The Sensory Coach - How To Embrace Living Your Sensory Soul Life - Sensuality 101

The whole ethos of The Sensory Coach is predicated on my love of sensuality, but when I created  it, part of my mission was to stay away from the subject of sex. Not because I don‘t love it, I do, but because I was tired of sensuality being reduced to sex toys and porn.

To me, reclaiming our sensuality is a revolutionary act. It means that we stop becoming mindless consumers of what greedy corporations pump out. It means getting in touch with our own depths. Discovering what‘s truly ours, and not the echo of some pseudo culture.

Being English*  sex is a difficult topic. 

*I prefer English to British,  because I like precision in descriptive words. I AM English with a proud 25% of my blood being Irish. Britishness doesn‘t describe who I am, as it lays claim to Scotland and Wales, which, much as I adore both places, I have no bodily connection to, and therefore, as I feel it, I’ve no right to claim as part of me.

No Sex Please, We're British

When I was younger,  myself and someone I loved deeply, but who was, much to my disappointment, only a platonic friend, had the line ‘no sex please, we’re British’ thrown at us as a warning by our parents, as they left us alone when they went out for the night. It was mortifying for us both.

Decades later he used the phrase, in an official capacity, when his position put him in charge of sex education policies at his local authority. I hasten to add he was saying it was an attitude we needed to get rid of, not one he was encouraging. But I digress!

Sex and Britishness have this Victorian prudery attached to them still.  As a nation, and I will include myself here, we have a very childish attitude towards sex. The naughty seaside postcard, the euphemism and double entendre, all carry that ‘behind the bike sheds’ British attitude towards sex. It seems like the only way we’re comfortable talking about taboo topics, is through the veneer of humour. 

We’re so much more sexually liberated now than we were though; after all, we have Ann Summers shops on many of our high streets, and sexually transmitted diseases are rife. Woohoo, yay us for really getting our freak on!

As I see it, what’s really happening is a weird kind of reverse prudery.  We can talk about shagging and dogging with barely an eyelash batted, but go any deeper; try and get into the truly sensual; and you’ll find the same shame and embarrassment aren’t far from the surface.

Becoming A Sensual Being

Sensuality is a way of being. It’s not a quick shag on a Friday night after a few beers (although that can be part of it, of course).

Exploring your sensual nature isn’t about trying out the latest sex toy (although that can be part of it, of course). 

Stepping into your sensual self doesn’t mean a quick trip to Victoria’s Secret (although …. you get the gist now, right?).

Sensuality is about so much more than sex, and it frustrates me that, when people hear the word, that’s where their minds automatically jump.

In my view, sex is but one – albeit wonderful – aspect of sensuality.  

I want to help people get in touch with their senses, so that they can have more pleasurable lives. I‘ve left sex out of the equation up until now because I feel that, in my country at least, to include it would turn The Sensory Coach into a euphemism for a sex worker. Which isn’t to throw any shade on that profession, it’s just not part of my offering to the world.

Becoming a sensual soul, to me, means a return to our original selves. The selves we were before the world stepped in and told us we had to be tamed and ashamed. 

'Sensuality is being in our bodies, not getting lost in our heads.'

As adults, if we can find our way back to that person we were, before we were tamed and domesticated, then we have unlimited power to create lives that are truly fuelled by joy.

Pleasure and Consensuality

As with all things in life, there is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to pleasure and joy. Our sensory wiring, by its very nature, means our sensory experiences differ wildly from person to person. And so our sensuality differs. 

My pleasures are different to yours. And so long as our pleasure comes to us in ways that are ALWAYS consensual*  then there is no need to feel threatened, less than, weird or perverse, for the ways that we experience sensuality.

*see how that word is spelled! The etymology for consensual:- consens from the latin meaning felt together, agreed.  

ConSensual – together + feeling. Isn’t that beautiful? Who doesn’t want a truly consensual life?  It should underpin everything we strive for in this world.

The Requirements of Living A Sensual Soul Life

If we want to get to know our sensual selves then we must be prepared to do the work required of us. You  might be wondering what that look like, here then is a list of requirements:

  • It requires committed action.
  • It requires courage.
  • It requires honesty.
  • It requires curiosity and a willingness to experiment.
  • It requires openness and acceptance.
  • It requires that we own our mistakes, and accept our failures. 
  • It requires testing our boundaries and, when we know where they are, enforcing them, and OF COURSE honouring the boundaries of others.

But most importantly of all….

  • it requires us to have deep compassion for ourselves. 

This isn’t a hedonist’s or a libertine’s charter. This is simply an invitation for you to come to your senses.  And it’s me putting a stake in the ground; setting out my stall;  so that you know the territory The Sensory Coach may occasionally visit.