Sex In An Instant

So often people fantasize or share with me that there's someone somewhere who would be sexier, who's better in bed, who would turn them on more than their partner does. But honestly, I've seen that even with people whose partner is ostensibly pretty dang sexy. You know, I work with people of all genders who have a damn hot partner, but they don't see them that way. I've seen enough of that to realize it's not an objective situation. It's not really about your partner's sexiness quotient in the world. It's about how you see them. Hi, welcome to Sex Love Power. I'm your host, Michelle Lisenberry Christensen. This podcast is where I convene the conversations about love and sex that help powerful women and those who love them to create the intimacy and intensity they really want in bed and in life. Together, we navigate the tensions between our desire and our devotions, between our wildness and our security with our eyes wide open. This podcast is designed to help you create more closeness, ease pleasure, and justice in your relationship. And we do it by blending wisdom from the fields of sexuality and spirituality, trauma and self regulation, and intersectional feminism. I'm so glad you're here. You're too tired for sex, but you miss it feels like you're in a dry spell and you don't know how to break it. You're in the mood sometimes and your partner's in the mood sometimes, but usually not at the same time. So it's hard to line up or it feels like there's just a big distance between everyday life and all the things that you're doing all the time. And that really turned on, yummy, buttery place where you can drop into a really delicious sexual encounter. I hear these situations every day with my clients, and that's with people who aren't having a ton of resentment, a ton of conflict, communication problems, things that make them feel like they're not on the same page. I don't necessarily really like you right now, so no, I don't want to have sex with you. And bigger obstacles to sex. These are the little obstacles or the kind of everyday. You know, I joke that sex in a long term relationship is like a baby sea turtle. The mama lays the eggs in a nest on a beach and she lays hundreds of eggs because for those eggs to come to maturity and hatch and for baby sea turtles to get to the water is just a losing proposition. Of the hundreds of eggs that she lays, only a few live to adulthood. That's why sea turtles are endangered. And that's why long term sex in a marriage is endangered. I don't think sex goes away when we get older. So sex goes away when we get busy. Sex goes away when we live with each other a long time and learn all of each other's foibles. Sex goes away when our insecurities get projected onto a partner. So today I want to talk with you about what I think of as nanosex. It's those little microscopic erotic connections that create a lubricant in your day to day experience together that both greases the skids, so to speak, to help us get to full blown erotic encounters, whether those are penetrative or not. And those of you who've listened long enough know that I am not phallocentric or penetration centric in my definition of sex. And I hope that if you listen enough, you won't be either. That you won't only think of sex as being penetrative intercourse, but you'll think of sex as a space that the two of you create together. And that's what we're doing today, is breaking that space down into little teeny tiny encounters. The little ways that you are with each other that turn you on and turn your partner on that say to one another, I see you and I know you to be an erotic being. And the erotic being in me meets the erotic being in you, right here, right now. It's that little connection. What are the fire starters you use? A flint and a. I don't know the two parts, but you know, you strike them together. And that's what nanoerotic encounters are, is that creating a little spark by striking the two of you into each other. The idea for this episode came the other day when a friend said to me, we can see it between you and Kurt. The turn on the connection, the delight in one another is so obvious when I'm with you two together. And you know, we're not like making out all the time. We're all over each other in some way where it's like, get a room, you two. But I know what she means because it's there between our eyes. It's there in how we sit next to each other. It's there in how we make each other laugh. And it didn't always used to be like that. So I know that's there and I'm grateful for it every day because we didn't always have it. And it brings me so much aliveness. So I thought I would show you today how to create that nano. Turn on that nanoeroticism together with your partner every day, regardless of how often you have time or energy or alignment enough to have a full blown erotic encounter. Let's go. There are five keys to to nanosex, and I'm going to walk you through each one. The first key to nanoeroticism or nanosex, these little tiny encounters that keep the heat on in between the larger, more gourmet feasts that the two of you might have in private. The first key is to remember you're an erotic being. My client, Natalie, had given birth to two kids inside three years, and she was parenting them both along with her husband David. We, while continuing to run her business. And this girl was whooped. All of her touch needs were met and then some by that baby and her toddler. And she had more to do every 24 hours than a person ought to have in 36. And she kind of forgot that she used to know herself as this sexy woman, someone who was fun and playful and really enjoyed a sweaty, yummy roll around with her husband. So David was missing sex with Natalie. Kind of wasn't. And rather than as their relationship coach asking her to say yes to him when he was making these advances that were quite understandably not appealing to her, I started by inviting her to remember herself as an erotic being. She and I talked about ways that wouldn't take more time because she didn't have more time, but that would help her feel her own sexiness and beauty. She changed up her workouts. She did fewer treadmill runs and made time every week or so for a more expressive NIA class, kind of a movement class. She put a lipstick in her car so that sometimes at a red light she could pop it on and see her own beauty. She hadn't been really adorning herself. She moved some of her more sensual clothes, the things that made her feel gorgeous, to the front of her closet. They'd gotten kind of stuck in the back when she first started breastfeeding three years earlier. And just moving them helped her wear them more often. So it was through little bitty actions like that that Natalie began gradually to shift how she saw herself. Until she did that, there was not going to be any way for her and David to have more connection erotically. But after she did it, by reawakening her erotic self and remembering that she was an erotic being, she started to want to express that side of her. And that brings us to key number two, right? Once you know you're an erotic Being the next key is what to behold your partner as an erotic being. And if you've been head down in your work or really busy with parenting, or both, if the two of you have been vegging out in front of the TV together every night for a couple months, or you're running around doing really great things, like this summer, we're doing really great things, taking our