Yesterday I read an Instagram caption that irked me so I’m going to dissect it.
It was a post that asked men to last longer in sex so that women could feel more cared for and I have a lot of feelings about this.
We’re going to talk about sex and capitalism and relationships and the patriarchy so buckle in.
What bothered me about the post was the conflation of stamina to presence. Someone lasting longer does not mean they are more attuned to your needs and this pressure of performance impacts all of us in nearly every area of our life. The expectation for intimacy to come from stamina is setting people up for disappointment. It creates unnecessary pressure and sets up an unrealistic expectation. If your partner is not attuned to your needs, their lasting longer will not make you feel closer - it will actually just have you feel less attuned for longer.
I’m also tired of people lazily referencing the gender binary but I digress.
The post compares someone lasting longer in sex to someone rolling over immediately after orgasm as two ends of a spectrum from “good” sex to “bad” sex, respectively, and these just could not be more different. Someone rolling over immediately after orgasm is an issue of priorities - orgasm centrism, which I’ll unpack in a moment. Someone rolling over immediately after sex has way more to do with the person’s character than it does with whether sex lasted 3 minutes or 3 hours. Rolling over after sex is behaviour of a disconnected partner, who is uninterested in their partners’ pleasure and is only concerned with their own getting off (sometimes people roll over after sex as a trauma response also so CONTEXT here is really important). This behaviour has implications far outside the bedroom and is a red flag of ignoring their partners’ needs in general (it is also different as a one-time occurrence after a long day versus a pattern of behaviour - the motivation and intention are important context). The lack of specificity here also implies heteronormative penetrative sex as the only avenue for pleasure. And it’s not. If a partner finishes in 3 minutes, there are many ways to ensure the other partner(s) is satisfied - we can invite oral sex, hand play, anal play and many more as foreplay or postplay. One partner finishing does not signal the end of sex and if it does, it is again an issue of character and priorities. Longer sex does not mean better sex. A partner prioritizing your pleasure does equate to better sex.
Pressure to perform negates presence. What we actually want in relationships IS presence and focusing on performance is a desire for an illusion. It is easier to be caught up in the fantasy of what longer lasting sex will look and feel like but as I’ll say 10000 times more, longer sex with an unattuned partner is not better sex - it is prolonged disconnection. We fundamentally cannot be present when we are caught up in our performance. Our perception of what sex is and should be is a mutually participated projection; performing in sex is a way to be seen as “good” and accepted. We use performance to protect from the vulnerability of sex and this performance keeps us disconnected from our actual desires. It’s like when two people say through a horrible movie because both thought that’s what the other person wanted - our desires offer so much wisdom when we trust in them instead of relying upon performance. We miss meeting in presence when we are caught up in what we think the Other expects of us. Sex only requires presence because when we are present, we are able to respond to the other persons’ body and cues and in that - it is difficult to have “bad sex”. We may have loud or awkward or messy sex where funny sounds and smells happen. With presence, attuning to the journey of pleasure, rather than the outcome, we are more able to enjoy the experience of sex.
Sometimes the lack of presence in sexuality can be a trauma response. As a survivor, I can attest to the havoc that non-presence wrecks on aligned and enjoyable sex. I have made grocery lists during sex, had out-of-body experiences and have lost feeling in my body. Connecting and protecting my body are my responsibility because my Body is mine. Having an attuned partner helps me to express my needs as they arise, instead of swallowing the dissociation and retraumatizing my body accidentally. Having evidence that I can initiate sex when I want, that I can reject my partners’ initiation without them taking it personally and that I can end sex anytime creates more space for my agency when lack of presence arises as a trauma response. Creating that evidence requires trust and openness.
Orgasm centrism is a way we are robbed of the journey of pleasure in sex. When orgasm is the goal, we miss the opportunity to play. Having orgasm as the only way to measure “good” sex creates pressure and we know from nervous system research that pressure negates presence (https://www.amazon.ca/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090). Oftentimes we can talk ourselves out of the playfulness of sex because we feel burdened with the responsibility to see it all the way through to orgasm. Sex is a beautiful opportunity to share pleasure but other people are not responsible FOR our pleasure - our partners can respond TO our pleasure but they are not responsible FOR our pleasure. There are also many reasons people may be unable to have orgasms (at all or with a partner specifically) and that doesn’t negate their sexuality. The journey of pleasure can be just as satisfying without the necessity of orgasm. Creating evidence that the pleasure without the orgasm is still connective provides an important scaffold to be able to more freely consent to all expressions of sexuality. Orgasms are a fantastic release but they are not a marker of “good” or “bad” sex - they are a natural byproduct of trust, presence and pleasure. Just as longer sex doesn’t equate to better sex, sex with or without orgasms isn’t better or worse - our experience depends on the interplay of attunement and presence. There are many ways to experience satisfaction. There are many ways to experience pleasure and orgasms aren’t necessary to be in pleasure. The expectation to have orgasm can actually get in the way of the presence required to orgasm at all.
