Planning Makes Sex Hot

People have many myths and misunderstandings about sexuality, and in my work one of the biggest myths I’ve heard over and over about sex is that it should just “be spontaneous” or that it “should just happen.” Somehow the idea that sex shouldn’t require effort has seeped into our psyches and that idea prevents us from taking the time or energy to make it hotter, better and more fulfilling.

Some of the best sex I have ever had was planned. Whether it meant just setting aside time with my lover to devote to it so we could be present and not feel like we were squeezing it in between other things, or whether it was an elaborate, creative date that required a few errands, a few emails to entice one another or some other form of organization, in either case, a plan was required. In fact, for a creative date, sex has begun when the scheming begins and for me, that’s half the fun!

I’m often surprised by how resistant my clients and students are to this idea. I’ve noticed people sometimes get a little sad or disappointed that this is what their sex life will require if they want it to be or stay juicy. The reality is that our lives are busy and we fill up our time with things easily, so if we don’t schedule time for sex, or put a little effort into maintaining sexual connection with a lover, it just won’t happen. We will easily find other things to fill our time with.

I don’t work out if I don’t schedule it. I am not as productive with my work if I don’t schedule my tasks and work time. I don’t go see shows or have dates with friends without some scheduling, so scheduling is not the issue. Most things require some scheduling in order for them to happen.

The issue is more of an internal want for sex to magically happen and the idea that spontaneity is the key ingredient that will make it hot. Spontaneity can make it hot. But how many times did you put on some sexy undergarment or pack a sexy toy when you had a date in hopes it would involve sex? Think about how you might have flirted over dinner or even with a new acquaintance at a bar or social event in hopes of it leading to something sexual. We instill or create our sexy plans in many ways. Nothing wrong with that, in fact, it’s sexy. It’s you taking the reins with your sexuality, getting your sexual needs met and expressing what you want.

The problem for some people is that they don’t know what they want. If you don’t know what you want, how do you get it? It’s pretty hard. I’ll save that topic for another post.

As for making sex hot, what is a want you are aware you have right now? A fantasy, a wish, or a desire of some sort? Is it clear whom you want to do it with? If so, write them an email, a text, or even better, a little note you drop in the mail, and proposition them. Send them an invitation. Tell them what you’d like to do to or with them and invite them! Or if you want to keep it more mysterious, invite them for a sexy date with you and say no more about it, except to give them three things you want them to do, bring or wear in preparation for the date. Your invitation will get their creative juices flowing as well as your own. Sexy, hot fun has begun already!

And if you want to have some sexy hot fun with yourself, all of this applies to you too. Invite yourself to a sexy date, and get a new outfit for yourself. Give yourself a delicious bath, take yourself to buy a new sex toy, stay in and use what you got, watch that new porn you just got…anything goes. Enjoy dressing up and being hot for YOU. No matter what, it starts there anyway. And if you are sharing your hotness with a lover, everyone wins.

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, fulfillment, hot sex, planning, seduction, sex, Sexual Growth, sexuality, spontaneity
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Sexuality is About Opening Up

So many of us live in a constant state of lack. We won’t give to ourselves. We think we can’t have all we want. We think we don’t deserve it. Then we complain that we don’t have what we want and we feel deprived. Deprivation is not sexy. And it shuts us down.

Sexuality is about lushness, abundance, beauty, aliveness, fullness, expansion, desire, connection. It’s the opposite of lack and deprivation. It’s about fulfilling our desires and exploring new terrain. It’s about opening up.

But opening up is scary for most people. If we are open, we are vulnerable and our culture gives vulnerability a bad rap. Yet being vulnerable is how we grow and allow ourselves to be given to. It’s very vulnerable to allow another person to give to us. And when they are giving to our naked body and we are wide open and visible, whoah! That’s just too much for many of us! But it’s really beautiful.

We learn to cover ourselves up and not be seen. Yet we crave being seen. Who doesn’t want to be seen for who they are in the world? Most of us truly want that and it touches our hearts when we are seen.

Last week, I finished the spring semester the way I always do with my college students. Before I give them their final we have a group closure. I ask them each to speak on what they’ve learned, what’s been most important for them and what they are walking away with from my class. I also give them an opportunity to acknowledge someone in the room who might have affected them during the semester. Sometimes they acknowledge me, which is sweet, and I also really love to see them acknowledge each other. They sit in class with each other all semester, talking about personal matters and it’s beautiful to hear that you affected someone in the room. I love this ritual.

