The path to sexual enlightenment has three well-worn roads. Each are easy to follow if you're willing to take the steps.
Most of what matters and gets better in life happens through education. Yet remarkably, when it comes to sex, many people were not only deprived sexual education in their youth, but have carried the "ignorance is bliss" approach way too long into adulthood. In fact, when it comes to cultivating and sustaining an erotic life, persisting in not knowing may well be the kiss of death.
Usually what we don’t know about is shrouded with our fear, which can easily turn sexual encounters into regretful decisions with risky consequences. Consequently, three of the most powerful behaviors of an evolving and passionate erotic life include cultivating a natural curiosity about your sexual self, opening up to the vast expanse of sexual experiences that live inside of you, and discerning true sex education from sexual entertainment.
Become Sexually Curious
Curiosity is curative; a natural and beguiling capacity that defines our humanity through its urge to understand, to explore and to go beyond our own limits. As a mother of four, I witnessed over and over how little I actually taught my kids, but rather how much of their education was about me keeping them safe to explore their curious wanderings.
When it comes to sex, our curiosity to one of the most essential and mysterious aspects of our personhood was stunted, shamed and through religious dogma or family culture, often taken away. The opposite of curiosity is judgment, which explains why so much sexual behavior that we don’t understand is not really questioned as much as it is judged. It also explains how so many people get to a place where they deeply believe that there is only one way to have sex—the way they know, which is a guaranteed path to sexual disappointment.
Become Sexually Creative
Education, erotic and otherwise, is only possible for a mind that is open. Being open to learning about the countless ways there are to express and experience your sexuality is a creative act, perhaps one of the most procreative aspects of living in a human body. This does not mean that you give up your values or relinquish all your boundaries to have better sex, but it does mean that the view gets more expansive.
Creativity is another rung on the ladder of curiosity and it is the opposite of being narrow-minded. Making something new out of what is in front of you when it comes to our sexuality can be as simple as paying closer attention and being more present. These practices don’t apply only to your sexuality, and in fact the more you begin to employ wonder and expansive thinking to what you eat, what you wear, and who you spend time with, the more that your sexual life will bloom alongside the rest of your life.
Too often we sequester our sexual life as something unique and distinct from the rest of who we are. Our sexuality is a mirror into the way we live. Being more creative and open minded about your entire day will change what happens in your bedroom.
Look for Sex Education, Not Sex Entertainment
Using sexual entertainment as a guide for a better sex life is like eating junk food as a primary source of nutrition. A little sex entertainment can be fun, like the occasional hit of junk food, but it isn’t education or nutrition. Sex entertainment can add a little spice to a sex life that is already open and curious, but it is not curative when you are stuck in a place of judgment and fear.
There are so many incredible resources for real sex education in video, books, and virtual and live therapy and counseling that there is no excuse not to seek out real help. Some of the most memorable and important moments of my life happened in a therapist’s office, in part because when I got there, I was truly curious and interested in learning how to think differently so my mind was totally open.
Even in the most distressing moments of recognizing how we have made our own boxes that limit our life experience, there is the light of education that cuts away at what has kept us from our best life, our best self.
Learning about our passionate and erotic impulses is a curative, maturing and freeing education that will not only bring more pleasure and aliveness to your nights, but will trade the limits of your judgments for the light of curiosity through your days.
Wendy Strgar, founder and CEO of Good Clean Love, is a loveologist who writes and lectures on Making Love Sustainable, a green philosophy of relationships which teaches the importance of valuing the renewable resources of love, intimacy and family. In her new book, "Love that Works: A Guide to Enduring Intimacy," she tackles the challenging issues of sustaining relationships and healthy intimacy with an authentic and disarming style and simple yet innovative advice. It has been called "the essential guide for relationships." The book is available on ebook. Wendy has been married for 27 years to her husband, a psychiatrist, and lives with their four children ages 13-23 in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
