Have you ever bought a pair of handcuffs, a sex game, or some other novelty sex item with the goal of ‘spicing up’ your sex life, only to never use it?
Have you ever read up on techniques or moves that promise to ‘make you better in bed?’
When you think ‘great sex life,’ what do you picture? Threesomes? BDSM? Screaming mutual orgasms that make the neighbours blush?
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, who gave you these images and ideas?
And what if these ideas are actually taking you further away from the great sex life that you want?
Sasza Lohrey is the founder of BBXX.com a platform designed to be a personal guide to intimacy, both inside and outside the bedroom. The goal of BBXX is to help people better understand themselves, so they can connect more deeply with others. They focus on three pillars: sexuality, intimacy and communication.
The very early ideas of BBXX started for Sasza when she was around 20 years old, as she explained in a recent interview with The Salty Club (listen here.)
The beginnings of BBXX
“I am from the [San Francisco] bay area, I went to high school in the bay area, and I never had a minute of sex education, or more broadly any form of any education around sexuality, around relationships, communication or emotions.
“I realized when I was twenty, through a very interesting experience, that I was pretty lost, and that I had no clue about anything. And I remember exactly where I was, I was driving down the street, I remember exactly what street, and I thought to myself oh, I know why I’m not having orgasms. It must be because I don’t have a clitoris. That was literally a thought I had. Luckily for myself I went home later that day, I used google as a great resource, I found my clitoris and confirmed it worked, and then I cried of joy. Because I hadn’t realized the amount of shame and confusion that surrounded this whole area and all these topics.”
“I thought: oh, I know why I’m not having orgasms. It must be because I don’t have a clitoris.”
And that was the beginning of being able to understand myself through a different lense. And from then on, everything changed, I started talking to as many people as I could,
The basis of all good sex
Lohrey says that connection is actually the basis of all good sex. Some people, she says, come to BBXX because they believe they are having problems with sex, or their sexuality.
But bad sex or a bad relationship with sex, she says, it’s a symptom of something else: a bad connection.
“Bad sex is just a result of your connection with somebody,” she says.
“If you have a good, deep connection, then you’re probably going to have good sex. Or at least, you will be able to get there by talking about it. Bad connection leads to bad or no sex. So when people come because they’re curious about fixing what is a symptom, what’s more important is getting down to the root causes and understanding that these [intimacy, communication and connection] are what build the foundation of a good relationship. Communication and intimacy create connection. That is the foundation of a lasting relationship be it with a friend, a coworker or a romantic partner. And that is also what creates the recipe for good sex.”
“If you have a good, deep connection, then you’re probably going to have good sex.”
So how important is good sex in a romantic relationship, really?
Intimacy doesn’t just have to be cultivated with our romantic partner, says Sasza. This mindset doesn’t just apply to coupled-up people in long-term relationships
We can create intimacy “with a stranger, in a short conversation, with a great joke or connecting on a deeper level by asking a curious or more profound question.”
“We can create intimacy even with a person we just spend one night with, by “getting to know and really exploring with them and holding space for curiosity. People need to try change the way they think by treating symptoms and more powerful in creating change. It’s impossible to do it the other way around, because everyone is so different.”
Lohrey references a McCarthy quote from Esther Perel’s interview with Christina Pierpaoli Parker: “when it’s good, it’s about 15% of the relationship. And when it’s bad, it’s about 70%.”
Because then it means connection is missing, communication is missing, intimacy is missing.
“People think that sex is so, so important, because problems in that area can easily break a relationship. But [good sex] on its own can not make any relationship. If 50% of the relationship is great sex, but that’s the majority of it, you probably don’t have enough to build on top of. Or you have things that overlap with other areas, so if you go and ask yourself: what are the things that create good sex?”
So what creates good sex?
“Curiosity,” Sasza says. “Humor. Vulnerability. It’s not the sex. It’s the things that create the circumstances.”
“I asked a friend the other day; what is your definition of great sex? And they mentioned that being curious, and maybe actually having something go wrong, or be awkward. Because there is no awkward. Having those moments where you’re laughing. His answer was all about the circumstances and in no way actually mentioned an end result. So it’s important not to focus on the end result, but the circumstances that create it.”
So the question is, how do we not focus on the end result?
“I think curiosity is the most important thing. And that can be curiosity about oneself, why am I desiring the things I’m desiring? Why am I thinking the things I’m thinking? Why does something feel good? But I think curiosity, to learn about yourself, to learn about the other person, is extremely important. I also think caring less is the most important thing. I think people just psych themselves up on expectations or on execution or results, that you become too invested. Sex needs to be more fun. We need to care a bit less.”
Interested in hearing more from Sasza? Check out Caitlin and Sasza’s two-part interview in the Salty Club on all things sex, intimacy, connection and communication >> here <<