The Secret to the Best S_x You Will Ever Have

[ An article about pleasure and nervous system regulation, along with a critique of Esther Perel’s key argument in 'Mating in Captivity' ]

This is my first full post on Substack! 😊 I really hope you are not receiving it error – I did my best to consolidate my email list – but I apologise in advance if something fell through the cracks! 🙏

{ For those who prefer to listen, here’s a recording of the article below: }

The Preamble (“You tease!”)

You may want to jump to the “secret”, but first, a little preamble… (I’m a terrible tease, or so I’ve been told!) 😉

I’ve been writing a book for the past year and a half. It’s called Feminism Will Make a Man Out of You! (Stay tuned on Substack as I’ll be sharing extracts and chapters here over the coming weeks and months).

Using a rare sports analogy, for me, it’s a book of two halves: disconnection and (re)connection.

In the first half, I make the argument for patriarchy being a form of disconnection. Building on my training with Gabor Maté, I argue that patriarchy is the first or original trauma inflicted on boys and men to cut us off from our emotional and feeling selves (in this society, being sensitive and empathic are not traits typically valued in a man!). There’s even something about death as the ultimate disconnect – a call to remember that this is the one-and-only life we get to live.

Through sharing my story, the second half then explores how I learnt to reconnect, firstly with myself, before then learning to connect with others. It’s the journey of going from the shy, awkward introvert I once was, to the sex worker and intimacy, dating & relationship coach I am today.

And this is the theme of one of the chapters I’ve been working on; the secret to the best sex you will ever have!

Because in this past year, I have experienced more pleasure than I ever knew possible!

It’s as though my capacity to feel pleasure has expanded exponentially – and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how and why this could be so.

I’d love to know what you think and if this resonates for you in any way.

The Set-up & the Secret

The set-up goes like this…

In our Western culture, sexual satisfaction is framed as an external want, that becomes infused into our nervous system to become an internal need.

Our wants become confused with both our internal psychological needs and our physiological responses.

That’s how capitalism works!

We feel internal discomfort—a tension or contraction—that we want to release. And luckily, the product we need to help us get rid of that discomfort is just a click away.

So it’s interesting to answer the question: What is the secret to the best sex you will ever have…? Because the answer is not very sexy or titillating, and it’s certainly not going to lend itself to sales or turnover, which is maybe why it feels like a secret.

The secret is… Safety!

The more regulated and embodied we are, the more we can feel.

It really is that simple (though as I often say to those I work with, simple and easy are two very different things)!

I’m thinking here of bodies meeting bodies, heartbeat to heartbeat. Connected. Held.

Of course, there’s a place for crazy, earth-shaking, spontaneous, thrilling and eye-watering sex. Of course there is! But this is something different. This is something surprisingly few of us ever get to experience.

From the Other Side

Being a Libra at heart, I often find it can be illuminating to look at the opposite of a situation to understand it better.

So, I’m thinking here about the wisdom of the body when it comes to sexual dysfunction, whether that be vaginismus or erectile dysfunction.

To this end, the penis can be a surprisingly good teaching aid!

A content warning slash apology for the erect penis pic below – gratuitous, I know!

For the penis to become erect, blood needs to flow into the capillaries of the corpora cavernosa – the spongy flesh of the penis. When we’re aroused, blood expands into this sponge and is naturally trapped in place by the tunica albuginea membrane, thus keeping the penis hard.

Okay, biology lesson over.

What I’ve learnt through working with men who suffer erectile dysfunction is that – when it’s not of course a functional/ biological issue – the root of that dysfunction lies in a lack of psychological or emotional safety.

In exploring where this sense of threat comes from, in excavating the source of the contraction or fear that may lie deep in our bodies, we often find some underlying wound or trauma. It may be a wound – an internal belief – that lays deeply obscured, or it could be a trauma that gets triggered in relationship with our partner or lover.

Defining Terms

So to create a different experience, how might we create safety?

One of the most impactful things I heard Gabor Maté say in the year-long professional training I did with him, was this:

“Safety is not the absence of threat. It is the presence of connection!”

