Oztantra Blog – Love Sex & Passionate Relationships

A Soft Cock: to Love or Not to Love?

February 23, 2023 By Annette & Graeme 2 Comments

A Soft Cock.

Most men have had a few in their lives.

This limpness is often looked upon with a good deal of fear, frustration and shame.

Because the necessity of a hard, erect, even rampant cock in sex is deeply entrenched in the masculine psyche.

It’s also deeply entrenched in the feminine psyche that an erect penis is the ultimate sign of female desirability. Leaving many women feeling rejected and ashamed when their partner’s erection is missing. Making it doubly hard for a man to deal with the loss of his ‘manhood’.

Into this scary picture strides Viagra

With an apparent solution, with men reaching for it in droves.

And it DOES provide a solution for the erection itself in many, but not all cases. Medical News Today says across many studies, between 43% and 83% of men who took Viagra had improved erections. (These rates varied depending on the cause of their ED and the dosage of Viagra being used.) In comparison, improved erections occurred in 10% to 24% of men who took a placebo (no active drug).

Yet as good as it has been Viagra is not the answer to all erection problems, as evidenced by studies revealing that Viagra and Cialis are quite effective drugs but 50% of people stop using them within a year, and 60-70% of people have some degree of dissatisfaction with them.

Contrary to popular belief, Viagra won’t make you feel interested in sex.

It typically won’t make you feel anything at all. The effects of Viagra are purely physical, not emotional or energetic. And we think this is the key to why men might stop using it.

Viagra is designed to improve your performance, that is your ability to get, and maintain, an erection. Viagra may produce a noticeable improvement in the general level of enjoyment you get from sex due to effects. Yet Viagra isn’t associated with any significant increase in your level of sexual interest, sexual arousal or your sex drive in general.

Viagra doesn’t seem to appear to have any effect on the way sex feels.

We believe that men lose interest in Viagra over time because they are rightly looking for something more than just performance. It won’t make you feel more stimulated during sexual activity, nor will it result in any positive or negative change in the level of sensation you feel. There’s also no research showing that Viagra causes more intense or satisfying orgasms.

Women also report that thought their man may have a long lasting erection she often can’t feel the man behind the erection. This is who she is ultimately looking to connect with inside of the sexual act. The part that brings closeness and a fulfilment that lies beyond physical satisfaction.

Sensation and pleasure in the whole body

This sensation and pleasure in the whole body, including the erection, is what brings the experience of connection and intimacy in sex.

So if you’re looking for more of this deeper satisfaction, it’s useful to take on the idea that a soft cock is not a ‘failure’. It’s an opportunity to feel more. To stop focussing on performing and start focusing on feeling, for BOTH lovers.

Because having an erection isn’t related to how much pleasure you can feel. We have been in a room full of men in full bodied, even multi orgasmic pleasure without an erection to be seen.

We’ll repeat this because it can be hard to take in.

Having an erection ISN’T related to how much pleasure you can feel.

If an erection isn’t playing, choose instead to focus on some deep breathing, relaxing and full bodied touching, even snuggling and feeling in your belly and chest for your emotional feelings.

Feeling into your heart, going it compassion and feeling it open.

Later you can focus on going within yourself and connecting to your body from the inside, as you relax and pleasure your cock from a place of enjoyment, rather than trying to get it up.

And give yourself time for your sexual pleasure to arise more fully into pleasure again.

Whilst fully enjoying what IS present in the meantime.

How to let go of being limited to your primal urges and social conditioning

You are more than your primal urges and social conditioning.

You can let go of being controlled by this part of you by:

Letting go of any stories about a lack of masculinity, or feminine desirability.
Choose not to buy into them when they show up, because show up they will.
Find the part of you in your body (not in your mind) that has been attached to them.
Have compassion for this part of you, feel what feelings are there, breathe through them.
Choose to honour and celebrate it.
Then scan your body for the part of you that ISN’T attached to your manhood being attached to your erection.
Notice what this part of you feels like, what are its qualities?
Choose to honour and celebrate it.
Feel the part of you that IS attached to this part of you, and the part of you that isn’t. Then feel the part of you that has the choice between the two. Choose to visit this part of you often.
The female partner can do the same exploration of the part of her that is attached to the belief that if her lover doesn’t haven’t an erection she is not sexually desirable.

For more on this subject check out this article on erection problems.

And this TedTalk on creating extraordinary intimacy in a shutdown world, about the gift from having impotency after prostate cancer.

