Sexuality is a pandora’s box. Most people assume that it is only a small sliver of the pie of a person’s overall life. But it isn’t. And sexuality is far, far more than the act of intercourse. Everyone has a unique sexuality. And each person’s unique sexuality is a direct reflection of their deepest traumas and deepest desires. And I’m not just talking about desires in the bedroom. I’m talking desires in their life in general. Today, I’m going to explain the most important thing to understand about sexuality as well as help you to start decoding your own sexuality so as to deeper understand yourself.
Sexual energy is creative energy. This is why sexual energy is what literally brings forth new life. And we all know this at a deep, visceral level. So, it isn’t hard to conceptualize of the fact that subconsciously, your sexuality would be connected to what you want to manifest in your life. What you want to create for yourself. In fact, your sexuality is most closely linked to what you are the most desperate to create and experience. These tend to be the things we felt the most powerless to creating and experiencing in our life. In fact, no matter how much we deny, suppress and disown these needs and desires, they will stay connected to our sexuality. The thing is, our most desperate desires, come from our deepest traumas. This is why working on sexuality is no superficial undertaking. Rather, it will bring you face to face with your deepest core wounds and confront you with the reality and vulnerability of what you need most in life. And once you become aware of these elements (so as to consciously get on board with bringing about what you want) you will be confronted with everything that is in the way of that. Sexuality can absolutely be a path to awakening.
The key to decoding what your sexuality says about your deepest traumas and deepest desires, is contained within the emotional component of your sexuality. In other words, what you get out of the specific sexual experience that gets you going. Everyone has a “thing” sexually. We can call this a fetish. But some people’s “thing” isn’t what society would traditionally call a fetish. This is why, unless you have a traditional fetish, it is often so hard for people to answer the question: What is your fetish?
The fact that sexuality is connected to your deepest traumas and therefore deepest life desires, means that sexuality is one of the biggest “tells” of compatibility and incompatibility in a relationship. If you want to understand this deeper, you can watch my video titled: The Hidden Truth About Your Sexuality.
The place to start with this process is to try to pin point what your “thing” is sexually. Consider these questions:
What makes you the most sexually aroused?
What really turns you on?
A good amount of people find what really turns them on at a very young age, which is why it’s a good idea to think back to the first time you ever found yourself uncontrollably aroused as well. What was it that aroused you?
Did you have any masturbation patterns in your youth, if so, what were you thinking about or looking at or doing?
What thoughts trigger the most arousal in you?
If you watch porn, what type of porn do you keep going back to that gets you the most overwhelmingly aroused?
Are there any interpersonal social dynamics that you find particularly arousing?
What would your ideal sexual experience be?
Examine your past, what was the best sexual experience you ever had and what made them so good? Also, what is the worst sexual experience you ever had and what made it so bad?
If you were to describe sex to an outer space alien down to the most minute details, but you had to explain to them how to make it the most erotic experience possible, what would you tell them to do? How would you describe your own likes and dislikes to them?
If you were to write an erotic fiction depicting the sexiest interaction possible, what would it be?
So you can see some examples, I’ll pull from some of the people I have worked with over the years…
A person might say “I feel embarrassed about it, but at the end of the day, I just can’t get over the idea of being with multiple women in bed. This is what I have to think about in order to be able to masturbate.” Or “I watch porn where people are totally inebriated and even unconscious and someone is fucking them.” Or “I like when the candles are lit and there is soft music playing and we spend a long time just softly stroking each other and kissing and then we spend hours slowly making love to each other, feeling all the sensations of each other’s bodies and we feel so emotionally connected that it is like we are merging.” Or “I like to be tied up, like completely and totally immobilized. In fact, I used to fantasize as a kid that a spider caught me in its web and tied me up and mated with me against my will.” Or “I love to role play that I am younger than I am and am a virgin and an older man is teaching me how to do it.”
I don’t care how weird or perverted or dark or wrong you judge your answers to be. If you want to understand yourself, you have to be honest with yourself. Once you have this answer, you then want to go on to really deeply dissect what it is about your “thing” sexually that turns you on so much. You have to put yourself in the place of imagining that your “thing” is happening. As in, you’re doing it right now. You’re going to slow down and start to really question what it is that you find so pleasurable about it.
How does each element of it make you feel?
What is it that you love so much about the way it makes you feel?
What do you get out of it?
What about it do you find irresistible?
What about it makes you feel better than you normally feel in day-to-day life?
For example, if we take the person who said “I watch porn where people are totally inebriated and even unconscious and someone is fucking them.” And they do a deep dive to un-pack it, they may discover “I love that the person can’t say no. This makes me feel totally and completely received and like they can’t not take me in. They can’t argue or put up a fight. They go limp, which gives me total control. I get to decide what to do and do whatever I want that feels good to me and I decide when it’s over. They have a higher pain tolerance, which gives me more freedom to not have to restrict myself. Also, they have no inhibition either, they feel no shame. The other person’s shame, and also my shame inhibits me and I don’t like it. It’s carnal and this means I can act on my urges, rather than being restricted by my mind.
