Your ability to be intimate in sex increases when you are able to be aware of and enjoy all of your senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. A full range of sensory experiences is a dynamic resource that you can use to enhance sexual pleasure. And, when you have the capacity to tune into any of your five senses at any time, you are able to be a more complete and emotionally available lover.
Porn trains people to rely primarily on their sense of sight for sexual stimulation. They look at visual images and respond with genital arousal. This is why many recovering porn users find it difficult to be present with a partner during sex—their mind automatically shifts to porn images because they find it hard to become stimulated without them. When your visual sense is preoccupied with images of porn, your ability to enjoy a wider variety of sensory experiences is compromised. Fortunately, this is a pattern that can be changed.
With conscious effort, you can develop skills that enable you to stimulate and awaken your visual sense and your other senses in new ways. The following “Sensory Exploration” exercise is a technique you can use to become more aware of each of your senses and the unique pleasures they have to offer. This exercise should be practiced in a nonsexual setting so that you are not distracted by sexual arousal. Without sex involved, you can slow down, pay more attention, and learn how to connect to and appreciate more fully each of your senses. The skills you develop will provide a basis for being able to generate, express, and receive sexual desire and arousal through each sense. This is an easy exercise you can do whether you are currently single or in an ongoing relationship.