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Tag: sensuality

  • Your Recipe for a Perfect Valentine’s Date: The 3 Key Ingredients for Love and Passion

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    What do dandruff, taxes, and Valentines have in common?

    They are words that can make us cringe. 

    Let’s face it. Valentine’s Day often creates more pressure than passion. Whether you welcome this occasion as a reminder to create rituals of connection and design a romantic, sexy night, or you dread another year where no matter what you do your sweetheart ends up hurt and disappointed, February 14th is still coming. 

    I’m betting the majority of you long to drop-kick cupid out of your life and wake up in March.

    So let’s change that.

    In this video, I offer you a recipe for the Perfect Valentine’s Date. The good news is that it is easier than you think. All you need is three ingredients and a sprinkle of imagination.

    I challenge you to create a romantic experience based on the Three Keys to Passion—intimacy, thrill, and sensuality—that great couples learn to develop over time.

    Intimacy: Focus on the romantic not the mundane

    Intimacy or marital friendship is the first ingredient for your perfect date. It includes talking about your inner worlds, sharing hopes, dreams, and more.

    I want you to have a conversation that is reminiscent of how you talked when you were falling in love. How? Well first, here’s what not to do. Don’t talk about the kids, the leaking roof, or any other daily details of your relationship life. Instead, focus on topics that connect you and reignite a sense of appreciation, gratitude, and hope. 

    Okay, that is easy to say, but harder to do. So, let me help. For the couples in my online couples immersion program, every Friday is Date Night. And here is what I teach them.

    Keep your conversation focused on the two of you in the present, the past, and the future. Focus on the direct experience of this moment, the touch of your hands, the taste of the chocolate mousse on your tongue, how you feel right here and now. Then talk about some past adventures, romantic experiences, and happy memories such as your first date, honeymoon, or the birth of your child. Next, talk about the future—perhaps plans for post-pandemic travel or a relationship goal or Friday Night Date nights—that you want to commit to for 2021. 

    Thrill: Recreate the excitement of falling in love

    Think back to an early date with your mate. Do you recall how fascinating they were? My first date with my now husband began with a quick omelet at a diner and ended four hours later after a walk along the ocean and a conversation that left us aching for more. 

    Now, here’s the thing. Many years later, my husband is still fascinating. But unless I remind myself to be fascinated with him here and now, familiarity can lead to boredom both in and out of the bedroom. I want to invite you to recreate the excitement, anticipation, and yes, sexual desire that came so easily when you soaked in the biochemistry and novelty of your early relationship—no matter how long it’s been. I call this the mind of thrill. 

    How do you create thrill on your perfect date? Choose to do something new and different. I know. I can hear your protests. “Cheryl, how the heck do we create a fun, exciting, romantic date when we are in a pandemic lockdown?” 

    By using your imagination. Just like Kent and Susan did. They designed one of the most romantic, erotic, and playful weekends I’ve ever heard about in their own condo during the lockdown.  If you want to get inspired, watch the video, and hear how they brought Thrill back after 32 years together. No excuses. With just a little imagination, heart, and humor, you can make your sweetheart feel like the most important person in the world.

    Sensuality: You can’t make chocolate cake without chocolate

    I define Sensuality as the entire spectrum of erotic exploration from holding hands to raw wild sexuality and everything in between.

    Let me be frank. The Sensuality spice is the single ingredient that, by definition, sets your romantic relationship apart from all the other relationships in your life. You can share Intimacy with friends and family and create Thrill with your skiing buddies or with your college girlfriends on a spa getaway. But you only ever get naked with your sweetheart. 

    So, make sure you include sensuality in your perfect Valentine’s date. Yes, I mean plan to make love.  The keyword in that piece of advice is plan. According to sexuality researcher Rosemary Basson, the majority of long-term couples start making love from a place of sexual neutrality. What does that mean? Quite simply, as I wrote about on the Gottman blog, if you’ve been together a long time, it is normal to have very little spontaneous sexual desire.  That’s why it is critical to plan for passion instead of waiting until you are “in the mood.” So, don’t leave the chocolate out of the chocolate cake recipe. Make your erotic life a priority and make sure it is a key ingredient of your Valentine’s date and all your dates this year and beyond.

    Want to know right now if you are strong and weak on these three key ingredients? Take the Passion quiz and find out!

    Share, show, and speak your love! Take your relationship off of auto-pilot and shift into loving out loud. In this series of exercises, activities, and videos, Drs. John and Julie Gottman can show you how to love your partner even better. Check out Loving Out Loud and upgrade your relationship today.

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    Cheryl Fraser

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  • Sharing This Breath: What Sex Looks Like for Me as a Graydemisexual Ace

    Sharing This Breath: What Sex Looks Like for Me as a Graydemisexual Ace

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    Hi! My name is Grace, and I am a graydemi ace. I’m what I’ve previously called an “IAMsexual” who has a lot of sex, just not likely the kind you’re imagining. Re-imagining sex as acts that de-center the mainstream idea of sex feels important to understanding how I navigate my relational world. Let me provide you with a scene of what my “IAMsexual” world of sex looks like.

    We are walking on the shoreline of a vast body of clear turquoise water under the warming rays of the sun and gentle whispering of humid winds.

    [We breathe.]

