Erotic (self) Discipline

What it takes to cultivate a truly juicy, turned-on life

Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

No, we’re not talking about the kinky kind of discipline in a dom-sub dynamic here.

We’re talking about self-discipline, about being disciplined in your erotic practice for the sake of having a juicy, turned-on life— whether you’re single, partnered or dating.

Now, I know a lot of the kind of people drawn to sacred sexuality and ecstatic practice can kind of cringe at the term discipline (Especially calling out my Shakti chaotic goddess types) — discipline can often be labeled as ‘masculine/unfeminine’ and somehow counter to or even blocking of the juicy, erotic, abundant energy that we’re hoping to cultivate.

But, like Hanna aka gracepilled, says: discipline is actually about right relationship with consequence.

She was talking about how a lot of people like to talk about discipline as devotion, and that can be a beautiful reframe and can help some people… But really, discipline comes down to truly understanding and knowing the suffering and the consequences of not taking certain actions.

I’ll start with talking about this in the context of long term relationships, then move to how this applies for solo practice too.

Pick your hard

We know that exercising regularly and eating really healthy food can take a lot of self-control and a lot of dedication. We know it takes discipline to show up at the gym or yoga mat and to choose healthier food options instead of convenient an cheap junk food.

And, we know that if we don’t do that, then we’re going to feel really unhealthy in our body, get sick, age poorly and have a whole other range of issues. That feeling bad in our body is one kind of suffering. Or, we do the hard thing and suffer through creating a routine, going to the gym, getting fit, signing up for a class even though we don’t feel like it — and have the positive effects of being fit and healthy.

The same applies for our eroticism.

Whether you’re solo or you’re in a lovership/s, eroticism has times where it naturally flows abundantly when circumstances align or in certain seasons of your life. But in other times, it actually can be something that requires a level of discipline and effort to cultivate and to nurture. And just like physical fitness, there are consequences to not having this discipline which can range from feeling tense, numb and energetically congested to actual depression, ‘touch starvation’ and sexual dysfunction.

A new relationship can be all fresh and juicy and hot in the early stages — and that’s a natural part of the initial chemistry of coming together with someone compatible and new — but a long-term relationship takes a different kind of discipline and a different kind of effort to maintain and cultivate and show up for. Not only then but also if you fall for someone where there is sexual incompatibility, sexual trauma or other blockages that make getting intimate challenging. Once the initial biochemical cocktail starts to wear out, and familiarity comes in, then we have to start learning about desire, polarity, erotic techniques and ways to ignite the flames of eroticism if we value our sexual selves.

In relationships, erotic discipline is vital if you value truly value having an erotic life, if you value your partner being your lover and not just becoming your housemate. Sexless marriages, affairs, dissatisfaction, resentment and numbing are the consequences if we fail to priorities this part of our life and cultivate this discipline.

Some people turn to open relating to attempt to ‘solve’ this issue, chasing the next hit of new relationship energy to revitalize their Eros, but without doing the groundwork to learn the skills required and cultivate this long-term dynamic mindfully, that choice often results in the primary relationship becoming a friendship or falling away as the erotic energy is channeled out, rather than back in to the relationship to nourish it. (Please don’t take this as some kind of anti-poly rhetoric, many know I am not monogamous myself, but we have to be honest that this happens A LOT in the poly scene when people outsource the eroticism rather than working on the underlying issues.)

My husband and I have now been together for almost six years. And of course, like most couples, at the start there was a lot of hot erotic chemistry and spontaneity. Over the years, that chemistry started to become more of a subtle simmer. We’re still attracted to each other, but the spontaneous, bending each other over the couch and wanting to fuck each other in the middle of the day part of the relationship is more of a rare occurrence these days.

Like most couples, we have our incongruence in desire levels (with my libido being the significantly higher one), we have different ways in which we like being initiated with (I being very responsive and up for it most of the time, him needing more specific contexts and the right timing to be in the mood) as well as different erotic responses to stress (I’m what they call a ‘red-liner’ who turns to sex when stressed as a form of tension relief while he shuts down sexually when stressed). I know as a sex/couples coach that all these dynamics are totally normal and it’s actually more rare for couples to ‘match’ in these areas (though short-term lovers tend to match up here easier). All these dynamics add to the complexity of maintaining sexual intimacy over the years.

Yet, we both value eroticism. We both value the sexual connection we have. We both know that pleasure is good for us, that intimacy is important for bonding and hormones, and that we have a happier and healthier relationship when we are having regular sex. The amount of sex has had to be a compromise (what is ‘desire’ vs ‘need’ around how much we have, for example) but we have open regular conversations about it and we both show up for it.

