Talking About Sex
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Hi! Welcome to Sex.Love.Power. I'm your host, Michele Lisenbury Christensen. I'm a relationship and sex coach who's worked for 23 years with executives and business founders. And by popular demand, I've focused on their intimate relationships for the past dozen or so years as they sought my coaching to push the envelope on how good they could have it in life and in love and sex. My extraordinary high-performance clients have blessed me with a wealth of knowledge about how to create relationships that are not just successful, but truly great. This podcast is where I convene the conversations about love and sex that help every listener create those same world-class results in their relationships.
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If you want something different in the bedroom, but don't quite know how to bring it up....If you have a hard time wrapping your mouth around any of the words for sex acts or body parts without blushing....If your partner has been uncomfortable with you talking about the sex that you too have or don't have...this episode is for you!
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We need to have this conversation about sex - how meta is that? - Because in our puritanical, yet sex-saturated culture, we've been taught that it's not nice to talk about sex, but also that we're supposed to have great sex in the absence of talking about it. Can you imagine? What if I tried to dress you in a way that you would like, without asking you what size you wear your eye color? Or what you're going to do in this outfit?
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Or if you tried to design a house for me without asking me about my lifestyle, my budget, or the lot that I was going to build this house on? Sex is absolutely not one size fits all. And our deep love and desire to please one another is absolutely no guarantee that we'll have great sex without great communication. But by the end of this episode, you'll have all the keys you need to begin to talk about sex with your partner, no matter how uncomfortable or silent it's feeling right now. I'll give you language tips for how to listen when your partner talks about sex and I'll tell you how to get my favorite questions for you two to ask each other. Before we even dive into how to talk about sex, humor me for a minute while I underscore why it's so important to talk about sex. Maybe seems obvious on one level, but I can almost guarantee you I think about this in a broader way than you have, at least until now.
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So whyyyy talk about sex? Well, being able to talk about sex means we have room to have more fun, to feel more connected, to get more of what we want. Being able to talk about sex allows you to give more of what your partner wants. Talking about sex in an open way strengthens your ability to show up authentically, vulnerably, and enthusiastic in a self expressive way, everywhere in your life, not just inside these particular tender conversations. And this might not be a big deal to everyone, but it's really valuable to me and to my clients: It is subversive to oppressive systems for us to talk openly about sex. This is how we tear down our repressive body-numbing, live-in-our-heads culture. Can you imagine a world where people are more free to be themselves, less judgmental, more embodied and free-flowing with their emotions and their sensations? A world where people don't get neutered in the culture's eyes as they age? A world where people, regardless of gender, are free to follow their pleasure and express their sensuality in wholesome and free ways? Would you like that world to come into reality? Dismantling the obstacles within yourself to talking about sex is a powerful way to bring about that world.
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Having beautiful, fun, light eye opening conversations with your partner about sex is a great way to open the doors to that world in your own life. And practicing these skills over and over is a beautiful way of becoming a liberator of others. Because the freer you get in yourself, the more naturally contagious and empowering you are to those around you. I often find myself asking clients if they want to pass down the hold-backs the hang-ups, their ouchy, avoidant places in their lives to their kids.
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Would you want your daughter to stifle her own desires to make sure she didn't take any chances of hurting her partner's feelings just by talking about what she needed? Would you want your daughter to build her sexual life on the foundation of her partner's real or imagined fragility? Or do you want your son to be able to have needs? To know what they are? And to learn to articulate them and set boundaries around them? Or do you want him to be a doormat until he's so fed up that he blows up and takes what he needs with tax because he's been deprived for so long.
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We teach our children what we live. We can't tell them the high minded things, and then expect them to live those when all they've seen and felt us do are the self-protective, playing small, unexamined-conditioning behaviors that we were taught. Stop the legacy of sexual suppression right here. Learn to talk about sex with yourself, your partner, your friends, and your kids. Now for today, we'll focus on your partner. But that's the bigger picture reason we must do this. And I know it can be uncomfortable. So I wanted to give you some compelling bigger picture motivation to help you get past the resistance and get you talking.
