Weekly Training: Creating Sexual Polarity and Tension

All right, welcome to the mantalk Show. Hope you are all doing well. Today we're going to talk about maintaining polarity in a time of high contact. So I've been getting this question a lot over the pandemic from various people through Instagram, through the podcast, in the men's groups. And somebody recently asked me the question, how can my partner and I maintain sexual intimacy and sexual desire and our sexual polarity in a time where we just seem to be in constant contact? And this seems to be the case for a lot of people. And at the very beginning of the pandemic, probably a couple months in, my wife had posted a poll to see.

How has your sex life been impacted through being on lockdown with one another? It was very interesting. A lot of people said that their sex life had been impacted in the sense that they were having less sex because they're just constantly around one another. For some people, it hadn't changed at all. And for others, they were having more sexual. And so I wanted to just quickly talk about this idea of polarity, what it is, very briefly, and then talk a little bit about some of the sort of logistical ways that you can maintain and elevate that kind of polarity within your relationship, especially being around one another constantly. And then finally, I want to end off by giving you some very specific exercises and things that you can do in your relationship with your partner to elevate that level of sexual intimacy and polarity. And these are things you can do. You know, you don't have to be in a relationship if you're just dating somebody and you're sexually active with them. This can be something great to explore also to make sure that it's a good fit in that realm of the relationship. So let's dive in. Let's get started. So the first thing that I want to talk about is the idea of polarity. And in many ways, polarity is just the sort of property of having opposing poles or being polar. And so all of this means is that we sort of move in different directions, that we occupy a kind of different, energetic space. Right. You can think about that through north and south. In work, like David Data puts out, he talks a lot about masculine, feminine dynamics or yin and yang. And these are just sort of the opposing forces of force versus surrender or direction versus fall, following in some way. And for all of us in sex, we want to feel a certain way. We want to experience sex in a very specific way. Maybe we want to feel powerful, maybe we want to feel submissive. Maybe we Want to feel like we are leading or we are being led. Maybe we want to feel worshiped. Maybe we want to feel sexualized or pursued or chased or rejected or, you know, embarrassed. I mean, there's just a. There's a wide range of things that we want to feel when we are sexually connected to our partner. And the important thing here is that we start to come into contact with an awareness, with what we individually want to experience. And so you might want to just pause and ask yourself that question. And if you're, you know, watching this or listening to this with your partner, you can again ask, pause and ask yourself and get your partner to ask them themselves this question of how do you want to feel during sex? How do I want to feel during sex? And this can give you a sense of where the polarity is, because for some of us, we don't know, right? Some people have never asked that question. They're like, well, I just want to feel good. You know, I just want to. I just want to feel good. But for others, it's like, well, I want to feel connected, you know, I want to feel loved. I want to feel safe, you know, and to really start to flush that out. Because as you do that, what you'll find is that maybe there's a discrepancy about how each of you are wanting to feel, right? If both of you are wanting to feel connected, or if one of you is wanting to feel submissive, but both of you are occupying that space, it's going to reduce the polarity. And there's a number of things that happen in relationships that can start to diminish that quality of polarity. And again, polarity here is, you know, sexually, we're kind of talking about power. And I think one of my favorite quotes in this area is by Oscar Wilde. He said, everything in life is about sex except for sex. Sex is about power. And I've always loved that quote. Because when you look at how many people, not all, obviously, but how many people want to feel sexually in relationship, there is a quality of how they want to feel that's in relationship to power. So maybe they want to feel empowered, Maybe they want to feel conquered. Maybe they want to feel conquering, right? And so a lot of these words and adjectives and verbs that we put around how we want to feel sexually can sometimes be in relationship to power. And that's what can create the polarity. Now, this doesn't always mean that if we want to feel powerful, that our partner needs to, uh, you know, or if we want to feel like we're in control or that we're dominant, that our partner needs to feel submissive? That's not the case at all. It's that we start to get a little bit more intricate and into the nuances of how we want to feel. So, for example, if you say that you want to feel powerful or dominant during sex, that's how you want to feel? Go further into that. Start to see, well, what are some of the nuances in that? Like, do I want to be giving direction? Do I want to verbally be commanding my partner? Do I want to feel powerful in the sense that I would like to tie my partner up? Like, what does it actually look like for you to feel dominant or powerful in the relationship? And on the other side, if you're wanting to feel safe, if you're wanting to feel connected, if you're wanting to feel loved, what is. What does it actually look like? What does it mean for you to feel connected and loved and safe within the dynamic? Does that mean that you want to be held a certain way? Is that when you mean you want to be looked at a certain way, does that mean that you want to breathe a certain way or be touched a certain way or kissed a certain way? And so to start to explore that, we'll give a little bit more nuance for you and your partner in creating the polarity. Now, the important piece is that once we have that information, we can bring that out to the rest of our relationship, right? I think the wonderful thing, I don't remember who I heard say this, but somebody much wiser than myself