So what it takes for us to keep our relationship hot and sexy over the years is a disciplined practice — having erotic date nights, attending classes, sometimes getting coaching and support when it’s needed. But more often, it’s just creating the environment and intentionally setting time and a container for our eroticism to have space to be cultivated and to bloom. Just like any disciplined practice, we block the time off, create the space and sit down to practice.

The Resistance to Planning

A lot of people are really resistant to the whole ‘planned datenight’ thing. When I’m coaching couples or talking about it in workshops, they say, “No, I want it to be spontaneous. I want it to be just, you know, my partner wanting me all the time.” And of course, many of us want that. It’s natural that we desire that spontaneous, that effortlessness that comes sometimes when the stars align, and that’s beautiful and we can often look at how to create a life and mindset where spontaneous hot eroticism just happens randomly through your day…

But being realistic is recognising that it does not always flow that way and many of us are not in the kind of life context where we have the space and energy for that kind of play to just happen, especially if we work a lot, have kids, stress, commitments, shared housing, trauma etc.

If we want to hold on to that story that ‘good sex’ is only coming from being spontaneous and in the flow and with no effort, then we’re likely going to end up in a sexless and disappointing relationship, or throwing away a perfectly good relationship because ‘the sex didn’t work’ when you barely even tried.

Some people will either end up resentful and sticking with the relationship but feeling frustrated sexually, unmet and unfulfilled, or they’ll end up blaming the relationship itself and thinking it means that they’re not meant to be with their partner and leaving — rather than cultivating the erotic discipline, showing up and putting effort in as a practice. Yes, it’s a form of devotion — a willingness to go beyond the self, the ‘hard’ and the resistance for something important. And, it’s a knowing of the consequences of not doing this. And the longer you wait to cultivate the discipline, the harder it will be to work through the issues and built up resentment.

Of course, if you prefer, you can always just ditch the long-term relationship goal, eternally stay within the first honeymoon period, bouncing person to person and leaving when things get hard. For some people, that’s what they do and it is enough for them. Or, they decide to be polysexual (either consensually or not) and let their main relationship become platonic/sexless and just find sexual satisfaction in these newer loverships. That’s one way that you can go about things, of course and many people do find satisfaction in seperating companionship and eroticism.

But if you do want to maintain the lover energy with a partner over years, it takes a constant showing up. It takes dedication, discipline — a discipline to show up and create eroticism together (in our case, at least once a week unless we have reasons), a discipline to use the tools that you learn at conscious sexuality workshops and sacred sexuality spaces and to actually put them into practice.

[I have online courses for couples if you don’t have these skills, by the way. Later this year after my tour in Australia, Tristen and I will be creating a brand new course and membership for couples. If you have the old courses you’ll get special upgrades and offers so you can get started now and enjoy the upgrade later!]

Erotic Discipline as a Solo Practice

And even if we are in a partnership, maybe we are the one willing to show up for it, but our partner isn’t. Maybe you’re like me and you have a higher sexual drive than your partner, and you have the choice to either wait around for them, feeling unsatisfied, or to take radical self responsibility for your erotic thriving regardless of how anyone else shows up.

Or maybe you are single, dating or celibate and you’re also letting go of waiting for someone to ‘save you’, sweep you off your feet and seduce you.

Regardless of the way anyone else shows up or not, we can still look at:

How am I showing up for my eroticism, my own relationship to my sexuality?

Am I creating the conditions and spaces for my eroticism to bloom?

Am I taking care of my sexual self?

Am I topping up my pleasure cup?

Am I doing things that make me feel passionate and vibrant and alive?

Or— am I becoming undisciplined?

Am I being passive, just letting that spark dim?

You can be sexually thriving, erotically activated and living a delicious life without any partner at all, without relying on anyone else to show up in any way at all.

If we want to live an erotic life, if we want to be a Liberated Sensualist, if we want to experience life as juicy and fulfilling and pleasurable and fun… we need to prioritise and nourish this aspect of ourselves. We have to show up with that devotional discipline.

There might be seasons where this erotic flow just happens naturally — maybe while we are on holiday/traveling, newly in love, in a phase of our awakening or particularly spacious. But, if we want that juicy life more regularly, that becomes our practice. That’s our spiritual work. That’s our ‘gym’, our Yoga. We do our practice. We invest in that area of our life, which involves investing time, energy, and yes, often money to learn the tools, to become familiar with certain techniques, to get support.

