After nine years together, having a child, and watching our sex life falter a bit amidst attachment parenting, professional turbulence, marital ennui, and the effects of aging, my hubby and I have been thinking about trying something new, either in the bedroom - or out of it.

But where do you start? We live in the San Francisco Bay area, home of free love, Gay Pride, Haight Street, porn stars, trannies, dominatrixes, Tantra, naked bodyworkers, goddesses, pole dancing, gurus, threesomes, pleasure parties, foot fetishes, and the Grateful Dead. Here in San Francisco, anything goes, and that’s part of what I love about living here. It’s all good. (And it is!)

The Quest For More

But it can be a lot sometimes.  Do we go to Good Vibrations and check out sex toys and costumes? Do we head over to the naughty video store and catch a flirty flick? Do we take a Tantra workshop and get spiritual? Do we flip through 101 Nights Of Grrreat Sex and try all 101 sexy seductions?  Do we experiment with playing with a virtual threesome (yes, you can hire someone to join you both for cyber sex). Do we go nuts and go on a hot & nasty field trip to SF Citadel, where anyone can dip their toe into BDSM, sex swings, exhibitionism, and group sex? Should Matt dress up like a cop while I wear a baby doll dress and suck my thumb? Should we take a class meant to teach me how to ejaculate? Should we try ecstasy or Viagra? Should we sign up for a boudoir photo shoot together? Should we scroll through the Kama Sutra and get pretzeled?

Or should we just roll over into the missionary position and get off?

If your sex life is lagging and you’re desiring more, it can be not only embarrassing and uncomfortable. It can be overwhelming. Like where does a girl who wants to add a little zing to her zang even begin?

What’s The Leading Edge Of Female Sexuality?

Right around the time that Matt and I were considering kinking up our sex life, I appeared as a guest on True Colors TV and met co-starring guest Nicole Daedone, author of Slow Sex.  The question we were challenged to answer on the show was “What’s the leading edge of female sexuality?”

My answer was this:

The leading edge of female sexuality is a woman who can meet her own sexual needs without depending upon being filled up by a partner. It’s not that she doesn’t have a partner, love the intimacy of a partnered relationship, and experience great physical pleasure in the arms of her partner. It’s that she shows up to a sexual relationship already whole, healed, and perfect. Instead of the “You complete me” mentality, she is already complete, and everything else is icing. She no longer resents her partner for failing to meet her needs, gets frustrated because her orgasm doesn’t matter, gets so bored or feels so misunderstood in her relationship that she feels tempted to cheat, or otherwise walks around sexually dissatisfied. She knows what she wants, learns how to get it, and then shows up with a partner, turned on, juiced up, empowered, and whole.

Nicole Daedone, dressed in a two piece white pants suit, with high heels, long blond hair, and warm, sparkly eyes, looked me square in the eye and said (and I'm paraphrasing here):

I hear you, Lissa, but I disagree. I think, as women, we’ve empowered ourselves out of our own capacity to surrender, and with that, we’ve lost true intimacy. There’s nothing more irresistible to a man than a woman who is completely at his mercy.

My jaw dropped.

What ensued was a spirited discussion that makes for good TV, and by the end, we agreed that we’re both right.

When I came home that evening, I said to my husband, “I just met my kinda sex teacher.”

My Kinda Sex Teacher

Nicole definitely did not look the part. I live in the Bay area, where hippies run rampant (God love ‘em!) and sexuality coaches, workshop leaders, and teachers are a dime-a-dozen (no offense!) Some are grounded, inspired, and “normal” (is there such a thing?) Others are WAY out there (like, DUDE, did you see that woman ORGASM right there on stage in the middle of all the marijuana at this festival? DUDE! It was OFF THE HOOK!)

Nicole looked more like the art gallery owner she actually is, than a Bay area sex teacher in flowing skirts or thigh high black leather. She spoke in brilliant, articulate language, asked challenging, thoughtful questions, and served up authenticity just the way I like it - RAW.

Introducing Orgasmic Meditation (Yes, you heard me right)

In her own unique way, Nicole promotes a no-frills, stripped down version of female sexuality, which she teaches as a process she calls Orgasmic Meditation, or OM-ing. Nicole believes that when we feel sexually unsatisfied, we tend to go outside of ourselves for the answers, experimenting with porn, fetishes, sex toys, or group sex, when the real answers lie within us, accessible to us all the time.

In her book (which I fell in love with the minute she compared sex to cooking with her grandmother), Nicole writes, “When you strip sex down, pay attention to sensation, and ask for what you desire, you can expect richer, more satisfying orgasms; a deeper, more nourishing connection with your partner; and improved relationships with everyone in your life. In just a few minutes a day, you can learn how to live - how to make the most of your one precious life - how you can get inside it, be a part of it, feel intimate with the world in a whole new way.”

Now we’re talking baby.

OMing At Home

Something about Nicole’s style, substance, grounded, authentic personality, and open, feminine manner attracted me like a bee to lavender flowers. So when I got an email a few days later from Nicole telling me she’d like to offer me the gift of two OM coaches who would come to my house to teach Matt and I about orgasmic meditation, I found myself saying yes.

I was admittedly nervous. I had no clue what to expect, and Matt and I had never tried anything like this before. But he was game. And these days, I’m ridiculously open, curious, and permissive (in sharp contrast to the closed, judging, moralistic mentality that ruled my life for 36 years).

So why not?

I’ll write about the OM coaching session soon, so make sure you stick around to hear the rest of the story.

What Do You Think?

Are you curious? Does this sound too “out there” for you? Have you experimented sexually in ways that have led to sexual healing, awakening, and deeper intimacy? What has worked for you? Share your stories here.

Om….

Lissa

Lissa Rankin, MD: Founder of OwningPink.com, Pink Medicine Revolutionary, motivational speaker, and author of What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend and Encaustic Art: The Complete Guide To Creating Fine Art With Wax.