A male client sent me a lovely email thanking me for teaching him a specific energy circulating technique. This is what he wrote:

Dear Jacqueline,
 
 Just want to really thank you again for the techniques you taught me… I've also been working on that circular technique you discussed with me and had my first real full success with it the other evening. I could actually feel the sensation go from the base of the penis, through the perineum, right up my back and into my head where I let it float around for a while and then down over my face (a sensation almost like fingertips gently touching my face) and then (when I decided) feeling it float down over my chest, through my belly and then ultimately back into my groin and penis. I managed to get that circular motion to repeat a few times and ultimately the resulting orgasm was absolutely sensational and left me with such a sense of whole body well-being, it was just magic. I enjoyed it so much I can't wait for my next chance :)

The exercise he’s talking about is called the Microcosmic Circuit and comes from the Taoist Sexual practices. This is a very simple description on how to do it: 

1. Squeeze your pelvic floor muscles three times and imagine energy building up in your pelvic region.
2. Breathe in and imagine the energy moving from your genitals, up your coccyx, up your spine, to the top of your head.
3. Breathe out and image the energy moving down the center of your face, through your tongue, down your neck, chest and abdomen, to rest in your center (just below your belly button).

Notes:

•  Keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth. 
•  Do nine sequences. 
•  If you feel light-headed breathe normally a couple of times between sequences. 
•  If you find it difficult to visualize the energy going all the way to the crown of your head, do it in stages: up to lower back and down, then to upper back and down, then to neck and down, then all the way to the top and down the front. 

The purpose of this exercise is to learn to move the sexual energy away from the genitals and into the whole body. Ultimately you can learn to have whole body orgasms rather than just genital orgasms. This is fantastic for men and for women. For men it has the added advantage of helping them to last longer and avoid premature ejaculation. Men can even learn to orgasm without ejaculation with this technique. It’s also very helpful in allowing better connection and intimacy with your partner. All in all, it’s a good technique to familiarize yourself with. 

Firstly, let me apologise on behalf of my profession that, in the early 21st century, we still don’t know how women’s bodies work! I find it appalling that there’s still debate over what’s in our vaginas and what effect touching various parts produces!

There is no question that most women find certain parts of their vaginas more sensitive than others. Some of these parts have been given labels and some haven’t. One area that has been given a label is the G-spot, which is generally located a couple of knuckles’ depth into the vagina on the belly side. When you feel inside yourself you’ll notice that that side of your vagina has a corrugated feel, whereas the rest is smooth. This is because what you’re feeling is the urethral sponge.
 
  The urethral sponge is a spongy material that surrounds your urethra. As you become sexually excited the urethral sponge becomes engorged with blood. It’s the urethral sponge you can feel on the belly side of your vagina, and as you become excited it protrudes further into your vagina.
 
  Many women, but not all, find that stimulation of the urethral sponge inside their vagina - i.e. stimulation of the belly side of their vagina - is highly stimulating. So focus there by fingers, dildo or penis is stimulating and can lead to orgasm. Simultaneously pressing just above your pelvic bone on the outside can add to the sensation.
 
  It’s not a specific “spot” though, and it’s not intense like a clitoris. It’s a region of engorged tissue, not a highly concentrated area of nerve endings like the clitoris. Which is probably why it feels different for different women. I suspect too, that different women’s anatomy affects the sensation. (Again, it’s sad that we still don’t know and that so little research has been done into women’s sexual anatomy and physiology).
 
  Other women find that deeper in is more arousing. A spot deep inside the vagina and also on the belly side, known as the AFE-spot (the anterior fornix erotic zone – yet another unsexy name for women’s genitalia!), has a similar effect on some women, producing intense sensation and strong orgasms.
 
