Does position really matter?
OK, so here’s a confession you might not have heard too often: I left my first husband because we only had sex in 3 positions.
Now I know that might sound a tad superficial, but in my defence, I was a young and sprightly 28 year-old, with a strong sex drive and expansive spirit.
I loved having orgasms and having them was no problem – with myself. But I really can’t recall if I ever climaxed with my first husband and, if I’m honest, I found his 1, 2, 3 routine boring.
Typically, I would wait until he’d rolled off me and gone to sleep to sneak my hand down to my yoni and (as quietly as possible) gift myself the pleasure I’d found lacking in our intercourse.
And whenever he wasn’t around, I enjoyed reading erotic literature and doing more of the same.
I felt a strange combination of ashamed, frustrated and rather clueless, but of two things I was certain:
1) there had to be more to sex than this and
2) I was not prepared to put up with 1, 2, 3 for the rest of my life.
Looking back to my 28 year-old self, I cringe, of course, at my lack of awareness, relating skill and sexual initiative. And I’m wanting to ask myself “well, did you talk to him about it?”
And actually, I did. I somehow found the courage to tell my husband I’d like to spice up our sex life and wondered if there was something we could explore together to make this possible.
At the time, I had no idea that tantra or sex and relationship counselling even existed. I didn’t know where to turn.
But when my husband said he was happy with things the way they were and didn’t see the need to change anything, I thought “right, well, I’m not prepared to make do with this. I’m only 28! There has to be way more to life!” And off I went to find it.
Some months later, I was out clubbing in London and got chatted up by a cute young man, 6 years my junior.
I was flattered by his advances and it didn’t take too much persuasion for me to give in. Throwing caution to the wind, I succumbed to desire and, for the very first time in my life, enjoyed wild, hot, loud, prolonged sex that wasn’t just pleasurable, but multi-orgasmic.
On the table, on the stairs, on the kitchen counter, in the alleyway (yes, we did once!), dressed up in suspenders and stockings, standing up, sitting down, backwards, forwards, sideways (LOL!), playing out fantasies: we made out in every possible place and position and I was inducted into the JOY of Sex.
My lover’s mother, so it turned out, was a liberal-minded former Bunny Girl, who had bought her son “The Joy of Sex” as soon as he hit adolescence.
I can’t tell you how grateful I was to her!
And from that point forward I never looked back. Goodbye 1, 2, 3. Hello bigger and better sexual experiences ! And hello a life-change I’d been wanting: I moved out of the middle-aged before my time middle-class suburbs (zzzz) and bought myself a flat in a trendy part of London.
25 years later I’m a Sacred Sexual Priestess, yogini and tantrika, who regards all of life as a great making love. That passionate sexual fire is just as much a part of me and I’ve experienced so much beyond blissful love-making, I count my blessings.
And still I know there’s more!
So it was interesting when, the other day, a male friend and I were talking and he said how boring he sometimes found it to have to rotate through various positions during sex.
I laughed and confessed that I’d left my first husband because I found his 1, 2, 3, boring.
And then recalled not too long ago buying a copy of the Kama Sutra with the notion of inspiring my then lover to greater variety between the sheets.
Yet, I also now know, that great sex is about so much more than a panoply of positions and some of the most ecstatic sexual experiences I have ever had have involved:
Resting in deep presence in the arms of my lover, before being catapulted into an indescribable experience of cosmic bliss
Being penetrated by the Divine in a great energy orgasm (fully clothed and solo. No physical sex act necessary).
Losing track of time and making love all night in an endless flow of bliss, where my lover and I merged into one.
(All of which are described in greater detail in my forthcoming book, btw).
So this set me off on a little thought-train: does position really matter?
My answer comes by way of a mixture of subjective experience and objective understanding.
And my answer is, in a nutshell: yes and no ;-)
You see, it really depends what angle you come at things from (so to speak). And I mean that quite literally.
If you’re wanting the cosmic-ness I speak of above, then, in many ways, position is utterly irrelevant. At that point, you are beyond positions, as it were, even as your body may still be assuming them.
Yet, in some ways, the opening to pleasure and energy flow that mutually delicious love-making induces could pave the way for it. Which brings us back to feel-good positions and the variety thereof.
In purely physiological terms, there will be certain positions that feel more pleasurable than others to each of us.
Speaking as more of an expert on female anatomy and arousal than I am on men, for a woman, it will depend on the position of her internal pleasure spots (she has more than just a “g”), the angle and depth of her vagina, and the proximity of her clitoris to her vaginal opening, for example.
Every body and set of genitalia is utterly unique, with a different configuration and concentration of nerve endings, sensitivities and preferences for speed, touch and pressure. And, what is more, these can change from day to day, over time and even over the course of a single love-making session, as the vagina literally changes shape.