Really let that land. Re-read it, once, twice, or as many times as you need for it to hit home.

This simple yet profound definition has reverberated for me through so many areas of my life.

I would suggest connection is the process of emotional attunement, whether that be connection with self, or connection with others. And by that, I mean simply the process of attuning to, or tuning in even.

Tuning in, listening, and really hearing is a complex and under-appreciated skill. From a young age, we are taught, especially as men, that being sensitive is a problem. Even more so if we express our emotions. We’re taught to suppress our feelings and so learn to mute the two-way communication between our brain and our bodies.

Cuz that’s what this is about… Embodiment!

Emotions reside in the body. It’s in the body that we feel dysregulated, whether we understand what is happening to us or not.

Isn’t it interesting the number of times we might say to someone, “You’re really angry about this thing!”, and receive an immediate rebuttal, replete with caps and exclamation marks…

“NO I’M NOT!”

That’s our ability (or inability in this case), to understand what emotions might be at play within us, or how to regulate ourselves.

Poly-what now?

Polyvagal Theory, as developed by Stephen Porges (and expanded into therapeutic settings by Deb Dana) offers us a way to understand the nervous system, with the bundle of nerves that connect the brain to every biologically regulating part of the body (heart, gut, kidneys, spleen, all of it) – a bundle that includes both the nerves responsible for activating our fight or flight response, our freeze or fawning states, and our ability to reconnect as parasympathetic self-regulation kicks in.

Put more simply, this is the process our bodies go through every day, and to more-or-less intensity, of activation and excitation followed by calm and repose. You have an appointment, and you miss your bus. There’s upset, annoyance, and possibly – depending on what the imagined consequences might be – even fear. But at some point, that moment is in the past and long forgotten.

But when trauma is a foundational aspect of our lives (I’m talking little “t” trauma, not big “T” PTSD Trauma we see in the movies), we tend not to be aware of the extent to which an activated nervous system is part of our background day-to-day existence.

So it’s understandable that defensiveness is such a go-to reaction. The need to protect ourselves. To make ourselves feel safe.

And that’s where Esther Perel comes into this because if you’ve read her wildly successful book, you might remember that she claims safety is a problem in long-term relationships.

So, let’s take a look at that…

A Critique of Esther Perel’s “Mating in Captivity”

In many ways, Perel’s Mating in Captivity is a classic, bringing discussions of desire and sexuality into the mainstream.

If I hyperbolise her argument, Perel believes that intimacy is the death knell of desire. In presenting a number of convincing case studies, she argues that the spark of sexual desire in long-term relationships comes from not knowing too much about our partners – not being too familiar or comfortable with them. She claims that long-term relationships become sexless because of too much familiarity and too much safety!

With another nod to Gabor, I believe it has more to do with the tension between Attachment & Authenticity.

It goes like this. In any relationship, there is a tension that revolves around whether we are able to share our authentic selves, at the risk of causing conflict or being rejected by our partners, or choosing to protect the relationship to ensure we don’t risk the primary attachment in our lives.

Because to be authentic, speak our truth and share our emotional inner world often feels fraught with risk. The deeper we move into an established connection, the more we tend to protect the relationship by hiding ourselves.

How often have minor irritations gone unspoken in preference of a quiet life, only to find resentment in its wake?

We choose not to put our attachments at risk, and close ourselves down (classic people-pleasing behaviour that).

We keep ourselves safe, at the expense of true intimacy.

Connection requires vulnerability. There’s comfort in familiarity and routine, for sure, but if we’re not sharing our inner worlds with each other, we’re simply not connected.

What Perel describes is a relational merging – where two lives combine to such a degree that the sense of our autonomy is lost, where we only exist in relation to the other.

But it’s entirely possible to be relationally merged, but emotionally unavailable. A kind of surface connection becomes a cypher for genuine intimate connection, which, incidentally, does not require years of relating to establish. It’s more an embodied state of being – the ability to hold both our own emotions and each other – to be truly present to and with each other.

We know exactly where the other person is, and in that, we can find safety.

