Hint #52

Bring some yoga into your love life.  Build to orgasm with the lotus position: he sits upright with his legs bent at the knees, but wide apart.  She sits on top of him with legs over his.  Now, move together in a rhythmic and slow fashion while concentrating on breathing in unison.

Perfectionism

I meet a lot of perfectionists in my line of work. Perhaps there is an unusually high correlation between perfectionism and sexual hang-ups.

Perfectionists do not like mistakes. They like to be correct all the time. There is no tolerance for error in a perfectionist’s world.

However, this is a problem in sexual relationship because good sex takes practice. Inherent in the concept of practice is the understanding that there is room to make mistakes. When you are “practicing”, mistakes are acceptable, permissible and even expected.

I have noticed that when perfectionists become extremely fearful of making mistakes, they give up all together. Perhaps they try a few times, realize that they are not living up to their own internal standards and then they give up. The worst culprits give up without even trying. They are terrified of mediocre and so they twist the old adage of  “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well” to justify their inaction. And in doing so, they completely miss the value of battling through the awkward learning stage.

To combat the threat of perfectionism in our own household, I have a saying that I give to my young daughter, “We learn more from our failures than our successes.” Our failures are not just a vivid reminder that we are not perfect (which, as it turns out, is really ok); they also give us valuable clues as to the areas we need to adjust, change and grow in our lives so that we can be successful.

People who can grab onto this concept are high achievers.  Like perfectionists, high achievers have very high standards of what they want to accomplish in their lives. But unlike perfectionists, they embrace mistakes and failures as part of the normal learning process they must endure to get to greatness. They elicit and heed feedback because they can use the information to move past the awkward learning stage onto the skilled phase.

I met a high achiever this weekend at one of my Passion Salons. This woman shared that she had wanted to become better at oral sex. Now, I have met many women who realized they were not good at oral sex and so they just gave up. Instead, this woman asked her husband for feedback. What do you like? Is this working? What can I do to get better?

Unfortunately, her husband wasn’t particularly skilled at giving her the feedback she needed. Maybe he was embarrassed, maybe he preoccupied in the moment or perhaps he didn’t know the answer to her question! However, she wanted more information, so she rented a “how to” video and practiced her new learnings on her husband. He was thrilled. And when I met her, she had a confidence that emanated from her.

Here is a suggestion for you: try some “practice sex”. Set aside time when the two of you agree that you are going to practice something that you are not good at but you want to become more skilled. Allow for mistakes and mediocre sex during this time with a view that you need to go through the awkward to get to great.  Let go of your need to be right, or perfect or flawless.  Enjoy each other and the process and you’ll find that you really start to enjoy each other and the process!!

Hint #50

Send your lover over the moon with a humming good time.  Hum instead of lick while giving oral sex.  The added vibrations will send them into orbit!

Hint #49

Ever thought of flexing a little muscle in the bedroom?  Clench your buttocks and upper thigh muscles before making out.  It helps increase the blood flow to your pelvic area and sensitivity of your genitalia.

Hint #48

Breathing is one of the key factors to having a great orgasm.  The faster you breathe, the more excited you get.  The more excited you get, the bigger the orgasm.  Use breathing to control your pleasure journey.  Breathe through your nose to relax the body.  Then, as your excitement builds, switch to breathing through your mouth.  Increase and decrease the speed of each breath according to your level of arousal.

The Notebook

Taking my daughter to ballet classes is one of those love-hate jobs for me.  She’s a 5 year old, and I am under no illusions about the talent level in her class.  It is cute.  Seriously cute…but at the end of the day it’s cute.  That being said, there are just some days that I have had all the cute I can handle…today was one of those days.  I brought my computer with me and put my head down to get some work done.

“So what do you do?”

It was an innocent question that completely interrupted my train of thought.  I looked up, smiled politely and internally braced myself.  There are times that I hate that question. Don’t get me wrong…I love what I do, but it’s an awkward answer for some people, and I did not know this lady and could not have guessed how this was going to go.

So, I took a breath and said, “I am a Passion Coach. I coach couples on their sex lives.” Then I smiled.

“Their what?”

At this point, I was really hoping it was the dull roar of casual conversations in the room that prompted her to ask me to repeat myself. I widened my smile. “Their SEX lives.”

Her eyes lit up. “OH! If I had met you two weeks ago, I would have needed to come to you for coaching!”

And then she proceeded to tell me about her sex life. (Believe it or not, this is the response that I look forward to most - it’s much better than the startled and horrified look that some give me as they shuffle away.)

The reason she no longer “need to come to me for coaching’ is because she had an “ah-ha moment” while watching the movie, The Notebook.

I was completely enthralled in her story, partly because I think the movie is brilliant. I love the story as it is told from the perspective of an elderly man who is telling a “love story” to his wife with Alzheimer’s. I love the passion of a young couple who truly do defy all the odds to make their relationship last the test of time.  It’s a great movie.

But, even as a big fan, I was a little bit baffled as to how it could radically change the sex life of a woman who had been married for 10 years.

