After a long year of social distancing for months on end, it turns out many people have spent a lot of time to thinking about desires and what their life looks like. This is just one of the questions they have asked our resident sexologist, Jodie West.
If you’ve been getting curious about your sexuality and are uncovering some questions, we want to hear them! Send an email to hello@blissforwomen.com.au or hop into our Instagram DMs @blissforwomen and you may see an answer from Jodie in a Bliss Journal article.
Question: I haven’t figured out what I like yet when it comes to sex. How do I experiment?
The first thing I will say about knowing what you enjoy sexually and what brings you pleasure is that it is a lifelong process. Our sexuality is not set-in stone, it changes as we grow and change, evolves as we evolve.
That mindset in which we see sexuality as set-in stone is unnecessarily limiting. Health, relationships, work, if we have children, the political climate, and mental health, just to name a few can affect our sexual desires throughout our lifespan and it’s completely ‘normal’ for our sexual desires to shift.
So, what to do when you feel uncertain? Play.
Your sexuality is yours. It is important take your health, boundaries, and pleasure seriously. However, it is also important to give yourself plenty of space to play and explore your pleasure and sexuality on your own without self-judgment. Judging ourselves acts only to inhibit your libido and our sexual pleasure. The next question is how do you can quieten that judging voice inside your head?
Here are some things that can help you figure out what turns you on and excites you at any point in life:
- Read or listen to erotica. The Bliss Journal has some erotica for you to read or our Book shop as erotica books available for you to purchase. You could try Dipsea for and audio book version that you can take anywhere.
- Think about scenes from movies or TV shows that made you get horny.Your imagination is a powerful aphrodisiac and a great indication of what might work for you. What was happened in the scene that turned you on?
- Watch porn. There is are reason to like porn and to not like porn. If you are going to watch it, I recommend that you pay for your porn, as sex work is real work and to have an ethical industry we need to ensure performers are not exploited. Watching different clips can give you ideas of what turns you on and what things you might want to try. One extra point on porn remember, porn actors are professionals working on a set (unless you check out the real life porn available on Make Love Not Porn), so do not judge your sexual skills against performers.
If watching porn feels overwhelming or intimidating for you, reading or listening to erotica can feel like a more relaxed arousal journey and that is totally OK.
- Touch yourself without planning to orgasm. It might seem counterintuitive to engage in erotica self-touch and not be seeking orgasm, but it is not. When you focus on what feels good in the moment, what brings you pleasure rather than what will bring you to orgasm you give yourself space to explore the other possibilities within your own pleasure.
- Try a new toy. The Bliss shop is full of exciting and pleasurable products. One little gem is the Liberty by Lily Allen and Womanizer. This version of the Liberty was created to banish the shame that masturbation is surrounded by! Together with@lilyallenWomanizer is on a mission to wipe out the social stigma around female pleasure. This little wonder is a new type of sensation, it is not a vibrator. So even though it is likely to take you that next step to orgasm it is a totally different kind of sensation that will get you there.
- Journal your thoughts.Journaling can help you figure out what you could say to explain what brings you pleasure to your partner(s). Communicating your desires with a partner can feel intimidating writing out the things that turn you on, what you enjoy about them, and how they make you feel can help you work out how to share, to make you more comfortable.
What turned you on once may just not do it for you anymore, and that’s perfectly OK. Remember, sexuality is not set-in stone, it changes as we grow and change, evolves as we evolve. So, keep exploring and have fun.
A gentle reminder that you are always learning, unlearning, and growing in all areas of your life. Keep being curious about who you are and who you can be.
You are worth it.
Your pleasure is worth it.
