A More Conscious and Pleasurable Way to Experience Porn

December 4, 2022  

  minute READ

A lot of the discourse in the world around porn is binary. Either someone is anti-porn or pro-porn. What gets lost in the shuffle is that a lot of people still choose to engage in porn. What might a pro-choice approach to porn look like, and how can we critically evaluate our relationship with porn in service of pleasure?

We’re joined by Cam Fraser on this special bonus episode of Slutty Activism to talk about the uncommon pleasure you can experience while using porn consciously, if you choose to do so.

Cam is a Certified Professional Sex Coach and Certified Sexologist who brings together the academic and the esoteric into powerful coaching and support for men.

Together, we drilled into the two conversations we need to have as consumers of porn, looking at porn as a tool to amplify arousal and explore sexual fantasies, and ways to bring embodiment and fully-body pleasure to experiences of porn. There is so much richness here, and Cam offers so many practical tips, you’ll be set for a while when it comes to new ways to experiment.

 

Key Take-Aways

In this episode you will learn:

1) How the way we use porn affects our relationship to porn and to our own pleasure

2) The ethical implications of different types of pornography and how to make conscious choices

3) How to bring our whole bodies into our experiences with porn, if we choose to use porn

 

About The Guest

Cam is a Certified Professional Sex Coach and Certified Sexologist. His work integrates scientifically validated, medically accurate information about sexual health, with sacred sexuality teachings from the mystery traditions.

As a coach, he helps men go beyond surface-level sex and into full-bodied, self-expressed, pleasure-oriented sexual experiences free of anxiety or shame.

Here’s where you can learn more about Cam online:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/thecamfraser
TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@thecamfraser2.0
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKn_mdnURk5OeFf9vUAtClQ

 

If you enjoyed this episode, you’ll love being part of The Union!

If you’re ready to experience more uncommon pleasure and be a part of the community that fosters it, join The Pleasure Union today!

And to connect with other like-minded people, come join us in the Slutty Activism Podcast Community group at SluttyActivism.group

 

Credits:

Produced & Hosted by Sarah Martin
Cover Art by Nik Gothic
Music by eFly Production

Full Transcript

Transcription

[00:00:03]

Hello. Hello, everyone out there. Today, I am so excited to be introducing this person, this amazing guest who's come to speak with us about some more uncommon and pleasure. And for those of you who are. Just listening, there's lots of nodding and smiling going on.

[00:00:25]

For those of you checking out the video, you can totally see that I am sat here with Mr. Cam Fraser. Hello and welcome. Would you like to say hello to the people? I would love to say hello.

[00:00:36]

And thank you so much for having me. Hello to everyone listening. Yeah. So I want to tell you all a little bit about Cam. Cam is a certified professional sex coach.

[00:00:46]

And a certified sexologist. And his work integrates scientifically validated, medically accurate information about sexual health together with sacred sexuality teachings from the mystery traditions. And as a coach, he helps men go beyond surface level sex and into fullbodied, self expressed, pleasure oriented sexual experiences free of anxiety or shame. And I just love Cam. I've known you for a while now.

[00:01:18]

A good couple of years, I think. Yeah. And Kan is someone that I have admired. We have some synergy in our work. We also do some different things in our work.

[00:01:29]

And so it's been fascinating to have this wonderful colleague friendship across time and space because Cam is also in Australia, which is sometimes a challenge with time zones and it's always worth making the effort. So thank you for coming to chat with us today, cause today we are going to talk about porn. Is that right? Yeah, I hope to talk a bit about porn and maybe have some conversations about porn that people haven't had before. Yeah, and I think this is really a great place to start because folks might be listening and going, porn, that's not an uncommon pleasure.

[00:02:12]

And at the same time, like immediately when I saw you recently talking about porn and a more conscious use of porn, I thought to myself, oh, but this is fun because it is uncommon, but it's taking something that is very familiar and making it accessible to people in a whole new way in the service of their pleasure. Have I got that right? Yeah, very much so. Like, when I speak to a lot of guys about the way that they masturbate, for example, and oftentimes the way that they tell me that they use Pawn is like it's very similar. Every guy I use I mean, this is a generalization, but every guy I speak to uses Pawn the same way.

