No lollygagging (unless that’s your kink). We’re going to work on raising your sexual intelligence TODAY. If you do the exercises, heck, you might even get smarter today. So let’s get going.
Give Your Sexual Intelligence A Little Boost
Pick 1 (or both) of the two exercises below and see how it works for you. Each exercise in sexual intelligence is also an exercise in critical thinking. Yes, shhh, it’s my secret agenda to teach adults to be smarter about their bodies, their choices, their sex lives, and their relationships!
You can imagine that a sex therapist hears all the sad stories and personal tragedies, right? Perhaps you can also imagine people starting therapy feeling really bad, but usually ending feeling transformed, enlightened, even hopeful! That’s because, though they don’t realize it, I’ve been raising their sexual intelligence session by session. I ask the hard questions, the important questions, the questions they’re too shy to raise.
It works for them — thousands of them! So now choose your exercise or try both. This blog is an intro to the 8 expanded exercises you’ll see in my upcoming book, How to Be a Sex Genius (coming soon, as I hope you will be too).
EXERCISE 1: NAME YOUR OBSTACLE
Most people think they’re bad at sex because they can’t focus or stay present. But people don’t get distracted when they *feel* aroused. Sure, there might be signs of excitement in your body, but once your mind wanders during sex, the chances of full arousal or orgasm hit a brick wall.
My clinical experience is that the most common obstacles are shame/guilt, sexual trauma, and cultural/religious messaging. We can’t shrug those off, no matter how much we try. They’re deep-seated beliefs that tell you something is wrong with you, your body, or sex in general.
Identify Your Obstacle by Name
When you think about sex or touch yourself sexually, what feeling comes up first?
✎ Excitement and curiosity? ✎ Anxiety or fear? ✎ Shame or disgust? ✎ Numbness or Dissociation?
If negative thoughts are your go-to, know that this response indicates a person who has been wounded in some way. Name your obstacle. Is it religious influence? Sex negativity at home or at school? What hurt you matters. Can you name it?
Take Away
You can’t fix a deeply emotional problem if you can’t put it into words. Identifying the source of your problem doesn’t automatically fix the problem, but it is the first step towards healing.
EXERCISE 2: THE FULL BODY PLEASURE INVENTORY
Most people have never cataloged what feels good on their own bodies. Some people ignore pleasure the way others ignore pain: they have a mind/body disconnect. This common phenomenon contributes to bedroom failures because they never expanded their repertoire beyond what they were taught was “right,” rather than what feels good.
This Pleasure Inventory is fun whether you are exploring with an eye towards improving your sex life or didn’t think you could learn anything new about your body because you’re a wizard of solo sex.
Your Pleasure Mission
Luxuriate in a bathtub or lie cozily on your bed (whichever feels safer and more private)
You’re your own scientific researcher here, just gathering data on what actually feels good to YOU. I recommend you take journal notes as you run the inventory so you can review them and reflect on how each part feels.
Pick a speed between 1 and 5 minutes. Time it! Spend the same amount of time on each zone.
The inventory zones:
✎ Toes to ankles – what did you notice?
✎ Calves to thighs – what felt good here?
✎ Genitals to backside (don’t forget the taint) – any surprises?
✎ Belly button to chest and nipples – did that feel good?
✎ Neck – was it ticklish? sensual?
✎ Lips and face – touch lightly – how did that feel?
✎ Ears – some folks get off from tickles and licks – how about you?
Take Away
Doing this exercise raises sexual intelligence in two ways.
First, it asks you to physically touch each area of your body and take inventory of your responses. In other words, you just built your own pleasure map. Sadly, most adults don’t learn the value of this process. While emotional self-inventory calms the brain, physical self-inventory opens the body to pleasure. It is a critical learning process to get what you need in bed.
Second, it normalizes your erogenous zones as just other parts of your body. Which they are. And that is how you should treat them. In reality, there is no red line around our secondary traits. They’re just other (wonderful) parts of YOU.
Ready for the intensive version?
If you did one or both exercises, you should already feel smarter! And certainly more intrigued about your own potential to GROW as a sexually intelligent being. How far could you go?
These two exercises set you up for healing and for breathing in a joyful dose of sexual positivity. They are baby steps toward a happier personal life.
If you want to keep going, then you want the complete system – the deep work that builds embodied sexual intelligence. It’s in my new workbook, How to Become a Sex Genius, which drops later this week in Pleasure Literacy Emporium. It’s an easy-to-follow 8-point workbook that will transform your understanding of adult intimacy.
Image credit: Geralt@Pixabay
