Again Men's Wellness Centers brought an article to my attention through a Tweet. The article is Mindful Sex: Could it Put an End to Unhappiness in Bed?
I have been trying to learn a bit and understand mindfulness since my wife talked to me a few years ago about it being helpful. She wanted me to do a mindfulness meditation each day so I started trying to learn what she was meaning. The article linked above is in The Guardian. Its explanation of mindfulness hits pretty much what I've learned. I need to get the time and place set aside to do a meditation every so often.
As I read the article I not only was thinking of how mindfulness would help my relationship with my wife in all its aspects, I also thought of how so much I've read lately treats all relationships as monogamous heterosexual pairings. So today I've been asking myself would mindfulness help other types of relationships? I don't have research to back this up but my response would be, "of course it would help. People are people, relationships are relationships." There may be differences in details, but there are differences in details between monogamous heterosexual couples.
Looking at non-monogamous situations I first think of swinging. The swinging I heard about as a young man amounted to wild orgies rather than relationships. I have to admit much of that came from religious people. Just a few years ago I became aware of the concept of "couples dates." One swinging couple finds another swinging couple for a date. If they click then eventually there will be a swap of some sort, whether soft or full depending on the people involved. For some it happens as part of the first date but some couples won't take it that far until later. In this situation there are actually six relationships.
I tried to count up the relationships and kept coming up with seven but when I drew it on paper I counted six. See why I taught Geometry for more years than any other topic I was certified to teach. I'm not sure how you could be mindful with all those possibilities. Maybe at some future date we will attract the attention of someone who has been in that situation and they can explain.
My wife has written a number of romance novels. Some of them verge on erotica and I asked her about that. She said they are adult romances as long as certain words are avoided. If things are described with certain terms then it becomes erotica. She actually tried to write an erotic story once. I don't remember much about the language she used but she was a bit less inhibited in the plot. It had four people and she was going through each one being the recipient of pleasure from the other three all at the same time. If these were real people I'm sure the recipient was in a mindful state while that was going on. If they were thinking about anything else I'm sure the intensity would bring them back to the here and now. If they were not able to get into the here and now then their lack of response would have discouraged the other three.
Those other three would have to be aware not just of what they were doing to give pleasure to the recipient but also what the other two were doing. This dividing of attention would make it a very different experience than what the recipient would have. I think that is why my wife intended to describe each one of the four being the recipient of a very intense experience.
The article tells ways mindfulness can help a couple. Though I'm not seeing how it helps each form on non-monogamy, I can see it helping many, if not most, forms of giving pleasure involving more than a couple. Maybe if a person is good at mindfulness they can block out what is going on in a orgy and make it about just the two of them. Maybe just the sheer amount of sexual energy in a group sex situation makes it as intense without being mindful.
There are some people reading this blog. If you happen to have experience with these group situations then please leave a comment on whether you would find mindfulness a help or the intensity of enjoyment comes from some other part of the experience.
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