One of the most common concerns that I hear from men can be summed up as 'how can I last longer?' The tension caused by worrying about how to delay ejaculation is a major distraction for men and focuses them away from their own pleasure. So, what to do? Being able to delay ejaculation is something that pretty much any man can do. It involves learning how to recognise your own sexual arousal pattern and identify and control the point of no return. Even if you have no erection worries, playing with increasing and decreasing arousal enhances sexual enjoyment by building anticipation and maximising your sexual pleasure.

PEAKING

I would recommend that you try this on your own first of all to build up your confidence.

When masturbating focus on your physical and bodily sensations. What you need to notice are the physical signs that tell you that you are approaching ejaculation (i.e. pelvic thrusting, sweating, changes in your breathing rate and pattern and the feeling of a need to release). You then need to stop masturbating as you approach the point of ejaculatory inevitability (EI), rest until the urge to ejaculate has subsided, and then resume masturbating until you reach the stage of EI again. For the first couple of times, one 'stop' is enough to start giving you a feeling of control. You can then build up to preventing ejaculation three times in one session before allowing yourself to ejaculate.

The next stage is to start practicing with a partner. The presence of another person brings a whole range of additional visual, aural and tactile sensations that probably mean you reach the point of EI more quickly, but the process remains the same. Build up to EI and allow the urgency of release to dissipate and then build up to EI again (up to 3 times) before ejaculating. What this will do is enable you to be confident in allowing your erection to temporarily subside without panicking about your ability to regain it and it stops penetration being all about one short fast race to ejaculation.Once you get really skilled in peaking to pleasure, you will know that you can build your arousal again.

This is a great exercise that really helps men to get in touch with their own sexual rhythm and focusing on their body's response to pleasure. For many men, worries about erection centre on the supposedly devastating effect of losing or failing to maintain an erection for long enough and this exercise allows men to know that they do have more control over their erection than they might have thought. Just because it goes away, it does not mean it can't be brought back. Knowing this has helped a lot of men to become more able to enjoy sex without the psychological burden of erection anxiety.

One word of advice, if your partner does not orgasm through penetration, do not believe that it is necessarily your fault. She may need additional/other stimulation to reach orgasm and you thrusting away for another 10 minutes is no guarantee of a female orgasm. Make this exercise about getting in touch with your own sexual potential and not only about pleasing someone else.

I called this edition of Venturesque the SEXY issue, although I am aware that the way ways we get to believe we are sexy are often narrow, restrictive and difficult to achieve. Many men and women tell me that they feel that they can never be 'sexy', or 'sexy enough'. This belief narrows and limits sexual potential and can stop you from realising that sexiness is not something that you somehow prove by talking, looking, acting, or being sexy. Believing that you have to 'achieve' sexiness is a misunderstanding of what sexual desirability is all about. Stop thinking about sexiness as something that is mostly switched off until you make a major effort to switch it on - start believing that sexiness is attitude and confidence and focus on being attractive.

Being attractive isn't about attracting only sexual desire but means that you draw people to you without demanding their attention. It is about strength not desperation. It is being open to giving and receiving pleasure, wanting to connect and share with other people and being willing and able to bring out good things in others.  It is not something that you keep secret and share only with actual or potential sexual partners; it is an attitude that is brought out into the big wide world.

1.      What does being sexy/attractive mean to you?

What comes to mind when I ask you this? Do you make sexy possible or impossible for yourself?  Is your idea of sexy something that you know you can be? Or are you setting yourself up for failure? Do you recoil from sexiness, believing it just doesn't apply to you?

If you don't like it, change it. What other words give you a sense of your own sexuality combined with the possibility of being able to be the word you choose? I want you to find a word that allows you to feel comfortable being desired and happy in your skin but that also gives you confidence that it is something that you are and not something that you have to try really hard to achieve.  If you want a few suggestions, words that have worked for other people include fascinating, captivating, interesting, alluring, gorgeous, attractive, playful, eccentric and magnetic, seductive, wise and charismatic.

Once you have this word, use it in place of 'sexy' for each of the remaining questions so that you are accessing something about your unique sexual style and persona when you think about exploring your current state of sexual expression.

2.      When do you feel sexy/attractive?

What are your conditions for desire? In order to get in touch with your sexual presence, you need to know the psychological/situational conditions that allow you to 'be' it effortlessly and easily. Your word (and it could be 'sexy') makes you feel open to receiving and expressing desire. It is a word that gives you a feeling of power and confidence.

You may find that your conditions are not only sexual in context, since sexual energy and presence is something that you carry with you everywhere. I would suggest that if you choose say, interesting, as your word and can't think of any ways in which you can 'be' this word in sexual situations, then maybe you haven't chosen the right word yet - or maybe you need to work with a sex coach to uncover who you are!

Look out for the ratio of conditions that you can create by yourself (e.g. you feel 'fascinating' when having brilliant creative ideas, you put on music, sing, dance, call a friend, flirting with someone you are very attracted to) and those that rely entirely upon other people (e.g you only feel gorgeous when someone tells you, you get attention, when you are happy with your appearance etc). When you depend upon the sexual interest of other people to feel sexual, then you are setting yourself up to to allow other people's agendas to let you feel good or make you feel bad about yourself.

Consider the emotions, feelings and states of mind that let your sexuality flow. Perhaps feeling successful, independent, confident, powerful, in control allows you to enjoy accessing your sexuality. Who are you and what are you doing when sexual expression is easy for you?

3.      What gets in the way of your belief in your own sexiness/attractiveness?

Think about times when you have felt at your least sexy. What else was going on in your life, either generally or on a specific day, that led you to lose faith in your sexual self?  What emotions block you from sexual expression? Feeling powerless, angry, hopeless, fat, resentful, frustrated, rejected, disappointed are common states that prevent people from feeling entitled to a sexual life. What blocks your sexual confidence?

It is important to start becoming aware of what it takes for us to lose our passion and compassion for ourselves before we can start to challenge this. Once you can recognise the pattern of emotions, influences and events that disrupt your sexual expression, then you can begin to address how to make changes and make bigger, bolder and better choices about what you allow to dictate your feelings about who you are sexually.

I hope that this article has given you some ideas about expanding your sense of what it means to be sexy, to be in touch with your sexual energy and expression. Many people's sexual difficulties arise and are prolonged because they feel that they have not earnt the right to be sexual and they refuse themselves permission to feel entitled to have sex however they want to have it. Please think about all that you could be, all that you want to - and can - do in your sexual lives and refuse to be dominated by convention, misinformation, superficial understandings of sex and shallow notions of what is 'sexy'. Be quirky, unpredictable, idiosyncratic, wild and brave - whatever fits your knowledge about who you are.

If you find it incredibly hard to know who you are sexually, then I would suggest working with me to help you give yourself permission to explore and find out who your sexual self is and what kind of sexual life you can enjoy.