Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [87]
Sexologists who study arousal tell us that turn-on depends on two things: safety and risk. You need to feel safe from harm, and secure that your conditions will be met and your wants and needs honored. You also need to feel a little like being at the top of a ski jump, on the threshold of something miraculous and powerful. New relationships can be very hot because there is still a lot of riskiness, but mature relationships need to seek out ways to take a little risk, to step beyond the comfortable and the familiar into something new and a little challenging.
Infinite Possibilities
Looking for your turn-on on can be a lot like looking for ways you can nourish your relationship. Here’s a list of some possibilities that you might find useful.
Dress up, clean up, wake up.
Prepare your environment—fancy sheets, candles, music.
Allow plenty of time—start your date three hours early, out somewhere.
Go to the sex store.
Talk about your fantasies (go ahead, blush).
Play an erotic board game.
Massage gently with favorite oils, nice and slow … maybe with a blindfold on one of you … or both of you.
Get silly.
Neck in the car like teenagers.
Hold each other while you cry.
Make a dinner and eat it with your fingers.
Eat some very good chocolates and taste each other’s lips.
Read an erotic book together—out loud.
Watch a movie you both find sexy.
Go together to a strip club.
Go to the hot tub spa and soak.
Go anywhere in Nature and make out.
Make your dates special any way you can.
Get Connected First
There’s a reason why dates usually include dinner: dinner, whether out or in, is a great place to connect, to talk, to get caught up, and then maybe plot an adventure. Going out to dinner gives you time to dress up sexy, which is much more fun than washing dishes.
Remember when you are on a date and when you’re not—some people don’t like being felt up while they’re washing the dishes. (Others do, of course, so you have to communicate about this too.)
EXERCISE The Process-Free Date
Agree to go out and do something you like together. During this date, do not talk about any problems, in your relationship, or at work, or with the kids, or in the economy, or whatever. One couple we know went out for dinner and dancing and pretended it was their first date. They danced like teenagers and came home to have lovely sex that felt, somehow, renewed.
IN BED
When you get to the bed, being equally turned on is not a requirement; you can both get there with a little time and cheerful cooperation. The more ready person can help the other person catch up. Try out what sex therapists call “nondemand pleasuring,” which adds up to anything you know your partner likes, without pushing them further. Try an experiment where you agree that one partner will set out to arouse the other in the way the receptive partner chooses—with no obligations, and no blame if it doesn’t work.
GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN
Whatever you choose to try, please try something. You have to do something different if you want a different outcome.
None of this works every time. Simply making the effort is progress, even when one particular attempt doesn’t pan out. Setting aside time with the intention to hunt for your turn-on is the best way to start, and if you set out to get sexy and you don’t get all the way there, you can still enjoy the journey.
Consult your “Yes” lists and scheme together for a brief encounter on a weeknight. Schedule a time when you can have a twelve-hour date—yes, twelve whole hours—without being interrupted. Go out to dinner, to a beach, hiking—whatever you like. Come home, shower the sweat off together, light the candles, and see what happens next.
PART FOUR
Sluts in Love
CHAPTER