Lyric Explains it All! We’ve launched an ongoing Sex and Relationship Advice column by the one and only Lyric Seal. Comment below or email your questions to listentolyric@gmail.com and they’ll be answered in the next post! Read Lyric’s past post, on Being Vulnerable, Religious Indoctrination, and Respectful Hollering and Maintaining the Mystery.
Dear Lyric,
I’m way too sensitive and don’t find oral sex or being touched on my clit/around my clit pleasurable at all (it really hurts!) is there any way i can reduce the sensitivity, since oral is something I fantasize about and I feel like I’m missing out on something.
– Sam
Sam!
Oh my dear Sam. First of all, I think it’s important to listen to our bodies, and to not allow the cries of FOMO (fear of missing out) to be louder than what our body is trying to tell us. If something hurts in a bad way, you are not missing out if you don’t do it. However! There are a lot of ways to engage with oral, and oral adjacent activities, with a super super sensitive clit. My boyfriend is very sensitive, and sometimes direct contact with my tongue on his cock, or too much pressure underneath where it attaches is painful. So I do a lot of fast licking on top and harder pressure around the sides. Sometimes I just rub my lips around it.
If you are very sensitive, adjacent contact, or even just the suggestion of contact, and can do wonders so experiment with wetness, breath, varying pressures, and closeness and distance. The great thing about a sensitive clit (or whatever one chooses to call it) is that a lot of indirect pressure or contact can get you off. With penetration, jerking off, or oral, focus on the bigger picture: THERE ARE NERVES EVERYWHERE.
Another cool thing is to imitate oral on different parts of the body — have your partner suck off your tongue, lick between your knuckles, tongue-fuck your collarbones, etc. Just like any kind of skin, the only ways there are to try to lessen sensitivity is to abuse it or expose it to harsh contact (desensitizing), and this is damaging! I don’t even know if it’s possible with the clitoris, so don’t try. It’s okay to be super sensitive! You just have more room to experiment. And I’ll bet you have a lot of fun discoveries in store.
xo Lyric
Dear Lyric,
How does one go about rebuilding their sexuality if they begin to feel detached from themselves as a sexual being?
– Anonymous
Brave Rebuilder!
You are already doing the work. Even a whisper of desire is the first step.
I think it’s important to think of yourself as the dependent variable and all other players and factors as independent variables. First, you must get to know the qualities and behaviors and desires of the dependent variable, to be able to properly observe and experience how other factors affect it. Develop a sensual/sexual practice with yourself.
This does not have to be something explicitly sexual at first, like masturbating, but could be something as seemingly innocuous and low impact as dancing by yourself in your room or in a closely covered wood. If you like dancing (or moving, don’t even call it dancing if this is too intense) to music, play music that makes you feel pleasant in your skin, this could grow to feel like sexy or aroused, but doesn’t have to be those things all at once. Just move in ways that make you feel good. Listen to and observe who you are, when you are not performing. When you are just being.
This body carries you through the world, and in return you must be kind to it and nourish it for it to do its best work. There are many ways a body can be malnourished. Feed yourself. Good food. Touch your skin. Experience music and weather and texture. Breathe deep. Move. Get your heart beating every day. Think about how you change and grow. The more you enjoy feeling alive, the more you listen to your body and tend to your wounds and feed your passion, the more you will be able to find a sensuality, and a sexuality that is authentic.
As you increase your moving and nourishing practice, add a mirror, look at that body. Make sounds. Listen to that body. Watch some porn ;). Watch things that are not porn but which also turn you on. It is totally legitimate to be an asexual person, or a demisexual person if that turns out to be the case. But intimacy with ourselves is important. If you have detached from yourself as a sexual being and wish to rebuild sexuality, start by building a living practice of relating to your own body. Sexuality is not just fucking. It is an energy. You still have it. Remember your body. Get to know it again.
xo Lyric
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