Blunt in the Bedroom

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TED Talk Review: The Power of Mindful Sex by Diana Richardson

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Stop and smell ’em!

Sometimes my Friday night entertainment is provided by TED Talks, because smart is sexy. Almost any topic can capture my attention, but when Mary Roach told me that orgasms can cure hiccups, her talk, 10 Things you Didn’t Know About Orgasm became solidly my favorite forever.

Recently, a TEDx talk by tantric sex expert Diana Richardson found its way into my playlist. She introduced me to the concept of mindful sex, the deep intersection of meditation and sex. You can watch her talk here: The Power of Mindful Sex.

Diana defines mindful sex as sex that lets go of orgasm as a goal. Not going to lie, I’m unsure about this suggestion. She says to consider the climax as “an option” but not the sole purpose of the experience. Most importantly, though, she says, is to maintain an intention to be aware and in the moment. She says by viewing our bodies as a whole sexual organ, we can focus on “being sex, not doing sex.” Doesn’t that sound amazing? I want to swim in an ocean of it. Some of my recent sexual experiences with Beard Man have given me a glimpse into this type of sex as a reality, not just a lofty idea. According to Diana, mindful sex moves slowly in every way: breath, penetration, and movement that is more pressure, less friction. Mindful sex is an experience to notice in the days that follow, she says, to track your happiness, focus, and connection to your partner. Goddammit, it sounds like whole-being-altering sex.

While dedicating 3 hours or more to a sexual experience, per Diana’s suggestion, sounds marvelous, my busy homeschooling mom life doesn’t accommodate it yet. I don’t have that kind of time for a sloth romp. If I had a life that allowed me to sit down and watch the Lord of the Rings all the way through, maybe I could trade that in for a mindful experience, but even regular length movies are generally two-part events in my house. Some glorious day we’ll excuse ourselves to our bedroom for hours while the kids are still awake, but nobody is ready for that quite yet. Until then, I’m embracing an intentionally slowed down experience. Today that means an hour versus 20 minutes. Perhaps this is an area where cannabis shows its true value. Weed fucks around with my sense of time, a bit. My awareness tends to be focused intensively on our bodies, such that time is hardly a consideration.

Introducing cannabis to the bedroom I share with Beard Man has opened me to the idea of mindful sex more than I would have embraced throughout my 20s and early 30s. The idea of having slow sex for 3 hours would have sounded boring, like a chore, or even painful. Early on in my sexual life, I thought the best I could hope for was 19 minutes of rhythmic motion with an edge of frustration, culminating in a momentary explosive clitoral orgasm that rode the line between pain and pleasure. In contrast, lately I spend most of our time in the sheets in a hyper-aware state of low-level orgasmic pleasure throughout the experience, with peaks and valleys, twists and turns. In my view, cannabis is training my brain to maintain focus, like a good camera, blurring the background, highlighting the subject. Diane’s Tedx Talk confirms for me that I am seeing a sexual revolution in myself and my attitudes, but with weed.

My relationship with the rest of my body is changing too.

I’m embracing my breasts and nipples as pleasurable FOR ME, not as an attraction tool or a plaything for my partner. What I heard loud and clear from the culture around me told me my boobs were not my own. My breastfeeding years are over, and my parents don’t control my body anymore, so fuck the culture noise, my boobs work for ME now. I’m beginning to see myself overall as sexual and beautiful, perhaps for the first time. I’ve always felt pressure to be sexy, but now it’s happening not because of purchased trappings such as make up, accessories,  or lingerie, but because I accept my own pleasure, and it’s pretty fucking cool.
I am rewiring my sexual patterns through plant medicine and self-education. This is life-changing shit.

I am choosing to make stoned love with my partner, and in doing so I am finding acceptance of myself. This idea could not be more important – good sex doesn’t just affect the couple of hours each week I spend having intercourse. Good sex bolsters how I relate to my partner, my kids, and myself during the other 166 hours of the week.

A final quote from Diana: “Awareness in sex creates love, generates love, nurtures connection.”

I’ll light a blunt to that.

