuff is natural and I’m fine the way I am, why would I wantSex Classes-Website Home Page Box Template-1 in square - round corners-light grayV2 to go to sex school? Even if you’re orgasmic and basically satisfied with your sex life, you can benefit from learning how to do it better.

I’m not talking about the basic sex education that you may or may not have gotten in school about how babies are made and how to keep microbial invaders away from your squishy bits. I’m talking about grown-up classes in how to become orgasmically proficient and share blissful waves of sexual energy with a partner.

There’s Always More to Learn

Certainly, if you have challenges with your orgasmic ability or your sexual connections, you may know that things could be better. Especially if you feel broken, inadequate or like you got gypped when they passed out the sexual goods, you may already believe you could benefit from studying the erotic arts.

Wherever you are in your sexual learning journey, you’re OK. So, please don’t be insulted or feel bad. I’m not saying that you aren’t already a sexy devil and dynamite in bed. However, everyone can benefit from learning how to become sexually adept and ultimately become your own expert. Even if you have good sex, even if you have lovely orgasms, your sexual experiences can be bigger, better and beyond belief. Do you doubt that?

The simple truth is that you learn sex, so to become truly proficient, you need to study, practice and learn. This isn’t a life requirement or relationship prerequisite. But, if you want to become a virtuoso of your own sexuality, enhance your erotic experiences and expand your abilities, then you need to learn how. And, the homework is really fun!

Luscious Lifelong Learning

Humans are learning instruments. You started learning the moment you were born, if not before. As a child, you absorbed information like a brainy sponge, sopping up morsels of culture. You developed skills and roles by playing endless games of imagination. To learn to walk, you creeped then crawled, than toddled. At first you were awkward and made mistakes, but when you fell down, you just got up and kept going, stumbling forward, tipping and tottering about. One day you walked, and soon you ran and danced and skipped, all with adept grace. Learning to walk came naturally.

More Bliss in Bed - Website Home Page Box Template-1 in square - round corners-light grayV2Later we learned harder things that didn’t come so easy, like reading and writing. While communication seems to utilize a natural, in-born human capacity for language, the more advanced technology of written language needs more formal discipline to learn.

Sex is like that. While our utterly natural impulses are based on a deep evolutionary template, we have the unique potential to develop our sexuality far beyond what Mother Nature offers other animals. Indeed, humans have become the most erotic of creatures, with an enormous component of our sexuality that is learned behavior. We learn sex, not just when we begin actually having it, but from the moment we’re born.

Sex Version 2.0

Like our computers, we come from the factory with hardware, wiring that cannot be modified. Yet, being human, with our big fancy new brains, a huge part of our sexuality is also software; the programming made up of our culture, upbringing and experience.

Luckily, this means your sexual software can be consciously re-patterned. If your old programming is buggy, it can be replaced. First you may need to overwrite limiting beliefs, inhibitions and defeating attitudes by un-learning these dysfunctional patterns. This frees you to learn new skills, importing innovative programming that expands your erotic capacities and allows you to access the full range of your sexual potential.

Sexual Skills Need to be Learned

You’ve already learned a lot about how to be sexual and how to “do it”, probably by the time-honored, hands-on method. There’s nothing wrong with the classic technique of fumbling about in the dark until things happen to happen. However, if you want to be a true sexual virtuoso, you’ll probably need to learn more than whatever it is you’ve discovered so far.

The idea that our sexuality is learned is the basis for the curriculum of classes that I teach. Sexual and relationship skills can be, and indeed, need to be learned if you want to excel.

Think of it like learning to play a musical instrument, speak a foreign language or develop an athletic skill. You may be naturally musical or athletic, but almost everyone will benefit from lessons. To become adept takes energy and attention, and true proficiency takes time and practice, practice, practice. Anyone and everyone can become skilled at making music, speaking French, or in the erotic arts, if they choose.

