“And so, from the first, we separated our pleasure. She lay on the rug and I lay at right angles to her so that only our lips might meet. Kissing in this way is the strangest of distractions. The greedy body that clamors for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.”
One of the greatest sexual skills is also one of the most subtle. To fully enjoy all of the sensations of erotic stimulation, you must learn how to focus your erotic attention. I consider this a form of erotic mindfulness. Just as you can learn how to focus and center your attention during meditation, you can learn how to focus your attention on sexual pleasure. Many of us get distracted during sex – either thinking about mundane daily things (“Did I pay the electric bill yet?”) or worrying about our lover’s experience (“are they having fun?” “do I look sexy enough?”) To the extent you are not focusing on sensation, you are missing out on pleasure.
I love this quote from Jeanette Winterson because it calls to our attention one strategy for developing erotic mindfulness. “Separating pleasures” is a good way to learn how to slow down, focusing on one sexual sensation at a time and letting the erotic hunger build.
I think the tendency to rush through sex is a symptom of living in a culture that focuses on sexual scarcity. As long as we believe there is a lack of sex available to us, that our partner may not be willing next time, that we are lucky to be scoring, we will have a tendency to rush and consume as much as possible. If we believe in the abundance of sexuality, we can slow down and savor each moment. And when you learn to slow down and focus your erotic attention, you may be shocked to discover how much pleasure is available to you in every moment.