  Both G-spot and AFE-spot (and possibly any other particular “spot” in your particular vagina) stimulation can lead to orgasm, and can also lead to the expulsion of fluid from the urethra. This is commonly termed “female ejaculation” and is also the subject of speculation. Fortunately this has been scientifically proven to be a fluid similar in consistency to seminal fluid that is produced by glands in the urethral sponge, similar to salivary glands, that is expelled when a woman is highly aroused. For some women this might be just a few drops, for others it can be cupfuls of liquid that “squirt” or “gush” out. The “ejaculation” is not necessarily accompanied by orgasm and may not even be noticeable to the woman.
 
  So what does this mean for you? My advice – get to know your vagina! Don’t trust the scientific community to tell you what’s going on down there, find out for yourself. Whether you’ve got a G or an AFE or XYZ spot, there are undoubtedly good bits that work specifically for you (and in combination with your partner, as different things work with different partners). Some of these good spots will increase arousal and possibly lead to more intense orgasms, with or without the expulsion of fluid. The important thing is to relax and explore and enjoy your wonderful vagina! 

There’s a beautiful quote from the Kama Sutra, which I found in Deepak Chopra’s gorgeously illustrated version:
 
Sex is a paradox. It needs the difference between man and woman, yet it reminds them that they are not different at all. In this way pleasure is the world’s great equalizer.
 
 This drew me because so much of my work relates to the masculine and feminine sexual energies. These energies are what you bring to the sex act. Yet what you feel and express matters very little between the lovers, male or female. 

I do believe the whole Mars-Venus thing is overstated, that it highlights generalized differences rather than focusing on core similarities. There are far more similarities between men and women than there are differences. Particularly if you’re having sex that is deep, connected, erotic.
 
 It is a paradox, because it is through being real and expressing your true self that you get the greatest pleasure, you can lose yourself in the sexual act and through that sexual pleasure you can find yourself.
 
 You get down to your essence, and the essence of your partner. That is neither masculine nor feminine, it just is. It’s where you can even lose that sense of self and other and merge into a greater something, or a greater nothing. Another paradox.
 
 This is where ecstasy turns spiritual, that sense of deep connection with self, with another, and ultimately with everything. Sex like this is in many ways the closest we can get to God. (No wonder the churches prevented people from experiencing good sex, they would have been well out of a job!)
 
 Our emotions, our feelings, our desires, are universal. The potential to experience and express them are also universal, if we allow ourselves to be real and true. From there flows the potential to be and feel everything. As the quote says, pleasure is the world’s great equalizer. Through ecstatic sex we can feel the everything and the nothingness of all that is. 

Why a “Black Belt” in the Bedroom?

I'm about to launch seminars for men called Black Belt in the Bedroom. Obviously the title is catchy (what man wouldn’t want to be a black belt in the bedroom?) and that’s why I’m using it, but commercial cynicism aside, there are very good reasons why I’m chosen the term “black belt”.

For a start, I am a black belt in aikido, a second level black belt in fact (about to go third level when I decided to have babies instead). I’ve also studied judo and various kung-fu styles plus done workshops on many other styles of martial arts. It’s effectively where I got my energetic training, which I now apply to sexual relations and which has the same basis as the Tantric and Taoist approaches to sexuality.

To some people the concept of a martial artist is of an aggressive violent fighter. However, it’s completely the opposite. A true warrior is not some psychomaniac, think more of the American Indian brave, the knight of old, the samurai, Mel Gibson in Braveheart… A top martial artist is completely in control, centred and flowing with the energy of the encounter. Just what sex should be. He’s not in his head thinking about what’s going on, he’s completely connected to his opponent, completely absorbed in what’s going on. He’s not following set routines or patterns, he’s creatively moving with the energy of the encounter. He’s still when he needs to be, he’s active when he needs to be, he moves how and when he needs to, completely in the moment. This is how sex should be.

