This week Maddie Berky and I dive into the topic around sex of communicating your needs.
What does sex mean to you?
What do you like about it?
What makes someone a good lover?
From losing my virginity at 18 to about my mid-twenties I didn’t know any of my partners’ answers to these questions. Sex wasn’t talked about. We had no shared language around it. It was expected to happen and expected to work. I didn’t know what to do about the fact that I wanted sex more than my boyfriends. Or how to say that I needed it in order to feel seen and desired. The only conversation I can remember is one boyfriend telling me he wouldn’t go down on me unless I went full Brazilian, cause porn. Naturally I kept dating him for 6 more months with a full bush and no head, cause only halfsies on the self-esteem front at that point in my life.
When there’s no language around sex, really when there’s no language around connection, around how we give and receive love, there’s no way to communicate our wants and our needs and our “oh hell no, I will Brazilian when I want to” and our “yes, do more of that!” There’s no way to make sex mean what we want it to mean and no way for a relationship look like we need it to look. Instead we get stuck with the script of sex meaning everything or nothing and a relationship being a traditional monogamist structure with no optional left turns.
Everything has gotten better for me through the invitation of conversation. Sex, lovers, boyfriends. It has all shifted under the umbrella of a shared language around desire. Jumping into bed or into a relationship with someone is always better when you know (at least to a degree) what they want and what they need and when they know those things about you. Unless we all magically develop spidey senses, the only way that is going to happen is to ask and to share.
—————————————————————————————————————
I’m neurobiologically wired to connect, I know this because I feel it in my bones and also from various studies I’ve read. I say this to others and to myself all the time and it’s a cornerstone of my reality. And… connections happen in various ways along a spectrum, some being shallow and some that are deep and intense. Naturally, I have all sorts of connections ranging from surface type ones to deeply loving and extremely intimate and sexual. I think this is natural.
Without sounding too “woojie“, there’s a channel of “energy” being exchanged between myself and each connection I have, each channel of “energy” having the opportunity to be managed with care and communication… or not. Sometimes this communication is overt, plain, and direct. It’s spoken and clear. And oftentimes it isn’t. The deeper into my soul I allow access the more care required to dance in my preferences and another’s. I’ve been careless at times and not approached this with care where I learned painful but powerful lessons.
I believe that energy I receive and transmit should to be discussed and explored. Endlessly. Throughout a relationship from the very beginning to decades later, we can and should continue to explore the energy we transmit and receive. Sometimes I do this and sometimes I have fallen asleep. Care and consciousness aren’t always present. I think this is natural but not always acceptable.
I’m a giver. What I mean by that is I want to convey and transmit certain things to the people around me. Honestly, at times, what I’m transmitting is based on what I want irregardless of what they want. Some giver, huh? I’ve been getting more and more congruent but it has required effort and practice. I’ve objectified others, selfishly “giving” in ways that aren’t a good fit for them but are based on old concepts that I haven’t updated. Some of my transmissions actually are based on others. If they like to receive love, pleasure, adoration, or pain in certain ways that are personal to them I’ve taken it upon myself to learn about that. I love this dynamic in relationships. That’s my job as a good partner and lover. I have to turn off autopilot to connect, engage, care, and actually learn.
I also want to receive. Yeah, I’m interested in some give and take. All the methods I attempt to utilize to learn about others I want to be lent my way too. 99% of the time, I have to disclose, reveal, and share those parts of myself if I’m to actually get it.