Wet does not always mean horny and dry does not always show disinterest.

February 7, 2023 By Annette & Graeme 2 Comments

This belief about wetness = horniness has been around sex for decades now.

It’s one that has totally messed with both women’s and men’s heads, by making them think something is wrong if it’s not happening.

It’s just not necessarily true.

The porn fallacy of wetness

This belief has been paraded around in pornography with women showing up wet and horny for sex no matter what the occasion.

Whether it’s for the car salesman who has just offered her a discount on her new Subaru if she’ll put out.

Or for the policeman who has offered to wave her ticket for a blowjob. Or it might be for the cowboy who has just turned up on his horse with a slow, lazy twang in his voice. (Hmm…that could work).

Women in porn are shown as hot and wet even in the hard core versions where there are no corny scenarios, they just get into it. (Which can sometimes be a relief to be honest…)

Romantic books and movies more subtly, yet still undeniably, hint at a woman’s readiness, assuming wetness. With lovers being able to get right into it without having to reach for the lube.

Being wet and hard is taken for the ultimate indicators of sexual readiness.

‘Getting wet’ is seen as important as ‘getting hard’ is, to the idea of sex. (Although less biologically necessary, like male nipples, but still very pleasurable.)

The really important thing to know about a woman’s state of lubrication is that it can be, and often is, separate to her desire for sex.

Just like a man’s erection can be.

Even though a man with an erection is rarely portrayed outside of a sexual context.

An erection can be stirred into being by sexual thoughts, or the proximity of a gorgeous woman.

At other times, especially during the painful teenage years, erections can arise at the most inopportune moments. Like wearing speedos at the school sports. They also happen two or three times a night with no sexual context at all, not even an erotic dream.

Even though this is rarely portrayed outside of a sexual context.

An erection is often stirred into being by sexual thoughts, or the proximity of a gorgeous woman.

At other times, especially during the painful teenage years, erections can arise at the most inopportune moments. Like wearing speedos at the school sports, or two or three times a night with no sexual context at all, not even an erotic dream.

Wetness and hardness are physiological responses.

We learn to relate them to sex.

They’re just not necessarily related to sexual desire, which is more complex.

How can wetness and hardness be a learned response?

For example, the last time you went to this restaurant you and your partner had great sex in the car going home. So, you feel a little aroused, and a little wet just ordering dinner there. Or, if you had been caught masturbating and shamed as a child you might not have a full erection when you feel aroused, in order to avoid the shame. Though in this case, you unlearn having an erection.

Men can be wet too.

It’s interesting to note here too that men also have sexual wetness. This is because both genders start out with exactly the same genitals in the womb. They just get organized differently, according to their biochemistry during conception and foetal growth.

Women have lubricating glands at the mouth of the urethra, called Skene’s glands. These glands swell during sexual arousal making it difficult to pee during sex. They’re also believed to produce the fluid known as female ejaculate. (Now women have fluids that they ‘shouldn’t’ emit, such as urine, and fluids they ‘should’- wetness and ejaculate. What does my body want again?)

Men have corresponding glands found just below their prostate. These are called Cowper’s glands, (it would be great if we name things after their function rather than who discovered them) that emit something known as pre-ejaculate. Which happens very little for some men, just a drop or two sometimes, and quite a lot for others. It’s the way they’re made.

The difference is, there isn’t such a song and dance about it.

So as difficult as it may be, we seriously need to totally unhook this belief that wetness and horninness automatically go together.

Because wetness can be a learned physiological response to a sexual situation that has very little to do with desire. It’s why both men and women can have arousal and even orgasms whilst being raped. It in no way means they wanted it.

It also used to be believed that a woman couldn’t get pregnant without having an orgasm so if she got pregnant during a rape she was believed to have enjoyed it, really.

Listening to what she says is important.

On the other hand, a woman can really desire sex and be totally wanting it without being wet. It’s happening everywhere else in her mind and body except there. It’s just the way she it. It doesn’t mean she is broken, or disconnected from her body or lying.

How does a man know this woman is wanting sex? By understanding this difference and listening to her. If she says she really wants it (excluding any trauma responses she may be overriding) then she likely does.

Just smile and pass the lube…

Undoing our conditioning

We can undo decades of confusion, shame and invalidation for women right here.

And some for men too.

And help women love their bodies exactly as they are.

