There is quite a lot of talk about sex and sexuality . However - why us do we need it and what do we get from it? Do we know our body and know how to give it real pleasure? And in the end - who is responsible for it? About all this in a conversation with partnership and sexuality specialists, psychologists Kristini Pigeons .

Why do we have to talk about sex and sexuality? What do we get from it?

We gain freedom in understanding ourselves in a nuanced way - not so much by imitating each other or taking after each other established template, but feeling more your individuality, authenticity, uniqueness, to learn it little by little communicate to the outside world, defend and represent oneself.

It is not always convenient and beneficial for someone else to accept who we are.

Education , like any other field, is an instrument of power . Because we are each more knowledgeable, more educated, more aware, more stable and meek, because it is easier for us to be in touch and not lose ourselves. Especially if we are talking about women who have a strong tendency to adapt or try to change.

So, the more knowledge and self-understanding we have, the easier it is to draw boundaries.

Recent studies show that the earlier the better, if children are able to name their genitals, are more aware of their body limits, more conscious in the culture of communication, knows how to behave empathetically and tolerantly towards other people and understands what violates the boundaries of the other person or oneself. Just the same for an adult, who has such a gentle, gentle and old age there was no proper education, nothing is very different - we learn again, as if we were just born, - first to be aware of your body, to understand where everything is, how it feels, what it is called and what its function is. It is gradually forming ideas and beliefs - how it fits into the specific cultural environment, era and ideas that particularly affect genitalia and related manifestations.

Children are already born sexually , not become so at the age of eighteen. The more sexuality is not separated from the overall human development and improvement, because rather it embeds and manifests itself. The more we tear it away from ourselves and stigmatize it, put it aside and every now and then we want it as a switch switch on and off - everyone's individual and collective experiences in society, irrational fears, prejudices begin and insecurity.

You have said that a woman should learn how to manage and use her genitals.

If we keep the personality in a cage of ignorance, then it is difficult to see any challenges as something that can be moved, not as the fate that is “destined for us”. Sometimes we tend to think that men's relationship with their genitals is too fixated and centered on them, yet viewed as a whole from the side of healthy body integrity, men the audience's contact with their genitals is much more accepting and interested, less attached to the idea that genitals are worse than all other organs.

A woman's bond with her genitals is often more actualized through the role of mother, through the fact that we have to take to carry and give birth to babies. But that our genitals are related to the organs of pleasure, joy and cognition? With something to build a conscious relationship with, to get to know and nurture over a lifetime? For example, we can compare it with the way we take care of our face or oral cavity. What if we didn't know about it from birth?

It is the same with internal and external genitalia. We forget that ovaries are one of the glands that are responsible for the healthy functioning of our overall endocrine system. We forget that by neglecting to leave one from body parts, we significantly affect the whole body as a whole. Not only in physical manifestations, but also in the psycho-emotional, which is often evidenced by hormonal challenges, how balanced, happy, satisfied we are, harmonious, capable of self-regulation and self-determination, instead of succumbing to our emotionally oppressive state. Therefore, we are much more able to adapt our lifestyle to what we need, rather than to something that happens externally.

Initially, everyone has a natural interest in self-discovery.

Of course. And then comes sex education - don't sit like that, don't stand like that, don't talk so loudly. A baby is born and so are we we automatically put him in the blue or pink box. Nowadays it is no longer correct to talk about a strict division, going out of gender. When raising boys, we strengthen their physical contact with ourselves, encourage them to be physical manifests itself. We take girls in from a very early age. We fold all the cants, ribbons and attempts to express your individuality. We try to smooth it out nicely and hide it so that we are always happy, smiling, nothing unwilling, unable and savable. You can look at it from the point of view of equality - how do we cut a child lives and how our own lives are shaped by sex education.

There is still a giant stereotype that men have a harder time resisting lust, while women do not a strong desire for sex.

