How one woman found yoga, eased her inner hunger, and started loving herself. Follow Kimber as she shares her journey to loving her body, the joys and sorrows of yoga teaching, and venturing into the wilderness of writing and publishing.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Love Your Slow Sex: Love Your Body Blog Part 47


Today I digress to talk more about sex. Sex and loving your body go hand-in-hand, and I didn’t get any complaints from my last venture onto this limb, quite the opposite, in fact! You might remember that several weeks ago I gave away a free One Taste women’s sexuality retreat to a blog-reader. This week I’m sharing with you a new book written by the facilitator of the retreat, Nicole Daedone, called Slow Sex: the Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm.

Has it ever happened that you never noticed something in the world, let’s say delivery trucks with attached lift equipment, until one backs into your car, squashing your hood, and then suddenly you start seeing them everywhere?

Not to say this has ever happened to me, except for last Thursday afternoon. Since then, it’s as if delivery trucks were invented and populated the planet overnight. They are everywhere.

When the folks at One Taste first contacted me, I had never heard of them in the 17 years I’ve lived in the Bay Area. Then overnight, friends and acquaintances at parties start telling me, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of them, they have a center in SF, don’t they… [fill in the blank],” and later they email me articles from the New York Times and Salon. Suddenly I’m feeling like the kid who was in the bathroom while the teacher did a headstand on her desk. Where have I been? And what is this whole celebration of the female orgasm about?

In the book’s intro, Daedone compares slow sex to the taste of a ripe, juicy heirloom tomato.

That certainly grabbed my attention. As the granddaughter of a man who considered a plate of his home-grown sliced tomatoes a dessert equal to my grandmother’s blackberry cobbler, when you start talking tomatoes, I know you’re serious. What else really needs to be said?

A lot apparently.

Apparently we’re pretty repressed (no surprise there), don’t know what to ask for, or how to ask for it (somewhat surprising), and don’t feel entitled to acknowledge our desires (disturbing and definitely worth looking into). Slow Sex offers men a way to listen and tap into female desire, and shows women how to unearth their desire and release it in a way that reinvigorates their whole lives.

From the gossip I’d heard about One Taste, I expected Slow Sex to be an indictment of monogamy and a clarion call for a return to the glories of 70’s style swinging.

If that’s the book you’re looking for, save your money. Daedone describes her orgasmic meditation and slow sex techniques mostly as they apply to primary heterosexual relationships, with the exception of a few nods to singles and lesbian and gay couples. Conventional and yet not.

Though I’m at the disadvantage of not having read widely in the field of sex manuals (with the notable exception of The Joy of Sex shared up and down the dorm hallway in college), the upshot of Slow Sex is this: women’s orgasms matter, and they are not what you think. They are not fancy, not high-volume, not fever-pitched. They don’t require an advanced degree in biomechanical engineering.

A woman can orgasm for 15 minutes or for the rest of her life.

Any woman. You. The secret is what Daedone calls Orgasmic Meditation or OMing (cute, huh?). You may never again Om at the beginning of yoga class without an inner smile. OMing and Om-ing are essentially unrelated, except that they both invoke a meditative state of concentration. In the chapter “How to Om”, Daedone takes you and your partner through all the steps to OM, building communication, trust, and access to an inexhaustible source of energy along the way. Honestly, it sounds pretty fun.

To tell you the truth, I haven’t tried OM yet, but I’m intrigued.

A technique that combines meditation, orgasm, relationship, and increased joy for life? I’m listening.

What especially delights me about Slow Sex is its emphasis on how to listen to your body, feel the sensations, and grow in your sensitivity and awareness. As in yoga, desire is not a problem, but a path to explore honestly, with love and devotion. In these ways, Slow Sex is simply an extension of yoga practice into intimate relationships and reveals an ocean worth diving into.

As I turned the last page last night, I wondered who should read this book.

Which of my friends and students would find this book helpful, even life-changing? Here are some questions you can ask yourself: Do you want to experience orgasm, possibly for the first time, or in a different way than you ever imagined? Do you want to improve your communication during sex with your partner, and possibly in the rest of your relationship as well? Do you want to access your desire more deeply, and learn to channel it into your life? Do you sense that OM might take you further on your journey of learning to love your body? Maybe OM is for you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

To find out more about One Taste go to http://www.onetaste.us/ . To view Slow Sex on Amazon, click here. (And no, silly, of course I don’t get kickbacks.)