Which is the number one pathway to expanding a woman’s sexual pleasure.

We’ve heard it works pretty well for other genders too.

Are You Dancing in the Full Spectrum of Sex?

January 26, 2023 By Annette & Graeme 2 Comments

Our sexuality offers us SO many opportunities to explore, pleasure and play.

Yet it is so easy just to fall back into what is familiar, what is comfortable.

Even while longing for something new.

We’re often still operating on the insights we first learned in our teens, or from our first sexual experiences.

Or from the girls over coffee, or locker room after footy. Or from porn, which can be great entertainment, but which creates problems when we try to be like this in real sex.

Rather than from people who have studied the art of sex for years and its unlimited possibilities aka. us!

That’s why today we’re offering you some suggestions to play with to expand your spectrum.

The key word here is ‘play’.

It’s a great skill to not take sex too seriously. At least at the beginning. As you open into it the depths can appear. But if you get too serious at the beginning it can end up in performance anxiety. This leads to all sorts of unhelpful behaviours as we try to cover our anxieties by being cool and in control. Rather than just being our authentic selves.

Here’s a list of things you might like to play with (especially as it’s a long weekend):

One thing sex – choosing one aspect to focus on and doing it reaaally well.
Breathing sex – actively breathing in different ways – deeper, slower, faster, shorter and seeing the effect on your pleasure.
Sensory sex – awakening your senses with different smells, feels, music, sights, tastes.
Seasonal sex – consider the time of year and season, what does it inspire? Outdoor sex, by the fire sex, hot and sweaty sex, slow and relaxing under the covers sex?
Rocking sex – instead of thrusting, try rocking your hips, it’s opens up your energy and can make a world of difference. then try different strokes.
Playful sex – where the object is to play like children innocently exploring for the first time.
Slap and Tickle – play with different touch styles- stroking, scratching, licking, blowing air, soft, firm, fast, slow, just holding, biting. Always get consent and start slowly with the more intense styles.
Handcuff and Blindfold – everything can feel more intense this way. Again, always get consent first.
Heart Connected sex – take time to actively feel into your hearts as you make love. Breathe into and put your hand over your heart to help make the connection. Give it time. Make whatever you find ok.
Blowing Raspberries – blow raspberries on each others’ bodies and genitals.
Dess Sexy sex – each person dresses sexy and stays dressed, with clothing that has the right access. This can be really sexy for blokes to do too.
Grinding sex – like the sex you used to have as teenagers, grinding your genitals together, with lots of kissing.
Kissing sex – while we’re on the subject, explore each other’s whole mouths and lips. Start light and teasing, then slowly get deep and hot.
Edging sex – come up to the edge of orgasm, pause, breathe deeply and start again.
Teasing sex – give each other permission to flirt and tease, bring out your inner vamp!
Tantric sex – breathe white light in from the soles of your feet, up through your body out the top of your head and back down again, becoming light and love beings.
Kegel sex – practice your Kegels together. Squeeze your pc muscles to increase each other’s pleasure. Kegels have never been so pleasurable.
Valley sex – after you’ve been making love for a while and have some intensity built up, drop into stillness and just breathe deeply, exhaling out of your mouths. Amazing.
Giving/Receiving sex – one person receives what the other suggests, after checking it feels good in their bodies. Then swap.
Taking/Allowing sex – one person does what they really want to the other, with the other’s full consent. Consent is what really makes this one work for both people.
Emotional sex – give yourselves and each other permission to show and express any emotions that may arise during sex, taking it to a whole new level of intimacy.
Sounding sex – give each other permission to make sounds, as it amplifies whatever you’re feeling. Try a variety of sounds, make them real.
Slippin’ and Slidin’ sex – if you have outdoor privacy, put down a plastic sheet, cover each other in body friendly oil and start slipping and sliding.
Energy sex – touch each other lightly, slowly, all over, whilst breathing deeply to activate your energy bodies.
Chakra sex – put your hands over each other’s different chakras and breathe into them, whilst imagining their colours and see what happens.
Fantasy sex – explore one of each person’s fantasies and if it feels right to both, find a way to act it out, even if it is in your imaginations (which can be better and more creative than the real thing, and your mind can’t tell the difference).
Gifting sex – start sex by each giving your partner a gift of some kind that is a unique expression of you ie. a dance, a compliment, a simple gift, a poem, a song etc.
Oral sex – it matters less about skill and more about whether you’re really enjoying it. Relax and find what is enjoyable.
Oral sex – Talk dirty. We all know it can start out embarrassing, but it gets better as you go. Start gently, don’t think too hard about it, build as you go. Research it online together and see what might work. Refrain from judging each other’s preferences, say yes where it feels right.
Oral sex with a difference – tell each other what you love about each moment in sex, and about the other person you’re having it with. It’s completely different, but just as opening as dirty talk. Try that too, if you like, next time.
Spot sex – explore a spot together- start with a GSpot or a PSpot.
Lab sex – make a sex time for experimenting non judgmentally with what might feel good. Start with some of the suggestions here, with no expectation on the outcome.
Erotic sex – read a sexy book to each other, or watch a sexy movie, try a new sexy toy.
Tired and Hungry sex – often we use being tired or hungry as a reason to not have sex, yet these states taken into sex can find us with either our walls down or our desire up, as long as you start with lots of deep breathing (with mouth exhale) your state will shift and your energy will start to move powerfully.
Daily Devotion – less is more, read about it here.
Gender sex – focussing on sex that has gifts for your gender – for women, for men.
Swapping Roles sex – try putting one person in charge of the sex, especially the one who is not usually in charge. Make it an exploration, rather than an expectation. Given time and space it can be very freeing for the one receiving and empowering for the one being dominant.
Tantric Massage sex – explore a deeper way of touching.
Scheduled sex – sex doesn’t need to be spontaneous. Put it in your calendar and look forward to it. When the time arrives feel into what you would like- is it something slow and gentle, hot and heavy, playful etc. and talk about what you can create together to get into the mood. Using this list might help.