[00:02:55]

It's like either sitting down at an office chair, like I am now in front of a computer, kind of hunched over the screen, mouse in one hand, cocking the other, kind of going through the motions, clicking on their favorite tubes. Or it's maybe on their phone, sitting in bed or lying on the couch swiping. Or maybe on social media, maybe on Instagram, maybe on TikTok and again, phone in one hand, cock and the other very stagnant and stationary. So hopefully those two scenarios land for the people listening, because that is definitely how I hear men talk to me about the way that they masturbate. It's very, very common.

[00:03:33]

Yeah. And what I hear when I listen to you describe that, which is also something I've heard from my clients, too, is just this I don't know, this sense of that's such a disembodied way to go about experiencing pleasure. And I think that relates in part to I've heard you talk a bit about there's the what and the how as the two conversations we should be having as consumers of porn. And I'm wondering if you could say a bit more about that, because I think it does relate a bit to that theme. Right, yeah, totally.

[00:04:09]

So I clarified as consumers of pornography, because there are other conversations that are really necessary with regards to form, which is, like, from the performance side of things and the industry side of things. And so I'm just really clear that I'm not having those conversations. Got you. And there are some people that are having really important conversations in that regard. But as people that watch porn, I put my hand up and say, I watch porn as well.

[00:04:31]

But as people that watch porn, as consumers of porn, there's kind of two things we need to be mindful of in these two conversations that we need to have. First is, like, what type of porn are we watching? And this goes from one side of that is, like, is it ethical porn that we're watching? Like, are we watching free porn off of tube sites where it's maybe been ripped from someone else's personal website and we're not paying them? And so there's no there's no ethicality there's no fairness, there's no fair trade with regards to their product they've created for us.

[00:05:02]

Are we watching feminist porn, for example, where the practices behind the filming of it have been treating the performers fairly and making sure that everyone there's a lot of consent involved and everyone's feeling safe and heard and valued. But then also, what type of porn are you watching? Is also with regards to what are the messages in our porn? And this is where we apply some media literacy skills or maybe porn literacy skills, even. What type of porno watching in terms of like is it very hardcore and is it showing very unrealistic expectations with regards to what sex looks like or are we seeing anything with regards to what is literally on screen in front of us and the messages that that's portraying and conveying to us as regards to sex and sexuality and masculinity as well?

[00:06:02]

Like what type of bodies are on screen, for example, how big are the penises on screen, things like that. And then the how conversation, which is one that I don't really see talked about as much, the what conversation is kind of there. But the how is where I think it really gets interesting, which is like how are you using the pawn? Right? So very often I hear men saying, well, the how is I'm sitting on my couch, I'm sitting in my office chair and I'm just punched over a screen going through the motions.

[00:06:31]

But I think some really interesting things come through when we start to go. What about if we explore that a little bit more? What about if we stand up when we watch porn? What about if we listen to the porn instead of watching it? What about if we start to move our body around and put a mirror next to us and have the porn on in the background and start to look at our own reflection and start to get turned on by that?

[00:06:54]

What if we start to explore maybe different types of porn in terms of like erotic literature or some other maybe instructional pornography that's like guiding you through like the how we're using the porn I think is like really cool. I think there's like some stuff there. And the way that I frame that conversation is like porn is a tool. Just like a sex toy is a tool. Just like just like breathing is a tool.

[00:07:21]

We can use these things to amplify arousal, to explore different parts of our body, to maybe explore fantasy and things that turn us on and maybe even discover some boundaries and things that turn us off as well. But the how conversation is where I really find a lot of fascinating things and that's really where a lot of this uncommon, I suppose pleasure comes from is like using porn in really interesting ways. I think there's some fascinating things you can do. So the what's conversation I think is important to start with, but then it's like the how is where I think things get really fun. Well, yeah, what I just heard there was like a rapid fire list of ways you can change up using porn to have a different experience, right?

[00:08:05]

You talked about listening without watching. You talked about having a mirror nearby standing up. And these are all small tweaks, but they add this sense of novelty, right, and with the listening without watching, it's stimulating a different sense. Right. Because as for those of us who have sight, the visual sense is so overpowering often that sometimes removing that allows the other senses to come out and play as well.

[00:08:37]

Right? The advice or not advice, but a suggestion I would often give to my clients is using porn in this way as fantasy fuel and like watching it, but not touching yourself, storing it up and then go and explore. Your body, using it as, like, the cinema of the mind, like, replaying the parts you like, adding in your own additions for stuff that you prefer. And I think that's in the same spirit in the same vein of we've got this extraordinary resource. And, you know, porn is not a monolith, like you said.