Nowadays it is no longer really correct to talk about women and men. We are talking about different gender identities and physical sex characteristics and the resulting tendencies. Personalities with male gender characteristics are much more common will be characterized by the need to get rid of sexual tension, significantly faster physiological and psychological response to the presence of stimuli of a sexual nature, the synchronicity of lust and arousal. For personalities with feminine gender characteristics processes of lust and arousal, as observed, will be much more dependent on the context, the principle of voluntariness and conscious prioritization and management of sexual activity. For example, the intensity of sexual activity can be also related to hormonal background. We can talk about two different forms of expression of sexual reaction - active, willing and reactive, which characterizes all of us and creates tendencies, how we feel our sexual activity.

It can be compared like this - if one needs to pee in the company of women, we will probably go to the toilet together. Do we always shall we both do it, even if we both go to the bathroom? Probably not. Sometimes it is good to look at a man as well offer of sexual activity.

Why reject an offer without even engaging in activities that might change my interest.

Two people rarely want something in sync. Of course, it is also related to the overall background, and sometimes to the performance. Exactly just as we choose different food, we also choose different sexual offerings - if it's still on the "menu". there is something besides intercourse. We do not expect the same reaction from each other, we are not in sync. But there is a lack of cooperation cultures. If I want to go to the cinema, but you don't, the question is - what do I want more - to the cinema or to go with you. If I want to be with you more, maybe I can adjust it to a trip to the cinema. If I just need to express the sexual tension, which is not necessarily related to the desire to have sex with a partner, then it is preferable that I talk about it before event, not after.

Misunderstandings and insults arise when we do not know the conditions under which we are invited to a situation . We do not reveal our needs, trusting that for some reason the other person will guess them. Sometimes just each other do not exempt from the need to participate. It is more common that we do not want a partner in the way that is offered to us. Perhaps we want a different kind of sexual activity - one that is not so centered on intercourse.

Isn't this about respect for your body?

Every adult is responsible for what happens to him. Therefore, the other adult does not do anything to whom the other has not verbally agreed. If I agree to participate, then I myself am responsible for what happens to me. Not then say, "You don't care about my needs anymore." How active I am in my own needs represented and not ignored if they are not taken into account.

Often women's response is - but then we would never have anything at all, because my needs for the other not interested. Then you have to be able to make the sharp decision yourself - I can't get everything in this life without investments. probably if I come to this partner for a long time with my own initiative, needs, preferences, cooperation offer, but mine needs are not taken into account, then I make a decision not to have sex with this partner.

There is a sharp remnant of history - so far, women's well-being and pleasure, presence in sexual activity have not really existed interested. Historically, sexual activity has been more male-oriented. Information about women genitals have appeared in full relatively recently, and their structure is not clear for everyone. How it occurs excitement? Sometimes penetrative intercourse does not result in arousal. The brain is responsible for the sexual response dual control mechanism. This means that there are on and off buttons that you have to know how to operate yourself. Mouths cavity, genitals, fingertips - these are sensitive places. But do I also know mine individually sensitive areas? Do I lead them , so that the arousal does not happen to me like a miracle, but I can to answer the question, how did it come about? I don't even give the controls to the knight on the white horse in what I do. I am present. I keep my attention and give my brain something to do so that I I desire the action that I am doing - not necessarily this person, but through the action, perhaps in time, the person as well.

Positive incentives should be created by neutralizing negative ones. If there are children banging behind the door or it doesn't have a key, and all the time thinking someone is going to come in, or afraid that my partner will see cellulite, or thinking about eating because I'm hungry - I am responsible for being able to neutralize these so-called shut-offs. Because it's not like sexual intimacy lasts 5-6 hours, children tragically die in the meantime, the soup will boil over - sometimes we dramatize. I don't have time - that is no excuse. Sexual acts rarely last long enough for lack of time to be an excuse .

You have to ask yourself if I have a habit of prioritizing sexual activity at all.

So man himself is responsible for his ability to desire.

An adult is responsible for what happens to him. When we talk about two, three or even ten for people, it is a culture of communication. Intelligence in how we observe the needs of others as a whole participant needs are included. How much of my needs I have brought into our common sexual culture .

