One of my first conscious sexuality teachers, Katrina Bos, has said: “There are 88 keys on a piano. If those 88 keys are the entire spectrum of sexuality, most of us only ever experience five keys.”
I don’t know about you, but I can’t live a life where 83 notes of pleasure go unplayed. I’m in this body to experience everything that’s possible!
One of the ways we can experiment with feeling the full expanse of what sex has to offer is to switch our channel.
In Somatic Experiencing, we learn about the five elements of any given experience: sensation, image, behavior, affect, and meaning (SIBAM).
Sensation is what you’re actually feeling in your body. A heat, a tingling, a pulsation, the wetness of your lover’s tongue, electricity up your spine.
Image is what you’re seeing in your mind’s eye. You might see you lover; you may have a fantasy that’s a guaranteed route to org*sm. You might have visions or see the cosmos.
Behavior is your impulse to move, to shift, to speak, to sound.
Affect is emotion. A feeling of love, joy, frustration, grief.
Meaning is the meaning we make. We can make meanings before, during and after sex—about ourselves, the act, and our partners. These meanings might be intuitive hits or cognitive awarenesses.
The more of these elements we can open up to, the fuller our experience will be.
We’re a very image-based society, and most of us are raised on pornography---meaning many of us get stuck in the image channel. From this space, it can be harder to feel our bodies, harder to access our emotions during sex. We might have to envision a certain scenario to access pleasure.
To work with this, try slowing sex and self-pleasure down. Work with an intention of feeling more sensation in your body. This might feel frustrating at first. Our brains and bodies love the quickest route to orgasm and you've likely been working your pattern for years.
Another worthwhile channel to play with is behavior. How might you truly follow your impulse during sex and self-pleasure? We tend to put sex in a tiny box. How might it feel to get more primal? To follow the urge to grit your teeth, snarl, or bite? (With consent, of course.) How might it feel to really let go into crying or wailing?
When you can switch your channel more adeptly, you move toward more expansive, all-encompassing, full-body states of pleasure.
Which channel do you spend the most time in? Which one feels edgy to move toward?
If you’d like to explore more in-depth in a session, and begin to shift your sexual patterns, please reach out via the form on this page. I offer online sessions via Zoom, and in-person sessions in Boulder, CO.