Mapping Your Sexual Mindscape

I have always thought that being forced to write your fantasies down and describe them to someone is a useful exercise in creating more intimacy with yourself.
My firm belief is that until an individual has deep clarity within themselves about their likes and dislikes, they will not be able to attract someone to them who is able to give them what they need. Those of you who are in committed relationships will not be able to sit down and have a coherent discussion about your kinky desires with your partner until you can maturely describe and talk about what you want without being vague, getting embarrassed, hinting at what you want, or making her/him guess.
A homework assignment for all of you: take the luxury of sitting down with a pen and paper and writing down, in sumptuous detail, your naughtiest or most transgressive fantasy. Really embellish it until it is the grandest fantasy you can imagine. Now sit down in front of a mirror and read it out loud to yourself, as though you were reading it to another person. Allow your voice to convey the passion of the words you are speaking. Do it until 1. You are no longer shy about speaking it aloud 2. You are so lusty in your description that you get turned on by your own voice 3. It becomes obvious to you that you are speaking your heart's desire.

Now you can start thinking about repeating the performance to an actual audience. You never know, you might just get what you want!

Speaking the Unspeakable?

One thing I hear time and time again from my clients is that they don't know how to communicate about their particular fetish or fantasy to their significant others. In a perfect world, partners would hold for each other a space of unconditional love within which the couple could explore together like children in the playground of their mutual imaginations. Unfortunately, due to the prevalence of sex-negative conditioning in the way most of us have been raised, we don't know how to do this for each other.
When a man, for example, tries to think about how he might communicate with his partner about his desire to be submissive in a sexual encounter, he might imagine being received with one of the following responses:
"Men are supposed to be dominant in sex."
"I want a real man, not a sissy."
"There's something abnormal about that. You should see a psychiatrist."
"Are you gay???"
While we live in a society where, on a very general scale, gender roles are relatively relaxed, when it comes to ideas about what constitutes normal sex we are still very polarized: Men are assumed to be dominant sexually, and women as sexually submissive. Both men and women are afraid to turn the tables, for fear of challenging this core belief. Generally speaking, women are just as afraid of their dominant sides as men are of their submissive sides. This fear is merely of the unknown - of the undeveloped parts of ourselves that form the basis of our shadow selves.
So the next time you have a frustrating conversation with a partner regarding your less than socially acceptable desires, have compassion and a little patience. The problem is not attributable to one individual but is a wider social issue that affects us all.