Articles - Every Body Loves

What Is Sexual Fantasy and why does it matter?

I remember first reading Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden, a collection of her interviews with women discussing their sexuality and fantasies, and being amazed at their wealth of detail, ingenuity and richness. The book was published in 1973,…

Education, New Learning, News

Sexual Empathy

[This is a continuation of my blog 'What do men want from sex'] How can we develop sexual empathy? How can we know what it feels like to be another person, to experience what they experience? I say that there are two primary ways, and…

News

What Do Men Want From Sex?

If you're a woman, you might sometimes ask yourself, "What do men want from sex?" At the end of the Edinburgh Festival, there's a firework display, late at night, from the Castle, which sits above the city like a raised stage, with the dark…

News

The Value of The Erotic Imagination

Our culture's common belief is that our sexuality exists in two forms: the interior and the relational. In this perspective, sexual fantasy belongs to the interior; the stories or images that we find exciting or arousing, often derived from…

News

Why "Difficult Conversations about Sex" fail, and why

There's a pervasive idea that a lot of women are having unsatisfactory sex because they can't have an honest conversation with their male partner about their sexual needs. If only they could, runs the idea, then things would change for the better. Generally,…

Coaching for Women. Every Body Loves. Sex and Relationship Coaching for full beautiful self expression

News

Why is Oral Sex Problematic?

why is it taking so long? if I don't orgasm soon my partner will be frustrated and disappointed I haven't a clue what to do These are common thoughts which people have around oral sex. Which, when you think of it, are quite strange.…

New Learning

The Eight Dimensions of Sexuality

In my work with clients, and particularly with Couples, I use a schema called 'The Compass of Sexuality'. I've adapted this from various sexuality school traditions, expanding and adjusting to fit all that I know within it. The value of a…

Learning

Three Metaphors of Female Sexuality: The World, The Ensemble and The Magical Being

In my work with women, there are some persistent themes, but the most persistent - and the saddest - is the belief of so many women that there's something wrong with them. That "wrongness" seems to originate with an awareness that our society's…

News

Why the term 'Sex Therapy' sometimes doesn't work, especially for Couples

One of the trickiest issues for people like me is what to call ourselves. 'Sexological Bodyworker' is quite a niche term.It isn't widely known, and almost everyone who has the qualification has it as a part of their practice, but not all. 'Sexual…

News

What 'fixing bad sex' means

In 'The Full Monty', a hapless middle aged man, played by Tom Wilkinson, has a row with his exasperated wife. He's been buying her garden gnomes for decades, because when he gave her the first one, he thought that she liked them, when she was…

Education. Every Body Loves, Cupped hands gathering water

News

Overcoming Negative Body Image

In my work, I often come across women who have a very negative body image. Some will endlessly inspect their faces for lines, or other imperfections. Others are convinced they are fat, and obsessively monitor themselves. Very few women…

Coaching

The Chthonic Clitoris

In the space of less than one lifetime, as a society, we have gone from not thinking about the clitoris at all to focusing on it as the main organ of female pleasure, and we have changed our sense of it from just being the glands, where the…

Sexual challenges

The Myth of Female Sexual Dysfunction

In my intake questionnaire, one of the questions I ask is whether there's a difference between the experience of orgasm [or lack of it] in partnered sex and solo sex. A frequent response from women seems to be that they have no problem reaching…

Coaching

The Benefits of Sex Therapy by Telephone

I do sex therapy work on the telephone in two distinct ways. The first is for people to whom working in person, or online, just seems too risky, but speaking by telephone, even as a start, is possible. The people whom I want to work with…

Coaching

Somatic Sex Therapy: Working with The Body

How do people like myself work with clients who have sexual issues? It’s an important point, because until it’s clarified, many people who would benefit from working with a sexuality professional are unlikely to seriously consider…

Coaching

Sex Therapy and Sex Counselling For Couples

Sex Therapy should start with a recognition that what we regard as sex is very restricted and almost guaranteed to make most people dissatisfied most of the time

Sexual challenges

The Benefits of Sex Therapy Online

Sex Therapy Online: the benefits How can we work with sexual issues remotely? Surely it’s essential to at least have the option of working with the body? I certainly thought this, and had steadfastly set myself against working…

Coaching

Sex Therapy: My Approach

My approach to sex therapy is unusual, and counter intuitive to our culture's usual assumptions about sexuality. I don't start with the assumption that there's something 'not working' with your body or your capacity for intimacy. My starting…

Sexual challenges

Curing Sexual 'Inexperience'

If one person feels something, that's a personal issue. If a lot of people feel the same thing, that isn't just personal; it says something about society too. The problem of sexual inexperience falls into this category. We live in a hyper…

Coaching

The Misunderstood Vagina

Vaginal massage (sometimes called yoni massage) is a really helpful antidote to oppressive and limiting notions of sexuality

Sexual challenges

Increasing 'Low Sexual Desire' In Women

A remarkably high number of women claim to have low sexual desire. The figures vary, but it's anywhere between one third and two thirds. When a figure is this high, does the problem lie with the thing itself, or how we think about…

New Learning

Transactional Sex: You Owe Me

Twice a week, on my way to the zen dojo, I walk through Glasgow University and past a plaque commemorating Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, who was a professor there. Adam Smith had a theory about the origin of money. He said…

