Slow Sex: The Path to Fulfilling and Sustainable Sexuality (10 page)

Women have yet to discover their receptive essence and the sense of arriving home to themselves that comes through honoring the body’s wisdom. I have witnessed some women in my couple’s groups begin in great resistance to a less active, less clitoral approach, and usually their softer, more feminine side will feel very remote because of the conditioned identification with the harder, more male side. Our personality is formed around the sexual image that we carry. The ego is, therefore, bound to fight for its rights initially, but once the experimentation gets under way, the transformation of a resistant woman is remarkably fast. Within two or three days of first having slow sex, the hardened facade begins a meltdown, the features soften and sweetly glow, and eyes shine with the light of love. And only because the vital, slow sexual rhythm and response of the female body has been acknowledged and honored. Women are, by birth and by nature, sexually slower than men and there is nothing to be done about it. It leaves us with no real choice other than to accept, respect, honor, and be grateful for the intelligence of our complementary inner designs and rhythms.

ALLOWING TIME

Respecting bodily rhythms requires granting time. Slowness in sex means allocating real time—several hours instead of just a handful of minutes. Make a date to have slow sex, and plan on at least three hours. Don’t try to squeeze sex into a busy schedule, but make getting together a high priority of the day or the week.

The three-hour time proposal does not mean you have to be sexually engaged the entire time, although you may sometimes find yourselves doing so. Pauses and breaks will occur naturally. The extended time frame creates a valley of relaxation, giving birth to a slower rhythm, one where you have time to arrive in your bodies and gently flow with the experience. Start from zero and slowly warm up, instead of going from zero to a hundred in just a few minutes. With plenty of time allotted, the exchange can flow organically, with no pressure, no goals, no onward plan. There will be moments in which natural pauses occur—for adjusting position, pillows, or bedding, having a glass of water, using the bathroom, or whatever. You can stop any time for a shower or a cup of tea. And then come back to bed, connect, and give it another whirl.

Extending the Experience

Honoring sexual rhythm also implies taking it easy in the sense of extending each element of the actual sexual experience. Take the awareness and attention to the subtlest level you can manage. Any enhanced inner perception will make you more sensuous and sensitive, as if sipping and savoring each second with delight. When you enter the very moment, time and ego disappear. If you are alive to yourself at the outset and not lukewarm or detached, you get totally caught up in another dimension, fueled by an inner power. Bodies are capable of quite extraordinary and unimaginable energy events when tuned in to and trusted to flow at their own pace and in their own rhythm.

REGULARITY AND FREQUENCY

Rhythm also relates to how frequently you make love. More often is better than less often, especially when talking about quality, life-enhancing sex. Regular is better than irregular. Like many things, the more you practice with regularity and frequency, the better you get, and the more you want to practice. The more you experience the beauty of slow sex, the more you will want to partake. When good intentions and honorable wishes lose priority, complacency and laziness can quietly slide into the equation. Then, all too easily, you are out of practice, out of rhythm with yourself and your partner. In some ways the body is like a musical instrument, and if you’ve ever slacked off on practicing an instrument for six months or so, you know that getting back on track looks arduous and daunting; postponement and delay become the easier option. The impetus for adventure and the desire to explore the unknown are lost, as is the opportunity to be transformed in the process.

RHYTHM AS BREATH

Breath is vital to the metabolic power of sex, as it literally breathes vitality into the moment. In one sense we have no control over our breath—our bodies automatically breathe themselves. However, breath is a rhythm that we can easily influence to great advantage.

When attention is given to the breath—the very act of breathing—you are held in the present with enhanced alertness, which will further deepen and slow the rhythm of the breath. There are several ways in which the breath can be playfully explored to varying effects. You will, however, need to stay alert to the trap of the mind, which can get distracted, caught up with what’s going on and with getting it right, thereby causing a certain degree of absence.

Simultaneous Breathing

In simultaneous breathing, you both breathe in at the same time and out at the same time. The breaths are deep and slow into the belly, in the direction of the genitals (use visualization if you do not feel any sensation of breath actually arriving in your genitals), and you stay as much as possible in breath synchronicity with each other. It’s best to allow the breaths to be of a similar duration. You can even extend the duration for four or five counts, for instance; not aloud, of course (except at the outset, perhaps, just to mutually set the pace). If you slip out of rhythm, which can easily happen, relax for a few breaths and then slowly begin to pick up the rhythm of your partner again. Be light and easy and avoid making the breath into something stressful.