The Foundations of Erotic Education

All complex abilities start with acquiring basic skills, sex included. Your sexuality begins with your relationship with yourself and your basic skills begin here. You can’t expect to play fabulous duets if you don’t know how to play your own instrument. So, the foundational skills in sex are the techniques that focus on your abilities to play with your own sexuality. I call them “Solo-Skills”. By developing mastery over your own erotic instrument, your Self, you expand your ability to get turned on, achieve orgasmic proficiency, and gain easy access to ecstasy.

All of your sexual skills build on each other and become easier with practice as repetition causes patterns to become embedded pathways in our bodies and brains. Never forget that the largest, most vital sex organ is indeed, the brain. If you want to have the most wondrous sex possible, the place to start is by opening your mind to new ideas, possibilities and skills.

st-teresa-faceEach of you has the ability to learn and expand your response repertoire to increase your capacity for pleasure and ecstasy. Start out by realizing that you are responsible for your own pleasure, not your lover. Next, embark on a conscious learning journey to develop the techniques and skills that will make you the master of your own instrument.

And, don’t forget to practice! You may not get to Carnegie Hall, but you’ll be capable of sexual performances that will surely inspire standing ovations.


OLC_Succulent_SexCraft_Website header_Product
Are you ready to learn how to play your own instrument with skill and passion? Ready for amplified arousal, easy orgasms, expanded orgasms and access to your own ecstasy?

You can do it in the comfort and privacy of your own home with Intimate Arts Online Education!

Join us for a 4-week deep dive into Succulent SexCraft: Supercharge Your OWN Pleasure for a lifetime of MORE!


Sacred Sex: How do I Bring it Up with My Partner?

Here’s one of the questions and my answer from last night’s Ask the Sex Teacher ANYTHING About Sacred Sex webinar.


Want to learn more about Sacred Sex?

SizzlingSacred Sex_ROLC__V2-2Join Sheri to ‘attend’ her four-session online course: Sizzling Sacred Sex: What It Is & How to Have It. Explore the mysteries and magic of sacred pleasure! Beyond the 4 class sessions, you get resources, home play assignments, suggested rituals and more!

Are you wondering about our Online Intimate Arts courses? Go here to find out what they’re all about! Discover the easy way to to learn to have more pleasure in the comfort of your own home!

Keeping Long-Term Relationships Hot! (Part 2)

Touch Like You’re Madly In Love

julien haler-Body PicHow Touching

In part one, I discussed how the period of time when we’re madly in-love tends to come to an end for most couples. However, we can use the unconscious behaviors and actions that came naturally at the beginning of our relationship to keep the blaze burning over the years.

One key is to consciously choose to engage in the same type of intimate early-in-love behaviors. In my last post, I suggested that you fire it up with some liquid lip love, with luscious wet kisses.

Next on the list: the fine art of touch.

Tender Touching

Touch was your first sense, beginning while you still floated in your mama’s womb feeling held, surrounded and safe. You were already touching your own body before you even emerged.

Touch is so fundamental that without it, babies will wither and die. As grown-ups, we won’t die from touch deprivation, but we won’t be as happy and healthy as we would be if our minimum daily touch needs were met. Yet most of us are starved for this essential tactile nourishment.

For people without intimate partners, it can be challenging to get all the touching you want and need. Even people with partners may be touch deprived if we’ve allowed the frequency and the spectrum of touch to diminish.

Rodin - Eternal Spring resizeArticulate Touch

Touch is a basic form of communication—we all speak this universal tongue. It’s also one of our first languages of love, beginning with mother and infant.

At a subtle level, touch transmits intention, emotion, energy, relaxation or tension, and the rhythms of the body. If someone is touching you in a loving way with the intention of giving you pleasure, it feels very different than if they’re touching you solely for their own enjoyment. Comfort, anxiety, caring, attention and distractedness are all transmitted through physical contact.

