Free Slow Sex: The Path to Fulfilling and Sustainable Sexuality by Diana Richardson

regions of the vagina, increasing their sensitivity. Others will feel a loss of interest. Each woman must explore the impact the clitoris has on her ultimate sensitivity and presence, and what is true for her.
    The clitoris is not central to woman’s higher sexual experiences. Stimulating touch of the clitoris causes sexual excitement and makes a woman full of desire. This has the effect of tightening the vagina as it gets tense with expectation. Most men have had the experience at times of entering a woman and the vagina feels hungry, demanding, or greedy, and it’s an instant turn-off. The needy quality in the vagina can sometimes cause a loss of erection in man, or an immediate ejaculation. The tension of excitement and stimulation disturbs the receptive environment and throws the two equal and opposite forces out of balance.
    Some men correctly observe that in their experience some women do, in fact, like, or even demand, to have hard and fast sex. Yes, this is true, some women have adopted and display man’s basic attitude, but this reflects our sexual misunderstanding. Women are usually not familiar with the inner workings of their own bodies and their essential quality of receptivity. Many women have intuitions about how their bodies function, but these signals are usually discarded and the normal style of sex chosen through fear of not being loved, fear of losing a man, fear of not being sexually satisfied, or fear of being different from other women. These fears cause a lack of trust in the body, because we do not know ourselves very well. Recently I was with a group of sixty women where I asked the direct question: “Who has recognized that you have become sort of male in the way you have sex?” Every single woman in the room raised her hand. I also asked: “Who would wish for more time before being entered by man?” Again all hands were raised. The other pertinent question I asked was: “Who has observed that clitoral stimulation affects the quality of receptivity in the vagina and the impact of the penetration?” And again all the women raised their hands. The fact is, we all know the same things about our individual bodies, and yet as a group, as womankind, we continue to move forward under a collective hypnosis, repeatedly going against the truth of our bodies.
    Women have yet to discover their receptive essence and the sense of arriving home to themselves that comes through honoring the body’s wisdom. I have witnessed some women in my couple’s groups begin in great resistance to a less active, less clitoral approach, and usually their softer, more feminine side will feel very remote because of the conditioned identification with the harder, more male side. Our personality is formed around the sexual image that we carry. The ego is, therefore, bound to fight for its rights initially, but once the experimentation gets under way, the transformation of a resistant woman is remarkably fast. Within two or three days of first having slow sex, the hardened facade begins a meltdown, the features soften and sweetly glow, and eyes shine with the light of love. And only because the vital, slow sexual rhythm and response of the female body has been acknowledged and honored. Women are, by birth and by nature, sexually slower than men and there is nothing to be done about it. It leaves us with no real choice other than to accept, respect, honor, and be grateful for the intelligence of our complementary inner designs and rhythms.
    ALLOWING TIME
     
    Respecting bodily rhythms requires granting time. Slowness in sex means allocating real time—several hours instead of just a handful of minutes. Make a date to have slow sex, and plan on at least three hours. Don’t try to squeeze sex into a busy schedule, but make getting together a high priority of the day or the week.
    The three-hour time proposal does not mean you have to be sexually engaged the entire time, although you may sometimes find yourselves doing so.