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Adult toys, erotic films, sex in unusual places… Have you tried it yet? Frivolity, unexpected situations and laughter help to feel the ardent excitement again.
“You can’t joke with love,” proclaimed almost three centuries ago, the classic of Spanish dramaturgy, Calderon. And even more so with sex – we will add, and yet … “For the harmonious disclosure of our sexuality, lightness, ease, spontaneity are necessary,” psychoanalyst Svetlana Fedorova insists. Sexual games should be played easily – without embarrassment, without guilt, without fear of breaking any norms or rules. Of course, to show delicacy to a partner, but still – to fantasize and invent!
playfully start
Sex toys are the first thing we think of when it comes to sex games. Nowadays, this topic is no longer a taboo: they have not huddled bashfully on the shelves for a long time, and far beyond the semi-underground shops with the meaningful sign “Intimacy”. A wide range of various accessories of the sex industry with detailed instructions is offered by hundreds of specialized Internet sites.
The fashion for such toys is fraught with not only pluses, but also minuses. “They certainly stimulate the imagination,” says Svetlana Fedorova, “but if you use them constantly, a habit may arise, and it will become difficult for partners to do without them. At the same time, part of the intimacy, vitality, naturalness of sexual relations is lost.
Sexologist Laura Beltran elaborates: “The liberalization of morals and sexual emancipation have given rise to new norms of attitudes among Europeans that can provoke feelings of guilt. Today, if you don’t want to be out of fashion, it would be nice to have a couple of adult toys at home. As if everyone was given the task of getting a certain quota of pleasure. But the game beginning in sexual life is completely different: it is a time of leisure, personal time, when we do what gives us pleasure.
Understand your desires
“Someone is engaged in dancing, someone in design,” Svetlana Fedorova continues, “many of us have our own hobby. It’s the same in relationships: how many people, how many ways to play sexual games – everything is very individual. Therefore, before you go to a sex shop, ask yourself: is this really what I want? What can really give me pleasure – a sex toy, a role-playing costume or something else? Reading erotic prose, watching an appropriate movie?
There are many options, but it is important to recognize your own desire. “Choosing is never easy,” says psychoanalyst Sophie Kadalen. “Instead of focusing on ourselves, we often think about a partner, about the society in which we live, about what is possible and impossible … And this inhibits our desire.” A sexual game does not always involve a pretentious scenario and special scenery. Sometimes she can be provoked by an unusual place or, for example, the most inopportune moment for her. There are no norms, no recipes, no rules. And it is not necessary to want to play such games. But if you want to try – try, if you want to stop – stop. “Just like any other game,” explains Sophie Kadalen. “We play until we get bored.”
The ability to hear a partner is the key to a harmonious relationship
POLINA, 33:
“One evening I received an SMS from Anton: he asked me to share with him some of my erotic fantasies. I was embarrassed, but the temptation to reveal my secret thoughts to him was great. And I talked about vaginal balls that are activated using a remote control. He immediately offered to buy such a thing. In the end, I bought it, succumbing to gambling curiosity. And somehow she whispered to him, among other things, that the toy was waiting in the wings in the chest of drawers.
We tried it only two months later: going to a party, I winked and handed him the toy remote. We had a lot of fun that evening! But it was the anticipation that gave me the most pleasure: after the purchase, for several weeks, we no-no yes talked about it. Both knew that the toy was in the box, and had absolutely no idea where and when we would use it, or whether we would use it at all. Exciting, exciting unknown!
Svetlana Fedorova, psychoanalyst:
“Sexuality is born and developed through our fantasies. Imagination stimulates desire, helps to create sensual tension, to feel the desire to explore these new territories together. The best way to freshen up a relationship in a couple is to talk about your fantasies, but at the same time do not put pressure on your partner. Polina realized that Anton liked the idea, and chose the perfect moment to use it.
In sex, we are attracted not only by the new, but also by the forbidden. Playing away is a great idea, it’s like making love in public: even if those present did not see anything, they guessed that something was happening between the two … And the choice of the toy itself is successful: some kind of abstract thing, consisting of two parts, between with which there is a connection – everything is ambiguous and gives rise to a lot of fantasies.