[00:09:15]

You've got written erotica, you've got gifts, right? The Rip, the Tumblr blogs that had those great collections. There are many people that are very sad and feel that lost greatly. Yeah, but we've got this great resource, and instead of there being just all of the shame and taboo, how can we come out to play in a whole new way? Yeah.

[00:09:44]

And I think, like, that gets swept under the rug because the conversation about porn is very like, the conversations that I see and observe are very emotional conversations. It's like porn is good or porn is bad. It's like very black and white dichotomized conversations. And there's no room for that beautiful gray nuanced space because those conversations are really driven by a lot of people that strongly oppose pornography as an idea, as it stands. And so everything is bad, right?

[00:10:19]

And then you've got people that are really like, again, pornography as an idea they want to support, right? And so they have to counter that argument by saying, well, no, porn's actually good. But then my opinion is, like, not all porn is good, not all porn is bad. And having room to explore that and find out what is good and what isn't so good and what works for you and what doesn't work for you, I think is a lot more healthy. And having that healthy relationship with pornography is what I find is a lot more valuable.

[00:10:48]

And so, yeah, I've got so many suggestions with regards, like, things that guys can do. I love the idea of not touching itself and letting that build that arouse, because that's what porn is really good at, right? It's really good at arousing us. It's really good at exciting us. And so if we can use that, we can use porn as a tool to build that excitement and build that arousal for us, and then we can do something with that arousal.

[00:11:09]

I often speak to guys who maybe do have a bit of a reliance or a dependence on pornography. They find it difficult to masturbate and to be turned on without it. I said, well, let's use pawn in the way that you have been using it just to excite you and to arouse you. But then let's pause it, and then let's turn away from the pawn and let's play with that arousal that you've just built and that you've just used to excite you. And then if you feel that subside a little bit, no problem.

[00:11:35]

Let's swing back to the pawn, build that excitement and that arousal back up because it usually happens quite quickly, because, again, that's what pawn is designed to do. And then let's pause it once it's built up again, turn away and start to play with that arousal again and start to develop a bit more of a healthier relationship with the pornography that you're using and also simultaneously building a healthier relationship with your own body, with your own arousal and embodying that. And that swing back and forth is just there's a guy called Joseph Kramer who kind of really created this kind of healthy porn watching modality, I suppose. But he calls that the pendulum, where you just swing back and forth between pornography and then your own arousal and embodiment. And then if you want to tighten that arousal and that sensation again, then move back to the pornography, maybe in a different way, and then swing back to your own body.

[00:12:21]

So that's, like, one suggestion that I have to guys that maybe feel like they're a bit reliant on the pawn that they're watching. That's awesome. And I love in your description there, it's so deshaming and it's not taking any, like, oh, yeah, you know, that's what happens. There's so much discourse on the porn is bad side of the fence that, you know, total abstinence is the only way to be an alpha and blah blah. And I'm just like the things that one says, start when no FAP starts sounding like Fight the New Drug, you kind of go, what's going on here?

[00:13:05]

Right? And anybody who doesn't know Fight the New Drug, they're an organization that's really strongly anti porn, and they're responsible for putting out a lot of the antiporn research papers, which are all like a lot of them are done at Brigham Young University. It's really interesting the involvement of Mormons in the anti porn movement. But yeah, it always surprises me when really far, right, people and people who say that they adhere to feminism as an ideological framework are at the same marches, just shouting, Porn is bad, porn is bad. And then the thing is, we all use it.

[00:13:47]

A lot of us do. That's the thing. When you blanket shame porn like that, it also seems to me like there's a systemic factor here, right. Because if porn is bad and we're all watching it and we're all secretly bad, that's shame, right. That's a mechanism of control.

[00:14:03]

And yeah. Thanks for bringing up Joseph Kramer. He called it porn yoga, didn't he? Originally, he did call it porn yoga and then he realized, maybe I'm appropriating the term yoga here. Yeah.

[00:14:13]

So now he calls it embodied porn watching. I get, like, people that adhere to the antipawn sentiment very strongly, like, jump onto my page and I talk about the nuances of porn because I'm not staunchly antipawn. I'd probably consider myself anti antipawn. Right. I'm not necessarily propawn because I don't think porn is all good, but I'm not anti born, but I'm anti the people that are anti porn.

[00:14:39]

Which is a bit of a mind boggle. But the thing that I think is, like, quite important is yeah, like the d shaming of it. Because, I mean, these types of people, when they come into my social media page they'll say that I'm promoting pornography and I'm promoting, you know, porn addiction and all this other stuff, right?

