The concept of “sexual intelligence” was coined by Dr. Sheree Conrad and Dr. Michael Milburn, exploring why, despite the sexual revolution, we still lack happiness in bed. In turn, the author of the term “erotic intelligence” is Esther Perel, who in the book of the same title wonders how today, in times of “dictatorship of equality”, we are to accept that it is sexual inequality that guarantees successful sex. What else is sexual intelligence? We ask Katarzyna Miller.
We naturally associate sex with instincts, stimuli, chemistry, i.e. forces independent of our will or our reason. Meanwhile, people write and talk about the intelligence of lovers. So does what we think matter in bed? After all, we’re not starting a business, we’re just supposed to love each other. Or maybe this intelligence is just such an American fashionable invention?
It matters not only how we think, but also how we act, what we choose. To begin with, I will tell you two anecdotes from my life. The first is a love tragedy about an erotically intelligent young woman who arranges to have sex with an attractive, intimidating older man in a hotel. She was so taken with the date that as soon as they got to the room, she wanted to brush her teeth, and she did it with such commitment that her crown fell out and got stuck in the elbow of the sink. Poor girl broke down, she was already flustered, and here’s more – toothless! All her desire for sex was gone, she just wanted to go home. But how?! No lace? But she couldn’t take it off herself…
She called a sexy Polish plumber – and her sexual intelligence was that she had his number on hand!?
It was a good idea to have such a call recorded, but she had just done something else that also confirmed her erotic and even sexual intelligence, despite her little experience. She told the waiting man, although she was very ashamed, that not only was she not skilled at such hotel trysts, but she also had no front tooth because her crown fell into the elbow of the sink. To which he jumped happily. He recently had a similar experience, so they have more in common than he thought. And instead of looking at his watch, saying he forgot an important meeting, or taking care of that elbow of the sink, he looked at her knees with fire in his eyes. Her helplessness, sincerity and openness, plus a charming self-consciousness, captivated him. And they had good sex, because he climbed to the heights of his art, seeing in her a real girl without a gram of pose,
So if we lose a tooth, we don’t have to miss the opportunity for super sex and be doomed to a date with the dentist?
This is what sexual intelligence is about, turning something that could be a lack into an asset. And now the second anecdote from life, but this time about the lack of sexual and erotic intelligence in an attractive and experienced lady who had her whole apartment wallpapered with her photos in various corsets and other dressing gowns, so that one of the guests would not miss how beautiful she is. This lady always boasted to her friends that she could take the most advantageous pose in bed, and therefore she would wrap any man around her little finger. And one day she met an attractive man. He cut her head to toe and said he was into it, but only for a year. In his opinion, she is not a woman for life, but for a successful romance, yes. Our heroine was thinking about something permanently, but she was so sure of her erotic power that she
I take it she’s counted?
Absolutely, because although they lived as a couple and even lived together, after a year he said, “Thank you” (because he was well brought up) and disappeared. She got sick of it. No wonder, she met an extremely cold and egotistical guy. But she got a lesson for her stupidity and a slap on the nose for her hubris. She ignored his words, thinking he didn’t know what he was talking about. And he knew. Well, but her lack of sexual intelligence was already visible in this objectification of her body, and then this man. Her poses in bed, of which she was so proud, are a signal that she has no idea what sex and eroticism are all about. The proof that he never loses control does not allow himself to be carried away by the wave of lust or pleasure. She did not allow herself to follow her needs or the man, and that is a sign of a lack of sexual and erotic wisdom.
According to the definition, sexual intelligence is the knowledge of what we need for successful sex, empathy for the partner’s needs and signals coming from our body. The ability to talk, creativity – we have already written about it many times. But it is also evidenced by research (e.g. by Prof. John Gottman) being in a stable relationship. Those who are in them – achieved high IS in tests, and in bed they found pleasure. The fools turned out to be podrywacze and “sluts”.
Because they do not go deep, they do not develop, they repeat only the beginning – falling in love, fascination, etc. And this is only the first step! However, knowing what you need in sex is, unfortunately, rare, because we do not teach how to discover what we like, what we are made for. No one will tell us that you have to search and find, discover your desires especially in sex. Human sexuality, especially women’s, is still being processed, if not by taboos, then by complexes, and since we gained “freedom” – by fashion and pornography. And if we are already looking for something in sex today, it is applause, recognition, flattering of vanity or stroking complexes. Even our lovers don’t ask what we want. We have to discover it ourselves and learn how to give it to ourselves, and it’s really hard work.
