Performance/Sex

Performativity, though often immediately labeled “bad” and as a blocker to orgasm and intimacy, can actually provide a really fun, juicy, and nuanced conversation.

There often is a trend alongside pleasure expression and arousal. Expression tends to ramp up as you're getting aroused.

I believe there's a way to use performance-mindset during sex to actually enhance pleasure and stay in the body and in focus.

But let's first acknowledge the very real way performativity gets in the way of sex and orgasm – specifically when you're performing for the other person's pleasure and you forget your own, or when you're wrapped up in the critique (am I doing this right? does this feel good?).

But performance-mindset can also help you do more with your body in ways that feel sexy and hot and pleasurable to you. For example, when you breathe hot and heavy, how does that shape your arousal? When you moan, does that bring on more arousal? (Eg. When you moan deeply, you're actually vibrating your vagus nerve which can help activate more nerve endings in your vagina!)

So, this week I invite you to play around with aspects of performance, noting when they bring you into higher states of arousal or if they drag you into a more critical mindset.

Some areas to play around with performance aspects:

Movement (how you move your hips, grinding on the other person, lifting your breasts, arching your back --- specifically anchoring in what movements feel good to you)

Voice (asking for what you want, stating what feels good, moaning)

Breath (playing with slow or fast, hard or soft, playing with different points of focus like in the "dropping into your body" meditation, or incorporating sound)

BDSM (we can take this very literally and see how role playing, dom/sub dynamics, or pleasure denial can stoke your arousal)

This practice isn't aimed at "getting you to orgasm" but rather as an exploration deeper into what performance mindset vs performativity can actually open up and offer.