said that foreplay begins when we wake up in the morning. And I think it was in reference to how most women's sex drive and arousal. Sexual arousal is predicated on not just an in the moment experience, but rather is an experience that happens and expands over time. And that really does start in the morning. And it starts with how we interact, and it starts with how we connect, and it starts with how we communicate and ultimately those different pieces. So we want to be conscious of bringing some of these pieces not just into the bedroom, but into our interactions throughout the household. So the second part that I want to talk about when creating a little bit more sexual tension, as I'm going to continue to call it, or polarity, I like the idea of tension because, you know, we've all felt that kind of. I mean, maybe not all of us, but many of us have felt that kind of sexual tension with somebody where we're very aroused. We're Very turned on by them, where we feel, feel a deep draw to them. And that tension is a result of oftentimes us getting out of our comfort zone. So the second part of this, after we start to define what will evoke that polarity and that tension within our relationship with our partner, we can start to really explore getting out of our comfort zone. A lot of the challenges that are happening right now within people's relationships and sex lives is that they are around one another constantly. And we've gotten into these ruts, we've gotten into these grooves. You know, it's like it's Wednesday night and, you know, it's 7 o' clock and it's time to watch Jeopardy. I don't know. I'm giving that example, you know, maybe because Alex Trebek passed recently and that's been sort of all over the place. But, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to poo poo on your Jeopardy Watching, but we get into these grooves, we get into these trenches where we are comfortable with our partner and we have this routine and sex sort of gets fit in there somewhere. And so what I'm encouraging you to do is just, you have to be willing to get out of that comfort zone, to leave that comfort zone and to know that some of this, as you explore it, is going to be naturally uncomfortable because it might be foreign to how you normally operate. So number three is how we can sort of naturally create more tension, more polarity with our partner during these times of quarantine is by creating some natural distance. Now, that can mean that once a week you plan to go for a hike out in nature or spend an afternoon by yourself and leave the home, depending on where you are. But to do that in a way that feels good for you, but to create some natural space where you are away from your partner and whether you're alone, whether you are out with friends, but to really prioritize that in a way that feels good for you so that you are creating a bit of space and distance, even if that means, you know, going for a walk around the blog, around your neighborhood for a few hours and listening to a podcast or, you know, doing something, getting physical, the next piece. And the reason why this is important before I move on is that we need to maintain a sense of sovereignty. We need to maintain a sense of independence. Because when we are just constantly inundated with connection with our partner, we can begin to erode that quality of independence that we feel internally again. We can just sort of fall Back into this place of feeling dependent on our partner, or like, they just know everything that's happening and there's no mystery. And part of the tension that we want sexually in our dynamics with our partners is that there is some mystery. You know, there is some nuance, there is some unknown, and. And that. That can be incredibly arousing for a lot of people. The next piece is to come into contact with your own desire. And there's really. I'm going to tie this into the next one, which is to remind your partner and see your partner as a sexual being. Now, this, again, can be challenging when some people have spent a lot of time at home around their partner in sweatpants, in pajamas, just, like, rocking out in the comfy clothes for months on end. And that, over time, can diminish the sort of, like, sexual appeal that we have for our partner. And I want to just encourage you to bring a little bit of sexual objectification, give yourself permission in a healthy way, in a way that feels good for you and your partner. But to bring back a little bit of that sexual, maybe not objectification. I mean, maybe if that's. If that's what fits into your relationship, that might feel. Definitely feel great, right? Maybe how you want to feel during sex is objectified. But to bring back some of that, viewing your partner as a sexual entity, viewing your partner as a sexual being, and to let yourself feel that arousal, to feel your own desire and to come back into, oh, yeah, like, I really am attracted to this person. And if that is challenging, to have a conversation with your partner and say, you know what? I'd like to prioritize this. I want to spend the next week doing what we need to do in order to view each other as sexual beings again. So what would you need from me, and what do I need from you in order to allow that to be possible? And maybe that means, you know, putting on cologne again, you know, maybe for the first time in a year. Maybe that means, you know, going and get a haircut or, like, trimming the hedges down south. I mean, there could be a number of things that have just sort of gotten in the way of you being or them being seen as a sexual being in your relationship. So take care of those pieces, have that conversation. The next one is to use touch, use look, use innuendo as a form of reignition. All right, so start to play around, and there's some really great resources for this, but start to play around with reengaging with your partner in a sexual way. So once you feel that sexual desire. You see your partner as a sexual being. You can start to re. Engage in touching them on the parts of their body that you know might bring arousal. And just in passing, right? Maybe they're in the kitchen, maybe they're walking past you in the hallway and. And you just give them that look. You stay connected to your sexual desire. You feel that in your body and you let that press out and emanate out so that your partner can see it. And this can work magic. I know I had a couple that I was working with a few weeks ago and I said, practice this and I encouraged.

