happy sex
Sex is importan for happiness. And that’s not just something that men believe. In 2003, five researches asked 1,000 women to rate 19 activities in terms of the happiness they produced. Sex came out on top. Two other researchers, Andrew Oswald and David Blanchflower, concluded that, ‘The more sex, the happier the person.’ Their recipe for happiness included having sex from times a week or more. But it’s not just any old sex that produces happiness. Research shows that the optimum number of sexual partners in a year is…one. So sex is happiest when it’s combined with love. Physical techniques, too, are important. In this chapter you’ll learn not only how women can have multiple orgasms but how men can as well – and how you can go on enjoying those four plus sessions a week well into old age.
If you have a partner, sex is the most wonderful thing you can do together to create happiness. Some people talk of ‘just sex’. If this includes you then, quite honestly, you haven’t yet experienced sex to the full, which means you have something marvellous to look forward to.
Never think in terms of ‘just sex’. It would be like saying ‘just love’ or describing the Milky way as ‘just a load of gas’ or Rodin’s sculptures as ‘just a pile of minerals’. ‘just sex’ exists but that’s not what we’re concerned with here. We’re talking about sex as the thrilling, endlessly fascinating and incredibly beautiful way two souls unite and, in uniting, discover they’re also united with the whole universe, which is going to feel very happy indeed.
The elements of happy sex
The kind of sex that I’m taling about has several elements, of which the most improtant are:
- love
- monogamy
- absence of inhibition
- spirituality
Love and monogamy
Most people can enjoy sex without being in love. And sex between freely consenting adults who are not in love is, for many people, far better than no sex at all. But the optimum sex, the kind of sex I want to deal with here, can only be achieved by two people who leve one another.
Absence of inhibition
We’ve talked about inhibition in the context of ‘being yourself’ (Chapter 8). It’s especially impor- tant when it comes to sex. The fact that you’re in love doesn’t by any means guarantee that your sex life, or any other part of your life together, will be uninhibited. But unless you’re uninhibited, communion on every level can’t take place.
The fact is that even nowadays, despite all the media exposure to sexual images and all the talk of sexual liberation, many people are still frightened of sex. If you feel the need to drink alcoho in order to have sex then this includes you.
Spirituality
Sex won’t be fully rewarding unless it involves a spiritual element. That’s to say, communion on far more than a purely physical level. When spirituality enters the picture you feel that you’re making contact with the secret essence of your partner, that the physical boundary between you and your partner no longer exists, not that between the two of you and the rest of the universe.
Using sexual energy for spirituality is known as tantric sex. It’s dealt with in more detail below.
Frequency
Most couples don’t have sex often enough to enjoy the full benefits. Couples should cuddle naked every day and aim for intercourse at aleast foru times a week.
How does sex make you happy?
However ecstatic sex make you feel at the time, can it fundamentally alter your level of happi- ness the other, shall we say, 163 hours of the week? The answer is that, yes, sex can make you feel happy both at the time and for a while afterwards. One of the reasons is that sex increases the level of certain ‘happy’ chemicals in the body. Do it often enough and the effect will never leave you.
A team led by Gordon Gallup, a psychologist at the State University of New York, looked for a relationship between the sex lives of women and their degree of happiness.
After controlling for various factors, Gallup and his team concluded that the happiest women were, indeed, absorbing ‘happy’ chemicals from their partners’ semen through the walls of their vaginas.
Warning
sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies would more then offset any of the psychologi- cal benefits of semen. If you need to use condoms then you should continue to do so.
How to have happy sex
You now know about some of the ‘sex chemicals’ involved in happiness. How can you have sex so as to optimize those chemicals and, therefore, happiness?
Rule number 1: lots of cuddling
oxytocin, as we’ve seen, is a very desirable chemical. The way to optimize it is to touch as often and as completely as possible. Sleep naked and start even day with a naked cuddle. Use every opportu- nity you can. Cuddling shouldn’t only be a prelude to sex. It’s something very important in its own right.
Rule number 2 : self-expression
In Chapter 8 we looked at the importance of self-expression. Well, this applies just as much to sex as to everything else. If you’re afraid of the consequences of your own self-expression, or your partner’s, don’t be. On the contrary, self-expression is liberating and your relationship will be all the better for it. You’ll be happier.
As regards sexual techniques, there are bound to be things you’d like to do sexually that you and your partner haven’t done before. This can be delicate. Of course, when passion takes over, it’s normal to explore new territory without consciously thinking about it and your partner may equally be carried along. It could be that your partner wants to try these things as well and has been waiting for you to take the lead. But it isn’t fair to try to do something you know your partner isn’t happy with. Discussion and com- promise are the ways forward.
Rule number 3: music
Dr Johnson called music the only sensual pleasure without vice. Shakespeare called it the food of love. If it’s fast and furious, sex is fast and furious. If it’s languid, sex is languid, Music has a powerful effect on us even if we’re not consciously aware of it.
If you want proof, scientists have found that music we like tends to:
- lower cortisol, the stress hormone
- increase oxytocin, the ‘touch’ hormone
- increase endorphins, the body’s
Rule number 4: multiple orgasms for women
Years ago women didn’t have orgasms because they didn’t expect to have orgasms (nor did their partners expect them to). Now, the majority of women have one orgasm because they expect to have just one orgasm. Some of them, it has to be said, are completely satisfied by their single orgasm and that’s fine. But the more orgasms you have then (within reason) the more of those ‘happy chemicals’ you’ll enjoy.
The way to unlock your multi-orgasmic capacity is not through intercourse but through masturba- tion. Have your one orgasm by your usual solo method. But don’t have it in the back of your mind that you’ll settle for one. Be optimistic. Now simply continue to play with your clitoris. It may well be that you’ll surprise yourself by having a second orgasm without doing anything else, and a third. If not, you’re going to have to do something unusual, something extra, to get those additional orgasms. Try rubbing yourself all over with body oil and using a vibrator while fantasizing or watching an erotic film.