Unfortunately too many men are well down among the coloured belts. Since I’ve spent countless hours talking to men about their sex lives, and to their partners, and I'm the Men’s Health Magazine sex columnist, and I’ve done so much research into sex, from the scientific to the Tantric to kink, I’ve got a pretty good idea about what makes a man a Black Belt in the Bedroom. That is a man who embodies the Four ‘C’s: he’s connected, confident, creative and in control. To get to that level, he needs to master the Five ‘S’s:

1. Self
2. Study of Woman
3. Seduction
4. Skills
5. Spice

Those are in order of importance, and also in order of difficulty. Our society tends to focus on the last couple, techniques and props, but those are actually the least important. The most important is the knowledge of self, and the ability to be centred and able to take a step back to hold the space for the woman. The next is knowledge of woman, particularly his partner, understanding her not just physically, but also psychologically and energetically. Then there is the art of seduction, which is not just for new lovers, but is an on-going never-ending part of relationship. Then the sex skills come in, manual, oral and penile, and finally ways to spice up and expand your sexual repertoire.

Now that’s not all going to happen from one three-hour seminar! But it will help you along the way. It does take application. The master of any art, whether it’s a martial art or other sport, painting, cooking, woodwork, whatever, is completely dedicated. It’s the same with mastering the Art of Sex.

Learn the Art of Sexual Mastery with my online course for men Black Belt in Bedroom! Click on the image to find out more.

It’s interesting to observe the participants of a retreat. 

As the days pass there’s an observable change in them, and they all report a significant change within themselves.

This is a great example of neuroplasticity - the brain changing its circuitry.

Given the opportunity for stillness and guided activities and reflection, the circuits of these people change quite rapidly.

This change in the brain allows for definite and continued positive change from that moment on.

I love the fact that brain researchers have proven this plasticity. Many years ago, as an undergraduate biochemistry student studying neuroscience, I was dismayed by the thinking of the day that the brain was simply a computer and the job of the scientist was to figure out what the bits were and how they interacted. I remember being scoffed at for suggesting it might be otherwise. So I didn’t pursue that line of study.


Now we know that the brain is a wonderful organic system that constantly changes and adapts to the inputs coming into it, throughout the whole life. So if your life is stressful and you input negative thoughts, your brain circuitry will reinforce and reflect that reality. That will become the filter through which you experience the world - as negative and stressful. If you have positive thoughts and experiences then your brain will reinforce and reflect that reality - you’ll look at the world through a rose-colored brain!



You have two choices for your feedback loop - either increasingly negative or increasingly positive.

The exciting thing is that you can change your circuitry. Working on your personal growth is essentially about rewiring your brain.


Which brings me to sex.

If you have negative views, expectations and experiences around sex you can change them to positive ones:

• You don’t have to be stuck in your ‘story’ (brain circuitry) that says that sex is scary/disgusting/sinful/odd/boring/painful/unnecessary/addictive. 
• You don’t have to be stuck in your story about not being into sex because: you’re a mother/disabled/old/from a repressed background/a victim of abuse/too busy/too tired/too whatever; or, 
• Your story that you’re entitled to sex because you’re a man/married/a helpless addict/a victim of abuse/stressed/whatever.

Any story can be changed.

One of the wonderful things about sex, is that you can change your neural wiring to more positive circuits while actually having sex - assuming that it’s intimate sex.

Just as the participants on a retreat can make huge changes in a short amount of time - through quietness and concentrated reflection - so you too can make major sexual changes through a more sensual, subtle approach to sex and intimacy.



Making love in a beautiful environment, calm, soft and inviting is a good start.

Then progressing slowly with loving touch - melting hugs, feeling each others' presence as much as your bodies, gazing into each others eyes - gives your brain the time and space to rewire in positive ways. Over time, the wiring in your brain will respond to the thought of sex in a positive way, knowing that it is an enjoyable, positive experience. It will send messages throughout your body to prepare it for pleasure through the release of hormones, muscle relaxation, slowing your heartbeat and other benefits.

When two people’s brains are wired sex-positively, they come together in openness, not anxiety/resignation/annoyance/fear of rejection or other negative energies.

The more you come together in this way, the stronger the wiring becomes and the easier it is to enjoy love-making.