From there, you can look to what traumas in your life sit at the opposite side of the spectrum emotionally from the answers you gave. This, is your core trauma in this life.
Using our previous example, of the man whose fetish is inebriated people, he easily pin points how he felt the opposite of these things he gets out of the sexual experience that arouses him most. And also, how he is still in some measure of residual pain now in his current life. He would say: “In my childhood, my mother was super, super controlling and prevented me from letting myself out. I was expected to be totally inhibited. I had to listen to other people, but was never allowed to express myself. I was never received. Every single thing I wanted, my parents said ‘NO’ to. As if I existed for other people’s pleasure only. I am so, so tired of being told ‘NO’. I was not allowed to take action or control, I was expected to do what I was told and behave. Behave, behave, behave. I had to be a good boy, well beyond the age where I became a man. The idea of being able to control someone else carries a feeling of revenge, which makes me feel empowered.
And from there, try to recognize the ways that you prevent yourself from getting those desires and needs. Basically, oppositional forces to what you are looking to get from your sexual “thing”.
Using our example, the man may say:
In my life right now, I have been working to get more empowered, but at the end of the day, I still feel controlled by my family, which is controlled by my mother. I feel inhibited. I watch myself being passive in situations where I need to take action. I don’t express myself. I feel any person I’m in a relationship with has the upper hand. I’m frustrated because my sexuality reveals that I am not satisfied in my life and it really points to what I am needing in my life in general. I can see that I want to feel uninhibited and yet, I restrict myself in almost every situation, even ones where it is totally unnecessary to do so. I choose partnerships with controlling women, when what I really want and need is a woman who is not controlling and I’d even go further and say, a woman who wants to be on the opposite end of the spectrum, like a lifestyle submissive.
It's important to note that a person’s sexuality may be multi-dimensional rather than one-dimensional. For example, multiple things may get them super aroused. When this is the case, you want to identify each “thing” of yours and then unpack each one.
So that you can understand this even better, I’ll read you another example from someone who did this exercise… “I’m drawn to the dynamic of power and resistance—where control meets surrender in an intense, thrilling way. Some of the most memorable experiences I’ve had were when my partner and I played with non-consensual dynamics. There’s something electric about being taken without hesitation and without foreplay, feeling hands around my throat, and seeing the raw energy of it all reflected in mirrors surrounding us.
When I look deeper into this and the reasons why I loved this dynamic, what I like about it is that I feel completely wanted to the degree that it is not a question and to the degree that I don’t get a choice. Not even my no can dissuade him. It is the opposite of passive which makes me feel like this man would fight to be with me. Looking at this, I can see that in my childhood I felt really unwanted by the people around me who I wish wanted me. My dad was really passive and would watch TV all day and not pay much attention to me. He would make threats of leaving. A man fighting to not be separate from me, not being able to live without me, feels healing to the trauma of having a passive and rejecting father. Doing this has made me aware that I need people in my life that really want me. I need a partner because in partnership, there is an intensity to the feeling of being wanted. You’re wanted that a person commits to being with me specifically, making the bond feel deeper and stronger than other forms of relationships. I need and want a partner who really wants to be with me and who fights our togetherness.
Seeing that this is what I want, I see how I am in the way of what I want because I normalize people feeling blasé about me. In fact, I keep relationships where they don’t feel super passionately about being a part of my life. That sends the wrong signals to people. I also prevent the thing I want because I keep being the one to pull other people in relationships. I pull on them to show up emotionally and physically because I feel like if I don’t, they won’t show up for me.”
When you un-pack your sexual “things”, you will discover what it is that you are the most desperate to feel and what it is that you’re the most desperate to experience in relationships and what it is that you are the most desperate to manifest in your life. You will be put in touch with your needs as well as your path to healing. This is one reason why sexuality is such a powerful part of healing. If you want to understand this deeper, you can watch my video titled: Healthy Sexuality Vs. Healing Sexuality. But, once you discover these emotional roots behind your sexuality, they need not be limited to the bedroom. You can then take your desires out of the bedroom and find conscious ways to meet these needs and fulfill these desires into your everyday life, as well as to dissolve the oppositional forces to it. For example, the man who had the fetish for inebriated people saw that one of the needs underneath it was to feel a sense of inhibition. He can deliberately seek out ways to be less inhibited in his life, such as to take an acting class or to act on impulses to be spontaneous or to do an expression process or attend an ecstatic dance event or to practice verbal expression or to learn a martial art or get a sexual partner who enjoys receiving another person’s full uninhibited behavior in the bedroom. He can start to do shadow work with the aspect of him that keeps him inhibited. Decoding your sexuality can really help you to custom design your life. And the reality is, if your sexuality is connected to it, it must be consciously incorporated into your life in order for you to have a fulfilling life. And in order for you to be in alignment with your personal expansion.
