Sexual Touch for Your Own Pleasure

In her excellent book, Living an Orgasmic Life, Xanet Pailet suggests that we “touch for our own pleasure.” This is very different from what we normally do, which is not to touch for our pleasure but to touch in a way we think our partner wants to be touched.

Initially, this sounds like Pailet is encouraging us to be selfish in our sexual touch. But that’s not really what she is saying.

1. Much About Sex IS “Selfish”

When a partner initiates sex, it’s usually because they want a sexual encounter. We often have “selfish” personal goals or desires we would like to have fulfilled when we initiate sex. He starts sex because he wants to have intercourse and cum; she initiates because she hopes to be orally pleasured.

Even if we are seeking the pleasure of the other person, at some point we need to focus on our own pleasure to experience full arousal and orgasm. That’s why many people have difficulty having an orgasm when engaged in the “69” position, where both partners are giving and receiving oral at the same time. When doing so, they can’t focus only on receiving pleasure.

2. In Partnered Sex, It Takes Two to Tango

Good sex between partners is a mutual activity. At times the pleasure focus is on one partner, at times on the other. Each partner is going to have times when they are the “selfish” one as they focus on their own pleasure.

To obtain maximum sexual pleasure, we need each other. It’s a cooperative effort. To achieve that sense of deep connection and joining with another person that we crave, we must both be open and vulnerable and feel empowered to both give pleasure and take our own pleasure at times.

3. Touching “for Your Own Pleasure” Results in More Pleasure for Both Partners

Pailet explains that when one partner touches the other for their own pleasure, it results in a “pleasure circuit” between the two people. How does that happen?

• You touch your partner in a way that really feels good to you.
• When you touch your partner in a way that brings you pleasure, she feels more pleasure herself.
• When you become more aroused, your partner becomes more aroused in response. “Your partner is turned on by the pleasure you are experiencing, which increases their own enjoyment of your touch, which increases your own turn-on.”
• This dynamic creates a “pleasure circuit” between the two of you.
  

Rather than being a completely selfish act, touching your partner in a way that gives you the most pleasure results in more pleasure for both of you.

The next time you’re with a partner, try touching them in a way, or ways, that give you the most pleasure, not how you think they want to be touched.

Touching for your own pleasure is a mindset shift, a “principle of touch that will entirely change your experience of pleasure.” Pailet suggests that you start out by sitting in a comfortable position and holding a wine glass in your hands.

Close your eyes and run your fingers over the glass, feeling how each unique surface, texture, and angle feels on different parts of your hand and fingers. Since the glass is an inanimate object which doesn’t respond, any pleasure you experience from touching the glass is your creation.

The next time you’re with a partner, try touching them in a way, or ways, that give you the most pleasure, not how you think they want to be touched. You’ll likely find that it brings new excitement and an increased level of arousal to you and your partner.

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