This applies to solo sex too. The more you send positive messages to your brain, the more you experience enjoyable solo sex, the better the brain rewires to reinforce the view that solo sex, and the genitals involved, are good.

It’s important that you reinforce this rewiring in the whole of your life. Surround yourself with things and experiences that heighten your senses and your enjoyment of life. Avoid people with a sex-negative view of the world and reach out and interact with people with a positive view.

Remember it’s a positive feedback loop. The more positivity you put in your life, the more positive it becomes, and due to neuroplasticity, it becomes increasingly easier and easier to be more positive - until you get to the point where it’s your natural state of being and you can’t help but be joyful!

Who’s brain are we talking about? Yours. So it’s up to you to take control of your brain, make the choice to feed it positively. Honour your life and your role in creating it whichever way you choose. Your brain will back you up on that.

Remember, you’re the creator.

Believe it or not, I’m sitting at an outdoor bar, mocktail at hand, overlooking a beach fringed with palm trees in Vietnam. It’s pretty special.  Last week I attended a Spiritual Retreat here. While it wasn’t specifically sexual in nature, you can’t separate sex and spirituality.

A key element of spiritual work, and of the Retreat, is raising your energy. You do this through meditation and mindfulness. But it’s not what we often consider meditation, which is a slowing of energy, a deep relaxation. That’s wonderful and good, but it’s different to raising the energy. When you go into meditation with the intent to raise your energy, you go places. You feel lighter, spin faster. You get messages and have visions. It is an altered consciousness.

This is why conscious sex is so good for spiritual development, because sex raises your energy. Even if you have the most basic, unconnected sex, sparks of light will still fly. So if you approach sex with presence, intent and release of self, you really do get taken to extraordinary places of exceptional ecstatic pleasure.

In these realms the genitals barely matter, they’re just a means to feel with the whole of your body and beyond your body. 

This applies to partnered sex, to solo sex, and to your relationship with life. Because life is is sex. As Paulo Coelho says “…the language of the soul is sex.” Life energy is sexual energy. We try and compartmentalise it in our society, but it’s part of everything. Living mindfully, consciously, with presence, is about raising your energy. That in itself is having a sexual relationship with life, with the universe. 

Then in the microcosm of your sexual union with another, or with yourself, you hone and enhance your ability to raise the energy, to go to ecstatic places. Then that energy is taken back into the rest of your life, you emanate it, and life itself becomes ecstatic.

Easy to say perhaps, sitting on a tropical beach with mocktail in hand! But how do you think I got here…?

Raise your energies: live mindfully, love consciously.

Have you been practicing eating a peach? Savouring its juicy lushness…?

Have you found within you the ability to lose yourself in that peach, to taste, suck, lick and devour it with full sensory awareness and heightened arousal?

Well, hold that space and let’s take that a step further. We’re going to add some technique and look at how to consume an ice-cream.

(If you haven’t read my post on how to eat a peach, go back and read that first, you want to be in that space before continuing.)

The thing about enjoying a peach in that way is that it is all about you receiving the pleasure and sensation of the peach. This is what making love with someone should be like. Rather than focusing on what you’re doing to them, simply allow yourself to lose yourself in the pleasure you are receiving from being with them.

It’s pretty easy to do with a peach. You feel no obligation to the peach, you don’t care how the peach feels about you consuming it. It’s trickier to do with a person, most of us are concerned about how the other person is feeling about what we’re doing to or with them.

Strangely enough though, they’d enjoy themselves more if you got of your head and stopped thinking about them and instead simply let yourself go into the pleasure of the moment.

That’s why we started with a peach. Now, let’s add some technique, and see if you can still lose yourself.

We’re going to focus on your tongue. This part of your body is both fantastic at giving pleasure to another as well as transmitting pleasure back to you.

When applied to the body of another, your tongue provides exquisite pleasure to them, and in the touch of your tongue on your lover it transmits exquisite pleasure back to you. It does this best if you lose yourself in your tongue and the two-way transmission of pleasure.