While touch is a language everyone shares, many people are tremendously confused about the purpose and value of touch, how to share it appropriately, and how to do it masterfully. Touch is complicated, delicate territory. It’s easy to miscommunicate about it. And it’s not always easy to touch with great skill and finesse.

Whether or not a particular type of touch is pleasurable is completely subjective. For instance, the sensation of being tickled may be something you find dreadful or delightful. Personal preferences notwithstanding, when we fully activate our kinesthetic intelligence, we’re most likely to touch our partner in a way they enjoy.

Remember, though, that no one is born knowing how someone else wants to be touched. Which is why we can’t rely on touch alone. To give exquisite touch, even if we’re totally attuned, it helps to add other modes of communication like sound (“Umm!” “Aah!”), words (“More pressure, please”) and body language.

Play A Touching and Feeling Game!

Play this game in total darkness or use blindfolds. This will remove all the visual stimuli and help you focus solely on the sensations of touch.

Touch each other with full attention and awareness. Use your breath to get centered and stay present. Use sounds of pleasure to amplify the sensations and give feedback..

Alternate your attention: Shift your awareness to the part being touched, then toggle back to the part doing the touching. Imagine that you’re stroking velvet as you slide your fingertips along your partner’s skin. Focus on how lovely it feels on your palm, then toggle your attention back to your partner’s skin. Run your fingers through their hair, alternating your awareness of its texture against your fingers with attention to your partner’s pleasure in having their hair stroked. Try to balance your focus so that you’re really feeling as you touch.

After you’re done, have a chat about what happened, what worked or didn’t and what you learned.

Ask me no more....for at a touch I yield, 1886_Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrenc
The Four Languages of Touch

There are four languages of positive touch—nurturing, healing, sensual and sexual. To keep a relationship vital and satisfying, I believe we need to share all four types of touch.

Here’s a brief introduction to the spectrum of touch.

Nurturing touch transmits caring and acceptance. It’s the kind of tender touch a loving parent gives their beloved child. It helps us feel loved, valued and worthy of being loved.

The second language of touch is therapeutic touch—any form of contact that heals, eases stress, promotes well-being, repairs bodily damage, restores health or palliates pain.Eros-Psyche Bouguereau

The third language of touch is sensual touch—any form of contact designed to heighten the senses, amplify body awareness and magnify perception. Sensual touch is not explicitly erotic. While it might be a warm-up on the path to arousal and is often an excellent prelude to sexual touch, it’s not designed to be a turn-on in and of itself. Think of it as turning on the senses, not the genitals.

Last but definitely not least, there is sexual touch—any contact that arouses and stimulates. Sexual touch entices your erotic energy to come out and play. It teases, titillates, ignites and (hopefully) satisfies erotic desires.

Remember, new lovers caress, hold, rock, stroke and creatively explore all kinds of different ways to discover and delight with contact. An important strategy to sustain your relationship’s passion is to consciously incorporate all four touch vocabularies into your connections.


Want to know how to fall in love over and over again? Did you miss the first part of this series of posts? No worries — here’s Part One: Kiss Like You Mean It and Part Three: Shine the Love-Light.


Succulent_Sexcraft_Sheri_WinstonDiscover more Touching Succulence!

Sheri recent book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play & Practice is for singles and partners of all genders and orientations–for anyone and everyone who wants more pleasure!

Do you dream of having spectacular sex? Can you imagine becoming an erotic virtuoso? Now it’s possible with the help of Sheri Winston’s groundbreaking new book!

Visionary yet practical, Succulent SexCraft offers a detailed road map to supercharging your erotic life and becoming sexually whole and empowered. With its wealth of ideas, practices and games, you’ll be able to access extraordinary pleasure, overcome challenges and learn to play masterfully with your inner ‘sexcraft’ toolkit. It’s your personal guide to developing a healthy, celebratory and ecstatic relationship with your sexuality.


