Show me a busy, productive person and I’ll show you someone who will, at some point, be tempted to have goal-oriented sex. Goal-oriented sex often looks like checking sex off your to-do list for the week after one quickie, deciding that only sex that includes orgasms “counts,” or dismissing all acts except for penetration as foreplay. These ideas are easy to fall into because they are constantly fed to us by our goal-oriented culture, but they can leave your sex life lackluster. There’s only one goal you need in the bedroom, and that’s pleasure.
Learning About Pleasure
Sometimes, aiming for an orgasm from the beginning is the enemy of pleasure. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true. If you want to enjoy something, you aren’t thinking about the end and how to finish up as quickly as possible—that is how you treat chores, meetings, or anything you dread. Sex is something that, when it’s pleasure-centered, will be something you want to play with, get creative, and extend.
Changing your mindset from what gets you off to what turns you on can be groundbreaking. When enjoying the process is the goal, moving from a repetitive routine to exploration is natural.
Even if you think you’ve tried everything, chances are, you haven’t. Most people fall into a rut, whether in their partnered sex life or masturbation routine. Varying what you do can help you learn about yourself, and you may discover a new favorite way to touch yourself or be touched. You might realize the absolute maximum number of orgasms you can have, or you might find out how long you can last before reaching climax after edging.
Resisting the Urge to Put Pleasure on Repeat
You know when you’re streaming a show and if you’ve watched for a while it will hit you with the “are you still watching?” It’s a prompt to commit to bingeing or find a new activity, and it would be nice if our sex toys or partners or hands had the same prompt if we had sex the same way too many times.
If you feel like you’re running out of ideas, think about every aspect you could change. Could you change the setting where you have sex or masturbate? Doing it on your balcony in the middle of the night can feel daring, but even having sex on the couch can add a level of urgency that you haven’t experienced in a while.
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Getting into exploration and experimentation mode can completely redefine pleasure for you and your partner. Try seeing how slowly you can have sex or touch yourself, or which is the lightest amount of pressure that gives you pleasure. When you’ve found the extremes of pleasure that you enjoy the most, try a different mechanism. Look up different oral sex techniques to try on your partner, experiment with temperature, bring in a sex toy. Maybe it’s time to try the well-documented pleasurable areas of nipples or pegging and prostate play. If you typically watch porn, try audio erotica or fantasizing out loud instead.
If there comes a time when you feel like you’re running low on ideas, fill out a yes/no/maybe list. You don’t need a partner for this activity—you can complete one on your own. Think of it as a sexual bucket list, where you can check off things you’ve done and map out what you want to experience next. If you complete this with your partner, find the overlap where you both have answered “yes” to the activities to find what you’d be interested in doing together.
Getting Creative
Feel like you’re at a dead-end? It might be time to work with a professional. Contact me for a free consultation when you’re ready.
Bio: Dr. Nazanin Moali is a clinical psychologist and sex therapist in the Los Angeles area. She works with various individuals to understand and improve their sexuality. Dr. Moali conducts personal consultation sessions in her Torrance and Hermosa Beach offices, or via a secure, online video-counseling platform. Click here to take the sex quiz for women.