Whatever its form of expression, sexuality is, above all, a nourishing experience. But the paradigm of traditional penetration can represent a very conditioned and narrow vision of what sexuality should be, and this can lead to a limited and repetitive sex life. Feeling the pleasure of the senses in full does not necessarily require an act of penetration…
From the series of Élise Di interviews to Christian from La Casa Dorada.
ÉLISE: Is sex without penetration really sex?
CHRISTIAN: Whatever its form of expression, sexuality is, above all, a nourishing experience. During an intimate encounter, between two (or more) people, a whole chemical reaction is put into action. A chemistry perfectly adapted to our physical and psychic health.
Thanks to the secretion of wellness hormones (oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine), our body, like a pharmaceutical laboratory, will compensate for a possible lack, exactly where we need it. It is thanks to caressing, kisses and sensuality in general that this mechanism is put into action. With or without penetration, sexuality in itself is a source of many benefits and vitality.
Also, sexuality is to be fully felt, present and attentive to the messages that the body sends us. Very often, we are 90% in the mind, and not so connected with our bodily sensations. Feeling the pleasure of the senses in full does not necessarily require an act of penetration.
For men, sexual satisfaction comes through an orgasm, an orgasm that is systematically accompanied by ejaculation.
He locks himself into the triad: too much energy – penetration – orgasm/ejaculation.
It’s important to keep in mind too that penetration is not necessarily a penis penetrating a vagina. Fingers, tongue, sextoys can also create penetration. It can be vaginal, but also anal or oral, and in this case, the man as well as the woman, can be the penetrator or the penetrated.
The paradigm of traditional penetration can represent a very conditioned and narrow vision of what sexuality should be and this can lead to a limited and repetitive sex life.
Very often, things can change after the “honeymoon” period, the first 3-6 months of a relationship where we live this phase of mutual sexual ecstasy. We may only see in the other, a way to release tension. We end up “using” the other and no longer honouring them.
Women grow tired of a sexuality of “friction“. Very often, she will not dare to tell her partner because she has not been educated to express her desires and needs.
Little by little, we make little or no love at all. Women grow tired of a sexuality of “friction”. She no longer wants to watch a film when she knows the ending of thousands of times.
The woman experiences this act as implicitly accepted without really being able to give her opinion, her consent. There is not a clear “YES” on her part to be penetrated. Very often, she will not dare to tell her partner because she has not been educated to express her desires and needs.
In the same way, many men have not been educated to have other sources of pleasure than penetration and ejaculation.
Sex without penetration requires listening, and being more creative and inventive.
And there is no judgment to be made for either of these. Again, this is a new education to be established. We live in a society where sexual education is biased by a very limited approach within the family and at school, meaning this education often takes the form of pornography.
During an act of intense penetration one is often led, directed, overwhelmed by sexual energy. We are less attentive to the subtle messages that the body sends us.
And it is in the practice of sex without penetration that a new learning about pleasure can reside. Where sensuality, in the strict sense, is at the heart of the encounter. One is then attentive to the discourse of the body and the reciprocal desires.
Sex without penetration requires listening, and being more creative and inventive.
ÉLISE: Perhaps the problem also lies in the fact that sexuality is not experienced in the same way for a man as for a woman?
CHRISTIAN: Absolutely! The modern woman often wants to keep her vagina as a sacred place. She no longer enters sexuality just because a man solicits it. She needs to be desired, to feel honoured and not used.
For his part, the man often has to face an emergency, an imperious need to release pressure and tension, which leaves him little room to take his time to honour the woman, to really desire her.
For the Taoists, sexual energy does not circulate in the same way for men and women. For women, it goes from the heart to the genitals, while for men it goes from the genitals to the heart.
This is why it is important that each partner is aware of this inversion of the flow and takes it into consideration. It is up to the man to touch the woman in her heart, it is up to the woman not to neglect the pressure the man has.
Until the man has done the work of appropriating and controlling his energy, he is dominated by her. Because no one has educated him, no one has told him how to do it. He built his sex life based on experience, thinking he was doing the right thing.
ÉLISE: A recommendation to reach a new kind of sexual fulfilment?
CHRISTIAN: Yes, for couples who are no longer living a fulfilling sexuality, I recommend to stop using the penetrative sex for a certain period of time. I teach them techniques of massage, caressing, and orgasmic meditation. Very quickly they have again, a strong need to reconnect after this avalanche of exacerbated sensation. They learned consciousness, presence, slowness, to breathe together… And in short time changes the way of getting intimate with each other.
For her part, the woman, at the beginning of the relationship, may find it reassuring to see that the man is not in this pressing need to use her to evacuate its overflow of energy.
It can also happen that the non-penetrative sex finds its interest at the beginning of the relation. Especially for man suffering from erection problems due to condom use. For men, the condom is like saying, “I am protecting myself from you, you are protecting yourself from me” and from that statement, there is a great doubt, a mistrust. Into the manhood, doubt is not something favorable for exercising his virility, for being in his full potentiality and power.