[00:15:06]

Yeah. I'm not necessarily saying, go out and go and watch porn. I'm acknowledging as you beautifully shared paths of people are watching porn, right? And I'm not here to tell them not to do it. I'm not here to tell them that they should watch more.

[00:15:20]

I'm just here to go. Here's another way of watching the porn that you're already watching to give you a bit more mindfulness and awareness around it, to give you a few more strategies to explore the different nuances of it, as opposed to being like, you need to go out and watch porn today and you need to watch it all day, every day. I just feel like the language that they use is like so, again, it's very emotive, right? And it's really like it's coming from an emotional space because a lot of these people have probably had a negative experience with porn or someone in their life has, and so it's really impacted them in that emotional way. So there's a lot of charge around it when they have these conversations.

[00:15:56]

And I want to try and diffuse that a little bit and be like, okay, cool. Let's bring a bit more understanding, awareness, and nuance these conversations, because I think that's where some more valuable experiences can come from. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. It's a recurring theme here, isn't it? Because it's not so much that you're pro porn as you're like, pro choice and actually by the shaming pornography as a tool for fantasy fuel, right?

[00:16:24]

It allows people to step out from behind that shame and actually make conscious choices. Like, I wonder how this was produced. I wonder if the actors have been fairly compensated. I wonder what the ecosystem is like. These are real human beings.

[00:16:39]

I think when we're covered in that fog of shame, that's not what we're thinking about, because we're more concerned with, how do I stay hidden? How do I make sure nobody finds out? How do I make sure I do this quiet enough so that my wife or my girlfriend or my partner doesn't hear me? How do I clear my browser history, right, instead of these bigger questions like, how does this fit in? And if I accept that I enjoy engaging with fantasy fuel.

[00:17:11]

Well, I have choices, right? I don't just have to go and jack it to whatever's on Pornhub Today new and Noteworthy.

[00:17:22]

I think you alluded to this before when you kind of open your mind to porn as fantasy fuel rather than just porn as pornhub. Like, there's a whole cornucopia of options. It doesn't just have to be videos of people having penetrated intercourse, right? There's a lot more options. Yeah, totally.

[00:17:45]

I mentioned this before, but I talk about instructional porn, for example. So someone who is literally just guiding you through a self pleasure session or telling you how to masturbate in that moment. That's a tool that I use for the men that I work with who maybe don't have a partner and maybe they have a bit of anxiety or trepidation about being sexual with another person. This is a beautiful way of, like, creating a little bit of that virtual connection between them and, like, a person who's in that space with them. And some of those are video, some of them are just audio, but it's a practice.

[00:18:21]

It's a practice. They can go, wow, that was really and there's genres of that as well. So there's genres that are, like, really power play dynamics, and it's very, like, dom sub type scenario, or there's other ones that are really affirmative and there's a lot of positive phrases in there and telling you how wonderful you are and how amazing you are. And both of those can be used for different experiences, right? And they elicit certain responses as well.

[00:18:52]

And that's what I think is really fascinating as well with certain clients, like, wow, I had a lot of resistance to being told, like, how attractive I am, but they found, like, it's very easy to drop into a space of being humiliated, like, oh, that's interesting. Let's explore that a bit more, right? Or vice versa. They found it very, very confronting to be told that they're a dirty little something, but they found it very easy to slip into, like, being told that they're wonderful and amazing. And he's like, that's like, okay, interesting, there's something there.

[00:19:18]

Let's explore that a bit more so they learn something about themselves. And I think porn is really good at helping us learn things about ourselves if we're open to using it in that particular way. There are other things like ASMR porn and the ASMR community will very much tell you that it's not pornographic and that it's not sexual in nature at all. But we know that that response that we get if people aren't unfamiliar with ASMR, it's the audio sensory motor receptor, whatever, it's called technology. But it's the tingling that we get in the back of our neck or the hair standing up on the back of our neck when someone whispers in our ear.

[00:19:56]

And so there's a whole genre of audio, and some of it classifies pornographic audio, where people are doing that and making noises and eliciting that response. And that can be a really interesting space for people to explore as well, because there's no visual stimuli and there's no real sex stimuli at all, but it's just like you're listening a sensation in your body, and that's like, a really cool space to be. It's like, okay, I'm literally viscerally feeling this experience in my body through the hairs and the tingling from this sound, right? And so that's a really cool thing to explore. And then there's erotic stories.

