Love & Sex Answers

Today's #1 Love & Sex Resource

You are here: Home / Archives for wendystrgar

Sexual Penetration And What It REALLY Means…

By

Language is the metaphor we use to communicate our deepest feelings.  A couple’s sexuality is the most profound vehicle of communication available.  The words we use and our physical language of love define our love experience.

What is penetration really?

Penetration is the word often used to describe the culminating act of sex. It’s a word I often use when describing the best use of a good lubricant.   But it was just this week, after using the word in conjunction with the act, that I wondered what I was saying. 

The verb to penetrate has six different definitions in the dictionary and as in the power of any metaphor, the meaning one attaches to the term may deeply influence our relationship to the act.

To Penetrate or Not to Penetrate

A lesbian friend of mine once told me that it is not uncommon for many of her friends to maintain a no penetration relationship, and among my heterosexual friends, it is not a small minority who avoid penetration with their spouses. 

I never asked them but I wonder if, for them, the meaning of penetration feels like this definition of a military force entering into enemy territory or the depth of a projectile into a target. Certainly the idea of women as targets for men is rampant and so the need to protect oneself is also deeply held.

To penetrate also means to have an effect throughout, spread through; permeate, move deeply, or imbue.

Penetration Potential

Applied again as a metaphor for sexuality this penetration is an act that transforms, that has the potential of changing everything. This sexual act can have the force of inspiration, the possibility of being completely saturated with love.   

The act of penetration is a force of nature that is loaded with meaning and mystery. Not surprisingly, to penetrate also means to gain insight and to have a marked effect on the mind and emotions.

The Language of Sexuality

Our language about our sexuality is as layered as the act itself, and knowing what you mean when you speak about love and sex can only be helpful. 

Sexuality is a metaphor for many things in life.  Those things that we share in our sexual encounters, like language, attitudes and openness with one another, have a long reach into the depth and closeness of our day-to-day relationships. 

Thinking of your relationship as penetration is the word, the idea and the act.  Penetration means all of these things all at once. 

But if I were to make a leap, in the name of making love sustainable, it would be that couples who build a strong and consensual relationship with the meaning and act of penetration are much more likely to have a strong and consensual relationship to each other.

To learn more about Wendy Strgar, visit www.GoodCleanLove.com.

Why Your Relationship Success Depends on Feeling Your Feelings

By

Regardless of what kind of relationship you are in, the foundation for its success is based on your ability to experience and articulate your feelings. The authentic self disclosure of the joy, fear, anger and pleasure that your time together brings you is the adhesive material that makes relationships real.

Most of us are handicapped by our feelings. Not only do we not often give ourselves the permission and space to feel them, but often they exist without even being able to name them. Our internal experiences that don’t get expressed with language don’t just go away. They live in us and often surprise us with their sudden re-appearance at times when we least expect them.

The truth about feelings

Thinking about our feelings like weather patterns is a helpful beginning. Like a sudden storm, they inform and distract with their intensity. They are changeable and act on the environment and relationships you are in with great power. They reflect the nature of the moment with great accuracy. Our ability to experience and share our feelings in meaningful ways is one of the profound marks of our humanity.

Yet feelings are for many people a locked box; an experience that overwhelms and is difficult to express. We are taught in a variety of circumstances and for a variety of reasons to suppress our feelings. We learn to silence our feelings so well that the messages in our bodies are not even discernible.

Suppressed feelings are not as invisible as you might think. They take on a life in our dreams and eventually become diseases in our bodies. Our inability to express our feelings cuts us off not only from our own experience but limits the connection we feel with the people we love most.

Why we disconnect from our feelings

Part of the reason we disconnect from our emotional life is because we are afraid we will be overtaken by our feelings. Small children are frequently shaken by the enormity of their emotional experience. When was the last time you witnessed a temper tantrum in the grocery store- what better metaphor for a giant storm raging inside a little body? What happened when your feelings were too big to hold when you were a child? What happens now?

Learning to feel begins with a choice

Jim Carrey was quoted in a Playboy magazine interview last year saying that “Heaven is on the other side of that feeling you get when you’re sitting on the couch and you get up to make a triple-decker sandwich. It’s on the other side of that, when you don’t make the sandwich….It is about giving up the things that basically keep you from feeling.

I am always asking myself “What am I going to give up next? Because I want to feel.” Learning to feel begins with a choice and the realization that authentic living demands the maturity to open up to your full experience, as messy as it might be.

This is, in fact, the do or dies work of relationships; to have the courage to feel the full range of emotions that comes with intimate connections. It is literally the fuel for the fire of passion, the air that keeps relationships breathing, the stuff of transformation and growing up.

Just as our weaknesses and frailties are wedded to our virtues and strengths, the ability to express uncomfortable emotions creates the possibilities of discovering the love and passion that we want most.

So how do we choose to live a feeling life?

How then do we make this choice to live a feeling life, to physically experience the internal storms of growing up and growing old? It is a practice, no different than learning a new musical instrument. Some days you hit the right notes, other days there is no melody at all. In agreeing to the practice, something opens and each moment gives you an opportunity to try again. Slowly you become comfortable with the weather systems of your emotions. Some days it is even comforting to know they are there.