Fantasy And The Sexual Psyche

Do you use fantasy to enhance your sexual experience, to bring you to orgasm? Many of us aren’t so sure about the role fantasy can and should play within our relationships. The very nature of our erotic imagination and what it may reveal, can make us uncomfortable, confused and guilty. Yet our fantasies reflect a deep well of sexual psychology and when examined, can unlock and free our true erotic nature.

By its very definition, fantasy (that which is improbable or unrealistic) is a forbidden landscape of sexual desire. When lust collides with taboo it releases us, and the goal - orgasm - is achieved. It is within the mind that we can be fully realised sexually, yet there can be a measure of guilt within that realisation. When we explore the strange, taboo, ‘abnormal’ realm of fantasy - the fantasy that brings us to orgasm - we can begin to understand our unique sexual psyche. "It is the mind that carries the genesis of sexual life, inhibits us from orgasm or releases us."

Nancy Friday, suggests that fantasy and masturbation are very closely tied, and that for women, masturbation without fantasy is rare. It is from our very earliest experience of our sexual self that fear, the forbidden, anger and the desire for control are born. "Fantasy is where the sexual drive does battle with the opposing emotions, the selection of which comes out of our individual lives, our earliest sexual histories. What were the forbidden feelings we took in as we grew?"

Even if we were brought up to love our bodies and feel no guilt, we have generations of judgement, fear, guilt and suppression in our collective subconscious. We may feel that we are sexually liberated, yet the majority of us, men and women, still feel embarrassed buying a sex toy for example - admitting that we masturbate and able to provide our own pleasure.

Where once, not so long ago, masturbation was considered ‘bad’, today women must contend with mental shame associated with their genitals. Women are still being taught that their vulvas aren’t pretty enough or clean enough and pornographic images are endlessly photoshopped so they don’t have to see their intrinsic ‘ugliness’.  Men are reminded that they have to be well endowed, have warrior like endurance and be able to satiate the most demanding partner.

It is fantasy that lifts us above our fear of reprisals and guilt and into the forbidden interior world that is our own sexual psyche.

Within our relationships, the use of fantasy to give us sexual release can still fill us with shame and remorse. We believe that it should be our partner who provides satisfaction and climax, not ourselves. Fantasy and masturbation disempower our lovers and give us a measure of sexual autonomy. It is that autonomy, the power of our deep erotic nature that can threaten us.

The beauty of a rich fantasy life, is that it allows us to explore the limits or our true erotic nature. When we examine our inner sexual landscape, we are given the tools to understand ourselves more fully and free ourselves from society’s rules. We are fuller and more whole, able to give of ourselves more truly to our lovers and richly rewarded with a deeper sexual life.

All quotes from Women On Top, by Nancy Friday
Images by Jan Saudek

Read full post »

Day 14 Blog # Resistance to Sexual Pleasure

Most of us are lucky enough to orgasm easily and often, but for others, it can be elusive.
Some women find it difficult to masturbate themselves to orgasm and others, while they have little trouble self pleasuring, cannot fully relax enough to experience orgasm with a partner.
When there is resistance to sexual pleasure, relationships suffer and sexual confidence and power is eroded.
There are many ways to explore the root of one's resistance to sexual pleasure, and in today's blog, I'm talking to Tanishka who works as a 'tantrica' and helps women and couples to be more sexually open.

What is a 'tantrika'?

I heard this term & without researching what it meant, intuitively knew it described perfectly what I do, so rather than a text book description this is mine: A Tantrika practices & facilitates other's through Tantric practices. This covers a broad range of services so not every Tantrika works as a sexual healer. I work as a private Tantric coach for couples, initiating them through kundalini raising practices & increasing emotional intimacy. I give them sensual & sexual homework but we all keep our clothes on in my sessions.

How can tantra improve your sex life?

Tantra means to weave, hence the emblem of the entwined serpents. When we see our union as a temple for soul growth, we embrace practices that deepen soul to soul intimacy. When we are connected emotionally, mentally & energetically the physical dance of creativity becomes a symphony greater than any manual that focuses on individual body parts could hope to imagine. Tantra invites all our hidden aspects out to be safely explored so monogamy is never boring or predictable as so many different archetypal energies surface spontaneously to be expressed, including the masculine & feminine polarities of each partner.

In what way can your work benefit those with sexual blockages?

Where there's resistance there's fear. Where's there's numbness there's pain, such as for many women post birth trauma. I hold a safe space with both individuals & couples to journey into the psyche using whatever processes feel intuitively right such as archetypal meditations, crystal healing (non-invasive), time line regression (which can illuminate past life traumas), art therapy, even working with a yoni puppet to give women's vulvas a voice. This enables us to identify the root cause & simply hold a supported space for them to release the associated pain out of all their bodies. I then assist them in creating appropriate boundaries so they can confidently claim back their sexual power.

A goddess has no constraints. How does a woman access her 'inner goddess' and realise her full sexual potential?

Well, honestly I wrote the book I wish had been there for me! 'The Inner Goddess Makeover' which is a step by step workbook for women to meet & unveil the 7 universal aspects of the feminine psyche, which when understood & expressed unblock the life force in the 7 major chakras which they govern so a woman's Shakti (Goddess essence) awakens as an inner serpent of kundalini (life force) raising her inner light, consciousness, vitality, health, self-awareness & empowerment. (Makes Oil of Ulan look like snake oil! heh heh)

We see so many women in the media dieting and going to extreme lengths to be 'perfect'. How can women be more accepting of their looks and bodies and have more self confidence?

The media is invested in undermining women's self perception so they will spend more to 'improve' themselves. So limit your exposure to this corporate propaganda. Mute the ads, don't buy trash mags & take a book to the doctor's surgery. Secondly by attending women's empowerment workshops, red tent circles & reading books which affirm the natural beauty, strengths & wisdom of the feminine which is in all of us, regardless of our age, dress size, skin complexion, hair colour or race.

Stay tuned for my next interview with Jenni Selwood, who works as a hypnotherapist in Melbourne, specialising in sexual issues.

Read full post »