Contents
Preliminary games, kissing and touching increase arousal. Does the sensuality of both partners affect the quality of their sex life? Is it possible to awaken it and learn to fully enjoy your sensations?
Possession or caring tenderness—what makes us prefer one over the other? Is it true that male desire is characterized by cruelty, while female needs attention and affection?
What does it mean to be a sensual man and woman
Maite Sove, neurobiologist
Society celebrates excitement while neglecting the deep experience that comes from sensuality. A man is content with a genital orgasm, a woman with bursts of pleasure. The result is never completely satisfactory, because the pursuit of pleasure is insatiable.
For a man, being sensual in love means forgetting about a given program of action and simply opening his arms, giving and receiving tenderness. If he is only concerned with the reaction of a woman, then he is very far from his own feelings. A sensual man loves to prolong pleasure by engaging in intense exchanges of energy with his partner. This leads to an orgasm that is not limited to the genital area, but captures their entire being completely.
For a woman, being sensual means acting and responding to the actions of a partner, sharing with him the pleasure that she herself receives, freely accepting and releasing it with her whole body from the very beginning to the end. This state of affairs is biologically justified, firstly, because foreplay increases the number and sensitivity of female erogenous zones, and secondly, because feelings are developed in actions. And actions, in turn, increase susceptibility, making the person more sensual and sexual.
Jean-Michel Fitremann, clinical psychologist
There are two forms of sensuality that are comparable to a more or less hot temperament, but, from my point of view, they are also associated with the stages of the formation of the “I”.
Tender sensuality, which is so valued today, “insists” on courtesy, care, foreplay. This is not an exclusively female property. But the lack of desire in women, which is sometimes the result of trauma (too early abuse and the like) and often cultural (for example, the fear of being called a “whore” by showing one’s desire), contributes to the idea of the cruelty of sex. Women do not even suspect how many men talk about their need for attention, care, affectionate touches. Behind this tender sensuality is often hidden the need for maternal care, and it is characteristic of both sexes.
Whereas strong sensuality is a search for intense experiences, bodily penetration, “animality” in the positive sense of the word. For her, foreplay is what it is and nothing more. It shows “sexuality”1, which often occurs after healing and parting with fears, but it is naturally far from violence and cannot serve as an excuse for machismo.
1 Sexualization is a term coined by the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Denotes the result of the subject’s choice of his own sexual position, regardless of anatomy and biological sex. For more details, see the book by J. Lacan “Seminars. Book 20. More” (Gnosis / Logos, 2011).