The concept of "foreplay" is morally obsolete. A woman doesn't need foreplay, a woman needs different sexual activities because she has a different organism. If we get rid of intercourse as the most essential sexual act actions, and most women do not derive sexual pleasure and orgasm from penetrative intercourse, - then there is it is incorrect to call everything else that is sexual activity as foreplay.

Isn't it so - if a woman has an intimate relationship with a man, this woman's cellulite or other apparent imperfections?

I wouldn't say that it is so clear-cut in the modern cult of beauty. There will be men, and also women, who are literally like that will also say: here you have cellulite, here you have bumps, here something has slipped... If the world was so empathetic and beautiful, we wouldn't have so much suffering and hurt.

It is not that intimate areas are only genitals. Intimate is the whole human body, intimate is oneself a person. What is unique to me, how we respect the intimate and personal, and how we we build relationships and get to know each other; how much we allow ourselves to hurt it, expecting that the other owes us something to look, to be able to, to want and to do something.

In the Western world, where aesthetic codes are so strong and surrounding, creating enormous pressure from an early age, mostly it's not just about women, but any person. There is self-condemnation. Each of us knows the pattern that we long to have skin like a baby even at the age of eighty. Human creativity is amazing, but everything begins from the fact that we do not respect human intimacy. A ten-minute relationship between two people is also an intimate process. No need to lie down in bed to have "intimate" relations. Sometimes the least intimate processes take place in beds could have happened where there was no excitement, no lust, no pleasure during sexual activity, - then why we do we even call it sexual activity?

We are all sensual people, and so is the body part that has cellulite, postpartum stretch marks, more elastic skin or deformed bone, is a sensitive place and capable of giving pleasure and satisfaction, as long as we allow it, and not censor it as useless. Sensuality often has little to do with aesthetics.

Still many women who do not feel maximum pleasure during sexual intercourse think that there is something wrong with them okay...

The lack of sexual education has led to this. Absolutely healthy, fully functioning women, for years live with the belief that something is wrong with them. They don't know how their genitals work, they probably don't self-satisfied and aware of their bodies. Therefore, they have not come to self-revelations. And culture often for a woman denies self-acceptance, because someone else had it all!

No need to compare.

Yes, someone has a bigger leg, someone smaller, someone sees closer, someone further. Sometimes other people's experiences are also there necessary, because we are also social beings in the sexual sense. The need to socialize is the way we learn, we expand our horizons, we get a starting point. Human circulation in sexual matters affecting our well-being, is necessary. But don't compare. What works for others does not work for us. We are unique. There are collective things that overlapping - all women have a clitoral system; anatomical features may differ, but they function the same.

If sexual activity is extremely focused on orgasm, and not on pleasure in general - pleasure expansion, diversification, process prolongation, we are unable to feed our body with hormones that are produced during sexual activity.

What is the minimum time required for these hormones to develop?

In different studies, we can come across different indications and guidelines, but the ones mentioned are about 15-20 minutes of pleasant feeling until our feel-good hormones begin to reproduce. It's definitely not from a quick rub. But that doesn't mean that there must be contact partner sex.

The big question to ask yourself before we engage in sexual activity - why am I engaging in it now? From where to where this sexual activity helps me to transit - from fatigue to relaxation, from sadness to response, from anger to expression... Preferably more than the answer - I want an orgasm. The cult of the consumer is also clearly visible in sexual activities.

It turns out that the way we enjoy the sexual process symbolizes how we enjoy life in general.

Probably we can draw analogies. Are we survivors who overcome something, react and calm down, or are we we deliberately create pleasurable conditions. Not to overcome, but to experience.

Author of the article: IEVA KRASTIņA

Photo: AL LAPKOVSKY, VOVALIN , CINDY JOHNSON , BRINA , RACHEL JASMINE , SHEWOLF

Visual content artist: KSENIJA BELCA-BESLER

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