Pleasure and touch are hard things for many to accept without guilt, obligation and the pressure to reciprocate the favor. Sensation exercises can help overcome those feelings.
Many people feel either uncomfortable or guilty with pleasure
They feel undeserving of such good feelings and feel the need to please. What we end up with is people having sex trying to please and ignoring their own pleasure. For many, it becomes more about the other person’s pleasure rather than your own.
We cannot fully enjoy touch and pleasure for our selves in those situations. We are so wrapped up with the other we end up with lack luster sexual experiences because the full breath of sexual pleasure is being missed.
The following exercise aims to help people relearn to focus on their own present moment, touch, and pleasure.
Sensation Exercise Objectives:
1. Improve one’s ability to feel the sensation of touch while remaining fully present to feel that touch.
2. Learn to be comfortable and enjoy touch.
3. Learn to enjoy the pleasures of touch without feeling guilty while your partner is giving touch and not receiving.
4. To help you feel more comfortable in both roles (giver and receiver).
5. Learn to feel immense pleasure from the giver role.
6. Learn to experience the full experience of being touched.
7. Improving skills required to connect through touch alone.
Solo Sensation Exercises
Begin by experiencing your own touch. Before you can connect with others we need to connect with ourselves. Learning to feel your own touch sensation is the gateway to comfort with the touch of others.
Plan for 15 minutes to complete this exercise.
1. Find a quite comfortable place.
2. Find 3 different textured materials and some water (cold, warm, or both), whatever is available at the moment is fine.
3. Before you begin, take 3 deep cleansing breaths.
4. Using one hand, lightly touch the other hand.
5. Trace the hand using different fingers and types of touch like stroking, tapping, circles, etc.
6. Focus all your attention on your hands or what your hand is touching. If your mind wanders refocus on your hands.
7. What do you feel?
What sensations are you feeling?
Is there a tingle?
Do you feel warmth?
What do you like?
What don’t you like?
How are you feeling emotionally?
8. Now use the different textures and materials, including the water, and focus on the hand touching or being touched by the material.
9. Repeat step 7.
10. Write down the aspects, sensations, and feelings you liked and didn’t like.
Partnered Sensation Exercises
Instructions for Both Partners
Both you and your partner will take turns being the receiver and giver.
1. Budget 15 minutes for each turn for a total of a half hour.
2. Both participants will be present and free from distraction.
3. For this exercise quiet is preferable, so no TV, snoring dog, music, phone, and so on.
4. Before you take your partner’s hand take 3 deep cleansing breaths.
5. Maintain your focus on your partner’s touch if your mind wonders refocus your attention back to the touch.
6. If your mind wanders, that’s ok, just bring it back to focus on the touch.
7. After each turn, discuss experiences with your partner. What you liked, what you didn’t like, sensations you felt, and so on.
Giver Instructions
1.The Giver is the person giving the touch.
2. Just before you touch your partner’s hand, focus all of your attention on the part of the hand that is about to touch your partner. Before you actually touch, try and feel your partner without touching your partner.
What do you feel?
What sensations are you feeling?
Is there a tingle?
Do you feel warmth?
What do you like?
What don’t you like?
3. As you touch your partner, send warmth and warm thoughts to your partner through your hand.
4. Be calm, deliberate and gentle when you touch your partner’s hand. The object is to feel and connect, not massage.
5. Explore every part of your partner’s hand with light touch.
6. As you explore, what do you feel? What sensations are you feeling? Is there a tingle? Do you feel warmth? What does your partner’s nails feel like? What about their knuckles?
7. Repeat step 2.
Receiver Instructions
1.The Receiver is the person receiving the touch.
2. The receiver’s job is to relax.
3. Breathe and relax each muscle until you feel comfortable. Allow your arm and hands to go limp.
4. You are not to assist your partner in any way, except if the partner is touching you in way that makes you feel uncomfortable.
5. Focus on your partner’s touch and only their touch.
6. Close your eyes.
What do you feel?
What sensations are you feeling?
Is there a tingle?
Do you feel warmth?
What does your partner’s nails feel like?
What about their knuckles?
What do you like?
What don’t you like?
7. For the next 15 minutes enjoy the sensations with no guilt about not providing pleasure.
Sensation Exercise Resources
Kennedy, A.P, and Dean, S. (1996). Touching for Pleasure: A Guide to Massage & Sexual Intimacy. Chatsworth Pr. Kindle Edition.
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