[00:20:36]

I've had other clients, like, really enjoy someone telling them an erotic story and there's like a couple of ways that that can be framed. It's like someone just like, reading out a short story and there's no, like, necessarily connection to it. They're just reading out an erotic story. It could be someone recounting their own erotic story that also shifts the perspective a little bit and change the experience. But there's also another way, like, you're brought into the story as well, and they're like, you did this, and then they're talking directly at you.

[00:21:06]

That could be a really different experience. So all those things have slightly different they elicit slightly different sensations in the body. Like I said, they're good learning tools. But beyond that, there's like, erotic literature as well. You could read a short story.

[00:21:22]

I got some clients who get them to write their own stories down based on their own previous experiences or based on their fantasies. And then they read that back to themselves and they find that really ironic or they read it to their partner.

[00:21:34]

There's so many interesting ways that I think are really fun to explore. I recognize a lot of people like to watch porn, and that's totally valid. And so one strategy that I suggest in fact, there's two strategies here that are interlinked that I think are really quite important is if you're going on to a Tube site. And so firstly, I recommend going on to someone's personal, if you like a particular performer, find a personal site of theirs, whether it's an only fans account, whether it's their personal pornographic websites and pay for their content as opposed to maybe using it for free. But I recognize that's not necessarily accessible.

[00:22:16]

I know pornhaps really tightened its security recently after they had some very exploitative issues. But if you're using free to use Born from a Tube site, and I can't stop you from doing that, my suggestion would be to when you click on the video, choose one video, right? Don't have multiple videos open. Choose one video that and, you know, take a moment to be like, okay, what am I interested in? What's turning you on right now?

[00:22:44]

Because you probably already have a thought in your head like, well, I'm really wanting to watch this particular genre. I'm really feeling this at the moment. If you pay attention for a few moments, you will know, oh, this is what's turning me on right now. I'm going to go and watch that particular genre. So take a moment to do that and then find one video.

[00:23:00]

And I suggest finding a 20 minutes video. So don't find a two minute video. Don't find a compilation as well. Find a 20 minutes scene. And you can search, you can filter by that take that 20 minutes scene.

[00:23:15]

And here's the trick, because there are so many distractions on porn sites, especially on Tube sites, there's so many things that are trying to via for your attention, right? So something to be mindful of like these websites because they're free. Your attention is the currency there. And so the longer that you stay on the website, the more that you click on things and the more data you can give them about your searching habits, the more like they make from you, I suppose. So your attention is the economy there to kind of bypass that.

[00:23:47]

So to be mindful of it and to bypass it is to pick one video, like I said, that's 20 minutes long, and then maximize that video on your full screen so that you don't have anything on the side. There's no suggested videos underneath. They're not trying to get you to click on anything else. An ad might pop up, but you can minimize that and put an ad blocker on, but just have the full screen video there. So that way you're not tempted to be like, what's this video on the side here?

[00:24:08]

Or I could just flip open this new tab, you've got the full screen in front of you to just be and it sounds weird, but to get lost in that particular scene, right? So there's a rhythm to a lot of pornography. It's kind of one of the reasons why it's so entertaining, because there is a rhythm to it. And if you start to be a bit more mindful about your arousal in those spaces, you might find that there will be parts where they speed up in the sexual activity that they're doing, or where they slow down, or where it gets a bit more heated and intense, or where it backs off a little bit. And so you can follow along with your own self pleasure in that moment and maybe you can start to be like, what is it about this that's really turning me on?

[00:24:49]

Is it and look beyond the act of sex itself and sex there. I mean, holistically, it could be masturbation, penetrative, whatever. But then is it the way that the frame is shot? Is it with the lighting? Is it like this particular thing that this part of the body is doing?

[00:25:06]

Like what is it beyond the simple act of the sexual experience itself that it's like building aroused on you? And like I said, stick with that one video. And if you make it, that 20 minutes. And I usually suggest to guys that are self pleasure and to go for about 20 minutes, that's a good space, at least in my mind. But if you go longer, that's totally fine, if you go shorter, that's also fine, but if you go longer, stick with the same video.

[00:25:27]

Don't choose another video, go back to the start of that video and watch it again and notice what else turns you on this time. Is there something different that turns you on? Is there something else that you didn't notice last time that's quite arousing to, you know, have a bit of a play around with what it is that your awareness is drawn to and what it is that's arousing to you. Because where it becomes problematic, in my opinion, is, like, clicking and clicking and clicking and getting to the next video and trying to jump to the next scene and trying to skip around to that perfect thing that can cause issues, right? And it can really bring us out of our embodied experience and put us into our head and put us into, like, clicking.