In part, it’s how I make sure I am given to on the last day. I know I affect my students and many of them make profound changes in their lives due to my class. I want to hear this. I want to know how my work is making a difference, how they are affected, so I make room for this. Many of them also want to give to me. They have things they want to say! One student made a list so he would remember everything he wanted to mention. So it’s a gift to myself and to them. I let them give to me. And giving to others makes us feel good.

They said some beautiful things. One of them called me “brave” in the most sincere way and said that my example has helped him to speak up where before he wouldn’t–to be more courageous in his own life. Wow. That one went right to my heart. It was beautiful. And you know one of the things they really speak to again and again? The way I make myself vulnerable, and “real”, the way I share myself with them. That’s what they want. That’s probably what they remember most…not which two bodily systems control the stress response.

If we don’t make ourselves vulnerable it’s hard to be given to. Sexually or otherwise. If you are guarded, how much love, affection, pleasure or adoration can really get in? How are you guarding yourself in your life and relationships? How are you keeping people away? If you want love and intimacy, this behavior is antithetical to your desire. You have to decide what’s more important. Do you want to really be loved and nourished and devoured, or do you want to be guarded and safe and distant? Sometimes we need the guard, but we often pull it out when we don’t. Let yourself be seen.

I’ll take the gooey. The warm fuzzies. The openness. No topic is too taboo. No sexual desire is unspeakable. I’m here for the exploration. I’m here to open. I work on doing that every day. I encourage you to meet life in this way and to hold your vulnerabilities as gifts and as tools for your own blooming.

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, courage, deprivation, opening up, sexuality, vulnerability
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How to Make Your Own Rapture

Okay, so there was all this hype about a Rapture that was to happen on May 21, and how the world was going to end and all the sinners would suffer and the rest of the folks I guess, would float up to the heavens forever protected and loved by GOD. So in preparation I put on some Blondie, got my groove on, and fantasized about how I’d celebrate this momentous event. I’m pleased to report that the Rapture indeed did happen.

Dictionary.com defines “Rapture” as:

1. ecstatic joy or delight; joyful ecstasy.

2. an utterance or expression of ecstatic delight.

3. the carrying of a person to another place or sphere of existence.¹

Wow, all three sound delicious, don’t they? I like number 1 and number 3 especially. I am so down with joyful ecstasy.

I think the fundamentalist believers in original sin are really missing a few important stitches in the frock here. One is that there is no heaven or hell that is separate from us here on earth. Hell is here baby. Heaven is here. It’s wishful thinking that if we are just really “good” that GOD, like a Santa Claus in the sky, is going to come and take us somewhere beautiful where we’ll never have to hurt again and all of our needs will be taken care of.

We are here to learn to take care of our own needs and to love ourselves. I think these are two of our most fundamental tasks. These two critical developmental milestones take some people lifetimes to figure out. It’s a big painful puzzle that no one else can be expected to put together for you. You have to do it yourself.

Another critical piece of this is that we have been given all the gifts we need to create our own rapturous state, to connect to ecstatic joy, and to carry ourselves to another place of existence. And guess what? We do that right here on planet earth. The energy we use to do all of these things is our core sexual energy. We all have it. It’s powerful. It is, by nature, creative. It’s gorgeous. You are your own rapture. I am my own rapture. How you live your life can be full of rapture and pleasure, or it can be barren and dull, or angry and cruel. Your choice.

But our choices are scary for us sometimes. That we have that much possibility to create pleasure-full lives scares the living daylights out of us. And think about that phrase, “the living daylights”—our life force gets dimmed. We get scared and small or dark and depressed when we cannot handle this much power. I don’t know about you, but I’m choosing rapture. I want the pleasure-full life.

I went to an adult play event this past weekend when the Rapture was supposed to happen. I’m proud to report, it did. At this event, grown adults created a playful space that is creative, sexy, fun, and pleasure-full. It is so healing. I wish everyone could experience something like that, where a community of people come together to create pleasure and beauty and ecstasy on their own terms without apology, guilt or shame. That is rapture. Inspired and full of life.

We can create rapture all the time if we want. We just need to connect to that awesome sexual energy and decide how we want to use it. It’s the same energy we use to make art, to write, to have babies, to have sex, to love, to connect to our own divinity, to create community, to cook a delicious meal. We can connect to our sexual energy in myriad ways that make our lives feel like heaven every day. Heaven is right here. You don’t have to be saved by some old guy with a beard to have heaven. This is it.

How are you creating rapture in your world? What feels like heaven to you? I hope you are creating it and celebrating it with a silly grin and enjoying every step. You are just that powerful and pleasure is your birthright.

