Talk Sexy to the One You Love (6 page)

Exercise 6: Someone’s Watching

(40 MINUTES, WITH A PARTNER)

Pretend you are a research scientist studying the sexual behavior of the human male. You have just been given a fine specimen to study: So take off your lab coat and get to work. Your job is to observe—to notice every single thing this man does while making love.

How does he get ready? What signs does he give you?

How does he look at you, touch you, and hold you?

What does he say? How does he touch himself? Where is he the most sensitive? How does he communicate his needs? Most important: What kinds of 56 / Talk Sexy to the One You Love

sounds does he make when he is making love? When does he make them? Does he say any words? What words? When? How does he say them?

Take extensive mental notes of all your observations, which you can transfer later into your notebook. Use the questions on Sample Page 6 to help you organize these observations. Like any researcher, you need to be extremely thorough. Don’t try to change his behavior or your behavior at this time. Your job right now is to observe, not to interfere. To insure that your observations are scientifically valid, I recommend conduct-ing this field study several times and comparing your results.

Sample Page 6

(COPY AND COMPLETE)

General Observations:

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

When your partner wants to make love, how does he let you know? What does he say? What does he do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

When your partner gets excited, how does he act?

What does he say? What does he do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Getting Connected / 57

While you and your partner are making love, how does he communicate with you? What does he say?

What does he do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

When your partner reaches orgasm, how does he act?

What does he say? What does he do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

When your partner feels you reaching orgasm, how does he act? What does he say? What does he do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

What other sexy words and phrases does your partner use before, during, or after lovemaking? What other sounds does he make?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

What has this exercise made you notice about your partner that you never noticed before?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

58 / Talk Sexy to the One You Love

Exercise 7: Look at You

(40 MINUTES, WITH A PARTNER)

Continue to pretend you are a research scientist. But this time you are studying the sexual behavior of the human
female
. Since the university doesn’t have a lot of research money right now, they’ve asked you to be your own subject. Your job: Observe yourself making love.

How do you communicate with your partner? How do you let him know you want to make love? How do you know he got your message? How do you get ready? Do you talk at all? When? What do you say?

How do you say it? What kinds of sounds do you make? When do you make them? How do you look at your partner? How do you touch him? How do you hold him? What about your breathing—how does it change during lovemaking? When does it change?

What do you do when you are approaching orgasm?

Do you say anything? What sounds do you make?

Pay close attention to everything you say and do and make careful mental notes that you can transfer later into your notebook. Use the questions on Sample Page 7 as a guide. Do not try to change any of your behavior right now. You are a scientist, so all you want to do is to observe. Repeat this exercise several times to scientifically validate your findings.

Sample Page 7

(COPY AND COMPLETE)

General Observations:

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Getting Connected / 59

When you want to make love, how do you let your partner know? What do you say? What do you do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

When you start to get excited, how do you act? What do you say? What do you do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Once you and your partner are making love, how do you communicate with him? What do you say? What do you do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

As you approach orgasm, how do you act? What do you say? What do you do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

When you sense that your partner is approaching orgasm, how do you act? What do you say? What do you do?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

What other sexy words and phrases do you use before, during, or after lovemaking?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

60 / Talk Sexy to the One You Love

What other sexy sounds do you make?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

What has this exercise made you notice about yourself that you never noticed before?

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Are You Surprised? I’m Not

Many of us are so preoccupied with one thing or another when we are making love that we fail to notice many of the nuances that can make it so special. But if you’ve been a good scientist during these two exercises, you’ve probably been noticing all kinds of new and surprising things about yourself and your partner.

Perhaps one of the first things that you noticed is that your partner makes a lot of noise when he is making love. His breathing changes; his level of excitement changes; he may moan or groan. He may even say sexy things. What a shock that must have been!

By now you may have hundreds of pages of detailed notes (well, at least a few pages). All of this makes for great bedtime reading—anytime reading, for that matter—but that’s not the half of it. In the third and final exercise in this chapter you are going to put your astute observations to work, and the results are bound to both surprise and delight you.

