What if there’s nothing to heal?
No, wait, stay with me.
All your life you have been taught (and shown on pornography) that sex means hard penis entering vagina. If you are someone who was conditioned as a man, you are very likely to have internalized *so many* messages around your masculinity being intrinsically tied into your ability to get hard and get penetrative.
And yet, the rates of ED are getting progressively larger and larger and are impacting younger and younger men. Although ED is not *as* common in young men, it can still affect about 25 percent of men under the age of 40. That’s quite a lot, folks!
On the other side of this misunderstanding – if you are someone who was conditioned as a woman, you have very likely internalized many messages that your desirability is directly related to how hard your man gets and how long he stays erect.
So it can feel rather – pun fully intended – *withering* to be there with a consensual play partner, feeling the heat building, the arousal pulsing…and out comes the condom wrapper when, all of a sudden, the erection goes away….or perhaps never arrives to begin with.
Cue the burning, internal shame the penis owner is feeling at not being “man enough” to perform, the cascade of thoughts full of self-loathing or desperate coaching (“c’mon, buddy, rise up! you got this!”) and the crushing sense of failure as body fails to comply. All of these thoughts, of course, immediately pulling him out of his bodily experience in what could be described as a form of disassociation.
Meanwhile his partner has her own internalized shame rear up – everything she ever thought about how unattractive she is, too old she is, not sexy enough, or not good enough *at* sex comes up – confirming ALL her worst fears, which she feels in her body as a suffocating emotional constriction around the chest accompanied by the seemingly confirmed belief that he is DEFINITELY going to leave her for someone else. And soon.
Sound familiar?
Its a script I hear countless times in my practice. It’s what makes sex a chore for many couples. A thing that we are told we *should* be doing if we love each other and are committed to each other, but actually becomes more a source of stress than actual intimate connection.
Sex begins to feel like a chore for many people. It becomes more a source of stress than actual intimate connection or stress relief.
I’m here to tell you that this script does NOT have to end up this way.
Sex should not be a chore and it should not be added to the long list of stressors we already have to carry in our lives. In fact, I would argue that the purpose of sex, of pleasure, is to RESOURCE us for all those *other* stressors in life.
I’ll say that again: the pleasure of sexual and intimate play is what is supposed to reinforce and stabilize us in the midst of stressful, modern day life.
So how do we break out of this needless source of suffering?
For one, check your perceptions and biases.
If sex REALLY meant penis-in-vagina….then what are all of us same sex couples doing? Who decided that penis penetrating vagina is the end all, be all of sexual expression?
Perhaps those ideas aren’t actually YOUR ideas, but messages you’ve internalized from growing up in Purity Culture where we are told that the sole purpose of sex is to procreate. Frankly, that is the ONLY function that penis-to-vagina offers that every other form of sexual touch does not.
Unless you are a devout member of some faith sect that prescribes to this notion (and perhaps even if you are) – you need to shake that shit off and start exploring what other purposes sex might have.
Creator made us with sexual organs whose sole purpose is for pleasure – like the clitoris, for example. If you believe in a Creator, then you must take the physical evidence Creator put in your own body as a sign that perhaps pleasure is an equally important, equally sacred application of your sexual expression as procreating. And Creator intended for you to use it as a both/and.
What a relief.
And if pleasure is just as viable as being “the point” of the whole thing, then this opens a wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide world of sexual touch, acts, and play that don’t even involve penetration.
For example, did you know that in Somatic Sex Education, we have a term called “soft-on”? This is the opposite of the hard-on. Turns out, once you get past the shame and self-recrimination that comes along with your soft-on – if you and your partner can remain in an open and embodied space, you might discover that – though soft it may be – it can STILL access pleasure when touched.
In fact, there is an entire massage technique specifically FOR soft-ons! (Happy to teach or you partner this technique, if you would like to book a session with me.)
Outside of a session with me, I invite you to get curious about your body and its capability. To slow down and really feel into what pleasurable sensations might be available to you through your soft-on.
At first in the moment, when recalibrating away from hard-on fixation, you may struggle to tap into pleasure initially. There is a very simple, science backed reason for this: when the shame comes up because penis isn’t complying, you will no doubt react in a protective way: to suppress the feeling of shame so that you can “stay in the game”. The problem is, when you suppress ANY energy in your body (like, for example, the emotional energy of feeling shame) the system can’t discern between the different types of energy, so you simultaneously suppress ALL the energy in your body, which includes your sexual energy.
So if you notice that at first, you’re having a hard time getting back into your groove with attention being given to your soft-on, no matter – simply switch up the play form! Move away from penetration or soft-on touch and instead focus on oral pleasuring or fingers…or zoom out even farther and go into touching your partner’s whole body or having them touch yours – especially if you did go into disassociation when the shame came up.
This allows you and your partner both to relax into the sensations of your bodies, rather than feeling pressured to get somewhere.
Pleasure doesn’t only exist at the moment of penetration and ejaculation – turns out pleasure is available whenever you’re being touched and however you’re being touched – so long as its consensual!
Relax into slow sex: sex without an agenda, without a goal. Pleasure in this animal body you get to occupy. Slow things down and savor the time you get to feel good.
You might find that once the pressure to perform is gone, sex just might become MORE satisfying and more connecting than you ever realized was possible.
What you thought was a debilitating indicator of your own failure and weakness…just might be the greatest gift you’ve ever been given to expand into yourself as a *true* embodied lover: taking your time, languishing in pleasuring and being pleasured, coming into your body in full presence, making space for what you *really* want, rather than what you’ve been told you want.
Now *that’s* a man whose comfortable in his masculinity. Who doesn’t fall into conforming with the crowd. Who is strong enough to get curious, open, and honest with himself and his lover(s).
All hail the soft-on!