News

First ever 'cuddle party' comes to Glasgow

First ever 'cuddle party' comes to Glasgow By Rohese Devereux Taylor The Herald 1st February 2020 Physical contact is good for us. Studies have shown it can ease pain, lift depression and strengthen our immune systems. Conversely,…

Sexual challenges

Overcoming Sexual Shame

Shame is endemic in our society, yet nobody talks about it. Which is strange, because it is the silent killer of sexual love. The heart isn’t cut to pieces in battle. It unknowingly dies, like a sleeping person in a room gradually filling…

Learning

Helping Chronic Pelvic Pain

According to the NHS website, 1 in 6 women are affected by chronic pelvic pain. That’s an extraordinary statistic. A lot of the time, doctors can identify the cause. But that still leaves many many cases of unexplained, long term pain. And,…

Learning

Re-thinking Male Anatomy

It’s one of the truisms of sexuality that women’s sexuality is elusive, and men’s is obvious. It’s obvious, because -presumably - an erection is conspicuously obvious. It’s obvious, because the point of an erection - surely - is…

Learning

Benefits of Genital Massage: It's Not About Technique

I talked to my Zen Group the other week about the language we use when we talk about the body. In that context, I noted that in ordinary language, we tend to use the word "body" to refer to the body below the neck, and the word "head" to refer…

New Learning

Benefits of Anal Massage

(For a full list of my articles, click here Part of my individual work involves bodily touch, which can include anal massage. This is a wonderful way to remedy deep rooted body tension, which is a major cause of difficulties…

Learning

Healing Sexual Trauma

" The soul feels unsafe in a frightened body. The Bodywork is to breath courage into the frightened body, to restore pleasure and to make the body a home for the soul again" (Mehdi Yahya, with thanks to Caffyn Jesse) The first time I…

Learning

Better Touch

How can we touch better? When I was a kid in the late sixties, watching Man From Uncle on the telly, the bit I liked best was Napoleon Solo going into an innocent looking basement shop in New York. He would casually press a few buttons…

Coaching

Healing Body Dysmorphia

My friend Minnie Iris is a very talented artist. I have one of her pictures in my practice space. She is a trustee of the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Trust. In the words of their website: "The term Body Dysmorphic Disorder [BDD] describes…

Events

How do I know what I want?

How do I know what I want when I always know what I ought to want? John's talk from the sex lectures series held in Manchester.

Sensuality

How to be Good At Sex

In Nick Roeg’s film ‘Insignificance’, there’s a great scene where Albert Einstein and Marilyn Munro are in bed together. It’s striking, because we don’t expect people like Einstein (geniuses who live in their head) to be any good…

New Learning

Sexual Healing

How does sexual healing work? I have a client who’s been coming to see me for about a year. When we started working together, he seemed to be carrying a lot of shock in his body. If I touched a particular part of him; his belly, for…

Sensuality

No More Bad Sex

If you ask a heterosexual man what bad sex is, he’s likely to say it’s when sex is boring. He’s unlikely to say, for instance, that bad sex is painful sex, or unwanted sex, or humiliating sex. Yet, that is often women’s…

Sensuality

Porn for women

Ages ago, before the internet, I had an affair with a woman who liked porn. We’d have sex, and while I was recuperating, we’d watch some of her porn. The only one I remember was one involving a vacuum salesman and a housewife. You can imagine.…

Sexual challenges

Dealing with Premature Ejaculation

When we talk about premature ejaculation, we’re really talking about several different issues, and it’s helpful to distinguish them. The first is a euphemism for unsatisfactory sex, particularly for the woman. The man just comes…

Sexual challenges

How to be a better partner

One thing that affects sexual confidence for couples is that a surprising amount of people have only had sex with one person: their present or former partner. I sometimes get couples coming to me who have had a long relationship,…

Coaching

Am I Asexual?

"Our desire for connection is tangled up in a culture of sexuality" -David Jay, The Asexual Visibility and Education Network It's estimated that 1% of the population is asexual. 'Asexuality' is defined as the absence of sexual…

Coaching, Sensuality

Disability and Sexual Expression

One of the clients I found most challenging when I started as a sex coach was a delightful young woman with cerebral palsy. Let's call her Rachel. The challenge was threefold. Firstly, there was a change in the normal…

Learning

Losing My Virginity

How did you lose your virginity? What was it like? I lost mine to a nice woman in HR at the office party when I was 25. I was working in a huge antiquated office, like the House Of Usher. I worked up in an eyrie. She worked down in the…

Sexual challenges

Curing Vaginismus

According to the NHS website "it's not fully understood why the condition (vaginismus) happens. Factors can include: thinking the vagina is too small, negative sexual thoughts, previous sexual abuse or unwelcome telepathic interference from…

New Learning

Male and Female Orgasms

In the Woody Allan film 'Manhattan', a female character says "I finally had an orgasm, and my doctor told me it was the wrong kind" The joke derives from Freud's idea that clitoral orgasms were immature and masculine, and that the mature…

Sexual challenges

How can I become more fertile?

One of my friends is an acupuncturist, and she told me that increasing numbers of women - overbusy women - were coming to her with fertility issues. One way she treats these women is to increase their receptivity and their heart connection. …

Sexual challenges

Healing Genital Numbness

Lots of people think that erotic touch needs to be high energy. If a lot of sexual energy isn't flowing, so goes the idea, then the touch isn't working. I don't think that's true, and actually I would argue it's positively harmful. I…

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