Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (50 page)

Relaxing physically and mentally, with their bodies touching, was a major accomplishment for both Colleen and Anthony. Getting their bodies and minds working together took some effort, but it paid off. In my experience, this may be more important in resolving trauma than verbalizing feelings or having insights or new memories. What seems to be important is creating new levels of integration, whether it’s (a) developing
more coherent autobiographical life narratives, (b) passing information across brain hemispheres (left-right hemisphere integration), or (c) maintaining a collaborative alliance. Getting your body involved adds another level of integration that increases the benefits of all the others.

Tickling may be a standard part of some people’s sexual repertoire because they get a powerful jolt of arousal from it. A good game of
I’m gonna get you!
gets these folks’ adrenalin going, heart pumping, and juices flowing. It comes from anxiety-based general physical arousal that cascades into sexual arousal.

Families around the world enjoy tickling (in moderation) when their children are young. But when kids reach puberty, tickling becomes a form of flirtation. Most families know it’s time to stop. They can feel the child’s sexuality needs a wider birth.

This didn’t happen in Colleen’s family. Her brothers, sisters, and parents played out their sexual impulses and hostility through eroticized torturous tickling. No one talked about it, but everyone could feel it as they mapped each other’s minds. These highly anxious sex-tinged interactions occurred throughout Colleen’s adolescence. Anthony’s family’s tickling was more sadistic than sexual, but the imprint was just as powerful. These high-voltage moments of meeting shaped both of their lives, their marriage, and, in all likelihood, their brains. In my experience, people who grow up in high-anxiety households (with or without tickling) frequently develop dominant anxiety arousal / sexual arousal patterns in later life.
¹⁹¹

Colleen reacted the way most clients do: She went through a difficult experience and came out the better for it. At first this raised her anxiety, and then it settled her down. She got on top of her emotions instead of letting them control her. She had to call upon her Four Points of Balance
to do this. She had to confront herself about her life experiences, quiet her mind and calm her heart, and endure painful but meaningful realizations without avoiding or overreacting. Her time in the crucible left her quieter, more grounded, and more solid.

Colleen looked terrific at our next session. She was brighter, more alive, more at peace, and less fragile. Sex had dramatically improved. Along with no longer hiding her mind from being mapped, Colleen let her eroticism show in full for the first time. From their description, it was pretty impressive.

Resolving ticklishness can create some pretty hot sex. Most clients are surprised by the electric sex that typically follows. Some say this falls under the heading of “wall-socket sex.” Once you cure noxious ticklishness, the same touch that previously triggered ticklishness often produces a sexual response. Or maybe it’s that some highly erotic people are prone to ticklishness, and when they finally get their ticklishness under control, their sexuality blossoms. Both interpretations fit what I’ve seen clinically.

You resolve ticklishness the same way you submerge into wild sexual abandon. You can surrender to your impulses and sensations when you have control of yourself. When you’re in control of what will be done to you, you can relax and allow yourself to receive it. When Colleen got over her ticklishness and delved into her eroticism, the results were explosive!

Over the course of three weeks, Colleen and Anthony did
palm over groin
a dozen times. Although occasionally she was ticklish, it quickly subsided. When it happened, it wasn’t a tremendous impediment as it had been in the past. They knew they could get through it and it wouldn’t destroy their alliance.

One particular time Anthony did
palm over groin
until Colleen wasn’t ticklish. Then, at her request, he touched her labia with his fingertips. When this didn’t tickle her, instead of sticking a finger inside her, Anthony slowly opened her labia. Colleen said this was one of her most memorable sexual experiences.

After a while, much to his surprise, Colleen rolled Anthony onto his back. She straddled his hips with his penis in her hand, and lowered herself until the shaft of his penis was against her labia. Then she rolled her hips and brushed herself against his penis, holding it with one hand while she steadied herself with the other. Anthony thought he was going to go out of his mind. This was the most erotic and intimate moment of his life!

