How to Be a Great Lover: Sexual Presence, Extension and Receptivity by Felice Newman

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Google the title of this article, "how to be a great lover," and you'll come up with 20,000 hits, many for a popular sex guide of the same title, and others linking to online dating advice and other commercial sites. Some of the advice you'll find is very good; much is gimmicky or dubious at best.

This article explores a somatic approach to answering that age-old question. As a sex educator, I am more than happy to enlarge your repertoire of sexual techniques and your store of sexual knowledge. I engage in basic sex education with clients on a regular basis. But in this article, I want to explore a few of the foundational principles of a somatic approach to sex coaching.

How do you cultivate a quality of touch that makes your partners feel like you're really seeing them? No one wants to be thought of as merely going through the motions. Nor does anyone want to be seen as a "slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am" hit-and-run driver. Whether you are touching your partners with your hands, your mouth, your penis, or a sex toy, what are the qualities that will have your partners feel that they have been touched by your spirit as well?

The first quality is presence. Presence is the physical embodiment of your you-ness. It's that quality that lets someone feel your aliveness in a room before they can see or hear you. Your presence can be felt by others as open, curious, listening, playful, sparkling, seductive, outpouring with love, or full-bodied with deep resonances. It can also be felt as laser-like in single-minded focus, scattered, shut down, collapsed, angry, untouchable, defensive or intractable. To some degree, you can shape your presence by your intention. You can pause before a first kiss, touch, or entry: Who do you want to be in this moment? What quality of your you-ness do you want your partner to be met with?

Your ability to do this, however, is dependent upon a larger kind of shaping, one that you cultivate over a lifetime. The quality of self with which you greet the world—as you do your job, run your errands, feed your kids—shows up in the bedroom, too. If you are shut down or unteachable 23 hours of the day, can you expect to project a quality of openness or loving spirit in the hour you've set aside for loving touch? Somatic coaching can help you cultivate a centered presence, one in which you are open to others, connected to what you deeply care about, and able to access feelings and sensations.

Next is the quality of extension. Extension is sending our presence outward. We are great energy transmitters, continuously beaming our selves into the world. Some of us have a quiet presence that's felt as a gentle stirring in the air. Others of us are said to have a "big" presence that's felt as a great gust of wind enlivening the atmosphere.

Extension is how you transmit your intentions. You can extend your presence so that your partner "feels" your touch powerfully—regardless of how gently you may press, squeeze, caress, or thrust. Imagine your sexual energy as a force moving through you, one you can direct. Imagine your finger or your penis as a hose through which energy flows. Now imagine directing that energy, and specifically, directly the quality of that energy. Do you want to produce a gentle healing presence? Do you want your energy to hit hard? Are you wanting to create new sensations or intensify sensations that are already there? You can extend vigorously without overreaching or overwhelming your partner. You can cultivate extension by consciously observing how others respond to your presence.

Next comes receptivity. Remember when popular sex guides referred to the "active partner" and the "passive partner"? That tired notion was laid to rest by the Good Vibrations Guide to Sex more than a dozen years ago. Receptivity is anything but passive. Receptivity is an energetic quality—it isn't necessarily about who's doing what to whom.

In fact, you even can be receptive while you are touching your partner. How? Well, you can open to your partner, listening for his or her responses, which will speak to you through pulsations, changes in temperature, muscular contractions, and release of bodily fluids.

In receptivity, you practice being with yourself while being with another, which is the basis of intimacy. When you are receiving touch, you can meet your partner's presence with your own. Imagine locating your "self" just under your partner's touch, in the soft folds of your labia and clitoris, on the shaft and glans of your penis, in the cool expanse of skin on your buttocks. Energetically, you can reach out toward that touch, just as you physically reach out by moving toward the source of pleasure. There is an element of extension in receptivity. You can cultivate receptivity by being open and inviting of the pleasures of the senses.

I help my clients cultivate these qualities of centered presence, extension, and receptivity in the service of their goals for our work together. It's not so important to me that my clients become expert center-ers, or aces at extension, or virtual bowls of receptivity. What matters to me is that they have the sex lives that make them feel really, truly happy. Practicing the qualities of extension, receptivity, and a centered presence will help them achieve that.