Dr. Cheryl Fraser on Deeper Sex and Intimacy
The opening move toward mindful sexuality has nothing to do with bodies yet, which might sound strange. What it asks for is simpler and harder: slow down, and quiet yourself. Quiet the talking, and quiet the running commentary inside your head as far as you can manage. Minds that haven't been trained will keep doing what untrained minds do, wandering off, but the practice is to settle the mind enough that I can actually meet you here, in this specific moment.
When does that come easily? Usually at the start. Dating, the early rush of falling for someone, all of it arrives with so much excitement that attention takes care of itself. You are at some packed restaurant, leaning in, catching every word, and the rest of the room disappears. It becomes just the two of you. So the capacity is already there; we're wired for it.
What happens later is that the pull fades. Boredom creeps in, you decide you already know most of what there is to know about the person across from you, and that sense of familiarity lets the mind float off somewhere else. Bringing your full presence back into this moment, right now, is the whole first step. There's a lot more that could be taught around it, but I'll leave it there for the moment.
The second step is more of an assignment, something to take home and push yourself with. I call it exploring the entire range of sexuality and sensuality, the full palette of it. Here's one way in that many people reading this will already recognize, since a fair number of you probably meditate.
I believe Jon Kabat-Zinn was the one who introduced the raisin exercise, though I can't swear he invented it. He's just the first person I heard it from. You may have done it yourself. It tends to happen at a retreat. Someone hands you a single raisin, you set it in your open palm, and the instruction is plain.
You begin by looking at it. Really looking. I'd never studied a raisin closely before I tried this, and most people haven't. Then you roll it between your fingers and feel the texture, the ridges and bumps, where it's firm and where it gives. All of this much slower than I can convey while talking about it.
Next you put it in your mouth, but you don't bite. You just rest it on your tongue and pay attention to any taste, to the texture again, maybe moving it around a little. Only after a while do you let it sit between your teeth and bite down, and then comes this flood of flavor. For some people the whole thing stirs up images of vineyards, of sun, of a grape drying and shrinking into this small wrinkled thing. It turns into a deeply sensual few minutes, and the only reason is that you slowed down and gave something your complete attention.