Quantity instead of quality.
Meanwhile, what connects us with another human being can develop indefinitely and endlessly provide us with more and more, not less and less, also pleasure. You can’t get bored with another person. The madness of falling in love passes, and that’s good, because we would be spinning around in circles high on hormones, and sexuality can and should develop, and then it covers not only our body, but also our mind, heart, reaching spirituality and even further into the universe. And when we are close to each other on all these levels, in all these dimensions of being – we can achieve the highest, absolute delight.
That’s how I feel and that’s how I imagine it. I also think that this is the meaning of tantric sex, which is one of the ways to full ecstasy. And speaking in European terms: the more intimacy, closeness, understanding and mutual consent, admiration, fascination between the lovers – the more pleasure they will experience. The very physiology of the brain also speaks in favor of being with one partner, because as it turns out, the more often we practice certain behaviors, the stronger the so-called. neural pathways. And I imagine that two people close to each other can have an orgasm looking into each other’s eyes from two sides of a crowded room.
Sexologists, however, warn that excessive intimacy is the end of desire. Perel writes that desire is born in the gap between lovers, in what makes them different, curious, and draws them towards each other. And that those sexually intelligent do not allow themselves to be completely exposed.
That’s right, you can’t merge into one, give up on yourself. This is not intimacy and intimacy. You must not leave yourself, hang on another person, because then we are not even close to each other, let alone to someone else. To create intimacy, two people have to have separate identities, affairs and secrets. But intimacy is also built by the fact that they whisper in each other’s ears, that they do not tell others about what they have experienced together, that they share their secrets, mysteries, and dreams. A woman is attractive to a man because she is different from him. And a man is sexy to a woman because he is not her mirror image.
Exactly! And American-style political correctness, i.e. equality eliminating differences, leads to boredom in the bedroom. Perel preaches the gender heresy that democratic sex, on equal terms, is boring, because lust is not a child of democracy.
A woman and a man, if they are free and spontaneous, can be master and slave or master and slave in the bedroom, and partners in the living room, kitchen and at work. It is an expression of true freedom, sexual and erotic intelligence. The ability to change, choose patterns of behavior depending on the situation and needs, the goals to be pursued, is real bedroom wisdom.
Perel writes that for successful women who control, direct, plan and implement, the breath is the Latin lover who dominates, because in his world they can let go, give up, succumb. He describes just such a couple: an American and an Italian. The woman admits that in the bedroom she forgets about political correctness and focuses on pleasure.
Sex is an adventure, therefore there can be no plans and no democracy. It’s like crossing a river. We can be carried away by the current, we can swim with it wonderfully effortlessly to the other shore, or we can fall into a vortex that visualizes us so well that we can’t catch our breath. We can also get to the other shore by catching a branch … It is impossible not to get wet and it is impossible to avoid a faster heartbeat. Sure, you can be on the same side of the river all the time, but it’s really boring. So instead of making – everywhere, including in the bedroom – a declaration of being modern, gender or whatever, it’s better to be more honest with yourself. Discover where and how we lie to ourselves and stop doing it. Ignore our inner parent, i.e. the supervisor of what is not appropriate, and ask the inner child what it wants from sex, what it likes, what it would like. And so, following your inner voice, the one coming from your belly, step by step develop your own erotic intelligence. As usual, when it comes to something important and difficult – in small steps, but persistently. Make more room for the inner child, i.e. our feelings, needs and energy. Check, check and check again. What pleases us, gives us pleasure, gives us pleasure, and what have we been so ashamed of that we have not allowed ourselves to do it before? If we feel like it, let’s start allowing ourselves to do it. Go back to the past and remember what we didn’t do, although we were tempted, but fear and shame did not allow us to do it. It is highly likely that we will reach the bans from the family home and we will have to choose whether to continue being good or finally happy. It is also worth reading books full of sex about heroes crossing borders, watch such movies, talk about your inhibitions, share with trusted people, preferably with each other. Write letters to each other with new scenarios and then make them real.
And does Katarzyna Miller have sexual intelligence and is an erotically wise woman?
I hope so, although the beginnings were unsuccessful. But I managed not to be completely alienated and wait until I found a man who would open me up sexually. And then I had an extraordinary vision that I have long silver hair that drags me to the other side of the cosmos. I thank him for that! Because I also found myself on the other side, I became someone else. I couldn’t be satisfied with anything, and I knew what I wanted from sex, what it could give me, and what I could give.
