The Four Realms of Sexuality

This post was written by Community Partner, Pleasure Coach & Sex Educator Andrea Bertoli.

There are so many ways to explore our sexuality and relationships. As a Sex Educator and Sex Coach, I focus my work within four realms of sexuality to help people explore and expand into what they need (or want) most. This framework can help you better understand the various ways our sexuality affects all aspects of our life. And it can also guide you into important conversations to have with your partnership or with your lovers. 

Let’s explore the four realms of sexuality so that you can better know yourself. 

SELF: What is Your Relationship to Self? 

I invite you to consider the idea that YOU are your own best lover, now and forever. Knowing yourself and connecting to your own body is a practice in itself. And for many of us, it can be quite difficult to access. For so many reasons, we might not feel safe in our own bodies or with our sexuality.  

This could be because we were shamed for our pleasure or sexuality as a young person, or we survived harmful or coercive situations, or because we were simply never taught to really know ourselves. Most of us have been taught (expliciting or implicitly) to externalize our sexuality. This might look like giving authority over our bodies to medical professionals, towards our elders, or to other experts; for others, we’re told that our sexuality is for someone else’s pleasure and our own experience doesn’t matter. But you get to be the expert and safe-keeper of your own beautiful body, starting now. 

There are many pathways to get to know your full self: therapy and mental health care, coaches and teachers, guided experiences with psychedelics or other plant medicines, embodiment practices (like meditation, breathwork, yoga, dance, martial arts), and learning to BE with yourself, without distractions, scrolling, or other numbing. Learning to be with yourself, create safe spaces to feel all your feelings, and being curious about all that resides in you is the path to building and maintaining a relationship with yourself. Being inquisitive about who you are, what you want, and what you need are deeply important questions.  

OTHERS: What is Your Relationship to Others?

No matter who you love or how you partner, having emotional intelligence, building your empathy and compassion skills, and learning how to have hard conversations is intimately connected to who you are as a sexual person. 

By creating more intimacy with another, we can curate deeper and more connecting erotic experiences. Most of us need some emotional connection before sex, and actively curating a safe, compassionate presence is one way to help your partner(s) open up emotionally and sexually. 

The other important aspect of this is differentiation: as we become more clear about who we are as individuals, we have more ability to differentiate from our partners. They can have their own feelings, needs, and desires, and when we are solid in ourselves, we know that we can have a differentiated (separate) stance. For example, you are not responsible for ‘fixing’ your partner’s bad mood, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t get to be happy or joyful. Similarly, your partner may be interested in sex later today, and you’re not feeling it. This is totally fine, and is not an indictment of your connection nor desirability—we’re all just different humans going through different stuff. 

BODY: What is Your Relationship to Your Body?

How does your body work—anatomically, physiologically, sexually? How might it change over time? What happens when it doesn’t do what you want it to do? 

These questions are foundational to our self-awareness as a sexual person. Knowing our body inside and out, and knowing how it works, helps us have more pleasure and better advocate for ourselves in all sorts of settings (from the bedroom to the doctor’s office). 

And speaking of evolution, be open to evolving your ‘sex scripts’ or routines throughout your lifetime. Whether you face illness, injury, or simply the joy of aging, your body will change, and with it, your desire, arousal, and sexual function will change, too. If you want to, you can remain sexually playful throughout your 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond—if you update how what you consider sex and revise how you play. Sex might not look the same as it did when you’re 25 (thank goodness) and being open to evolution in your play can make space for decades of pleasure. 

SEX: What is Your Relationship to Your Sexuality & Sexual Expression?

Sexuality and gender exist on a spectrum, and what a beautiful rainbow it is! What activities do you desire? What fantasies do you have? With whom do you want to play? All of these make up your unique sexuality. 

You might have known the answers to these questions early in your life, or your might be a late bloomer like me, finding my deeper sexuality and sexual expression in my late 30s. I’m now 44, and there is still so much to learn! 

Thankfully, we have so many more resources and reference points for sexuality and sexual expression than I did growing up in the 80s in midwestern suburbs. And yet, many of us are still unclear about what we want to do with our bodies and with whom (if at all!). A good sex therapist or sex coach can help you explore your desires, your expression, and your unique desires and your unique pathways to pleasure with self and other.

I think the most exciting thing about my own work of expression is that it’s always changing. Sometimes I feel more sexually alive and curious, other times I feel more reticent or shy. Sometimes I am more into THIS type of play, and other times I’m into THAT type of play. We all exist on a spectrum, and that may change over time. If you’re in a long-term partnership, it can be hard to evolve out of your original agreements, but it’s deeply healing when you can learn and grow together. Willingness to learn (and integrate learnings) is a foundational characteristic of a good sexual partnership. 

Exploring the four realms with a Sex Coach or Sex Therapist can help you on your path towards a deeper pleasure and better awareness. You can join my free monthly classes, find my writings on Conscious City Guide, or reach out to connect. 

More About the Author: I help people build stronger relationships, create intimate communication, explore their desires, and practice sensual connection in a grounded, holistic way. My approach to coaching and teaching uses tools from Tantra, mindfulness, and yoga to help you find new ways of relating to yourself and others, and will create space for you to rethink sex and pleasure.

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