[00:26:06]

And then beyond that as well, we're giving just, like, more and more information to these porn sites, and they're getting more and more data from us, and that's kind of what they're designed to do. So it's like, let's have a couple of strategies to minimize that. So those are my suggestions. Like, one video, full screen, and just play around with that particular video. So hopefully that wasn't too much of a ramble.

[00:26:25]

I just wanted to jump in there. And say that that's amazing. And I think that that is something anyone viewing porn, regardless of genital configurations or gender identity, could give a try. Because what I'm hearing there is that's, first of all, making it so that you don't fracture your attention, that you actually give your attention to the porn that you're watching. And a question Came up for me, Cam, when you suggest this to clients for the first time, do they struggle with that, with actually being really present, with the fact that they're being present with porn?

[00:27:02]

I'm wondering, how is that if you're so used to the jumping around in the two minutes here and the 1 minute here to actually make it big and just be like, this is what I'm watching. I'm curious about the response to that. Yeah, you're kind of right. If they are used to that particular way of using porn, then it is a little bit harder for them. There is some resistance and some reluctance to do it, but it's kind of subjective, right?

[00:27:31]

If they do have a bit of a I've got guys that haven't watched porn for a couple of years, and I talk to them about my opinion about porn, and they're like, oh, that actually sounds healthier than me just fully abstaining because I have a desire, and I'm kind of trying to swish that desire to watch porn. And, like, I'm noticing that I follow these models on IG instead or, you know, that I'm doing this instead. So it's like, okay, well, let's develop a bit of a healthy relationship. So it's really dependent upon what their current use of porn looks like. And that kind of determines whether it lands for them, whether it's easier for them, or whether they have a lot of resistance for that shift.

[00:28:09]

But typically, I do it in conjunction with a few other things as well, right? So I'll talk to them about how to breathe differently and so how to slow their experience of arousal down as well, because. That can be something that catches them off guard, is like, oh, I've just gotten really hyper aroused and now I'm on the verge of ejaculating. And that can cause a bit of anxiety for them as long as they didn't realize how quickly they got there while they went from zero to ten without really noticing all the beautiful spaces in between. So I'm talking about breathing down into their body.

[00:28:39]

I'm talking about standing up and moving their body as well so they've got a bit more of a full body experience as opposed to like a hyperfocused localized experience in the genitals. So all these other things as well, in conjunction with the changing of the way that they use porn, can help make that transition and make that new habit a little bit easier to form, I suppose. Thank you for indulging my curiosity there's. I'm noticing some themes here where we have this shame hanging around in the background. That when you start stepping out from behind it and going, okay, well, if porn is just a tool, it's an opportunity for fantasy fuel.

[00:29:22]

And I can be mindful about the types of tools that I choose, but it sounds like what you're inviting in is this curiosity and playfulness in terms of have you thought about this? Have you thought about this? And prompting people to start exploring themselves how porn can fit in to their lives in a way that's ethical and also deeply pleasurable. Right. And I heard you talking about exploring and trying out different things.

[00:29:55]

I'm wondering, is there anything our listeners or viewers can do to really start amplifying pleasure on that journey? Yeah, I mean, the first thing I want to acknowledge here is like, there's a great book actually called Ethical Born for Dicks by David Lake, which I recommend. It's very conversational as well, so it's not academic heavy, which is fantastic. But something he mentions in there, and something I want to mention here as well is like, there are people who have a very poor relationship with pornography and with sexually explicit material in general and who know if they go and use pornography that it becomes a slippery slope for them too easily and they'll get sucked back into really problematic behaviors. And so, again, I want to acknowledge there will be people maybe listening to this conversation now who do know that about themselves.

[00:30:50]

And so, again, I'm not promoting that you go out and watch porn if you know that that's going to be problematic for you. And so I just wanted to highlight that and say it's a subjective relationship. It's like, what is your particular relationship with sexually explicit material? And find what works for you, find what's healthy for you. But some suggestions for starting to explore pleasure, I suppose, and desire and arousal in different ways will firstly stand up when you watch pornography like, that's a massive one.

[00:31:24]

And Joseph Premier calls that a leverage practice. The reason why he calls it a leverage practice is because it's very simple to do, but because it's so simple, you can leverage it to explore a bunch of other things. And so one of the reasons is, like, when we're sitting down or when lying down, we're in a very stagnant stationary position, which is not very conducive for exploring our body. It's not really conducive for breathing deeply. It's not very conducive for noticing sensations in our body as well, because there's a lot of tension patterns in our body, particularly if you masturbate the same way every single time that you masturbate.