    It is the early part of the evening just before sunset. We walk inside a bubble of quietude, not saying much of substance. We are just taking it in, arriving together.

    [We breathe.]

    We are enraptured by kairos time, the time that is measured in moments rather than in seconds, minutes, or hours. In kairos time, it’s time to take a seat and settle into the sunset with some light sweet snacks. Time to enjoy the kind of snacks that fill our bellies and our hearts.

    [We breathe.]

    The sweetness of our food yields audible sounds of pleasure and reverence. In between silent bites, we meet each other through our moans, sighs, deep breaths, and “thank you”s, all because of our awe at the sunset paired with the deliciousness of taking this sweetness into our spiritual, emotional, and physical bodies. We are present. We have arrived.

    We exchange reflections on the experiences in our bodies invited by this time of day. We share about what sensations are invited into our bodies — by the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon and how we track that in this moment and in moments beyond this one. I love being with this time of day near big waters.

    [I breathe.]

    You offer me your breath. Shotgunning, you call it. I’m impressed by your boldness and am ready to lean in. Your offered breath smells enticing, with hints of clove. I take your offering in. It goes down smooth.

    [We breathe.]

    Sharing this breath is intimate, even more intimate than kissing for me.

    The sun is down and the moon has risen. We are enjoying alone-together time. Alone with our own breaths and the sensations of our shared breaths. We are together in the pulsing. I ask about what you are experiencing in your body. You give me delicious details and I’m aroused by your attention to word choice and your facility at describing sensation. We giggle at nerding out about what feels like such a simple question inside of a simple experience.

    [We breathe and giggle some more.]

    I share my own sensations and, in a bold move, make a request to experience a new one. I ask you to rub your hands over my two-day-old shaved head to the rhythms of the waves. You joyfully, enthusiastically, affirmatively consent and oblige. It’s electric and so, so good.

    More Radical Reads: Stop Assuming Everyone Wants A Partner: 5 Ways You’re Erasing Asexual and Aromantic People and What To Do Instead

    Night has fallen. It’s time to go. We reground by dipping our toes into the water, thanking each other, thanking the water and thanking our respective ancestors.

    [We breathe.]

    We depart, separately and wholly.

    Hot sex, am I right?! That was a sexy time and yet, for many folks, this would either be considered incomplete, a missed opportunity or simply foreplay for the “actual” sex. For me, it’s all sex — delicious, nuanced, and multitudinous sex in its individual acts and in its totality.

    I wish to normalise customising sex language inside of relationships so that we may be in shared understanding and curiosity about what is pleasurable and sexy for each another. Sharing this excavation process inside the question of “What is sex for you?” unlocks an intimacy that itself borders on sex for me.

    This is where folks often ask me some version of,  “If everything can be sex to you, then how is sex sacred or meaningful or distinguishable from the mundane?” To that I respond with a “thank you for your curiosity” and proceed with my spiel: I practice sex from a place of inquiry that explores the question, “What if everything is sacred and/or meaningful?” From that place of inquiry, all acts of coming together meaningfully become open to being experienced as sexual acts for me.

    More Radical Reads: At the Intersection of Asexuality and Queerness

    It is a practice of seeing even the mundane as magnificent. It is the place of abundance where I am defined by my fullness rather than a lack. It is the place in which everything gets to be whole onto itself. I get to be whole, unto myself, so that when I’m in a meaningful coming together with another person, it’s out of desire for the experience of wholeness that comes from wholeness, not a desire for wholeness that comes from a lack of being my own whole.

    I know this isn’t how everyone experiences it. But it is how I experience sex, and since this is about me right now and my IAMsexuality, it stands to reason that this is but one of many ways to be a graydemisexual ace.

    No moralizing, no judgment, just my Black (Gr)ACE. 

    [Feature image: Photo of Grace B. Freedom, a Black non-binary person with short dark hair, facial hair, and pierced ears. They’re wearing a dark hooded jacket with a reddish patterned scarf and are standing in a clearing in an autumnal forest, golden brown leaves scattered at their feet as they stare up at the magnificence of the yellow-leaved trees, a reverent smile on their face. The sky is grey and chilly. Source: A. De La Cruz.]

    Grace B Freedom (all pronouns combined with they/them pronouns) is a Black Genderfluid Queer creator of the Black Love and Care (BLaC) Ethic . She is supported by a grant from the Effing Foundation to write the My Black (Gr)Ace series. They have been described as a penetrative and inescapable force, but mostly they want to be in deep conversations that are guided by mutual tenderness and curiosity that center a BLaC ethic . You can find them asking a lot of questions and sharing their freedom practices on Instagram @madquestionasker and you can follow her writing on patreon @madquestionasker.

    TBINAA is an independent, queer, Black woman run digital media and education organization promoting radical self love as the foundation for a more just, equitable and compassionate world. If you believe in our mission, please contribute to this necessary work at PRESSPATRON.com/TBINAA 

    We can’t do this work without you!

    As a thank you gift, supporters who contribute $10+ (monthly) will receive a copy of our ebook, Shed Every Lie: Black and Brown Femmes on Healing As Liberation. Supporters contributing $20+ (monthly) will receive a copy of founder Sonya Renee Taylor’s book, The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love delivered to your home. 

    Need some help growing into your own self love? Sign up for our 10 Tools for Radical Self Love Intensive!

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    Shannon Weber

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