 

Developing Erotic Mastery: Conscious Learning

Conscious Learning

A Tasty Little Excerpt From “Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play & Practice

In many ways, learning to expand your sexual pleasure is like learning to play a musical instrument. It’s about acquiring a set of complex skills, albeit more intimate ones. There’s one important difference, though. If you don’t know how to play the piano, you don’t feel weird, ashamed or somehow broken. Nor do you believe that everyone except you already knows how to play really well. We all understand that playing an instrument requires conscious learning and practice over time. No one is born knowing how to tickle the ivories, yet somehow we’re supposed to know how to have great sex without the benefit of lessons or teachers.

In one way, learning sex is unlike learning to play the piano. With sex, you aren’t only the musician, you’re also the instrument. In this sense, it’s more like learning to dance. Whether it’s the piano or the instrument of yourself that you’re studying, learning is required to become a skilled artist—and anyone who wants to learn, can.

“The more technique you have the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is the less there is.” — Pablo Picasso

Becoming An Erotic Virtuoso

Don’t expect to become a virtuoso overnight. Mastery takes time, energy, attention and practice. Lots of it. This is true for playing the piano and it’s true for sex, too. It’s been estimated that becoming expert at anything takes at least 10,000 hours. Luckily, since we’re talking about sex here, you’ve probably already put in quite a few hours! In addition, you have some very deep, hardwired sexual circuits that make developing your erotic proficiency much easier than mastering Mozart. This is one area of your life where you can make pretty quick progress on your learning journey once you have a guide, maps and the desire to excel.

Also bear in mind that while technique is an indispensable means to an end, erotic mastery isn’t solely about technique. Great sex isn’t about performance or ‘doing it right’—it’s a magical improvisational dance. Technique provides a foundation of embodied learning that you then use to play freely and imaginatively—it’s the underlying skill set that allows you to be fully in the moment and open to the flow. So learn your moves, practice your techniques, train your mind and body to excel—then forget all that and let passion and energy be your guide.

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Connection: The Prime Directive of Sex

The following is a collection of excerpts from Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play and Practice.

The Prime Directive: Sex Is About Connection

Title Graphic_Connection_Titian_The Three Ages of Man-detailAt root, sex isn’t about what you do erotically with another person. It’s not about getting off or getting it on, scoring or hooking up. It’s about connecting, first with yourself, possibly with others and ultimately with life.

Your sexuality is first and foremost about your connection to yourself, your whole self.

More than anything, your sexuality is about your relationship with yourself. By ‘self’ I mean all of you: your body, mind, heart and spirit; your past, present and future; your genetics and your environment—everything that makes you uniquely and completely you.

Your sexuality is about who you are, not about who you do (or don’t) have sex with. Your sexual activities don’t define your sexual identity—they emanate from and are expressions of it. Your sexuality is an inherent, inseparable and essential aspect of the complex person that is you.

You can break up with other people. They can die or go away. You can’t leave or be left by yourself, though. Wherever you go, there you are. You are your primary partner, the only one who has been and always will be with you.

What this means is that if you want to have better sex, start with yourself. If you want to have better relationships with other people, start with yourself. If you want more love, connection and pleasure in your life, the place to start is, you guessed it, with yourself.

There’s a straightforward reason for this: Your foundational relationship to yourself is the basis of all your other relationships (not just the sexual ones). All your other connections are shaped by your relationship with yourself.

Your Sexuality Is About Your Connection to Others

Naturally that includes the people you have sex with—partner sex is fundamentally about connection. And it’s also about your connection to everyone and everything, including all life on this planet.

Because your sexuality is an integral aspect of who you are, Eros shows up in all your interactions and relationships, including the many that aren’t sexual. All your other relationships are influenced by your core connection with yourself, just as you have been shaped by all that surrounds you. You’re at the center of a great web of connection. This includes your relationships with partners, families, communities, culture and ultimately the whole wide world. Whatever you do, however you’re connected, your sexuality is part of it.