She began to explain to me that as the story unfolded, she noticed that the two lovers were never burdened by the need to do the dishes. Or clean the house. Or tend to the children. Or mow the lawn. Without these cluttering details, she just saw the passion.

Now many people might see the same logistical details lacking in the movie, and think to themselves, “Well, that is such a fairy tale. See, she didn’t even have to do housework!” That kind of cynicism would miss the moral of the story on which this woman focused.

“They are totally different things!” She said proudly. “Passion and the little details of life have nothing to do with each other!” She then proceeded to tell me how she had decided, after watching the movie, to put all the little annoyances on the back burner when it came to having sex with her husband. It used to be that if he failed to help around the house, he would be “cut off”. If he didn’t pitch in with the kids - cut off.

But, under these circumstances, how were they ever going to have sex? “It could be a year!” She said.

After this little revelation, she decided to have sex with him regardless of what had happened during the day. They had sex so often, in fact, that one evening he said he was too tired and begged off for the night. “I can’t remember the last time THAT happened.” In the meantime, she found that he was helping around the house more and he was willing to pitch in with the kids.  It was clear she was a happy woman.
What she had stumbled upon was a principle that I preach to women far and wide. Men, when they are taken care of sexually, become more involved around the house. They become more attentive. They are more pleasant to live with.

Believe it or not, there is science to back this up. As women, we naturally have more oxytocin (the bonding hormone) in our systems. Call it part of our nature - we are built to bond. But there is one time that men can match us in the amount of oxytocin. It is right after orgasm.

Men feel closer to us when they have had sex.

So why would we withhold sex from them because they aren’t being emotionally close to us? It doesn’t make any sense. It is a chicken vs. egg argument which has disastrous consequences.

“It just wasn’t working.” The woman concluded. So she found a way to make it work for them.  Sometimes people need to hear this truth over and over again before it starts to sink in.  This lady just had to watch The Notebook.

Today, ballet class was the highlight of my day.

Hint #47

It’s easy to think that an orgasm is something that just happens.  However, it takes a little know how and practice to control your pleasure center.  Don’t be afraid to take control of your own pleasure.

Hint #46

If your relationship is a little lack-luster these days, work a little shine back into it with a toy.  Let a vibrator be a buzzing addition between your sheets.  Use it to massage, tickle, tease and delight.

Laughter, the Funny Kind with Paddy Ducklow

There are lots of reasons to laugh. First, laughter is fun - and fun is reason enough for all of us to laugh lots.

Secondly, because non-laughers are usually boring and uptight people. The kind of people we don’t want to laugh with anyways.

Thirdly, because laughter cleans out the psycho-social pipes when things are bad.

Now you need to know that there are two kinds of laughter: “laughter, the funny kind” (LFK) and “laughter, the mean kind” (LMK). LFK brings people closer and LMK breaks, butchers and belittles that which is important.

I am talking about LFKs or “laughter, the funny kind.”

Cleaning out the pipes: You saw it in “The Bucket List” when Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson laughed until they cried. Well, they needed to laugh. They were both dying and they were leaving those who wanted them to live. (Go rent the film. You will laugh and cry and get your pipes cleaned all at once.)

The laughing contagion: Do you remember in high school when you couldn’t stop laughing and when your teacher threatened you with “whatever” (you were laughing too hard to remember) and that she began snickering too? Laughter is contagious and that is a good thing. You avoided a detention or writing lines or visiting the principal. The laughter contagion brings people together when they are opposites.

“No laughing matter”: You have heard that truism; that the severity of the situation requires solemnity or reverence or some other form of sadness. However, authorities from the Bible to Reader’s Digest remind us that “laughter is the best medicine.” A best-selling Norman Cousins book and a popular Robin Williams film, “Patch Adams,” teaches us that laughter might even heal people. Still, even if you die, laughter is the best way to go. It’s called “dying well.” It’s a funny way to go.

Getting unstuck: Unsolvable problems are usually better solved through laughter than “serious, urgent, important” strategies (”SUI” sounds like a pig call doesn’t it?). If your life has 20% problems and you invest 80% of your resources in strategies like problem solving, worrying about things, and “daring to discipline,” well, you are likely to add to the unsolvability of it all. Makes you want to laugh. Or cry.

“So what’s this all got to do with sex?” you asked.

Good question. Of course if you have looked at yourself naked recently, laughing is way better than crying!

And if you think about orgasms, erections, the “missionary” position, all that wetness, well, it is pretty funny isn’t it?

And of course, all orgasms don’t call for the “Hallelujah Chorus!” (That’s a joke.)

“So, a guy walks into a bar…”

---

Dr. Paddy Ducklow, Psychologist

www.TheDucklows.ca

Paddy is the Erb-Gullison Professor of Family Studies at Carey Theological College (UBC campus) and is in private practice doing marriage, family and sex therapy.

Hint #45

The “feel good” effect of the sun can boost your mood and make your body more responsive to orgasm.  Try to expose yourself to sunlight for at least 15 minutes a day - or use full-spectrum bulbs in your lights if it’s overcast outside.

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