Slow Sex: The Path to Fulfilling and Sustainable Sexuality (2 page)

Every cell in my body resonated deeply with David’s words. I realized that the transubstantial metabolic enhancers he recommends for health, nutrition, and maintenance of optimum weight are undeniably similar to the suggestions I offer couples seeking more satisfying sexual experiences and more loving relationships. These universal metabolic forces and their powerful effects on human sexuality hold absolutely true in my own personal experience. Just as we allow our food to nourish our bodies by eating more slowly, by practicing slow sex we allow our sexual relationships to nourish our bodies, hearts, and souls.

The first step is to change our minds about sex. A shift in perspective opens new doors of experience for the body, giving it space to express itself. Usually our
ideas
about sex are forced onto the body, pushing it to cooperate and fulfill the many expectations and desires we associate with sex. Such pressures have made sex a hurried and single-minded act, whereas the body is inwardly thrilled with a slow, languid, expansive sexual exchange. Rather than
do
so much in sex, the body prefers to
be
in sex. This requires an acute awareness of the present moment. In slow sex, instead of getting involved in building to a climax, you take a step back and witness yourself. You are not so hot; instead you become more cool. Slowness takes the heat out of sex, which is a good thing, because bliss and ecstasy plant their delicate roots in a cool environment, not a hot one.

For the same reason, sexual arousal is not a prerequisite. You don’t need to heat up with excitement. Instead, you discover how to fall back into your body, to be more aware and relaxed, with a sense of not really going anywhere special. It doesn’t require lots of energy to engage in, or sustain, slow sex. And herein lies one of the main blessings of a slow sex practice—it is a sustainable practice particularly well suited to long-term committed couples. Over a period of many years it is natural for a couple to experience a certain amount of cooling down in sex, because it’s simply not possible to stay hot and excited about each other forever. There has to be some maturing, some settling, some turning inward toward resources that lie within yourself, rather than outside of yourself. The nature of heat is that it has to cool down eventually. Coolness is sustainable and it has an eternal quality. This makes slow sex a practice that can grow, deepen, and develop over time. It is a practice that generates love and harmony, creating balance within each person and between two lovers.

This book presents slow sex as a practice for contemporary couples, but it has ancient roots in Eastern spiritual traditions—such as Tantra from India and Taoism from China—that have found expression in a number of current Western sexual movements. Certain Tantric lineages embraced sexual practice to bring about an expansion of consciousness, and as a doorway to the Divine. Taoist inner alchemy practices cultivate sexual energy in order to empower the body and boost health.

“There are very long and rich traditions of sexual mysticism that can be traced back before the origins of Christianity in the West,” writes Arthur Versluis in his book
The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism,
“and for all the efforts of the ‘orthodox’ to extirpate it, erotic mysticism still recurs time and again, perpetually renewed, like the phoenix.” Versluis believes that sexual mysticism is particularly attractive in the present day and age because it resonates with a deep human need for connection—with another individual, but also to nature and to the Divine. Fulfillment of these needs has eroded in modern Western culture, where disconnection and isolation tend to prevail. I can say with certainty that slow sex is a practice of sexual mysticism that gently heals and restores our isolating severed connections. Sex has a higher potential—sex is able to carry us beyond duality into a spiritual unity that brings us closer to ourselves, the other, nature, and God.

Among the early proponents of contemporary spiritual sexuality was Alice Bunker Stockham, one of the first women to graduate from medical school in the United States, who published a book called
Karezza: Ethics of Marriage
in 1903. Stockham’s text states that there is deeper purpose and meaning to the reproductive faculties and functions than is generally understood and taught. She writes about a physical union that can include a joyful soul communion that promotes soul growth and development. So although spirituality in sex may be new to many of us, we can see that sex has been used for higher purposes over and over again in different ways and in very different cultures from ancient times to the present.

Slow sex as a practice leads to a form of spiritual marriage that meets deep human needs for connection and generates a positive rejuvenating energy in a couple, which then spills over into the community. Slow sex represents the only viable way forward for us—as man and woman together—to create a loving and sustainable humanity. It is a powerful way to create peace for ourselves and for the world.

1

SLOW SEX

A Physical and Spiritual Revolution

S
low sex provides a simple and effective antidote to the ever-accelerating pace of modern life, allowing lovers to rest in a still point at the center of a turning world. Through the workshops we offer to couples, my partner and I have been able to see the profound effect that just one week of relaxing slow sex can have on a couple’s relationship. We are true believers in the power of taking it slow, but sometimes it appears as if the whole world is bent on spinning faster and faster around us.

That is why it was so thrilling for me to read
The Slow Down Diet
by Marc David. David writes about slowing down in relation to food and I am concerned with slowing down while having sex, but we are really talking about the same thing—the ability to be fully present and aware in the current moment so that we can actually experience life on an inner cellular level, rather than racing through it so quickly that everything flies by in a blur.

David says that for food to be truly nourishing, the invisible “atmospheric” factors—
how
we eat—are even more important than the physical substances we actually consume. I have already mentioned two of the eight universal metabolic enhancers that he defines—relaxation and awareness. The other six are quality, rhythm, pleasure, thought, the sacred, and the story.

In essence, and in my own way, my teaching conveys the need to incorporate these great universal metabolic enhancers into the sexual act, organically elevating the physical exchange into something spiritual and fulfilling. I have also observed that the satisfaction of slow sex acts as a nutrient that boosts the immune system, with rejuvenating effects that increase vitality, creativity, and love. At the same time, slow sex naturally reduces the emphasis on food and eating because we find nourishment and fulfillment elsewhere. It naturally supports weight loss and brings balance into the system, not through vigorous calorie-burning sex, but through extended, deeply satisfying, sensitive sex.