Sex is Both Natural and Learned

The story that ‘sex comes naturally’ is only partly true. While much of our sexuality is derived from our natural animal templates, an astounding amount of human sexuality is learned. You learn sex, including not just what goes where, but more significantly, your erotic capacities, responses and pathways to pleasure. You are an intricately interwoven combination of hardware and software.

Your hardware is your genetics, the factory-installed equipment that is the unique result of millions of years of evolution. It’s your inborn instincts and aptitudes. You can’t change your hardware, but you can learn to understand and work with it. And learn how to make it work for you.

Unlike your hardware, your software is the programmable, learned part of who you are. You’ve been absorbing things like a sponge your whole life, starting with your prenatal environment and continuing through your birth journey up to this very day. You’ve been shaped by your experience and environment.

Much of our sexuality comes from the software side of the divide. You learned to view sex as sinful, sacred or something in between. You learned your concept of foreplay, your beliefs about who is and isn’t appropriate to have sex with, and much more. Some of this education has been conscious. Much has been unconscious.

Your ability to learn is innate, while what and how much you learn depends on your social and cultural circumstances. For instance, you were born with the inherent ability to learn language, but your proficiency with your native tongue or how many languages you speak depends on your environment. Another example: Every baby loves music and responds to rhythm—but whether or not you play an instrument depends on what you learned to do with your intrinsic musical aptitude. Essentially, you learn sex the same way you learn to play a musical instrument, dance or become fluent with a foreign language.

We all come equipped with a starter kit of basic capacities such as an inherent sense of rhythm, a body that loves to move, and a brain primed with the ability to learn words and grammar. Our natural aptitudes provide the foundation for learning essential skills. We then build up our skill sets by layering on increasingly complex competencies. While much of our learning is unconscious, it’s through conscious learning that we achieve proficiency and ultimately mastery.

You Need Accurate Maps

To fulfill your sexual potential, it helps to have structure, support and guidance–and, more specifically, accurate and effective maps and models. Anything short of that is like trying to find a special spot in the woods without a map (or with one that’s just plain wrong).

It’s not easy to learn complex skills on your own—it helps to have a guide. A teacher can share their knowledge base of accumulated information, wisdom and techniques, offer logical sequences for learning, organize information, provide structure and clarify confusion. A mentor can encourage you on your journey, and also share useful, accurate maps that show you the easy routes and warn you against pitfalls.

Good guides are especially necessary when the maps you’ve been using are inaccurate or outdated. Bad maps get you lost! Unfortunately, this is what we get from our mainstream culture, which seems to specialize in offering flawed maps about relationships and sexuality.

To make matters worse, many people don’t realize they’ve been working with faulty maps and instead believe there’s something wrong with them. Bad maps about sex, bodies, desire and relationships often leave people feeling broken or like failures.

For all their value, though, it’s essential to remember that the map is not the territory. It’s a representation of reality, not the actual thing. That’s why you can have many maps of the same thing, with each one emphasizing a different perspective. A street map, a population map and a topographical one can be simultaneously true yet all look different and be useful in different ways. That doesn’t make one right and the other wrong—they just offer multiple lenses so you can get a bigger and more multifaceted picture.

The important thing to ask about a map or model is if it’s useful and true. Does it confirm or invalidate your experience? Does it get you lost or help you get where you want to go? If you want to find a special swimming hole you’ve heard about, you’re much likelier to get there if you’ve got an accurate trail map that has a big ‘X’ marking the sweet spot.

Of course, you’ll only know if it’s correct if you actually take that walk in the woods and find out for yourself if that idyllic place exists.

Maps are a supremely useful tool for getting where you want to go. Without them, you’re just fumbling in the dark.


 

Play With Yourself (But Don’t Masturbate)

Image for FB1In our culture, masturbation still gets a bad rap. While we may no longer believe it causes degeneracy and disease or causes people to go blind (although I do know a lot of folks who wear glasses!), we still don’t celebrate solo sex for the wonderful, self-loving, healthy and pleasurable practice it is.