Rule number 5: simultaneous orgasms
Simultaneous orgasms go in and out of fashion as the apogee of great sex. but where happy sex is concerned they’re always a very good idea. The idea is for a woman to have several orgasms before the man has his and then to have one ‘big one’ together. This brings the active stage of lovemaking to an end and you can then both fully luxuriate in that wonderful glow.
The key is in being able to influence your won and your partner’s sexual excitement so that, together, you can get co-ordinated.
- Words: simply tell your partner what stage you’re Then your partner has the chance to speed up or slow down. You can also use sounds and ‘talking dirty’ to increase excitement.
- Buttons: we all have ‘buttons’ our partners can press or which we can press ourselves to increase excitement. The clitoris is the obvious ‘button’ for a woman but there are others. For a man, a finger on the anus can often be Have fun discovering your own and one-another’s ‘buttons’.
Rule number 6: avoiding the sexual hangover – multiple orgasms for men
So far I’ve talked of sex unreservedly as a generator of happiness. But the chemical changes in the body following sex can sometimes send you down rather than up. This happens to men far more than women and to older men far more than younger men. It comes about most of all when men ejaculate too much as excess ejaculation leads to depletion of serotonin.
From the point of view of the sexual hangover, how much ejaculation is too much? A simple test is this: do you feel glowing, elated and happy after ejaculation or slightly lower than you were? If it’s the latter then you’re ejaculating too often.
But there seems to be a paradox here. can you have sex frequently enough to make both of you happy, and yet without the man ejaculating so oftne that he gets a hangover? The solution is actually very simple. Some of the time the men has sex without ejaculating.
It’s this that’s known as ‘multiple orgasms for men’. If you’re puzzled by this because you think orgasm and ejaculation are one and the same thing then let me explain. The word ‘ejaculation’ covers the emission of fluid. The word ‘orgasm’ covers the highly pleasurable muscular contractions. Normally the two go together. But you can learn to orgasm without ejaculating.
Having multiple orgasm doesn’t mean having several of the kind of orgasm you have now. They are totally different. Multiple orgasms for men are both less and more than the normal kind.
Here’s how they’re more:
- You won’t suffer the sexual
- You can prolong
- You won’t lose your sexual vitality in the way you do with ‘ordinary’
- You and your partner can have sex more often – once a day, for example, or even several times a
- Your hormone balance will be different – you’ll feel more affectionate and
- You’ll feel ‘mystical’.
- You’ll never be afraid of not being able to
And here’s how they’re less:
- You’ll feel less physical sensation than when ejaculation and orgasm are
Put like that, multiple orgasms may not sound very appealing, however long the list of advan- tages. But, in the brain, multiple orgasms are exquisite. Once you become good at the technique, You’ll find that each is more powerful than the previous one. Eventually you’ll reach a state of ecstasy.
So how can you experience these multiple orgasms?
The first step is to practise the technique during masturbation. Probably you already use stop/go as a way of prolonging your pleasure. That simply means that you stop stimulating yourself once you get’too’ excited, let your erection subside a little, then begin again. For multiple orgasms you simply have to refine that technique so you can get closer and closer to the point of no return without ‘going over the edge’ into ejaculation.
In order to experience orgasm without ejaculation you have to get very, very close indeed. At the critical moment you have to cease physical and mental stimulation instantly:
- Stop stroking your
- Stop thrusting
- Stop all muscle tension (for example, lower your legs if they’re in the air).
- Stop breathing or, alternatively, pant (experiment to see what works best for you).
- Stop fantasizing (if you were).
- Stop looking at sexy images (if you were).
- Stop ‘talking dirty’ (if you were).
- Stop concentrating on the
In other words, you have to turn off like a light. Once you’ve achieved multiple orgasms solo you can start employing the technique with your partner.
Rule number 7: tantric (or sacred) sex
Sex was just one aspect of tantra, not the whole of it as many people think. It was – and is – the reuniting of the male and female so as to experience the Divine Consciousness. The sensations of sex were believed to be a foretaste of the infinite joy that would be experienced by those who eventually escaped ‘the cycle of death and rebirth’.
Recent, tantric sex has been adopted in the West and changed out of all recognition. Almost anything that has to do with a more gentle, considerate, imaginative – and lengthy – style of sex is now given the tantric tag. But this completely misses the point. Tantric sex is not about particular techniques but about spirituality. If a spiritual experience is the aim then the tantric tag is valid. Everything else is, well, not tantra.
The first step is to recognize your partner as a manifestation of the Divine Consciousness – one of you is Shiva and the other shakti. If that sounds too religious for you then you could simply recognize your partner as the incredible result of billions of years of evolution.
- As you undress one-another, ‘worship’ each part of the body that’s revealed; massage it with perfumed
- Alternate between staring deeply into your partner’s eyes (to experience your partner’s spirituality), closing your eyes (to experience your own spirituality) and gazing intensely at any object that, for you, symbolizes the universe – it could be a stone or a tree out side the
- The man should use the technique for multiple orgasms, so as to prolong sex as far as possible, thus allowing the ‘happy chemicals’ to build to a maximum for both of
- Have periods with little movement; you could even break off altogether for a short
- As the feelings intensify you might find it helpful to reduce bodily contact to the genitals alone, so that you can concentrate on your spiritual experience, which hopefully you will
The belief is that the reality of the universe can only be grasped during a state of consciousness that’s different from normal consciousness. In other words, the state that can be achieved during sex. As the sadhakas (followers of tantra) say: ‘Spirit alone can know spirit.’ Which brings us very neatly to the subject of the next chapter.