And how to we arrive at emotional attunement? Through practices of coming-in to the body: through slowing down, physical movement, and breath.

Embodied consent is a kind of relational practice. Think yoga for slutty-minded pleasure-seekers!

There’s a short exercise at the end here that may be helpful for you to explore some of these questions around safety and pleasure. 👇

An Important Aside

But if the aim is to regulate our nervous systems, especially when we’re attempting to co-regulate with each other, then we really do have to acknowledge the power dynamics that may be at play. The biggest of which may, of course, include the impacts of power structures such as patriarchy, but there are so many more.

This wonderful graphic by Kimberlé Crenshaw gives a glimpse into the complexity of how power dynamics interplay with each other.

Any imbalance of power needs to be acknowledged, or genuine safety becomes a nigh-on impossible state to achieve.

Here’s an important thing to hold on to which gets so easily lost in cultural and political discourse.

Typically, if we are in a position of power, we can’t see it!

Why would we? With that power comes accommodations that not only serve us but which we may have taken for granted.

Conversely, if you are powerless in a situation or experience your power being taken away from you, you become aware of it pretty damn quickly.

So just put a pin in that – it felt too important not to mention in this context.

Want to Experience the Secret to the Best Sex You Will Ever Have?

It’s not that anyone will be having sex, per sé, but it just so happens I’ve got a workshop coming up exploring just that! An afternoon (two hour-and-a-half sessions), the first more structured for exploring the 3 levels of communication – verbal, non-verbal, and energetic (becoming attuned to each other at a deeper level) – with the second session being more open and flowing, but still held, to drop into sensual touch and connection with each other.

Saturday 23rd November, 2:30 to 6 pm, Brighton (UK).

More info and tickets here:

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Ending With a Little Something

Here’s an exercise from Feminism Will Make a Man Out of You! It’s a useful exploration, whatever your gender or sexual orientation.

What is your experience…?

What’s your experience of safety in intimacy, sex and kink (why not)?

How do you define safety? Or better yet, how do you know – really know, in your soul, and at a deep body level – that you are safe?

The next time you find yourself in such a space, take a moment to get familiar with what that feels like in your body. It requires answering the deceptively simple question: How do you know… (that you’re safe)?

That leads then to asking yourself: When did I last (or, have I ever!) felt safety like that in physical and intimate contact with another person?

And what might it look like to bring safety and trust into the mix?

When do you know you are in connection with your partner? And what would support to achieve and maintain that connection?

My go-to’s around this are; slowing down, and experiencing pleasure for its own sake.

When we take away the pressure to get somewhere with our intimate play, we can experience the physical pleasure of what simply is in the moment. It might lead to climax and orgasm, but it makes a huge difference to take that as a goal off the table.

If there’s nowhere to get to in a hurry, then that makes slowing down easier too.

The slower we can go, the more we can feel.

The mantra I like to use, in workshops but also silently with myself when I need, is: However slow you’re going, go half. as.. slow… again….

Cuz that’s the only way you’ll be able to hear if your embodied self is in consent, allowing you to experience unfathomable levels of pleasure.

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Outro

I have a deep suspicion of anyone who tells me they have the answer. I prefer to imagine that we’re all trying to find our way to what rings true for us. So I don’t think for a moment I own the truth – I’m constantly learning.

So I’d love to know what you think. Do you agree? Disagree? What resonates for you? What experiences around safety and pleasure might you have had that either support or counter my views here? I’d love to know!

Thank you for reading!

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In Other News

My first anthology, contributing as Bear Phillips, has been released!

Sex Meets Life explores the diversity of experiences when the two meet – a brilliant idea conceived by Anna Sansom, bringing together stories of sex and disability, sex and ageing, sex and the trans experience, sex and the menopause… 15 authors bringing insight into how sex has impacted their lives in often unexpected and extraordinary ways.

https://sexmeetslife.com/

My own contribution explores the liberatory and life-changing power of sex when held by another with awareness and deep presence.

In reading through the final manuscript, I felt so touched by the common humanity that connects us all.

Here’s the Amazon link if it calls you…