When I Talk about Sex, This Is What I Am Really Talking About

I talk a lot about asking for what you want in sex. But you know what? What I'm really talking about here is love.

Because in asking for what you want, you honor your desires—and when you honor your desires, you nurture and feed your soul with love so that you can overflow with love for others. And that's what we all want.

The sad truth is that we have it all backwards. We (women) give love first, in order to get love. Most of us suck at teaching others to love us as we are, and we bend over backwards to be someone else to be loved. And we accept breadcrumbs of love that leave us filled-up just enough to go through the day, when what we really want is a deeply nourishing feast that lasts for months.

I talk to women every day who want delicious sex and touch that nourishes them. They want touch that melts the barrier between their body and soul and brings them into oneness. They want wholehearted connection. They want sex that consumes them and that stops time and space. And they want sex that leaves them so full that they cannot but overflow with love.

This is all available to you when you get vulnerable to ask for what you want—and not just in terms of touch and pleasure. I am talking about the connection, the experience, the love. It's available when you release the fears holding you back from being yourself. It's available when you decide that your self-love is important—even if that sometimes means saying no to others and putting yourself first.

I can certainly relate. I've always felt that touch to my body was a gateway to my heart. And I didn't want just any kind of touch. 

Yet I accepted touch and sex that didn’t hit the spot or felt as pleasurable as I knew it could. Why? Because I didn’t believe that I could get what I really wanted, so I took the breadcrumbs. It wasn't about touch or sex really. It was all about whether I loved myself enough to believe and stand for what I really wanted.

This scenario plays out with many women who come to me for coaching. They’re craving touch and sex they want they want it, and they’re afraid to ask for it. And often, they don't know how to guide their partners there.

I get it. The asking can be so hard—an obstacle sometimes too hard to overcome on your own. Sometimes so overwhelming that it’s easier to stay silent or withdraw.

So when I talk about sex, what I am really talking about is self-love. Treating your own body, its needs and desires, with love and compassion. Honoring yourself with the power of your voice—to ask for what you want and to say no. And being true to yourself by unleashing all of you to the moment so you can fully, deeply, wholeheartedly surrender to love—human, felt, physical love.

If you want things to change, you’ve got to start relating to your body and your pleasure with love. You’ve got to start treating asking for what you want in sex as an act of self-respect and honoring.

And when you think about asking for what you want, it's really about inviting another person to love and honor you as you are.

A few months ago, I gave an inspirational Ignite talk in Howard County, Maryland on what it's like to be a sex coach and why asking for what you want is important. Watch my 5-minute inspirational Ignite talk above.

Where in your life do you need more self-love today?
I'd love to hear: what was your biggest takeaway and what can you do to give yourself more self-love today? Comment below.