Alternating Breathing

In this type of breathing, one person breathes in as the other breathes out. Alternating breathing gets you very involved in the body and in what is happening, as it is happening. Alternating breathing can also be connected with so-called circular breathing, which uses visualization to awaken and support the electromagnetic circular flow of energy between the bodies, as in the exercise below.

Exercise: Rhythmic Circular Breathing with Visualization

Circular Breathing with a Partner

In this exercise you can use visualization to accompany the breath. The exercise can be done with or without music.

1. Start with yourself, open eyes or closed eyes, and take the attention in and down, anchoring your awareness in the body.

Fig. 5.1. Opposing female and male polarities with inner magnets in alignment for circular energy flow (in yab yum position)

2. Then bring awareness to the positive poles, man downward to the perineum (at the root of the penis) and woman upward to her breasts and especially into the nipples.

3. When you feel ready and in tune with yourself move into the yab yum position (making all suitable adjustments for comfort) and then bring your chests together (eye contact optional), and also line the nipples up so that they correspond with and directly touch each other. This can be done (and the effect felt) with or without clothing.

4. Once you are in a comfortable position, woman should imagine that light and breath is entering through her vagina on the in-breath, and flowing out of her breasts and nipples on the out-breath. She radiates light and life force into her man’s chest.

5. Man can likewise imagine that he is receiving a vital force from woman on his in-breath, and in turn breathing consciously out of his perineum and penis as he radiates light, gold, and love into woman’s vagina. Continue this alternate breathing and visualization for as long as you wish.

Individual Variation of Circular Breathing

By using the flame of a candle, the breathing exercise described above can also be done alone by an individual.

1. Breathe the light from the flame in through the receptive pole (the vagina for woman, the chest for man).
   
2. On the out-breath, return the light to the flame through the dynamic pole (the breasts for woman, the penis for man).
   

You can keep a circle of light flowing between you and the flame for several minutes, synchronizing the direction of your breath with the visualization of a flow or perhaps you even feel the inner cellular sensation of flowing or streaming expansion.

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THE SEXUAL POWER OF PLEASURE

Opening to more pleasure can spark metabolism and return the body to its natural state of balance. . . . What I would like to suggest to you is that health, and by extension any action that promotes health, is inherently a deeply pleasurable experience.

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SENSITIVITY, THE SOURCE OF PLEASURE

Sex can be deeply pleasurable and can also benefit the health of body, mind, and soul in many miraculous ways. Pleasure in sex is generated through giving highest priority to the rhythms of nature that are reflected in our bodies, and giving value to, and enjoying, the innate sensitivity that arises as a result. Sensitivity is born through awareness, relaxation, and quality. Sensitivity and sensuality allow an intense aliveness as a by-product of honoring the differing rhythms of man and woman. More sensitivity creates more pleasure. With a connection to, and awareness of, our mighty senses we find ourselves in the optimum position to experience profound dimensions of pleasure. The pure pleasure of sex is a human birthright and one of the joys of living in a physical body.

Sensitivity indicates an awareness of, and inner connection to, the cellular aliveness inherent in the body. Sensitive does not mean ouch! this hurts or that hurts. Yes, this type of reaction is a reflection of a type of sensitivity, or in some cases a hypersensitivity, which is more related to memories in the body as a residual emotional tension or defense. However, the sensitivity required to experience pleasure at its deepest level requires an internal connection to the flesh—an awareness of the inner cosmos and all the magical sensations that can be experienced there. The key to activating the metabolic power of pleasure is to trust your body and your ability to experience pleasure.

SLOWNESS ENHANCES SENSITIVITY

The undeniable reality is that as soon as you slow down you become more sensitive. One of the remarkable things noticed by the men in our retreats is that after three or four afternoons of slow sex practice, their penises very quickly get more sensitive and perceptive. They can feel into the tissues much more deeply when their movements are slow and conscious; the penis has a much finer type of magnetic sensitivity, perception, and intelligence—different from the intense sensations experienced through stimulation. I am so often awed by the body and how quickly it responds when awareness and intelligence are brought into the sex act. Through awareness and its by-product of slowness, the tissues heal and become resensitized in a very short space of time, in both men and women. When asked, most women will admit that their vaginas are more sensitive and receptive after just a few days of making love in a more relaxed (and not focused on orgasm) way. The body regenerates as soon as it is granted the space and the trust. Pleasure loves slowness. Pleasure loves sensuality.