Weekly Mindfuck: Let It Happen

There are many pros to writing about sex for a living. The first: My job feels fun, meaningful. It capitalizes on a curiosity I've had my whole life. I care about it, which I know is a luxury. The second: I spend my days learning about sex - watching porn to see new kinks, find fresh ideas, see how two people's bodies move together. I write articles about tips and tricks and important anatomical lessons most people don't (or can't) know. I search for solutions, like how to make both a man and woman come during the same sex session, understanding why it is we crave certain things in bed, and try to help curb misinformation along the way. People ask me very frequently if my own sex life is exciting and satisfying, and the answer is a resounding yes.

There are cons to having so much information and so many new ideas at the tips of my fingers. There are already so many people telling us how and why we should be having sex. You haven't tried that?! someone will exclaim after probing. When I was your age, I was having sex in planes and trains and in clubs, having orgies and sleeping with as many people as possible. The next, adamant about how much more special sex with someone you love is. How often you orgasm during sex on average, how many toys you have in your bedside table, the number of partners you have (or haven't) accrued over the years. It can be deafening, and so hard to feel like you're having the sex everyone else is having.

Add that to a constant influx of knowledge - different ways to alter foreplay, ways he should be touching you there and you should be licking him here and all the psychological benefits of power exchange, role play, public sex, filmed sex, group sex, multiple orgasms, half an orgasm (edging), and positions you haven't even yet figured out how to contort your body into. In this world we live in, with its comparisons and endless troves of porn and erotica and social sharing, it is so hard to feel like you're doing it right - sort of like if you could just unlock the next level, THEN you would be having wild sex for real!

Of course, it's an illusion; you will never be able to try everything, you will always be able to improve at something. Great sex quickly becomes a final destination of uninhibited perfection, instead of a constant (and fucking amazing) learning process, and we all get caught up in it sometimes - sometimes so much that we forget that our sex lives are fantastic and fun and rewarding and gratifying and explosive as they are, even if they could always be improved. When it all becomes too much noise for me, I remember that I have to step back and trust that process, enjoy its ebb and flow, and most of all, enjoy covering new ground with my partner.

After all, it's not just mutual pleasure that makes sex so spectacular - it's mutual discovery.