So let's go. First, I want to talk about timing. Because most people who need guidance in how to talk about sex are reluctant to have these conversations. They'll put them off until the last possible moment. And when is that? Well, one hint: you're probably naked. (laughs)
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And why is that not the best time? Because you're both more vulnerable then. When you've already entered an erotic space together, you're turned on or you're endeavoring to get turned on. You're aiming to give pleasure and receive pleasure and feel close and connected and have a great experience together. And now there's this conversation! Maybe you feel threatened by it, or maybe it's merely awkward. Regardless, let's not have this be the place in time that we have our first exploration of this topic. Instead, the best timing for a conversation about sex is when we're both relaxed and present. Not sleepy, not drunk, not hungover. Not overfed. Not too hungry. It's a happy time together.
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You've teed it up, probably in advance. You can listen to Episode 22 if you need more help scheduling important conversations at a time when both of you are up for it, because that's all I talked about!
Now, here are the steps to bringing it up. First, declare your positive intention. For this conversation specifically, you want to make sure your partner knows your intent. You might say something like, "I'd like us to talk about sex together because..." and then you'll finish by saying something like, "I love you so much. And I want our erotic connection to be absolutely the most pleasurable and intimate it can be for both of us." Probably your language isn't quite like mine, but if you put something like that into your own words, you're going to be golden.
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Second, get your partner's consent to talk about sex. "Is now a good time? If not, when would be better?" is a great way to ask.
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Third, wait for their good time to talk, whether that's now or later. Both of you being up for the conversation is an absolute prerequisite. For more on this, refer back to Episode 22: Poorly-Timed-Conversations.
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Now, let's look at the best practices for listening well, when we're talking about sex. First, shield yourself. Your partner is sharing what they're sharing so that you can have a closer, sweeter connection erotically. They're taking a risk, and they are not here to attack or hurt you. Don't be defensive or deflecting. Try to put yourself in their shoes.
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Second, recognize you're dealing with someone's most vulnerable bits, just like physical genitals. Our views on, our desire for, and our feelings about sex are primal and they're easily overstimulated and they're highly reactive to touch. Listen with kindness. Answer quite slowly. And be gentle, gentle, gentle, in your choice of words, your cadence, your facial expression, and your tone.
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Third, take nothing personally. Know that what they bring is a little about now and you and a lot about what their prior experiences and their conditioning, their education and training from their family, their religion, schools, the whole culture and other people in their past.
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Now let's talk about what to say. First, in general, there's two points. Talk much more about what you do like and less about what you don't like. For example, not "I hate it when you..." or "It turns me off when..." or "Don't ever, ever, ever...."
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So instead say, "but I love it when you...." "What works well for me is when...." "It turns me on so much when you..." and if there's something really important about what makes you feel safe or wanted or like your partner cares or respect you, then say, "I feel this way, for example, 'safe' when you ______, and when you don't, I feel ______." So that's a way that you can tell them what not to do. But make sure that you couch that in the sense of how you're going to feel it makes it so much easier to hear.
Next, talk about how you feel. Use body sensations to convey your message as much as possible. For example, "When you put your hands around my waist, I feel this melty feeling in my chest." Or "When you pull my hair gently but hard enough to pull my head back, I get this little rush of excitement in my throat and I can feel my eyes go wide." I teach people how to do this in my Sex Ed for Grownups course. We can give people a transmission of our own embodied experience. When we describe the physical sensations we're experiencing or have experienced. It's like this body-to-body communication. When we put words to our felt sensation, their body listens to our body, and it's very compelling communication indeed.
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So now let's talk vocabulary because we are going to keep using words. What words will you use when referring to body parts and to sexual acts?
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My husband, Kurt and I are part of this facilitation team that creates comprehensive sexuality education experiences for teens and their parents. One of the things we teach both groups is that there are a number of different lexicons for body parts and sex acts. You can illustrate this for yourself, just think of one body part right now. Maybe it's from what we have thought of as male genitalia, maybe it's from female. Just pick a part! (laughs) As I list the different kinds of language you might use, you'll likely be able to think of a distinct way to talk about that body party each of these different vocabularies. So here we go.
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First, there's baby language: This is what we use with little kids. These are totally euphemistic, often nonsense, and (laughs) use repetitive sounds.
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Then there's euphemistic language. This is what someone uses when they want to refer obliquely to this part or this act without naming it directly. Country music and romance novels often employ this kind of language. "Rockin' you all night long." We know what that means. But do we?