So let’s practice this with an ice-cream.

Choose one that’s covered in hard chocolate.

Hold the ice-cream; look at the ice-cream; approach the ice-cream. Breathe on it gently. Savour the anticipation of the first touch of your tongue on the ice-cream.

Now practice the first of three strokes. The first is The Slurp. Run your tongue up the side of the ice-cream. Then up and up again over all sides of the ice-cream. Do it slowly, do it rapidly, do it firmly, do it barely touching.

Then practice The Swirl. Run your tongue around and around the ice-cream. Do it with the ice-cream in your mouth, do it with the ice-cream outside your mouth.

Combine the Slurp with the Swirl. Lose yourself in it. If it feels good, moan. Don’t worry if you sound like a bad actor in a porn movie. If it feels good do it.

Then practice Kitty Licks, little lapping moments with your tongue. Run your tongue up and down the ice-cream, flicking lightly, making little circles. Keep going over the top, combining with Swirls and Slurps.

Then, in the centre at the top of the ice-cream, enjoy kitty licking in one spot until you break through the chocolate to the ice-cream below. Keep going as the chocolate breaks further and you can lick and suck up the ice-cream beneath. Lose yourself even further as slabs of chocolate come off and you can lick, suck and bite. Let the ice-cream melt and drip and lick the drips as they fall off the end and run over your fingers and hands…

This is not as easy as it might sound. I’ve given this exercise to many clients and workshop participants, and it’s evident how hard people find it to lose themselves in pleasure, completely unself-consciouslessly. If it’s that hard with just an ice-cream, how much harder with an actual person.

So practice with an ice-cream, or a peach or a mango or a lolly-pop, until you can lose yourself, completely and utterly. Because that is what you’re aiming for in sex. Way before you worry about technique.

Sensuality is without a doubt a key element to great sex. Sensuality, intimacy, surrender, eroticism – all essential elements that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the genitals.
 
 We have five senses which can constantly bring us delectable, luscious sensuous experiences. If we’re open to them.
 
 Once we are, we can bring that awareness into our love-making – and make magic.
 
 Let’s practice. Choose a peach, or any other other suitably juicy fruit such as a mango.

Pick up the fruit.-
 
 First, look at it….then listen to it…..then smell it….touch it against your skin, cheek, forearm…then bite into it and taste it.
 
 Really taste it.
 
 Then bite again:
 
 - feeling the peach flesh give as you bite down into it,
 
 - feeling the juices release into your mouth,
 
 - hearing the sound of the flesh give way,
 
 - smelling the scent of the peach beneath your nose,
 
 - tasting the sweet flavor of the peach consuming your mouth,
 
 - seeing the pinkish orange of the raw peach flesh….
 
 Now that's eating a peach!
 
 Try the exercise together. Have a peach each and take it in turns to watch your partner completely consume the peach. Then expose your own sensuality as you bite and lick and devour your peach.
 
 Or share the peach. Look into each other’s eyes as you suck, nibble, chew and swallow the peach flesh and juice. Taste it on each other’s lips, follow the dribble of juice down your partner’s body, suck it off their fingers.
 
 Why would you put up with lacklustre sex when you can really, and truly, eat a peach...? 

There’s a great article I wrote for Men’s Health Magazine on Sex for Busy People. 

I’m going to summarise it here, and if you want to read more download it here. Or buy my book "Sex Secrets for Busy People"  and get the whole low-down! 

Demands from the boss all day, pressures to achieve deadlines, squeeze in the gym, race home, deal with the kids, deal with the wife’s issues, check in on the internet, veg out for a TV show (if you’re lucky), help get the house ready for tomorrow, hope for a shag, into bed, roll over – and your wife’s asleep (or pretending).
 
 Not a pretty scenario, not one that will lead to fantastic sex. What to do?
 