[00:31:59]

Like, if it's that Jackhammer style motion up and down with your arm, the tension in your shoulder, your forearm, your wrist is going to be you're not going to notice that if that's what you're doing every single time because it's just going to be automatic. It's going to be like muscle memory. So when you stand up and you start to open your chest and maybe get into a bit of a wider stance and start to notice things about your body, like, I'm a bit tight there in my lower back. Maybe I can just move my back a little bit or on my shoulders. I can just roll my body and open up my body a bit more.

[00:32:27]

And that's kind of the reason why he referred to it as yoga to begin with, because you do start to move your body a little bit more around. So that's like, my suggestion is stand up and start to move in conjunction with that, start to touch your whole body as well. So a lot of guys I'm not sure why this is, I kind of have my suspicions, but when I talk to guys about their self pleasuring and masturbation, it's very common for them to tell me that they only touch their genitals. And I'm like, what's stopping you from touching other areas of the body? And sometimes I can't necessarily articulate why they don't touch their chest or their face or their body or anything else like that.

[00:33:08]

I kind of think it's because there's this pleasure negative framework around sex and masturbation in general, because there's like a fear of guys being labeled maybe weird or gay or some other seed detrimental thing. So I guess men, to really start to explore, they can start with just their inner groin and inner thigh, maybe their lower belly and lower abdomen, because that feels a little bit safer for them. But then again, like, start exploring their body, you know, start to you can use a little bit of warm oil. You know, I'm a big fan of self massage. So, you know, get some warm oil and just start to rub your body and notice what areas of your body feel really pleasurable to touch and what areas of body maybe don't feel as pleasurable, because there will be subjective places on each and every one of our bodies.

[00:33:59]

And so it's like take a bit of an inventory of, like, what it is that turns you on and what type of touch is really arousing to you and what isn't that's called? The practice of that is called pleasure mapping, where you're literally mapping your pleasure across your body. And you can do that solo. You can also do it with a partner, right? They can use their hands to map pleasure across your plate.

[00:34:17]

So that's a really fun practice to do and it gets you thinking a little bit more holistically about your pleasure as opposed to, like I said, really focused and localized in on your cock and balls. Another suggestion I have is like, breathing. So learning how to deeply breathe down into your belly, this is known as diaphragmatic breathing totally changes your experience of arousal in particular. And the reason why is because, like, chest breathing or thoracic breathing, like breathing up into your clavicles and up into your collarbones is a really good way of engaging the sympathetic nervous system. And the sympathetic nervous system, if people are familiar with it, is responsible for like, the fights or flights or freeze or fornicate or feed response, right?

[00:35:04]

And it's also the nervous system that's engaged or the branch of the nervous system that's engaged when ejaculation occurs. So if you're finding that you're arousing very quickly and getting to ejaculation quite quickly, it's usually because you've got a really engaged sympathetic nervous system. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. That's just what the sympathetic nervous system does. So when you drop your breath down into your belly and really slow the breathing down and engage the diaphragm, which is this big dome shaped muscle like the ribs.

[00:35:34]

So when you breathe in, the belly expands like a balloon and you breathe out, the belly draws back in towards the spine. That's a really simple but effective way of shifting from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for your rest and digest response, your relaxation response. And when you slow your breathing down, typically you relax a little bit more, your muscles release a little bit of tension. You start to notice a bit more spaciousness of openness in your body, particularly around the hips and the pelvis as well, where typically a lot of guys tense and squeeze as they get closer and closer to ejaculation. So if you can relax and let go and release that tension from particularly those areas of the body, the sensation of arousal really starts to change.

[00:36:20]

And it starts to change from like this sharp peak of tension and build up to a slower, more diffuse experience that you feel in more areas of your body because you're literally not holding tension in that you've got some space for yourself to feel that experience of pleasure. And it's one way of prolonging the experience of having a heightened sensation of pleasure, of playing around. And that heightened experience of pleasure as well. Like, a lot of guys who maybe aren't familiar with Edging or are familiar with other sexual practices might find it difficult to control themselves when they're in that heightened state of arousal or when they're experiencing a lot of pleasure. It might tip them over the edge really quickly.

