Are you craving a little more sensuality in your sex life? Our five senses (sight, touch, taste, sound, and smell) shape the nature of all our experiences. They play a major role in our day-to-day lives, yet we often forget to notice how profoundly they enhance the quality of our life experiences. Enliven your sexuality by slowing down, getting curious about your sensate world and waking up your 5 senses!
Arousal Templates
We all have our unique and idiosyncratic ways of perceiving the world around us. We also often have favorite ways of experiencing our surroundings. Interestingly, the same goes for how we engage in sex. Ever heard of an “arousal template”? We all have one! We’re all uniquely wired for pleasure and we all have a core erotic theme(s) (aka an erotic arousal template). Put simply, it’s what turns you on! And, what turns you on may not turn others on (and vice versa). The elements involved in creating your arousal template are largely out of our control. Think of them as an interesting mashup of cultural influences, genetics, learned behaviors and the early activation of sexual sensations. We all have them, and I encourage you to get to know yours in more detail!
We all have unique individual preferences and specific interests when it comes to sex and you deserve to experience the full expression of your sexuality (safely and within your comfort zone).
Explore Your Senses
Solo or with a partner, explore your sensory experiences and notice your personal preferences. Practicing in a safe and contained environment will create the space to discover what you really like and enhance the depth of your sexual satisfaction.
Sight
Seeing something that piques your desire or sexual interest could be simple, like the silhouette of a naked body. Or maybe a little more kinky, like watching somebody else receive pleasure or reading something to get your imagination running. Exploring what gets you going can be as simple as noticing what your eyes are drawn to and being curious. When you’re connecting with your partner during sex, are your eyes locked? Are you feasting your eyes on their body? Are you enjoying their expressions, their movements? Take notice and be curious.
Your visual sexual sense is not just about what you look at that turns you on, but what keeps you in the mood. Add elements that you like, such as color, dim lights, fairy lights or candle light. Remove anything that might distract or take away from your experience. Is that pile of dirty socks or that stack of tax documents next to your bed distracting you? Do yourself a big sexual favor and keep the place you reserve for intimacy clear of daily clutter, easy on the eyes and sacred.
You can also play around with visual deprivation. Instead of focusing on the visual, you remove it. Blindfolding to remove sight will intensify your other senses. Adding this element of mystery might help unlock which other senses are strongest for you when your vision is taken away. What’s turning you on now? Your partner’s smell? The sounds of their whispers? The feeling of their skin on yours? Or the anticipation of any or all of the above?
Sound
Your favorite romance or sex music can set the mood for sexual play and help us let go of our daily chattering mind and endless to-do lists. Erotic audiobooks and podcasts are also a sexy creative way to use sound for your sexual gratification as well as erotic guided mediations that can help you focus on yourself and your personal sexual pleasure.
Experiment with your partner by whispering, or listening to romantic words, hot dirty talk or sexy non verbal sounds, or that you and your partner make when you’re having sex. Support and encourager each other to embrace your shyness / vulnerability and explore making sounds or talking during sex.
Touch
When we think of sex, it usually involves some form of touch, whether it is touching yourself or sharing touch with someone else. Touch is a vast playground with so many options to choose from. Soft, firm, fuzzy, furry, sharp, hot, cold, tingly. And so many places to touch! It’s a veritable smorgasbord of pleasure to experience!
Close your eyes and touch your body. Explore yourself and notice what feels most pleasurable, or explore touch with a partner. Experiment with different kinds of pressure (from feather light caresses or light tickling to massage), textures (from smooth like satin to prickly like a hairbrush), and temperatures (from ice cubes to body-safe candle wax). You can play with toys made especially for people seeking out specific kinds of touch, like the Violet Wand which lets you play safely with electric touch at whatever frequency is most fun for you.
Taste & Smell
Taste and smell are closely linked because what smells and tastes good to us about our partners may stem from the same place. Biologists believe that we engage in kissing and smelling each other, at least partially, because we’re looking for immune system diversity which helps us create genetically stronger offspring. So, the yummy and sexy smell of your lover’s neck, or the taste of their kiss…is designed to get us in the mood for baby making!
Explore taste in your sex life by playing with sexy foods ( strawberries, figs, oysters), feeding each other dark chocolate or other aphrodisiacs, or just tasting each other! Take a deep inhale of your partner’s pheromones and breathe your lover’s scent in, deeply. Take note of what smells and tastes you don’t like so you can alleviate and address any challenges to your intimacy.
All of these new adventures enhance your ability to cultivate new pathways for connection. Have fun exploring your sexual senses!
If you would like to learn more about your sexuality, have challenges you need support with, or you’re curious about how Sex Coaching can help you, please to reach out!