Ok, so not RIGHT now. But recently – and combo of sex and mindfulness was pretty awesome.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of being in the moment, right here, right now. For example, I’m aware of the feeling of the keys under my fingers and the music coming out of the speakers. What I’m not doing is making a grocery list in my head, thinking about what I’m going to do next, or worrying about how things went this morning. Those things are about Before and Later, but not Now.
Sometimes I love practicing mindfulness. For example, walking to work in the morning I like to look at the sky and how beautiful it is and just focus on that. But sometimes, I really don’t want to be in this moment. Tired at the end of a work day on crowded public transit – I’d rather check out. We all do lots of things to check out, for example television is in essence checking out. We’re not engaged mentally, physically, or spiritually with other people - instead we’re passive, taking in and checking out. This isn’t to say that all checking out is bad, it’s not. And neither is all TV. But it was really shocking to me, when I started paying attention to when I was and when I wasn’t being mindful, how often during a day I’m checked out.
Which brings me to sex. Everyone has a whole mess of feelings, thoughts, predictions, concerns, and expectations around sex. It’s supposed to be like _______. Go on, fill in the blank. Even us queers who aren’t part of that mainstream heterosexist GQ and Bridezilla world have our own assumptions of what sex should be. Most recently, while perusing transguys.com, I noticed guys letting other guys know that they’re not supposed to post for dates on women seeking women. Sex isn’t supposed to be like that. You’re not really trans if…..
Even if we can’t agree on what trans sex is supposed to be, we all hold our own interpretation tightly and sometimes we don’t even know it. I am not immune. My sex life is supposed to be great. Since I’m a sexologist it’s supposed to be fantastic, perfect, and happen often. And when it isn’t or it doesn’t not only am I cranky but then carry all my messy expectations into the bedroom/car/floor/bathroom/kitchen with me. It’s amazing how much baggage we can carry around even with our pants off.
Trans folks also often carry with them shame about their bodies. Maybe we don’t want to be there during sex. Maybe we can only get off if we imagine we’re someone else or that our bodies are different than they really are. And that’s ok. Mindfulness during sex isn’t for everyone. In fact, I don’t think there’s one good way to have fantastic sex, it’s about what works for you. But what would happen if we went into sex without our usual expectations? What would we see? What would we notice?
During my own recent foray into sex and mindfulness, I noticed that I might not be able to “leave my baggage at the door,” but that my baggage didn’t seem to matter as much when I was focused on how our queer bodies found each other in that moment.