[00:37:05]

And so one strategy for managing or navigating that is spend a bit of time in that space. So spend a bit of time in that heightened state of arousal, in that really heightened state of pleasure and get familiar with it. A good way of getting familiar with it and staying in that space is by slowing and breathing down, by keeping yourself in that heightened state of arousal so that it feels comfortable for you, so that you can spend more time in it when you're alone, but also when you're with a partner. And you can be in that height state of pleasure with another person. It's a good way of learning how to last longer, I suppose, but also how to hold that pleasure for your partner as well.

[00:37:40]

So it's a great practice. Yeah. Our solo play is such a wonderful learning lab. And the things that you learn there, you can bring to partnered sex if that's what you choose to do. But yeah, I love that.

[00:37:55]

And that's talking about building capacity is what you're talking about there. In part, the more you practice and little by little, the more pleasure you are able to feel, because it is one of those things that is a practice, which is why we're often talking about practices. Right. Kim? I have a feeling we could go on forever because there's always courageous.

[00:38:25]

Yeah. And I'm so grateful to you for your generosity and coming. And I kind of feel like what I need to do is get the transcript of this and make like just a handout to go with it because you've dropped so many gems that people can apply immediately. And so I'm wondering, Ken, if anybody wanted to go a bit deeper into this topic in particular. I think you've got a course, is that right?

[00:38:54]

Yes, I've got a course which is playfully named outperformer porn star. And the name itself is a bit of a tongue in cheek reference to the idolisation of porn sex, essentially. Right. A lot of guys think that what it means to be good at sex is to do what they see Johnny Seamans do or do what they see Danny D do. I don't know.

[00:39:22]

Kieran lee other male horns does. And that's like to just be straight to penetration, pump away for 45 minutes and then ejaculate a big load at the end. And that's one way of having sex, but it's not the best way of having sex. And I would say if that is the only way that you're having sex and that's what you're epitomizing, then it's going to get boring very quickly. So I start to say like, what if you could have fullbodied orgasms?

[00:39:49]

What if you could have multiple orgasms? What if you could share multiple orgasms with a partner? What if you could have deeply intimate, connected, passionate sex that explored your fantasies and desires and honored boundaries and turn offs? Like if you could do that, you'd be outperforming any porn star that you see on screen. Because here's a fun fact, they don't enjoy the sex that they're having.

[00:40:09]

The way that I start the course off is with a bunch of quotes from interviews of different male porn stars and female porn stars describing how little they enjoy the sex they're having on screen and how much better it is offscreen. Because on screen it's a job and it has to look a certain way. And it's just all about going through the motions essentially to get the shot. And so that's really reframing your experience of quote unquote performance to be more oriented towards pleasure. Right?

[00:40:36]

So instead of being performance oriented, let's be pleasure oriented. And then you wouldn't worry about what the sex looked like because if you're both experiencing pleasure in the exact way that you wanted it, then cares what it looks like. So that's the premise of the course, I suppose. And so within that I talk about a lot of things like everything I've spoken about today. There's also a whole module there on pornography and how to use porn.

[00:41:01]

There's breathing exercises, there's stretching exercises, there's self pleasure practices, there's part to play practices. Yes. Six week program that I'm quite proud of because it took me a little while to put together. So I appreciate you letting me spruce it. So if you guys want to check that out, they can hit me up on social media or they can go to our website.

[00:41:20]

Yes. And there will be links, links everywhere. So either in the show notes, if you're listening to this on your podcast player of choice or you'll find it in the description of this video. If you're so fortunate to be checking out the video version of the show ham your great enabler of choice and pleasure among the masses. Thank you so much for spending some time with us here.

[00:41:44]

Is there anything else you want to shout out? Any parting words? Oh, nothing I necessarily want to shout out, but I just want to encourage people to like stay curious. Stay curious about their pleasure. Stay curious about their relationship with porn.

[00:41:59]

Stay curious about their relationship with masturbation with their partner. Be curious about their partner's body. Be curious about their own body. Just curiosity is such a fucking underrated tool, I suppose. Tool or mindset be to curious about it.

[00:42:14]

Beautiful. Couldn't agree more. Kim, thank you so much. And thank you everybody for spending some of your time with us here. I hope you have a chance to enjoy some uncommon pleasure.

[00:42:27]

I think there's something for everyone to take away from here. Alright, until the next time. Bye.

About the Author

Sarah Martin, MA, CSC is CEO of Dignified Hedonist, a sexuality support company that helps horny people get laid ethically. Sarah loves rainbows, books, and Pokemon Go.

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