Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [122]
You can learn more about relaxation and slowing down by taking a class in any form of yoga, practicing sensual massage, trying tantric techniques, or just slowing down long enough to discover what fun it is to focus on what you’re feeling when you’re feeling good.
You can reduce your nervousness when you talk about sex, and you can slow yourself down during sex, just by breathing. When you slow your breathing while you are turned on, let your awareness go down into your body. Scan your whole body with your mind, starting from your toes, and let yourself notice how each part of you feels. Chances are you will discover a lot of good feelings you haven’t even felt before. Sex therapists call this “sensate focus” and advocate it in particular for those who want to slow down their response and enjoy more sex before they come. You can slow down your physical sexual response by breathing, relaxing, and focusing your attention to reduce your physical tension, because, you see, not only do we all tense our muscles before we come, but most of us cannot come when our muscles are relaxed. So orgasmic control is not achieved by grunting and bearing down, but rather by relaxing and enjoying yourself.
Slowing down is also useful when you are trying out new activities or feeling nervous for any reason. Our friend Mandy relates one of her early learning experiences with condoms:
Rob and I had been occasional lovers for many years, and we were getting together for the first time after a long hiatus. We had very little experience of safer sex at the time but decided, due to our various experiences, that if we wanted to fuck we should use a condom. This was all fine in theory, but when the time came to put it on after a suitable and exciting round or two of outercourse, Rob picked up that difficult little piece of rubber and promptly lost his erection. I’m sure this has never happened to any of you.
We fooled around for a little while and tried again, with the same response—Rob’s mind and his cock were not in agreement, and his cock was not cooperating. I dragged myself up into a more active consciousness and decided to put what I had learned in adult sex education to use.
I got him to lie back and agree to be done to, and I set up the environment: candles for light carefully placed where we wouldn’t knock them over, lubricant and towels handy, two or three rubbers in case we broke one, plus slow sensual music on a very long disc. I got myself in a comfortable position between his legs—comfortable because I wanted to take all the time in the world, and I did not want to be interrupted by an aching back or a cramped shoulder.
I started by stroking his body—thighs, tummy, legs—very gently, in a soothing way, for a long time, till he first relaxed and then responded with an erection. I waited a little longer so he could enjoy that erection without any responsibility for taking things further: in sex therapy, this is called “non-demand pleasuring.” Then I moved the stroking to his genitals, around but not on his penis. His erection went down again, so I moved further back and continued sensual stroking on his skin until he got hard again. I continued again a little longer and then moved to touching closer to his cock. This time his erection fell only a little and got hard again after only a few seconds. By now he was breathing hard, and so was I. For me, the experience was very sensual and kind of trance-like, warm, and pleasurable: a major turn-on, too.
I spent a very long time stroking around, but not on, his cock, until he was very hard indeed. He reached for me, but I slapped his hand—no distractions, please. I am doing this to you, get it? When the suspense was virtually unbearable, I ran my hand lightly over his dick—he shuddered. Stroking his cock and pulling gently on his balls aroused him even more, and he was beginning to moan and sweat. I picked up the condom, checking to make sure I was unrolling it in the right direction, and he lost his erection almost instantly.