Getting Connected / 61

Exercise 8: Echoes in the Night

(SOLO)

You are no longer a research scientist; you are now a copycat. The goal of this exercise is to imitate all of the sounds your partner makes as the two of you are making love. It is important to be sincere, and as un-obtrusive as possible. Here’s how to do it: If he moans, moan with him. If he groans, groan with him. If he starts to breathe heavily, breathe heavily with him. If he makes little noises, like “ooh” and “aah,” do the same thing. If he cries out, you cry out. If he starts talking sexy—well, that one is up to you, since I said you didn’t have to start talking yet.

Continue your mimicking behavior all the way through your partner’s orgasm. Then, the next time you are alone, record what happened in your notebook.

Sample Page 8

(COPY AND COMPLETE)

Changes I noticed in my partner during this exercise: _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

Changes I noticed in myself during this exercise: _________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

62 / Talk Sexy to the One You Love

A lot of people giggle when they read Exercise 8 for the first time. They think that making noises like this seems silly, and they can’t imagine how it could possibly enhance their lovemaking. Are you feeling the same way? Then let me tell you a story—a true, and very typical story about one of my clients.

The Story of Anna M.

Anna M. came to me for counseling after being referred by her closest friend. Anna loved her husband very much, but their sex was lifeless, bordering on intoler-able. Anna told me she was absolutely tongue-tied in bed. She never said a word. She said, in fact, that she was so self-conscious she couldn’t even make noise.

Anna desperately wanted things to change, which was a strong motivator, but she really didn’t know where to begin. She started by reading several popular sex books, but that didn’t help. On the contrary, it made her feel like everyone else on the planet was more liberated than she was. Determined to keep trying, Anna was then courageous enough to look at a few soft-core instructional videos. What she saw excited her—particularly the way the man and woman talked to each other—but she just couldn’t picture herself saying sexy words or asking for sexual things.

It was at this point that Anna came to my office for the first time. After listening to Anna Getting Connected / 63

share her experiences and her frustrations, I knew we needed to introduce change in the slowest, most gentle fashion. So the very first thing I did was give Anna Exercise 6 as a homework assignment. Anna loved this assignment because she didn’t have to do anything but observe her husband while they were making love. Lo and behold, the very first thing Anna observed was that her husband actually made a
lot
of noise—all kinds of noise. Anna was fascinated by this discovery. She had always been so consumed by her own “internal dialogue of dissatisfaction and fear,” as she phrased it, that she had never noticed how expressive her husband was.

Anna’s second assignment was Exercise 7, which proved to yield equally surprising results. Anna had originally told me that she never made as much as a peep in bed, but what she discovered by observing herself was that she actually made a number of very subtle noises at different moments during lovemaking.

Even she had to admit that she was not the ice cube she portrayed herself to be.

Anna’s third assignment, Exercise 8, proved to be the breakthrough assignment. She started off very slowly, moaning softly every time her husband moaned. Anna was able to do this with a minimal amount of fear once she realized that if she timed her moans right, they went practically undetected, being covered up by the louder moans of her partner. This actually gave her a chance to get comfortable consciously moaning at various volumes.

64 / Talk Sexy to the One You Love

After a little bit of practice, Anna noticed that her moaning became almost automatic, just like breathing.

She also noticed that she was getting comfortable moaning at louder and louder volumes.

As Anna’s volume increased, something else began to happen—something she never expected. Though he was still not conscious that Anna was doing anything different, her husband started responding to her sounds. On a subliminal level, his body was beginning to get the message. He was clearly getting more excited during sex, and his moans became louder and faster.

Well, these changes got Anna excited too. The next thing she knew, she was moaning louder and faster with him.

Within days, Anna was looking forward to having sex more than she could ever remember. Making noise was becoming more and more natural, and more and more exciting every time. Then one night, after a particularly intense twenty minutes of intercourse, Anna and her husband looked at each other in awe, and said simultaneously, “What happened?”

At this point, Anna told her husband, “Remember the therapist I went to talk to? She told me that making a little noise might help me feel more sexual, so I tried it.” Her husband cracked a huge smile and said, “Did she have any more advice?” Well, that was all that Anna needed to hear. Three days later she was back in my office telling me: “I want to learn to talk sexy!”