Do you find it difficult to vocalise your pleasure? Are your ‘sex sounds’ short, breathless and strained, or perhaps just non-existent? Most of my clients would answer yes to this question, or have never really given it any awareness or conscious thought!
Beginning to bring awareness to making sound during masturbation, self-pleasuring and partnered sex will deepen your connection to orgasmic sensation and will help that sensation to spread through your whole body (rather than just being focussed and trapped in the genitals).
Many people learned to masturbate silently – particularly if you lacked privacy or were raised in a home that viewed sex or masturbation as bad or wrong. This unconscious conditioning around sex sometimes means that, as adults, it’s difficult to relax and explore pleasure and affection in an open and vocal way. You may really enjoy sex, have strong desires or urges in your body and have a ‘healthy’ sex life, but unconsciously there can be a belief that it’s shameful or dirty. For many clients this manifests as a difficulty in letting go and being more authentically vocal.
I’m a trained singer, using my voice and creating sound is something I’ve learned and practiced, but also something I am comfortable experimenting with. A lot of the people I work with have ‘learned’ how to vocalise during sex from watching porn. Mimicking or imitating the ‘uh, uh, uhhhh’ sounds in the same way they mimic the thrusting movements and the posed behaviour. Over the top sound is better than no sound at all, in my book! But let’s tone it down a little, tune the radio station in to the subtler, more authentic, expressions that sit deep in the body and begin listening to your own voice. Sometimes the sounds that move in our bodies during sex don’t sound like porn. Sometimes they are slower, duller, deeper, uglier, more raw and primal. Sometimes there is laughter, wailing, soft sighing, or bursts of song!
Connecting to sustained sounds – like humming, or moans and groans in the throat – can also help to bring more awareness to the breath (see my previous blogpost here) and support a deeper, longer exhale: a simple little trick that calms the nervous system and relaxes the body. Try taking a deep inhale through your nose, right down into your belly, then exhale with a deep, loud sigh through your mouth. Make that sound as base and loud as you can on the exhale. You might find that your breath keeps going for longer than you expect…creating this vibration and resonance in the chest and throat is a great felt experience of your sexual energy moving up from the base of the body.
It can be scary and vulnerable to really let go and let yourself be heard. The first hurdle is to just let go of the internal self-talk about how you sound – remember, it doesn’t have to sound like anyone/anything else! So, try experimenting on your own before you unleash your cacophony of sound with a lover! Think of it as a meditation practice: when you next masturbate, consciously try and connect to different sounds and vocalisations. Make the noises that most clearly express exactly how you are feeling in the moment – and if that emotion doesn’t immediately have a sound then be curious, allow your breath to flow, try out a few different sounds and see what connects. Pay attention to your jaw. We carry a lot of sexual tension and frustration in the jaw – allowing softness and a little gap between the teeth will make it easier for sound to flow. The sounds you make will move your attention and awareness around your body. Staying silent is a bit like trying to drive a car without switching the engine on – you’ll have that ‘inside the car’ feeling but you won’t be going very far…
Of course, you can be verbal as well as vocal. If you’re with a partner or lover, tell them if something feels really good, or (perhaps more importantly) if it doesn’t. Expressing through sounds, however, is more primal, involves less thinking and tends to move energy faster and more easily than expressing through words. We can see this in children who are just beginning to learn to speak: they will not typically attempt to express emotions through language. They do it through sound. Think for a moment of a toddler in a tantrum. Typically you hear a lot of sounds, but not many words. And if words are present, they’re simple and to the point, such as “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!” Be a toddler with your expression of emotion and sensation.
Many of my clients are silent and still during their first session but begin to notice that with further sessions, and their own individual practice, they begin to relax and sounds flow more naturally and easily. They begin to let go and connect to what truly wants to be expressed, both physically and emotionally, in the moment. The more that you do this, the deeper and more connected your sex (and your life) will become, and the more blissful you will feel as a result.
If you’re still feeling shy about making some noise then send me an email and book in for a session.
Libby
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