Book Review: Kinky Sex Tips for Curious Girls by Mona Darling

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My friend Mona Darling wrote a book, and I love it and need to share. Kinky Sex Tips for Curious Girls provides approachable, shame-free pleasure education for adults. Her scintillating sexual honesty paired with kinky puzzles and coloring pages have made this book a favorite in my bedroom. For this vanilla girl, it’s given me a hell of a lot to ponder and challenged my fundamentalism-induced negativity and shame regarding kink and BDSM.

She says, “Society giggles when they are uncomfortable, and kink always makes society giggle. We have all grown up feeling like our kinks are the punchline of a joke. The best way to move past shame is to face it head on. Acknowledge it. Talk about it. Shame flourishes in secrecy.”

Shame flourishes in secrecy – this sentence has been knocking around in my brain since I first read it a couple of months ago. I see religious and cultural shaming as the main source of my own sexual repression, and through this blog and honest (dare I say blunt!?) conversations with my partner and trusted friends in my life, I’m drawing shame out of the shadows. When shame is small, I can look at my naked self in the mirror without fighting the urge to look away or cover up. When shame is small, I can spread my pussy lips for Beard Man and feel fucking fantastic. When shame is small, my pleasure is big.

The biggest paradigm shift I experienced reading Mona’s book came from her discussion of sex as PLAY. Childhood play was never a fun or imaginative pastime for me. Growing up in a doomsday cult, the world was too serious. The end of days were upon us, and I’d be cast into the Lake of Fire if I failed to be obedient to rules set before me. It’s hard to run around the field with friends pretending to be a squirrel collecting acorns, knowing Satan has dominion over the earth and God is poised to smite. I’m thankful to have let go of the bonds of fundamentalism and to have support from my partner, good friends who listen, and cannabis plant medicine, as I work to revive the spirit of play in my life.

The way we play in the bedroom may not be equivalent to the way we played as a kid, but I can see definite parallels. As a homeschooling mom, I spend a lot of time studying how my children learn. Watching my children engage their senses when they are handling slime, sticking their feet in the mud, or running a feather over their own face, I note the value of sensory play in how they connect to the environment and people around them. When my children engage in role play games, I am affirmed of the value of play in developing self-knowledge, collaborative innovation, and empathetic social justice. My children occasionally act out dark scenarios to test what they would do if faced with their fear. For example, they often play role play that their characters are orphaned children, navigating the world without parents, a Boxcar Children mystery of their own design. Play is how children learn and prepare for the future.

As we grow into our sexuality, what if our maturation could retain the best of childhood play, to appreciate sensations and the exploration of pretend, while taking on new content as we deepen our body play? Sex is an adult adaptation of play, with all the same benefits to our growth as lifelong learners and contributors to society. The addition of kink and BDSM has potential to help overcome our insecurities, finding pleasure in our bodies and moaning in defiance of our fears. That sounds like good therapy to me.

In Mona’s book, a chapter titled “The Kinky Cycle of Play” details the pattern of negotiation, play, and aftercare. It reminded me that I get to set the rules, or limits, about my own body, without feeling like I have to be coquettish, falsely sultry, or apologetic for anything I don’t wish to do. Mona had this to say about negotiation:

“A safe space is created when two people trust each other. When neither is worried that the other will violate limits. When neither is worried about their safety, emotionally or physically. When both people know they will not be judged and both people know they are free to speak and ask any questions they might have about interests or fetishes that they don’t fully understand.”

Negotiation sounds like the OG shame-buster.

Since accepting the idea of sex as play, I appreciate my partner’s genitals more than ever, finding my own pleasure as I tug my partner’s foreskin up over the glans and roll his testicles in my hand like a stress toy. We’ve edged toward the kinky side hesitantly, still giggling when we feel uncomfortable. I have tied up his cock with a shoelace, and I’ve purchased a set of some still-unused nipple clamps. The chained nipple clamps do make a fabulous bedroom necklace, however, and we’ve enjoyed the tantalizing idea that someday I’ll be ready to try them.

Discover more about Mona Darling and shame-free kink education at darlingpropaganda.com.