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Clinical language: this is what you might find in a medical textbook or in an operating room. This is the scientific name for that part or for that act. Does anyone use fellatio in everyday conversation? Probably not.
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Casual language: This is a forthright, but informal way of talking about body parts and sex acts. You know, blow job might be casual language.
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Street language, which my last example might fall under also, is a little more guttural and often more evocative. These are the four letter words that are sometimes offensive to some people. And rap music is a place where you'll often find this kind of language. But it's also the kind of language that because it's so evocative is often what's missing in people's vernacular, and that allows for more aliveness when they bring it in.
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And then finally, sacred and metaphorical language is a whole vocabulary that my clients sometimes encounter for the first time with me. This is the language of the spiritual traditions that honor sexuality as the doorway to the divine feminine and the divine masculine. This may be totally foreign to you are totally familiar and comfortable. And either of those is fine.
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My question is, what language are you most at home using with regard to your own body? And what language are you most comfortable using to refer to your partner's body? Also, ask yourself: what words am I uncomfortable using, and why? Now has finding language or your own inner response to your partner's language around sex been difficult for you?
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The important thing for each couple is to find language that's direct enough to convey what you desire, what feels good, and what kind of energy you each want in your engagement. So think about these questions and talk with your partner about the ways you'd like to use each vocabulary category, and which categories you'd like to minimize or only use under specific circumstances. Talk about why, how the words and concepts feel for you, and what emotion and vibration you want to transmit to your partner when you're speaking of sexual acts, or body parts.
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Now, let's talk about the whole topic of preferences and desires. These are often hard to talk about because we're afraid we'll hurt our partner's feelings, or because we have some judgment about their desires or about our own. I like to bring in a metaphor when clients are feeling awkward about discussing sex directly. Imagine you're talking about food that works for your body, and which foods don't. Nobody can help being allergic to strawberries or to shellfish, for example, to wheat or to peanuts. If you're allergic, you just are and some people naturally like cilantro. And for other people, it just naturally tastes like soap. So we don't have to take differences in food preferences and needs personally. What we need to do is find something for each of us to be nourished by for dinner, and maybe the same meal as our partner eats and maybe different meals entirely. And maybe there's some overlap.
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Likewise, when we learn to talk openly about body parts and sexual desires, we find that we can each be nourished by our interactions. We may not have the sex of a lifetime, simultaneous to our partner having their most intensely pleasurable interaction ever. And that's okay. This is what we're unfolding together as a way to talk about sex that allows us to share what our peak experiences are like what works for us and what we don't want to do so that we can create amazing experiences in the fabric of our erotic relationship with one another.
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So there you have it. This is the condensed version of how to talk about sex with your partner. Clients inside my Legacy Love program, get lots more tools and support to have the powerful, exquisite conversations that lead to the kinds of erotic connection that are not only physically pleasurable, but spiritually awakening. Now to support you in that same direction, I do have one more treat in store for you. On the show notes page at lisenbury.com/episodes/023, you can grab my favorite questions to ask your partner about their sexual preferences. This cheat sheet will throw the doors wide open to dozens of rich, fun conversations about the kind of sex you both love. So please go practice the tips from this episode and grab those questions. And then enjoy one another.
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My desire for you is that the best sex of your life lies ahead of you yet. I'd love to hear how your conversations are going. And what questions arises you have them. Come share and ask away on my private community. It's at Conscious Couples’ Circle, and is a place where you can join the conversation about creating the love and sex you deeply desire in ways that evolve you both. That link is in the shownotes at lisenbury.com/episode/023. If you've enjoyed this or other episodes, please let other podcast listeners know by leaving a review, particularly in Apple podcasts. Reviews are a huge help in finding new listeners and growing the positive impact that these conversations can have. So please go leave your review right now with a few words about what the show gives you. I would be so grateful. And hey, have you subscribed to the podcast? You're gonna want to so you never miss an episode. Please go to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen and hit that subscribe button so you always get notifications of new episodes each week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Michele Lisenbury Christensen and this has been Sex.Love.Power. I'll be back here next week with the next episode. Until then, maybe the light within you illuminate the world around you.