I suggest, for instance, that couples incorporate relaxation and awareness into the sexual act. These two simple “Love Keys” (as I call these universal metabolic enhancers) can greatly transform the sexual experience from a perhaps short-lived and repetitive event into a captivating, extended, and inspiring one. When a couple embraces the universal metabolic enhancers, doing so creates a rarified atmosphere that strengthens and amplifies the field of love surrounding them. In an environment such as this, an inner radiance and vitality will remain as an afterglow.

Such expanded dimensions can even open up when only one person introduces metabolic enhancers into the atmosphere. Just as a sensitive person in the presence of a genuinely spiritual individual may experience a type of transmitted phenomenon that ignites feelings of being more open, alive, expanded, and present, when one person slows down in sex, the second person is naturally drawn into the expanded energy field and will tune in to and link up with the universal metabolizers. The slower we can learn to be, the more we can relax and hold awareness of the present moment; gradually the practice of slowness will begin to positively impact every aspect of living.

The conventional definition of metabolism implies it is a purely physical function, “the sum total of all the chemical reactions in the body.” Marc David’s understanding goes beyond that, defining metabolism as “the sum total of all the chemical reactions in the body, plus the sum total of all our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and experiences” (
The Slow Down Diet
).

David believes that these metabolizers have been in existence for a long time but have been completely overlooked because:

First, we’ve been moving too fast to notice them, since their chemical power is activated only when the requisite level of “slowness” has been met. Second, we’ve believed that a metabolic enhancer must be exclusively of the order of a food, a pill, or a push-up, yet the eight universal metabolizers are of a different category. (
The Slow Down Diet
)

As a professional nutritionist and expert in the psychology of eating, Marc David has applied these universal metabolic insights to people who seek his guidance for nutritional and weight issues. He observed their responses to his unusual dietary suggestions and noted the undeniably positive impact on the entire system. He writes:

The bottom line was this: These folks achieved more by doing less. The people I’m speaking of stopped fighting food and started embracing it. . . . They ceased being victimized by food, by their bodies, and by anyone else’s standards and instead took responsibility for making simple but profound changes that created an empowered metabolic state. They slowed down and trusted life. (
The Slow Down Diet
)

I can say exactly the same thing about the couples who have attended our slow sex workshops. When couples learn to relax into the present moment while having sex, their entire experience is transformed into something deeply touching and nourishing for body and being. The entire metabolism is profoundly influenced and empowered. Because the eight universal metabolic enhancers defined by David apply just as directly to our sexuality as they do to our physical nutrition, I have decided to organize the book around them, just as he has done in
The Slow Down Diet.

As a way of approaching slow sex, each of the eight universal metabolic enhancers will appear as the focus of a separate chapter. Each chapter will act as an umbrella covering relevant information and guidelines. At times it will be necessary to repeat some information as the sexual themes intertwine and form a bigger picture.

Chapter 2, “The Sexual Power of Relaxation,” focuses on relaxing away from
doing
and into simply
being
while having sex—away from goal-oriented sex that strives toward the climax of orgasm, and toward sex that allows things to evolve of their own accord.

Chapter 3, “The Sexual Power of Awareness,” focuses on awareness as the missing link to expressing our higher sexual potential. Through awareness we awaken to the body on an inner level and tune in to our intrinsic sexual vitality.

Chapter 4, “The Sexual Power of Quality,” focuses on the sexual intelligence lying within our human bodies. It recognizes the fact that our genitals have an innate wisdom about how to connect when we give them the chance and space to communicate in their own language.

Chapter 5, “The Sexual Power of Rhythm,” focuses primarily on the difference between male and female rhythms. These polarity differences are understood as complementary forces that can be embraced to bring sex to a higher level of expression.

Chapter 6, “The Sexual Power of Pleasure,” focuses on the need for a shift from sensation to sensitivity. Slowness increases sensitivity and trust in the body, and activates the metabolic power of pleasure.

Chapter 7, “The Sexual Power of Thought,” focuses on the capacity to think and fantasize, and how these can act as distractions. However, thought can also be used in positive ways that will stimulate the sexual metabolism.

Chapter 8, “The Sexual Power of the Sacred,” focuses on sensitivity and coolness as the bridge to divine ecstatic experiences. It explains the healing and purifying power of the genitals.

Chapter 9, “The Sexual Power of the Story,” focuses on the inherent human aspects of sex and the historical personal aspects, as well as evaluating slow sex as a step in human evolution.

Each of these is a key to transforming your sex life, often in ways that feel surprisingly easy and natural. As you read each chapter, any insights or curiosities that are stimulated in you as a consequence can be put immediately into practice when you are next with your partner. You need to bear in mind that it’s not
what
you do, but
how
you do it, so in that sense it’s easy to make subtle changes with little effort. Naturally it’s impossible to incorporate all the different aspects at once and expect to get it right the very first time you try slow sex. Sometimes people take to the new way very easily, as if it were second nature, but this tends to be more the exception than the rule.

In a more sensitive society, the opposite would be true—slow sex would be the rule, not the exception. However, we have fundamental misconceptions about sex that act as a barrier to a simple, innocent, and spiritual sexual experience. Because sex has been practiced and presented in a certain way, generation upon generation, it is helpful to have an awareness of our collective conditioning, along with patience and compassion for yourself and your partner. Don’t expect instant results! It’s more of an unfolding based on exploration and discovery. You become a pioneer of your inner world. You simply start from where you are today—misunderstandings included. To an extent you undergo a process of unlearning what we’ve all inherited and rediscovering what is real and true. Each time you and your partner get together you will continue to make small exploratory steps, experimenting, incorporating what you discovered (or learned) the previous time, and gradually developing a new sexual language together.