This list is a great beginning, use it to help make your way all through the year.

So there are no excuses for staying in a sexual rut, or having the same sex you’ve been having from the start.

Make 2023 the year to take your relationship to the next level

January 5, 2023 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

What are your desires for your relationship this year?

What would you like more of? What would you like less of?

Now is a great time of the year to reflect on your relationship over the last 12 months.

What worked, what didn’t.

It’s also a great time to discover your relationship desires for the coming year.

What you’d like more of, what you’d like less of.

Most of us spend more time trying to survive, rather than thriving

We focus on doing what keeps us safe and familiar.

Rather than on what might ultimately serve us best.

We do this because the oldest parts of our brain are focussed on protecting ourselves, keeping us safe and out of pain.

The downside is that this lets our defensive, unconscious habits run our lives.

Habits that can cause us more pain in the long run.

Rather than supporting us to make choices from the newer, more conscious parts of our brain.

Choices that will lift us into something new, more rewarding and fulfilling.

In truth, this way of being is serving our fear, rather than our love and our empowerment.

It is serving our smallness, sense of unworthiness, rather than our worthiness.

It is not an easy thing to break out of living in survival. There are so many models of fear, paranoia, power mongering, mismanagement and hate reflected around us.

Yet survival IS just a mindset (once our basic necessities are taken care of)

We can choose to be like the rest of the world, feeling unsafe, mired in our defence mechanisms.

Yet when we choose love, we find worthiness, trust, empowerment, healthy choices and freedom.

We cannot serve both these masters at the same time.

So what are you going to choose?

What are you going to bring into your relationship in 2023?

Are you going to serve your fear based negative stories about your relationship?

Or are you going to create beautiful new ones?

Are you going to continue purely mind-based sex that leaves you unsatisfied, and even hating of your limited self?

Or are you going to breathe new life into it, creating exciting new desires and possibilities?
Possibilities that will serve you both in and out of the bedroom.

Are you going to let your defence mechanisms win the day, keeping you safe but separate and alone?

Or are you going to reach out to your loved one and foster intimacy that comes from the truth of your heart?

Are you going to focus on everything BUT your relationship, letting the outside world dictate to it?

Or are you going to give it a life of its own by creating space for it on a daily basis?

The biggest danger to any relationship is apathy

Another danger is fearing making the wrong move and doing nothing.

Yet another is waiting for our loved one to do it for us.

Or worse, expecting them to and resenting them when they don’t. Without owning our own inaction.

You don’t have to make the right moves

You just need to make A move.

Then you can keep learning and adjusting and creating as you go along.

You’ll be surprised how self-empowering and relationship thriving this can be.

And we’ll be here giving you tips, tools and inspirations along the way, so you don’t have to do it alone.

Don’t let fear, hate and apathy win in your relationship (and in your life).