“What about your partner performing oral sex on you?” I asked.

“Oh no,” she responded, a shudder passing through her body, “I could NEVER do that.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Ask someone to put their face down there? It’s just gross! It smells weird, it tastes weird. I just can’t ask someone to do it.”

This was from a session that I had with a couple a few weeks ago. They had been together for several years, and they both felt like their sex life had gotten stale and boring. They were looking for ways to bring some of the excitement and spark back into their relationship, so we were talking about new things they could try in the bedroom together.

Considering whether or not you want to try some specific new thing requires you to understand what your boundaries are. This is an area where a lot of people end up sabotaging their ability to have an amazing sex life.

Like my client, a lot of us make definitive statements about things we’ll “never” do. Sometimes those boundaries are important (more on this in a minute), but other times these kinds of declarations prevent us from having a sex life that could be more pleasurable, intimate, or exciting.

So I want you to think about the things that you’ve said “I could NEVER do that” about. Oral sex? Anal? Having sex with the lights on? Write a list.

Then work through your list one by one, and take a moment to think about why you’ve written that particular thing off.

I want you to ask yourself these specific questions:

“Why am I having this reaction?”
“Are there any safety- or value-based reasons why I’ve said ‘no’?”
“Is it really serving me to say ‘no’ to this?”

I went through this exact process with my client. She realized she was having a surprisingly strong reaction to the idea of receiving oral sex. It wasn’t just a simple, “eh, that’s never been my thing” for her. She realized she was actually getting quite emotional about it.

She also realized there weren’t any safety concerns or values behind her reaction. In fact, she wasn’t even thinking about herself, she was thinking more about her partner’s reaction.

And she realized that it really was not serving her to be so opposed to oral sex. She was cutting herself off from being able to experience pleasure and intimacy. And she was making herself feel deeply ashamed of her own body.

“Wow”, she said, after a few minutes. “I guess I’m going to need to think about this a little longer.”

That’s exactly what I want for you. I want you to get curious about your boundaries, take them time to explore them, and make the conscious decision whether or not to keep them.

Boundaries in the bedroom are important for two reasons:

To protect your safety.
To make sure your sex life aligns with your values.

You need to feel safe in order to have great sex. For example, you might have a boundary that you always use protection. If you’re a survivor of sexual abuse, it’s particularly important to have boundaries in order to help sex feel safe again. For example, you may have a boundary around needing to make eye contact during sex.

You also want your sex life to align with your values. Maybe you value faithfulness, so you’d never want to do something outside of your relationship.

But most of the times the things we think of as our “boundaries” really aren’t about safety or about values. They’re actually reflections of ways we’ve been taught to be embarrassed of or ashamed of sex. That was definitely the case with my client.

So take the time to re-examine your boundaries, and consciously create ones that will actually contribute to your sex life instead of take away from it.

Give this exercise a shot and let me know how it goes!

The Sex Challenge

If you want the opportunity to continue exploring your boundaries, I invite you to join my Sex Challenge!