I talk about sex a lot because it is an important context to explore our inner healing and growth. Sex is an all-encompassing experience, requiring the same presence as meditation that brings our Wholeness along: our essence, our emotions, our spirits, our physical bodies. Sex is the playground of creativity, play and imagination, bridging presence, pleasure, shame, surrender and nearly every expression of our humanity. Here we have the opportunity to intentionally bring together our Inner Child playfulness with our adult selves. We are vulnerable, loud, open and messy in sex so we can rely on the pressure of performance to stave the vulnerability in between the sheets.
Anecdotally, the primary problem in relationships is usually not performance but presence. People often say they want to spend more time with their partner but you want to spend more time with your partner doing what? Are they capable of connecting or will spending more time together just highlight your incompatibility? In relationships particularly, we often get caught up in what we think we want but it is usually not what we need. So be particular with what you do want in a relationship. Do you actually want sex to last longer or do you want your partner(s) to be more attuned to your needs? Do you actually want your partner to get a higher paying job where thy’ll be more miserable or do you want to feel supported in creating security for your family (and are there ways outside of capitalism you can find that security)?
*please support your local bookstore by ordering from them instead of supporting Jeff Bezos
Instead of going into the bedroom with expectation, we can be curious in asking of our Selves:
Are my partner(s) prioritizing my pleasure? Do they experience pleasure when I experience pleasure?
Do I feel safe to express my needs? Do I have evidence my partner(s) responds to my needs in other areas of our lives?
What are my partner(s) intention in engaging sexually? Is orgasm the goal or a shared experience?
What are my intentions in engaging sexually? Is orgasm the goal or a shared experience?
What do I need to feel cared for? What do I need to express my needs?
Is my partner concerned about my needs? Do they experience my needs as important?
Am I concerned for my partner(s) needs? Do I experience their needs as important?
How is it for me to receive pleasure? Am I able to relax enough to receive?
How is it for me to give pleasure? Do I feel excited to experience my partner(s) pleasure?
All these points can be summarized in one sentence: we are best able to connect when we are present and attuned. External markers of achievement get in the way of the presence of pleasure because we contort the situation based on our expectations instead of being present with what is. The reason we use external markers of achievement as a crutch in sex is because of capitalistic indoctrination.
Capitalism sets us up to approach sex through an achievement orientation instead of presence. Since capitalism thrives off accolade, comparative achievement (not only achievement in itself but how you achievement compares to peers) and this is the origin of orgasm centrism and pressure of performance. Even just the language of performance is dripping with capitalistic influences. The pressure of performance bypasses our humanity for our usefulness and this transcends sex - we experience this most often in our workplaces, our relationships and nearly every role we inhabit that unflinchingly requires of us. Performance is a never-ending self-fulfilling prophecy. When we only allow our persona to be seen, we become petrified of being “found out” (the root of imposter syndrome) and because we are rewarded for our persona, the performance can never end. Performance peddles false certainty that if we perform “enough”, we’ll be accepted. This ends up equating our worthiness with our usefulness and it is a trap.
When our worth is tied up in our usefulness (whether our usefulness at work or in the bedroom), our self-worth (and identity) become precarious. We became like a plastic bag blowing in the wind because everyone has a different definition of useful. The precariousness of our worth then confirms the worst fear engrained in a capitalistic culture - our disposability. The fear that if we aren’t useful, we aren’t valuable. In sex, this is equating “good” sex with lasting a certain time frame culminating in a certain way. In our work, it is associated with being a contributing member of society and ableism is embedded throughout it all. I’ll dissect that more in a post about capitalism specifically.
We are worthy because we exist. We don’t need to earn our value. Our existence is proof of our worth. Our inherent value is a gift.
Capitalism cannot justify pleasure for the sake of pleasure (which is why we commodify everything we’re interested in - especially my generation whose Uranus & Neptune are in Capricorn - in order to justify our interests, we have to demonstrate its usefulness to the system of capitalism). We have to have something to “show” for our pleasure - the same reason we take pictures of our food and snap selfies all along a trip instead of being present with our experience as it is happening. To concretize is to justify the experience. Capitalism requires grounds for non-productive “work” so having orgasm as the goal or notches on the bedpost make it tangible enough to justify.
It is the collaboration of capitalism and the patriarchy that create relationships based in transactionalism - where I use you to get what I want and vice versa. These misplaced expectations inevitability create disappointment. Where capitalism seeks to repress sexuality because it is unproductive, the patriarchy represses sexuality because pleasure is transformative. Pleasure connects us to our power centre and these systems of oppression thrive when we externalize (rather than internalize) our authority. Sex requires no authority, no priest and can bring us into altered states of consciousness. It is an expression of presence, pleasure, bridging body and spirit. Sex has no purpose other than it feels good.
Sex is revolutionary and the folks of my generation with Pluto in Scorpio, it is the place of our shadow transformation. To become fully our Selves, we have to reconcile with our pleasure. Our pleasure is good. We can enjoy pleasure for no reason other than it feels good. We are allowed to feel good. We can trust feeling good.
You deserve pleasure with no strings attached. You deserve pleasure because it feels good. You deserve to feel good. Feeling good is your birthright.