What Is Great Sex?

A Sample Chapter from Disability & the Art of Kissing

Q: I feel a lot of pressure – and desire – to have incredible, “make-the-earth-move” kind of sex. Because there are so many things I can’t do or feel, I’m almost always disappointed (or worse, I think my partner is). Is great sex even possible in the context of my disability?

A: “Make-the-earth move” is a pretty high bar to set for yourself. That’s a pretty high bar for anyone! If your intimate experiences have to hit that mark every time you make love in order for you to feel gratified, then you’re setting yourself up for disappointment most of the time.

Maybe it would be useful to reconsider what great sex actually is.

Maybe great sex isn’t about intensity. Maybe great sex isn’t about how you score each experience compared to some expected (or previously experienced) high mark. Maybe it’s better to think of the best sex you’ve had in your life as a gift, rather than a standard you have to reach for every time from then on.

If you’re investing your attention and energies on comparing and expectations, you’re not in the right frame of mind for having great sex anyway! It’s a setup for failure.

What’s the real test of great sex, then? I think there are plenty of measures we can use, most of which are much easier to achieve. And have nothing to do with disability.

Do you and your partner feel loved and honored during sex? Do you feel close and trusting, and treasuring your ability to be intimate in such a private, special way.

Sounds like great sex to me.

Do you feel more relaxed? Have the things you and your partner did for and with each other relieved stress, allowed you to let go of the physical tension we all hold in our bodies? Sensuality has a special capacity to allow us to release those tensions, and life with a disability typically has its own extra set of stresses.

Sounds like great sex to me.

Did you and your partner have fun? There are a lot of ways to be playful, to be creative, to be goofy, even to make sort of a game of it.

Sounds like great sex to me.

Did you have an erotic (dirty, nasty!) experience, using your bodies in that hard-core, only-outright-sex kind of way. Having someone to do that with, where you both trust each other enough to be that revealed and trusting is a pretty big deal. And hopefully it felt good.

Sounds like great sex to me.

Did your lovemaking lead to an emotional release? Maybe there was some stuff you were holding back (and not even aware of it). The chance to be loved and be sensual can let those kinds of things up. It can be a moment of profound self-discovery, of release, of honesty with yourself and your partner.

Sounds like great sex to me.

Above all else, the root of great sex is the capacity to feel, to be sensual. When you are able to feel whatever you can feel fully, and when you are tuned to what your partner feels and how they are responding, then you’re in the best possible mode for all of the above. And more.

I call this “creating sensual space.” When you both come together, and have a shared orientation to feeling and touching each other with awareness. You are partners in starting gently, and letting your own responses guide where you go together, using whatever grab bag of options you have.

There’s a big difference between people pounding away at each other and having physiological orgasms, and two people who follow what is natural for their own bodies, their own desires, what is possible between them. The latter is more likely to meet a standard that can be fairly called “great sex.”

After a long day, when we’re both exhausted, to lay in bed with my partner, chatting, her leg over mine, feeling her pubic hair against my thigh, feeling her breast against my chest, resting a finger in the soft space where her buttocks begin to separate in her lower back. Now that’s what I call great sex!

Ironically enough, the more you let go of the standard notion of success implied in your question, the more likely you are to have gratifying experiences more of the time. Let go of the expectations, and you’ll actually feel more, and the intimate times you spend with your partner will be that much more precious to you—and the two of you to each other.