kids out on the boat and traveling and just staying really busy, but you're not really connecting. You might have sort of forgotten the erotic marvel that your partner is. So often people fantasize or share with me that there's someone somewhere who would be sexier, who's better in bed, who would turn them on more than their partner does. But honestly, I've seen that even with people whose partner is ostensibly pretty dang sexy. You know, I worked with people of all genders who have a damn hot partner, but they don't see them that way. I've seen enough of that to realize it's not an objective situation. It's not really about your partner's sexiness quotient in the world. It's about how you see them. It's about you looking over and realizing what you're looking at. You're looking at a bleeping sex machine. It's just that it's your job to see them that way. And if they don't yet see themselves that way, if they don't turn towards you in a confident, sexy way, if they have turned their light off, as I kind of think of it, I certainly have done that in the past. Just turned my light off, been like, kitchen's closed, don't look here. Then if your partner has done that, you have the potential and the power to help them see their sexiness, to change how they view themselves, and thereby to turn on your relationship's erotic potential all day, every day. So key number two is to turn towards your partner in a way that beholds them as an erotic being. Now, key number three, I call it the eyes habit. A lot of my clients aren't making a lot of eye contact in the bedroom when we first start working together. So if that's the case, I dig in with both of them to see what each person is protecting by avoiding eye contact. And then we find ways to make them feel safer and more comfortable, making brief eye contact at first and then sustaining it more in erotic situations. The eye contact that we can cultivate contributes directly to more pleasure and to more emotional intimacy. Inside sex. So that's inside the bedroom when it Comes to nanosex, like in the kitchen at breakfast time or while you're putting the boat back on the trailer at the lake. Eye contact is just as important there. This builds on those first two keys, right? I see me as an erotic creature. I see you as an erotic creature. And now the quickest and most direct way to convey that it's going to be through how we look at each other. So you can convey volumes with how you look at your partner, and you may just not be accustomed to it. And that would be why? A little uncomfortable at first. You know, the first time you look at your partner in a more flirtatious way, in a way that telegraphs, I'm hot and I think you are too. They may, like, look behind them. Like, who you looking at like that? Me. What? Why are you flirting all of a sudden? It can be surprising, it can be vulnerable, and it can be a turn on. So you might talk about it together first, but really know that this is how eroticism is sparked in an instant, is so often through our eyes. And that brings us to key number four. It's an inside joke. That's the key. Humor is key to turn on, I think. Or maybe I've just been blessed to be married for 22 years to somebody who cracks me up. So I can't really remember being turned on without also being made to laugh. But either way, it certainly can be a key to shared pleasure when you can amuse each other and be lighter and more playful. And the other aspect of this key is that just like any other component of your sexual connection, nanosex relies on creating this secret world that only the people involved share. This is the inside part of an inside joke. Whether you're in a crowded party or you're at the dinner table with your kids, or the two of you can, with a glance or the graze of a hand, communicate a world of meaning and turn on without anybody else being the wiser. And that component of secrecy, of exclusivity, is a part of the turn on. It's a part of how we can have a delicious experience together in just a moment. And letting the experience be complete brings us to key number five. No strings attached. See, nanosex is self contained. It is its own fulfillment. It's not foreplay. It's not a promise. It's not an obligation to do anything else. We actually crush our nanoerotic encounter if we start to expect our partners or ourselves to do anything else in particular as a follow up to our nano connection. Just enjoy it. And if that creates a certain kind of tension in you that you want more and more and you don't have it and you want that and you want to release it, well, get off on that tension. Enjoy the frustration of it. You know, for so many people, so many of our hottest memories of erotic situations were where we wanted this, but we couldn't. We wanted that, but there was something in the way. So it's that tension that actually increases our turn on if we let it, and we don't go negative in our frustration over it. So those are the five keys to nanosex or nanoeroticism. And you know, I could go on and on. As you might guess, I've got lots of other ideas for how you can cultivate this kind of intimacy. And a lot of them are keys not just to creating an erotic connection in an instant, but they're keys to a great relationship. All the keys to a great relationship contribute to nanosex, and many of the biggest ones are the things I recommend most often, the practice of wagging, front loading, the fun turning off your electronics, or what I call love unplugged. But I cover all of those things elsewhere. There's an episode about the five relationship habits and we'll link to that in the show notes and I'll just refer you there to learn more about that. But if you stack today's five keys on top of those five habits and you really choose to have a turned on, joyful, close relationship, you are going to be unstoppable as a couple, even if only one of you is working on it right now. And that's my hope for you, that you may be independent of your partner. If you have to, you will choose a turned on relationship. I hope you'll decide right now that nanosex is a fun thing you want to cultivate with your partner throughout your days together. And I really hope you'll let me know how it's going. I'd love to hear what you're taking away from this episode and what questions you have. Where do you feel this conversation in your body? My free Conscious Couples Circle is the place to continue our conversation. You can share your experiences, ask questions, and get more actionable ideas for creating the love and sex you deeply desire in ways that evolve you both. It's all happening@society.lizenberry.com that link is in the show notes for you. You know, new listeners need to hear what you're taking away too. Podcast reviews are what really help others recognize how this podcast is different from other relationship and sex podcasts. So thank you in advance for leaving a review right now in your podcasting app while you're thinking of it. Before you forget, with just a few words about what this show gives you. And hey, have you subscribed to the podcast? You're going to want to, so you never miss an episode. Please go to the app where you listen, hit that subscribe button, and then you'll always get notifications of new episodes when they drop. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Michelle Lizenberry Christensen, and this has been Sex Love Power. I will see you on the next episode, and until then, may the light within you illuminate the world around you.