From Pleasing to Feeling: Why Most Men Miss Their Own Pleasure

For a long time, I focused almost entirely on pleasing women. I learned techniques. I learned how to last. I paid attention to what worked. And in many ways, my strategies did work. But something was still off.

I wasn’t really feeling much myself. My attention was mostly outward: On her, on what she was feeling, on whether or not things were going well. I’d be thinking “Is this working?” instead of noticing what was happening in my own body.

That didn’t change until I started doing something very simple: bringing my attention back to my breath and what I could physically feel.

What Is Tantra?

You’ll hear the word Tantra defined a lot of different ways. What I’m referring to is what we might call “conscious sexuality.”

Instead of rushing toward a result, you slow things down and notice:

• Where do you feel sensation right now?
• Is your breath moving, or are you holding it?
• Are you tense anywhere—jaw, stomach, pelvic area?

The Three Keys: Movement, Breath, and Sound

When things aren’t working in bed, there’s often some kind of physical tension at play. You can figure out the origin of this tension by doing a self-check.

Start with movement. If your body is rigid, change something small. Try shifting your hips, shrugging and relaxing your shoulders, adjusting your position…. Even a small movement can interrupt a tension pattern.

Then look at your breath. If it’s quick and shallow, slow it down. I’ll describe one kind of helpful breathing pattern below.

Then sound. Most men stay nearly silent during sex, which usually means they’re holding tension. Try letting a breath out with sound, even just a low exhale or a sigh. It helps release pressure in the body.

This isn’t rocket science. But when you actually do them, these small shifts produce a noticeable positive effect.

Breathwork and the Nervous System

Your body can’t relax and stay in a stress response at the same time.

If your breathing is fast and shallow, your body reads that as pressure, and a kind of “emergency” state. If your breathing is slow and steady, it reads the situation as “safe.”

So if you experience yourself retreating into your head, try this:

• Inhale into your belly for four seconds
• Exhale through your mouth for six to eight seconds
• Keep your attention on your lower abdomen and genitals during this breath

Do that for about a minute. That’s enough to shift your state. You’re simply bringing your attention back to your body and giving it a chance to settle.

Releasing Body Blocks

Experiences like shame, pressure, or negative past sexual experiences can leave a kind of imprint. Your body remembers, even if you don’t always think about it consciously.

This is what the great sexologist Wilhelm Reich referred to as “body armoring”: areas of the body that stay tight, guarded, or shut down as a way of keeping you safe.

You’ll feel this armoring in places like the jaw, the throat, the heart area, the solar plexus, or the pelvis. You might not register it as pain, but rather a kind of low-level tension or numbness. Take a moment not and check for yourself:

• Is your jaw relaxed or tight?
• Are you holding your belly in?
• Any numbness in your genitals?

Take a few deep breaths the way I’ve described above. Bring your attention to one area that feels tense or numb. Imagine that you’re directing your breath to that area. Not forcing anything, just letting the breath land there for a few cycles. See if the tension softens, even if slightly.

Another simple practice to soften armoring in the pelvic floor is to tense those muscles for a couple of seconds, then fully release them. Do that a few times so you can actually feel the difference between holding and letting go.
These aren’t major pattern-breakers, but they start to undo your experience of constant tension. And as that tension shifts, your capacity to feel begins to come back online. Maybe not all at once, but definitely enough that you’ll notice the difference.

From Pleasing to Feeling

I’ll be honest, this is where a lot of guys get trapped.

They’re focused on their partner for the entire sexual experience, which sounds like a good thing! It was certainly my go-to strategy for many years. But it means they’re often disconnected – dissociated – from themselves. They’re missing out on their own pleasure.

But if you’re following the steps above to feel more, you can begin to make a shift.

Here’s one possibility. Take a moment and tune into your body.

• What sensation is strongest right now?
• Where in your body do you feel it?
• Is it building, fading, moving?

If you do this practice during sex, just remember: You’re not ignoring your partner. You’re just including yourself in the experience.

Multi-Orgasmic Living

Crawl. Walk. Then run.

Before you become a multi-orgasmic sex god ;-), you need to get comfortable with the basic tantric principles of “high sex.” That means learning to stay relaxed during states of intense arousal—including strong thrusting.

You won’t get there by retreating into your head, circling around in quiet anxiety, hoping for another outcome. You also won’t get there by concentrating on sports statistics. Or by pulling out and using your hands or mouth.

You. Don’t. Need. More. Techniques.

You need to first build your stamina by extending your ramp-up to ejaculation. If you can train yourself to gain true, consistent mastery over your arousal level, then you’re ready to run. You’re ready for multi-orgasmic living!

Instead of a single, ejaculatory moment, you may experience multiple peaks, each increasing in pleasure and intensity. At the end, whenever you want, you can choose to ejaculate or not—it’s up to you.

Sounds crazy? Completely out of reach? I promise you, it’s not.

The Bigger Picture

A huge percentage of the men I coach spend the majority of their time in the bedroom trying to control everything—whether it’s their performance, the outcome or how it all looks.

My suggestion? Drop the control. Learn to relax and let go.

Of course, it’s way easier for me to write these words than it is for you to do it! But you can start by following my suggestions above. Use your breath more fully. Track tension areas and relax them. Focus on sensation, not your anxiety-filled mind.

And for a deeper cut, my MultiOrgasmic Lover program takes you through crawl and walk, all the way to run. The MOL program combines ancient wisdom with modern technologies in a fun, comprehensive, and easy-to-digest training that will absolutely take your bedroom game to the next level (or two!).

Want to know more?

Check out my conversation with the incomparable Dr. Robert Glover on his Gloverhood Podcast.