 Follow these five steps to sex in the time of chaos: 

1. Forget spontaneity!
 
 This has got to be the biggest myth out there about sex, that it’s got to be spontaneous to be good. That’s like saying the best footy game or the best meal or the best party comes spontaneously! No. Everything good in life takes planning, focus and effort - health does, wealth does, so does sex.
 
2.  Sex starts way before the bedroom
 
 Planned or not, it’s not going to happen if you think that getting into bed, rolling over and saying “how about it love” maybe with a tweak or two of her nipple is enough. Oh no, sex needs to start way before the bedroom. In a way, it never stops. I call it living life as foreplay, so that you keep intimacy and erotic tension alive throughout the day.
 
3. Transition from boardroom to bedroom 
 
 A hugely important part of this is to allow yourself to transition from boardroom to bedroom. Even if you have such a pressing libido and feel you can transform from worker to stud in moments, chances are your lady love can’t. You have to transition from the busyness of everyday life, you have to chill.
 
4.  Let your environment turn you on 
 
 Humans are very sensory creatures, affected positively or negatively by our surroundings. So make sure your surroundings enhance your sexual desire. In particular, turn your bedroom into a boudoir, a sanctuary away from the stress of life, a place that when you enter, you leave the world behind.
 
5.  Sex is playtime for adults 
 
 (To misquote Oscar Wilde) Sex is far too important to be taken seriously - keep it light and playful!
 
 You see, it’s not the spontaneity or otherwise that makes sex good, it’s what happens when you have sex. So you have to use your imagination. Experiment with positions, places, procedures and props.
 
 So let’s take a look at that opening scene again, with this new knowledge…
 
 ...You come home, take the dog for a short walk to relax, return for a family dinner around the table, then after the kids are in bed you and wife forget the housework because you decided tonight’s the night. So you bring her a glass of wine while she’s having a bath, give her a foot massage then light the candles, by the time she arrives at the sensuously lit bedroom with you reclining on the bed she’s quite happy to have you ask her to drop her robe and move over to the bed….and the rest is up to your imagination.
 
 Perennial boredom or exquisite pleasure? Busyness is no excuse. It’s your choice. 

Why is our society so sexually screwed-up? 
 
 Basically, it’s because we’ve had two to three thousand years of sexual suppression.
 
 During these millennia two very damaging myths have been held as truths in western society: 

1. That sex is a base, animalistic activity, as opposed to spiritual and ‘higher’ human endeavors; and 
2. That men are innately more sexual than women. 

These myths have been so strong for so long, that they are still very much part of our communal psyche. It’s only in the last few decades that society has begun to shift on these myths, which is a relatively short time compared to how long those myths have been there, so progress on change is slow.
 
The first myth, that sex is a ‘low’, animalistic activity not a ‘high’ activity, has meant that sex has not been studied properly, has not been taught to our young people, has not been a topic of open discussion, and has not been considered a part of life that should be developed and enhanced.
 
 This means that society’s knowledge of sex is very limited, and we are nowhere near achieving anything like our sexual potentials, nor are we using sex in a positive way to enhance our lives as we could be.
 
The second myth, that men are more sexual than women, has meant that there has been an imbalance between the masculine and feminine principles in society. We’ve had a dysfunctional masculine, overly dominant and aggressive, and a dysfunctional feminine, overly weak and dependent. When the two principles are out of whack like this, there is no balance and harmony. Without a balance of equal masculine and feminine, the masculine goes out of control and the feminine is useless.
 
 Sexually, this means there has not been a focus on what men and women need sexually, how they function differently yet complementarily, and how their coming together creates magic. Instead we’ve had a servile feminine sexuality serving an overly dominant masculine sexuality. Women have been expected to 'service' their men’s 'needs': the 'good girls' served men's sexuality by providing children and the 'bad girls' served men's sexuality by providing pleasure.
 
 When you combine those two myths, you end up with a society that has no idea about the beauty and benefits of sex; and individuals within it who have no idea of their potential and what they can do with their sexuality.
 
 You have an overly-aggressive society that is full of dissatisfied people, both men and women.
 
 Sound familiar?