Dr. Cheryl Fraser on Deeper Sex and Intimacy
A lot of people keep their erotic life divided. The wild, uninhibited material stays in fantasy, and the tender, affectionate side gets reserved for a real partner, mostly because they were never shown how to let the two occupy the same bed. What I keep urging people toward is the opposite: letting both of those currents run together with one person.
Think of arousal on a scale from 0 to 10. Zero is no charge at all, and 10 is orgasm itself, the point of no return. As you get stimulated, you climb that scale. Somewhere around a 6, 7, or 8, you are intensely turned on, and if you simply keep doing what you are doing, the next couple of minutes will carry you over the edge.
The practice, the thing you actually cultivate, is learning to live at a 7 or 8 without tipping past it. That is a very high state of arousal, pre-orgasmic, full of pleasure and rich physical sensation, and the skill is staying there. You ride waves of that bodily delight while remaining completely present with your partner rather than racing toward the finish.
One of the older ways this gets transmitted in tantric sexuality shows up in Vajrayana Buddhism, and in some Hindu teachings I know less well; my own training is in the Vajrayana. In those traditions you often see the figures depicted with one lover straddling the other. The common image is a man with a woman seated on top of him, though all of this works just as well for same-sex couples. The straddling arrangement is chosen for a reason: it keeps the eyes meeting, keeps the hearts facing each other at the level of the heart chakra, and keeps the two joined at the genitals.
So picture an extended orgasm. Instead of 7 seconds, or 21 seconds, imagine ten minutes, or half an hour, of deep sensual and sexual joy, with your heart wide open, your mind engaged, and your gaze locked with your partner's. That is something people can begin experimenting with right away.
This is only a sketch of the practice, but it is enough to start widening the range of what sensuality can be. It brings mindfulness, presence, and a kind of heartfulness into the physical connection between two people, and it turns sex into something you build rather than something you finish.