Sex Skills and Sex Challenges
What comes easy for you about sex? What are your challenges?
A big part of personal sexual wellness, confidence, and satisfaction means discovering what’s easy for you and being courageous about it. It also means to use that courage to acknowledge your biggest intimacy challenges that you currently struggle with too.
Consider what’s easy for you to express, share or enjoy, and what has been your latest top interferences. Give yourself a few specific examples to think about. Everyone has something that comes easy for them, and everyone has at least one challenge (or more) they have to understand too when it comes to their sex life. When you get to know yours better, you have a much better chance at a more satisfying sex life.
What Comes Easy vs What Comes Hard
For me personally, there are many aspects of sex and intimacy that have come easy for me in life. I am curious by nature, I love to flirt, and I have had a high libido for decades. I know my body well, I have learned my body well, and I know how to experience a lot of pleasure, arousal and orgasms. (Fun fact: I gave myself my first orgasm when I was a teenager, and I haven’t stopped since.) I am able to experience orgasms with lovers, by myself and in multiples. I can be aroused easily, and I have intense cervical orgasms that make my whole body quiver and shake. I know many of the subtleties and intricacies of my body and its sensations. I really enjoy verbalizing how I feel, and asking to hear my partners reactions and pleasure. I can feel pleasure and arousal intensely. I get wet easily, and can provide plenty of natural lubrication.
On the other hand, there are challenges I face in sex and intimacy with my physical body that is much more complex. I’ve had a spinal disability, and other health conditions that have caused chronic pain, as well as fluctuations and limitations in my movement and mobility. (A less fun fact but still a fact: In my 20s I was really ill and weakened, and sex was incredibly complicated to navigate a lot of the time.) I have a condition that fluctuates and can affect my heart and blood flow. I am much more delicate physically some days, down to how I move, feel and can be touched. I do not sleep well often because of pain and nerve issues, and that contributes to my energy levels, abilities and energy for sex. I deeply prefer squeeze-pressure-touch compared to fingers stroking my skin—unless it’s my nipples, vulva and clitoris. Even for someone like myself who loves sex, pleasure, being playful, and erotic, I can also feel entirely exhausted by my circumstances. I have been accidentally injured during sex too, and that can be jarring when it occurs, trying sex the next time. It’s not always easy sleazy street.
Name Your Prize
Write down or think about some of the things that come easy for you when it comes to sex and intimacy. Be detailed. Maybe it’s how good it feels for you to arouse or satisfy your partner. Perhaps it’s your bare naked ass. Or how silly you can be with your partner when you’re just together. Maybe it’s your big heart, or big hard on. Whatever it is, own it!
Are you a fantastic kisser and enjoy to make out?
Do you love to squirt?
Do you get a big rush when you flirt?
Do you love giving oral sex?
Do you feel really sexy putting on lingerie, or getting into role play?
Do you light up the way you are playful?
What do you really get into that you like to do?
Get a list started about yourself. Acknowledge it however you can, but think about your best intimate attributes that you find ease expressing.
What brings you closer to yourself, and your intimate partners?
Knowing yourself intimately is an ongoing experience, and it requires an ability to look inward, even when it’s awkward. There is a lot of satisfaction and joy that comes from just leaning into things that you are good at and come easier to you.
Name Your Challenge
Struggles in sex and intimacy will happen for everyone, regardless of expertise, physical abilities, sexual functions, libido levels, practice, or relationship status. Some difficulties can be changed and some cannot, but there’s a modification for most of it. Challenges make life worth foraging and pursuing too.
Are you shy or embarrassed to get naked?
Do you feel too tired to fuck?
Does your prescribed medication lower your libido?
Do you have performance anxiety?
Do you crave the kind of sex you are having, when you have it?
Do you know how to name, identify and talk about your sexuality?
Think about some specifics challenges you feel about your sex life that comes to mind for you. Be honest here too. It’s important to see your best attributes while also recognizing your current challenges that impact your sex life the most. Sometimes it’s easier, but everyone has a hard.
A Deep Dive
Developing a deeper understanding for what’s easy for you when it comes to sex, and what can be difficult for you, grants a lot of opportunities to learn more about yourself intimately, and for those learning more about their partners. Being able to tune in and pay attention to what works, and what’s hard for you, can help you look at the things you can work on, modify or change. I’ve learned to get incredibly creative about sex, and I am still learning and staying curious.
Some people have it easier than others to feel prepared, confident, or energized for sex, but everyone has a challenge they face. The willingness to learn about yourself, and your partners, will help your courage , and to try and decide on new things that can have beneficial impacts on your sex life. If something comes easy for you, enjoy those things. If something is difficult for you, challenge yourself where you can, and try to accept what you can. Everyone has something they are good at, and everyone has a challenge they are dealing with. Really.
Now go get your good things.