¹ Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rapture on May 23, 2011.

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, developmental tasks, fulfillment, God, joyful existence, pleasure, rapture, sexuality
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Sexuality is NOT a Luxury

Recently, I was at a conference and at lunch I sat next to a woman who had heard me say that I am a sexuality educator and sex and relationship coach in the morning session. She said, “I think most people think of sexuality as a luxury. Is there really a market for what you do?”

Often when I tell people that I am a sexuality educator they say, “Oh do you work with teens?” The implication, of course, is that teenagers are the only people who need sex ed. But actually, we ALL need it. “No.” I say, “I work primarily with adults and college students.” People seem to be able to understand my teaching college students, probably picturing safer sex demos on bananas and warnings about all the things young people need to avoid around sex. My guess is that people rarely think about conversations about pleasure and fulfillment in sex or working to create highly functional communication that builds relationships when they imagine what I do.

Most people have a pretty limited definition of sexuality, thinking it’s only about sex and sexual orientation or “preference,” as many people call it. Yet it’s so much more. Healthy sexuality is critical to our pursuit of happiness, healthy family structures and building societies based on love, community and creativity instead of destruction, hate, and war. I think that’s pretty fundamentally important for any adult, so yes, adults need sex education, coaches and guidance if they want to create fulfilling lives that reach their highest creative and joyful potential.

Let me say this as clearly as I can: Sexuality is NOT a luxury. It is an intrinsic part of who we are. It is what brings us orgasmic joy for living fully realized lives. It is the energy we use to make art, make community, make business, make love, and create intimacy. It is the way we connect to our environment and to others. It is the energy we use to bring our whole selves forth in the world.

If you still do not see this vision, let’s imagine a world without sexuality. Picture this: People walking around like robots with deadened looks in their eyes, unable to feel pleasure and joy, unable to find ways to connect with each other. There is a lack of love and compassion because we have no connection. There is an inherent separateness and divisiveness in our way of living. No real collaboration. No one is creative. This inevitably leads to mass wars, killing and aggression—passion unchecked by love. We don’t birth nearly as many babies, but the ones we actually have are neglected and left to fend for themselves. Most of them, of course, do not survive this sexuality-less world.

In a word, without our sexuality, we are MISERABLE.

We already have mass wars, killing, disconnection, you say. I say, where these things are most acute, look at the cultural mores about sexuality and pleasure. Is pleasure supported and encouraged? Is sexual expression valued? Are people sexually repressed? Oppressed? How is sexual shame used to control citizens?

Remember when Clinton was in office? As soon as he was publicly shamed about his sexuality with the Monica Lewinsky debacle, he started a war. Literally began dropping bombs. This was not just about diversion, although that was part of it. It was about his need to assert his power, his sexuality. If we aren’t creating love, joy and pleasure with it, we are going to go polar and create abusive situations, violence and war because our passion needs expression.

Sexuality is not a luxury. It’s the critical core of our happiness and well-being. We cannot afford to ignore this well of energy that exists within each one of us. The world needs our juice. Our juju. Our creativity. Our vision.

I continue to envision this world in my work, my writing, and my dreams. I create it in my relationships. I know it’s possible. Our sexuality is that powerful. It is a necessary antidote to all that ails us.

If it’s no where near the top of your list, I encourage you to make your sexuality a priority. You will be a much happier person as you become more aligned with your own beauty and magnificence and the very core of who you are. We have to stay tuned in to that channel all the time. That takes some real presence and energy, but the potential rewards are unlimited.

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, fulfillment, intimacy, luxury, Relationships, Sexual Growth, sexuality
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Sex is a Skill

I made my students repeat aloud “Sex is a skill,” as I was beginning the sexuality module in my college courses last week, their collective voices paired with open and uncomfortable grins.

I am always amazed at how many people do not realize that yes, SEX REQUIRES SKILL! It does not come naturally. Nothing does, except maybe breathing. When we come into this world, we don’t know how to do anything—not even eat. That’s why there are so many breast-feeding consultants. Babies need to learn how to take their mothers’ breast into their mouths and suckle, and new moms need to learn how to teach them!

When we are born, we don’t know how to drive a car, play Frisbee or soccer, cook a turkey, or dress ourselves with style. All of these things must be learned. And so must sex.

Yet we have all these romantic notions that somehow sex is just natural, it “just happens” and, it’s perfect with “the one” you love, right? Gender roles have a particular hold on men in this ready-and-able department—quietly dictating that men should always want sex, be ready for sex and know how to do it. Whoah! Pressure!