The guy that I was working with to let himself feel that desire and then view it through his eyes. And the couple came back on in the next session and, and she said, you know, this incredible thing happened. I was just walking down the hallway and I looked up and caught his eye and I felt like he was eye fucking me. Like I felt like he was really giving me the up and down and I felt like I hadn't seen that in like a year and a half. So bring in some. I'm going to just say this because it's kind of cheesy, but it's amazing. Bring in some eye fucking contact. Eye contact can be one of the most important aspects to sexual desire and sexual connection and to polarity because it allows us to feel our desire to feel that connection and to emanate that out through our partner. So in many ways the eyes are the portal for that polarity and they are the portal for our partners witnessing that, that tension, that polarity within us, that desire, that sort of hunger within us. The other thing that I want to say, and that's again, the one that I just said is a little bit more on the tactical side. The other very specific exercises that I'd encourage you to maybe integrate are using what you got. So maybe that means that you sexed your partner, right? You send some sexy text messages. You're on your walk and you send some sexy text messages about how great they looked that morning or what you'd like to do later or you know, what you, what you miss experiencing with them. Or maybe you do that from the other room, right? Maybe it's an experience where you're like you're in the bedroom and you just start messaging them. So use, use what you've got around the home in your experience to create some of that tension with your partner. The next two things I'm going to say is one, do something new and seemingly extraordinary. So start to push the Edge a little bit. You've got this space year round. Maybe you have a little bit more space around the house. Shut off the tv, invite your partner to the bedroom and explore something new. Now, you might want to have a conversation before this unfolds, but explore something new. Maybe you order a certain toy or an outfit, or, you know, maybe you've been talking about exploring, you know, tying one another up and seeing what that feels like, or whatever the case may be. But agree to explore something new. Push your edge just a little bit. As research shows, when we explore new things with, with our partner, we fall more in love with them. And so one of the nice aspects of this is that when we do that sexually, it can be quite liberating, it can be quite connective, it can really build the intimacy, but it also requires a good amount of vulnerability. So realize where you're at in order to explore some of these things and where your partner's at. Make sure you're not pushing one another too far past where the goal posts are. The next exercise that you can try, which is kind of a fun one, is have a pillow talk session. And a pillow talk session is essentially, and I'm going to lay this out a little bit, you can modify it however you want based on your relationship, but a pillow talk session is you can just lay naked, skin to skin in bed with one another and either eyes open and connected, right, looking at one another, or eyes closed and just sort of feeling it in the body. Whichever one feels right for you, you can choose individually, begin to talk about what you'd like to do to the other person or have the other person do to you, or how you'd like to feel with the other person and how you'd like them to feel with you and start to explore that. It's almost like a little bit of like sexual storytelling. And you know, this can be awkward at first, it can be cumbersome. There might be some laughs in there where it's like, that's not what I expected you to say. But explore this, Explore this. Stay connected. We underestimate how infrequently we have just pure skin to skin contact in a sensual way. When you think about your relationship and this, you know, Vienna and I, especially Vienna, has worked with enough, enough people to really speak to this. But even myself, I've worked with quite a few couples where I've just said, when was the last time that you were just naked together and not having sex? When was the last time you were naked together and not having sex? So get naked together, lay down in bed or on the couch and have some sexual conversations about what you want to explore, what you want to feel, what you want to do. And notice if arousal can emerge in that moment. Notice if it brings a certain type of tension and polarity in that moment. Just as you're talking about that, so these are some of the experiences that you can try. I would encourage you to share this with your partner if you enjoyed it. You know, future future partner or current partner, maybe something that you save for later. But comment either on Instagram or on the video below on YouTube and let me know how you enjoyed this episode. If you're tuning in on the podcast, don't forget to rate and review and share this episode with a person that you think would enjoy it. So until next week, this is Connor Beaden signing off.