(Maybe we read ‘The Liberated Sensualist’ and get inspired for how sacred sensuality, Tantra and Erotic Mysticism can support that journey… wink wink…)

If we struggle with self-discipline doing it ourselves, then maybe we need to hire a coach or have some kind of accountability container where we have to show up for it. And that discipline has its rewards. The choice to not has it’s consequences. It might feel frustrating at times. It will take effort. You might prefer if things were easy. But the right relationship to the consequences is knowing what it’s like to live a turned-off, non-juicy, numb, detached-from-life existence.

Photo by Lauren Richmond on Unsplash

Understanding What We’re Missing

A lot of us that have dipped our toes into the tantric field or sacred sexuality remember what it was like beforehand, and what it can be like when we activate the full potential of our sexuality. We know that unique kind of suffering that comes from feeling numb and detached from our sexuality. Sometimes it’s a very obvious kind of suffering, and sometimes it’s this low-level depression, fuzziness or anxiety in the background that might not be super obvious — until we have an erotic reawakening and we feel that zestiness again.

So we pick what kind of hard. We make the time, even if it involves cutting down on other things (like scrolling or watching TV shows or waking up earlier) and we do the practice, even when we don’t feel like it. We create a positive association in our body-mind with practice and each time we sit down to do it, we wonder why we had any resistance to it in the first place.

Sometimes we may need to motivate ourselves through connecting to that suffering again, connecting to the lack, the frustration, and grieving what we’re missing. Feeling the emotions tied to that feeling of lack to let that be a fuel to motivate us to show up for our practice. Learning to commit to putting it into our calendar like any other important meeting, the same way you would prioritize having time to catch up with your family or doing anything else in your life that you value as important. Even if it’s once a month. Even if it’s a 15 minute pleasure practice. We can find some time to offer ourselves something!

We all have different levels of priority and capacity for how much we’re willing to invest and show up for this part of our lives, and that often can be tied to privilege or scarcity. If our schedule is super full all the time because we’re just so stressed and so weighed down ust trying to feed our families and to make enough money to survive, of course then fitting in multiple hours of self-pleasure isn’t going to be as much of a priority as getting paid or doing what’s necessary to survive…

But for a lot of people who do have the time — and if you think you don’t have the time, I invite you to look at how many hours you spend scrolling the internet each week and ask yourself if you could maybe minimize that by one hour and spend it in erotic practice with yourself or your partner instead. One less movie or TV show, one less doom-scrollathon. I know I like many might make the excuse that ‘I’m too tired’ and want to collapse into passivity in those time spaces, but when we actually do our practice we find a life-giving, nourishing experience that actually helps us to alchemise and digest a lot of our life’s stressors.

So, connect with that deep desire for more juiciness and aliveness. If not for yourself, then for the people around you who also benefit from the transmission of your radient, passionate, juicy, turned-on version of you. That version of you is co-creating vibrant energy that people are often thankful to experience, especially in times where people are numbing out, overwhelmed and frustrated.

Erotic, embodied people who are feeling good in themselves are like these little beacons of light and hope in challenging times, and have more resilience and capacity to be able to support others and show up for others in life. This fullness ripples out.

Photo by Alma Snortum-Phelps on Unsplash

Is it time to cultivate this self-discipline?

My invitation to you is to honestly look at what your relationship to self-discipline in connection to your eroticism.

How do you show up for yourself and for your sexuality?

Are you a victim of circumstance, waiting for the elusive ‘right time’ or ‘right person’ to claim your erotic aliveness? Or a conscious creator?

Are you showing up at all, or are you letting it fizzle out and prioritizing other things?

What excuses do you make to why you can’t make the time and are they really true?

Is there a way that you can connect with both the type of suffering that comes from not working on that area of your life, and the potential benefits for yourself and for others around you when you are using the tools and are showing up?

If you are wanting to cultivate a longer-term self-discipline practice around eroticism, I have a few different pathways.

If you are focusing on yourself, then you can always start with my book, The Liberated Sensualist, which contains 40 practices to take you from feeling a bit numb, shut down, and disconnected to feeling juicy, vibrant, devotional and fully alive. Get the Companion Course to pair it with all the guided audios so you can drop deep into a regular practice.

If you’re already experienced with Sacred Sexuality, and you’re mostly done with ‘the healing work’, you know ‘the tools’, but you really want a place where you can continuously top up your practice, reconnect on a deeper level, revitalize without it feeling like work, then join Deep Eros, which is my monthly membership where you get a juicy, advanced erotic practice every month, as well as shadow work and meditations to support whatever frequency we’re playing with that month. Commit to living your most turned-on, juicy life and honouring your practice with devotion and discipline, because you know the cost of letting things fizzle out!

If you’re in a partnership, then I have some courses on the Sensual Art School where you can do online sessions and create that space with your partner to reconnect.