Most of us experience fumbly, awkward, unsexy early ventures into the forays of sexual pleasuring with a partner. In a culture like ours, where we place so little emphasis on teaching sex education, we are all left to fumble about and try to figure it out on our own. Sometimes we have a happy accident and something new is learned and pleasures, even orgasms, happen. Cheers for happy accidents! But by and large, if we don’t work on learning the skills of sex, the quality of our sexual lives will reflect that lack of emphasis.

All skills require practice to become good at them and sex is no different. So since most of us had no sex education, or had limited education that focused on prevention of unwanted consequences, we have to roll up our adult sleeves and do the work to learn the language of erotic pleasure. When we take time to develop our sexual skills—everything from sexual techniques, breathing/breathwork, anatomy & sexual functioning, communication, how to create deeper intimacy/relationships, developing awareness of desires, or how to be playful—we reap the rewards with more satisfying sexual lives, bigger orgasms, and deeper sexual connection and intimacy. What sexually active person wouldn’t want that?

So what sexual muscle do you want to work on? This year I decided I wanted to have 10 sexual firsts. I’m well past 7 or 8 already. It’s fun to figure outwhat’s next and to be surprised. I’ve been teaching sexuality for 15 years, but there is always room to grow.

Your Assignment, should you choose to accept? Make a list of the top 5 or 10 sexual skills you’d like to learn or improve. Then look at where and how you could learn those things. What books could you read? What teachers and coaches work on these issues? What lover might explore them with you? What teleclasses, webinairs, or other events could help? What community resources might be useful? Your sex life and sex skills will not magically get better or materialize out of nothing. They will develop out of your consciousness and commitment to grow them.

My education and coaching work are my commitment to helping people grow sexually. I’d be happy to help, or recommend someone else who might be a good fit for you. Feel free to contact me directly about it! But whatever you do, put some energy into your sexual life this spring!

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, growth in relationship, healthy relationships, sex, Sexual Growth, sexual skills, sexuality
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Sex, Church & Nation State

Attacks on reproductive rights are attacks on sexuality. Frankly, I’m tired of a small anti-sex, anti-pleasure, anti-life minority imposing their outrageous sex-negative views on the rest of us.

One only needs to visit the Indian temples of Khajaraho depicting ornate explicitly erotic scenes of all types of fornication and sexual expression, or Roman art depicting stories of sex, power, Gods and Goddesses to know that religion & culture did not always divorce themselves from sex, eroticism and pleasure. Indeed, I’d say they were once widely viewed as congruent or complimentary expressions of divinity. How did we get to a place where we are so disconnected from this core power?

I believe religious fundamentalists see sexuality as a threat because, by nature, a sexually-free person is a free-thinking person. That flies against the conformity that is demanded by a fundamentalist approach to religion, an approach that thinks the structure for life has already been created and we just fit our individual journeys into that life, rather than thinking we are each co-creating our reality with the divine as we go. I subscribe to the latter approach.

Sex is and can be free—so it’s an experience that anyone can experience regardless of class. For young people in general, sexual exploration is a pretty fundamental vehicle for individuation and developing a self-identity, independent of parents who otherwise have power over us.

For all of us, sexuality has an enormous capacity to fuel our creativity and self-expression. And no matter the state of our financial security, home life, job stress or potential to experience a “natural disaster”, sex allows us to feel pleasure and joy.

So why would we want to suffocate this fundamental individual power, pleasure and creative outlet? Do we want to feel guilty? Or believe we shouldn’t have carte blanche to have that much fun?

I don’t think conservative religious zealots want people to have independent doses of unregulated fun. Attacking our reproductive rights is the easiest way to attack our sexual freedom and commitment to pleasure. It promotes a sex-negative ideology that refuses to see sexuality as a healthy, normal, and natural part of one’s life. It pushes the idea that we should be punished for having fun by being forced to have unwanted children. And of course, the children are punished more than anyone. This ideology seeks to control our self-expression and pursuit of happiness. I’m fed up with it.

We are entitled to feel pleasure and joy in our bodies and sexual expression in our relationships. Everyone is entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Our sexuality is a fundamental way we experience pleasure and joy in our lives. Some kinds of sex can leave us with infections. Some can result in an unplanned pregnancy, even if we did our best to prevent it. It’s a part of life. It’s a situation where people are confronted with challenging decisions about the course of their lives, which are difficult enough without also feeling punished for participating in a natural pleasureful and joy-seeking act or even, gasp! an act of love.

