Sex education is important. So many times people are ignorant of even the most basic of information. The phrase "
how come no one told me that?" will come up time and time again. This could be after a
sex educator has held up an anatomical drawing of the
female genitalia, talked about the importance of
breathing and relaxation during sex, shown a workshop group
a vibrator for the first time and told them exactly what to do with it!!
Properly, professionally constructed
sex education workshops are
not mucky or pornographic and the students will come from all walks of life. Sitting next to each other may be
sassy 30-somethings earning good money in top jobs,
school dinner ladies in their 40's looking for some spice in their tired relationships,
young first time mothers who want sex but are too tired to even think about it,
singles newly on the dating scene or empty nesters in their 50's whose kids have just left to go to University who have turned round to look at their partner and said "who are you?" All these people have in common is a hunger to change the
sex and relationships in their lives. Someone once said knowledge is power - knowledge is also confidence.
The confidence to get what we want out of our
relationships, to ask for and get what we want is probably the most difficult to achieve. Sure we are great at designing the new kitchen, sorting where we are going on our holidays, buying the new car, but when it comes to saying "
when you leave your dirty clothes all over the floor it makes me feel like a doormat!" Where are we?
Well,
how does your relationship with your partner rate? Do you really discuss and finish conversations with each other so that you both feel heard and understood? Are you angry with your partner,
withholding sex as a punishment and don't know how to resolve this?
If you want to learn to cook well you go and have lessons and you practice. If you want to have the most beautiful abundant garden in the neighborhood through your own effort you learn from books, you join a garden club and you try out new and different things. If you want
the best relationship in the world with
the most passionate and loving sex you.........Well what do you do?
Mostly what is learned about relationships comes from
observing others, the media and if people are lucky, from good teachers at school setting the right example. Too often dysfunctional family relationships end in poor relationship skills. But this can be changed and new ways of doing things can be learned by making a conscious effort to educate us. Any personal development program whether at work or in your personal life is time well spent and the benefits far outweigh the time and effort needed to embrace them fully. Life coaches are just people who coach you on life. Select a good one you can trust and follow a program either on your own or with your partner. Find out in your area where there is a program for more information on sexual relationships. It is important to have factual and accurate information on
sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy but far more important to have information on pleasure, commitment and responsibility in our
sexual relationships too.
It is important to learn how your body responds to touch, to
erotic thought processes, to seeing and hearing
arousing images and sounds. Whether
what you taste or smell is arousing too. All these factors
influence the arousal process and it is no good getting into a relationship and expecting your partner to know. How can they possibly know if you don't know yourself? Of course part of the fun is experimenting and finding out, but many couples do not experiment and
end up frustrated in more ways than one.
Betty Dodson the New Yorker who for the past 30 years and more has
advocated good sex education for the
best relationships, is still finding it an uphill struggle to convince people that their relationship will stand a better chance of survival if couples educate themselves in this way so that they are effectively able to communicate their needs.