We don’t even have a good name for it. I rarely use the word masturbation, preferring to call it solo sex, sexual self-love, playing with yourself, or self-pleasuring. I never cared for the m-word and now that I know the derivation of the word, I like it even less. The Latin roots of the word mean ‘to pollute with your hand.’ That’s certainly not what I’m doing with my hand when it’s busy down below! Nor am I committing ‘self-abuse.’ When you’re self-pleasuring, you’re doing lots of things—giving yourself sexual loving, learning how to expand your responses, practicing skills, exploring your fantasies, enhancing your mental and physical well-being, improving your vitality, having a good time, receiving pleasure and relaxing. That sounds like a recipe for health and happiness to me! so I encourage you to play with yourself, but never to “masturbate.”

Our dominant culture still encourages guilt, if not of the mortal sin variety, then of the mildly shameful or “You’re being self-indulgent and wasting time” kind. I find this ironic since we get many of the same benefits from sexual pleasure (whether solo or partnered) that we derive from exercise and meditation. We feel virtuous when we work out or meditate, while taking the same amount of time to have some juicy solo sex is considered frivolous and decadent or worse. When will our puritan culture get over it and accept that solo sex isn’t a dissolute fall into wanton lust, but an ascent into self-love that celebrates your desire, hones your abilities and ultimately honors yourself? While the sex you have with yourself certainly isn’t all there is to your relationship with yourself, it’s an essential component.

Are you practicing sexual self-love? If your answer is “I don’t do that,” I strongly encourage you to start now. If you’re thinking, “but that’s not real sex, it doesn’t count,” it’s time for a new story. Think of your solo sex as an affirmation of your juiciness and an essential practice on your path to becoming sexually masterful.

For those of you who do have ‘do-dates’ with yourself, I have a question for you: how’s it going? While you can’t really have bad sex with yourself, you can certainly have mediocre experiences. If you’re disconnected from yourself or just going through the motions, your solo sex will refl ect that. Do you only give yourself quickies? Just having frantic fast-food snacks? Are you a poor lover to yourself?

I hope not.

How would your dream lover treat you? In what ways would he or she delight you? When you practice solo sex, that’s how I invite you to treat yourself.


Succulent_Sexcraft_Sheri_Winston

This post is an excerpt from my recent book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play and Practice.

Learn to become masterful with your own erotic energy, delight your partners and have more bliss!

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Some Notes on Erotic Mastery

Becoming An Erotic Virtuoso

Angie Chung, Hand Shapes: Hill & Valley

Angie Chung, Hand Shapes: Hill & Valley

Don’t expect to become a virtuoso overnight. Mastery takes time, energy, attention and practice. Lots of it. This is true for playing the piano and it’s true for sex, too. It’s been estimated that becoming expert at anything takes at least 10,000 hours. Luckily, since we’re talking about sex here, you’ve probably already put in quite a few hours!

In addition, you have some very deep, hardwired sexual circuits that make developing your erotic proficiency much easier than mastering Mozart. This is one area of your life where you can make pretty quick progress on your learning journey once you have a guide, maps and the desire to excel.

Also bear in mind that while technique is an indispensable means to an end, erotic mastery isn’t solely about technique. Great sex isn’t about performance or ‘doing it right’—it’s a magical improvisational dance. Technique provides a foundation of embodied learning that you then use to play freely and imaginatively—it’s the underlying skill set that allows you to be fully in the moment and open to the flow. So learn your moves, practice your techniques, train your mind and body to excel—then forget all that and let passion and energy be your guide.

“The more technique you have the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is the less there is.” — Pablo Picasso


Succulent_Sexcraft_Sheri_WinstonI hope you enjoyed this little taste of my new book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play & Practice. It’s the place to go to develop exquisite erotic skills like becoming extraordinarily orgasmic, mastering erotic trance states and so much more!

 

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