Stop attacking reproductive rights. It’s a fundamentally obtuse attack on women since we bear the brunt of the responsibility for an unplanned pregnancy and more easily get infected with STIs. It’s also an attack on sexuality. I am a sexually expressive person and proud of it. I help other people have deeper, better sexual experiences and relationships. The sex industry’s annual revenue figures attest to how much we want to experience free expression of our sexuality. My clients attest to this. I think conservatives don’t like the idea that they can’t control this wildness in us. They’ll do all they can to cinch it, regulate it, and control it. Fundamentally, that begins with women. We absolutely have to demand an end to this tyranny over our sexual and by association, reproductive lives.

And this outrageous marriage of christianity and our nation state needs to stop. We are funding a religious agenda rather than a public health agenda in a pluralist society. Maybe sexuality is my church. It’s my personal journey, my erotic life, my locus of creation and connection, my divinity. You want to be free to practice your spiritual path? Well so do I! As an alive, joyous, sexual being, capable of tremendous pleasure and creativity. If we all tapped into that on a deep level, I truly believe wars would end, violence would be obsolete and the world would really begin to know peace.

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A New Year’s Ritual

We have many ways of marking our lives in meaningful ways. As a ritualist, I find ways to ritualize many things in my life and relationships. I find the New Year to be an introspective holiday, although a good party is definitely welcome fun! As the year comes to a close, might I suggest that you find a way to ritualize it for yourself and make it meaningful on an internal level. If you have a partner, good friend or group of people you’d like to share this with, community is wonderful to include in such introspection. That might mean taking a walk in nature and revisiting the important, difficult and memorable moments of your year. It might mean doing some writing to take stock of it’s gifts, bid it farewell, and open to the coming year. It might mean sitting in meditation and allowing what needs to come through to reveal itself. However you celebrate and however hard you party, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your life and all of its gifts as the year turns.

I do not suggest resolutions. Goals are great, but make them things you are really ready to commit to in the new year. If they include things like losing weight, working out, or communicating better, be sure you are clear about just how far you can realistically take that goal this year. When we set the bar too high, we end up feeling bad about ourselves when we aren’t able to meet it.

Here is a little ritual you can try for yourself alone, or with friends:

New Year’s Ritual

1. Create an altar–use some special cloth and place a few special items, photos, art or whatever you want to make the altar special. Anything goes.

2. Each person brings a candle to represent illumination of what needs light at this time in life.

3. Welcome the participants and/or spirits if you believe they are there with you.

4. Each person names one energy they are welcoming into their life as they light their candle. (love, peace of mind, a new relationship/job/project, clarity, financial abundance, etc.) Go around the circle and have each person do this.

5. Take time to meditate on the last year. Some questions to ponder:

• What are you grateful for in 2010?
• What was magical about 2010?
• How did you grow?
• Think about your growth in the following areas: physically, emotionally, mentally/intellectually, spiritually, sexually, financially, and socially. How do you envision yourself in each area in the coming year?
• What are you ready to let go of and leave in 2010?
• What do you want to invite into your life in 2011?
• What have you learned from this past year or what insights do you have about it?
• What do you want to see in the world in the coming year? How will you work towards that goal?

You can do this in silence or with music and it might help to say the questions out loud if you are with others to guide them, or to write them down where people can see them. If you choose to guide others in meditation be sure to go slowly and give them time to take in and meditate on each question or piece of guidance.

6. Free write your insights. Take time to write these things down once you have meditated on these questions.

7. If in a group, each person can take time to share what they’d like to share. Ask them to include at least one wish bigger than themselves, more of a humanity or worldly wish.

8. Take a moment of silence at the end to consciously let all of what was said have space to settle into your cells and your consciousness. Breathe it into your body and mind.

9. Each person can blow or snuff out their candle, noting one thing they leave in 2010.

10. If you are with yourself, look in the mirror and offer yourself love and grace for your incoming year. If you are with others, take turns looking into each other’s eyes to silently offer wishes of growth, abundance and joy for the year.

11. End with a song, quote, prayer or some other form of closure.

12. Send me your insights, or post comments here. I’d love to hear from you.

If you would like to join me in person for a little bit of a different ritual, I am hosting Manifesting the Life You Want: A New Year’s Ritual & Workshop on Saturday, January 8. We will actually make a collage as we envision our new year. It will be part meditation, visioning, creation, ritual and community. I hope to see some of you New Yorkers there.

However you choose to honor it, may you have a blessed and abundantly joyful New Year! Happy 2011!

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