Dealing With A Low Sex Drive–Part 5
Have you ever seen a speaker tap a microphone that’s obviously working and ask, “Is this thing on?” That’s actually what happens with low libido men. All the physiological signs of arousal are at work but they still ask themselves, “Am I turned on?”
Men with low libido are less able to accurately estimate heartbeat, blood glucose levels and muscle contractions. This tends to create a greater disconnect between the physical signs of arousal (rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, etc.) and your subjective experience of it (“Am I turned on?”). In other words, your fires may be stoking but you can’t sense the heat.
We are going to close the gap between your physiologic response and your subjective awareness and we’re going to do it with a mirror, a hand, and a sex toy. Yes, we’re going to chart your erotic terrain. It’s only by understanding what your body responds to and how it responds that you’ll be able to pick up on its subtleties, interpret them correctly, and act on them appropriately.
In earlier posts, we saw how awareness of, respect toward, and attention to your body’s desires improves your sense of well-being. It’s no different in bed. Let’s apply the skills we learned in cultivating sensuality and make it work in the bedroom. It all starts by asking yourself the mother of all sex questions: Do I like it like this or like that?
Discovering Your Pleasure
Low libido people tend to have a one-way relationship with their bodies. They speak and their bodies listen. It’s time to switch roles. Listen and let your body speak. It has a lot to say and believe me, you’re going to love what you hear.
Your body has lots of pleasure zones. Some are obvious, some aren’t. Your job is to find out what’s hot and what’s not. There’s no better way to do that than to be, as Jerry Seinfeld once bragged, “the master of your own domain.”
Let’s say you discover your orgasms are much more powerful if you avoid directly stimulating your prostate and focus on the area slightly below it. You not only discovered something pleasurable, you gained a profound understanding of how your body works, and in turn, gained mastery over it. You’ll gain new respect (and wonder) at your body and be more willing to share it with the person you love.
Filling Yourself Out Like An Application.
The best way of ‘listening’ to your body is to ‘map out’ your hot spots. You’ll see lots of techniques in this series of posts but they’re essentially variations of a three-step process–hauling out a hand, a sex toy and asking the same question you learned in cultivating sensuality—“How can I make this more physically pleasurable?”
By understanding how your body responds to touch, pressure, temperature, moisture, positions, fantasies, and environment you will become more confident in bed. It will be easier to sense the signs of physiological arousal, act on it, and just as importantly, communicate it to your partner. Believe me, he wants to know. Knowing how to turn on a man is a gay man’s biggest turn-on.
Mapping The Goods.
A lot of men cover or avoid their body so much they’ve never actually taken a good look at their pleasure centers. It’s hard to conduct erotic cartography when you’re too embarrassed to look at the map.
So haul out a hand mirror, guys, we’re going to do a little aerial reconnaissance.
I will leave you to decide on how to conduct the guided tour of your personal landscape. The goal isn’t to become an anatomical expert as much as to familiarize yourself with the location, look and power of different joy-joy zones, from the head of your penis (where most of the sensitive nerve endings reside) to the anus to the prostate.
Use That Mirror
Look at your genitals by spreading your legs and using a mirror. Lie down on your back or sit up. Put your feet up against the walls or squat. There is no “correct” position. Explore yourself.
You’re not there to see if you like the look of your dick or ass (if you’re a lifelong practitioner of body shame it’s a safe bet you won’t), but to understand what they look like, to make them more real for you.
Just like looking at your face in the mirror gives you a sense of your personhood, looking at your undercarriage gives you a sense of your sexual self. Don’t judge; notice.
Explore with the mirror several times over the next couple of weeks. Shock and shame may dominate the first session as you’re not accustomed to seeing body parts that are almost always covered up.
It’s only in subsequent sessions that those feelings attenuate, affording you a better sense of how you’re put together. If you’re like most men, you’re going to be initially surprised by the size, shape, color and texture of different areas of your dick, ass and perineum. Some of your discoveries will be pleasing, some won’t. Try not to judge. Notice.
NEXT WEEK: Now that you have a better understanding of your landscape, let’s see what rich ores lie beneath. It’s time to test-drive your dick and ass.