Do not be shy
Curiosity and the desire for something new refresh relationships, fantasies allow you to overcome the clamp. But it is impossible to instantly overcome the shyness and shame that are embedded in us in the course of education and as a result of the social morality we have learned.
It takes time to get rid of modesty and fears, from rigid social attitudes. It will take even more time to understand and feel what we really want. And then share your desires with a partner. And here lies the danger of new fears.
The desire to overcome the routine of intimate relationships often contradicts our tendency to conservatism, fear of change. We are afraid: what if we lose everything if we change a little what we have? Many hesitate, do not tell their partner about their desires, fantasies, ideas, because they are afraid to be refused or to hear that the proposed game did not suit their taste. As a result, partners get less and less pleasure from intimate relationships.
Don’t be too afraid to miss, our experts say. A game is a game, even when it comes to sex: it’s okay, you have to be able to lose. It is not so important whether we succeed in fulfilling our fantasies, whether our expectations are met or not. You should not tune in to the obligatory achievement of a result. In fact, it’s not about him. What’s more, the goal-setting threatens to be a weight of lead that won’t let our desire soar. And it just gets in the way of having fun.
Adult toys won’t save a relationship
LYUDMILA, 35:
“Maxim and I lived together for five years and had sex less and less. At some point, I panicked and was ready to resort to any means to return the fading feelings. Once I offered him to buy a vibrator. This idea did not inspire Maxim, but after some time he gave it to me. We tried to use it … It was disgusting. That same evening, the vibrator was thrown into the trash, and we never talked about anything like that again. We broke up after a few months.”
Svetlana Fedorova, psychoanalyst:
“Lyudmila and Maxim approached the solution of this issue too concretely. And sexuality is a special matter, it exists in a different dimension – spontaneous impulses and fantasies. Bringing something foreign into an intimate relationship can easily injure a partner, which may have happened. After all, a vibrator is a kind of substitute for the phallus, and the desire to acquire it, for example, could be taken by Maxim as a hint: “I would like to have the opportunity to have sex all the time and without your participation.”
In addition, in such a specific decision there is no space for fantasies and dialogue, there is no secret, prohibition, game, and sexuality cannot breathe and unfold in such conditions. In situations where intimacy and mutual understanding between partners are lost, relationships should be restored gradually: talk about your feelings, fears, fantasies, trust and learn to listen to the other.
Man as a tool?
Dildos have long ceased to be exotic, their use has almost become commonplace. But does this mean that a woman no longer needs a man for sex?
Today’s sex gadgets, not without success, claim to replace a man. These “substitutes” will please any taste, they are easy to use and devoted to the female will. Like objects of erotic fantasies, they are included in the action exclusively according to the “author’s scenario” and eliminate the need to make contact with another person who has his own desires, tastes, addictions … And in the end, it may turn out that relationships with a man are quite troublesome : you need to meet an attractive partner and find a place for him in the plot of your erotic fantasies. And remember that at any moment he can fall out of it, leave, get lost …
According to the philosopher Daniel Siboney*, the seductive power of sex toys is also due to the fact that they save a woman from having to share her sex with anyone. “In an intimate act, the male member, in fact, belongs to both – both the man and the woman,” explains the philosopher, “it becomes a connecting link between partners. And everyone contributes to this joint possession – his desire.
Perhaps this is not a bad thing: women should be able to satisfy themselves with the help of sex toys? But after all, desire, like love, reminds the philosopher, is experienced together: “In the absence of another person, one can satisfy only that desire that is directed at oneself, that is, its narcissistic aspect. As a result, if we are engaged in only “our” part of the sexual act in order to taste pleasure alone, the main thing disappears – the common pleasure of a woman and a man, an act where both share pleasure. After all, an erect penis is a symbol of joint possession, it exists for two. Giving preference to dildos, a woman thereby declares her independence – from a man and his desire.
But it also speaks of one distinctive feature of modern society: we want to be completely independent of anyone. “However, today both men and women begin to suffocate in the vacuum of their illusory self-sufficiency: we are looking for at least a little dependence for ourselves – love, tenderness, relationships. And again we go in search of another person, without whom we still cannot do without.
* Daniel Sibony is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, and author of several books, including Perversions (Point Seuil, 1987).