Then, POW! Colleen’s body bucked as an orgasm rippled through her body.

Colleen and Anthony were momentarily stunned. Then they laughed until their eyes had filled with tears. Afterward, Colleen lay like warm butter on top of Anthony’s chest. Anthony groaned. He was emotionally “done,” but he still hadn’t come. Colleen gathered herself up, took him inside her, and rode him until he reached orgasm.

Ticklishness is one of marriage’s cosmic jokes. Ticklish people, who may seem like erotic duds, often turn out to be high-powered sex pistols. Anthony was dazed by the shift in Colleen. He had a new understanding of their prior sexual encounters. It was a lesson in humility. The impact was pretty powerful.

Many women and men become ticklish to genital stimulation immediately after orgasm. They are hyper-sensitive at that moment, and further stimulation causes irritation, pain, or numbness. They laugh a lot and push their partner’s hand away. After several minutes, this reaction fades.

If you want to get over this form of noxious ticklishness—and maybe have some of the best sex of your life—you have to tolerate very intense stimulation while you make yourself relax. It doesn’t work if you’re fighting against your partner, nor does worrying that your partner is going to touch you whether you like it or not. You have to work as a team. This teamwork involves meaningful endurance for growth in the most delicious ways. It’s a form of human resilience you may not have considered. It lets you walk the fine line between pleasure and pain that humans seem to relish.

Curing ticklishness is great for couples who are celibate, or who have aversive sexual interactions. You can work on ticklishness with your clothes on if need be. Because it usually occurs early in a sexual encounter (and when restarting a stalled relationship), you can resolve ticklishness in your relationship long before you’re ready for intercourse. It will increase your desire, intimacy, and personal development.

Ticklishness carries loads of meaning and emotion. When you become ticklish, even if it is rare, pay attention to what’s going on inside you and between you and your partner. You’ll learn about yourself and your relationship.

As we’ve seen in previous chapters, everything I’m describing involves your Four Points of Balance. It takes two people stretching their Four Points of Balance to establish and maintain a collaborative alliance. When one partner becomes ticklish, both partners have to hold on to themselves, which involves a further step in personal growth. The process and outcome of resolving ticklishness is a further step in both partners’ Four Points of Balance. I’m describing differentiation triggering differentiation triggering further differentiation. Co-evolution through resolving co-constructed ticklishness. One self encounters another self, and in the process, each self develops more self.

The cure for ticklishness I’ve outlined changes your brain function. It involves using your mind to quiet your brain, to change how you think and feel. It uses your prefrontal neocortex “executive functions” to regulate your limbic system. That is why your ticklishness goes away in real time. This is an example of positive brain plasticity.

This time-proven strategy creates seven conditions thought to facilitate positive brain change. These are the same seven conditions
hugging till relaxed
,
heads on pillows
, and
feeling while touching
create too (
Chapter 11
). These may be the reason this way of curing ticklishness is so effective. It creates:

1. A strong and resilient collaborative alliance.

2. Moderate levels of stress and emotional arousal, alternating with calm.

3. Intense and profound intersubjective moments of meeting.

4. Information and experiences gathered across multiple dimensions of cognition, emotion, sensation, and behavior.

5. Activity in brain neural networks involved in processing and regulating thoughts, feelings, sensations, and behaviors.

6. New conceptual knowledge integrating emotional and bodily experiences.

7. Organizing experiences in ways that foster continued growth and integration.

These seven conditions create a deep coherence that enables your mind to resume its natural integrative processes. This helps you develop autobiographical narratives that make better sense of your past and its impact on your present functioning. This can help you regain hope for the future.

We can learn a lot about ticklishness from neuroscience and anthropology. But the best lessons come from banishing noxious ticklishness from your bedroom. Odds are you’ll get to the point that when your partner is tickled during sex, it means he or she is pleased, gratified, amused, and delighted.

If you’re like the 15 percent of people who took the 2006 Marriage and Family Health Center Dateline-NBC survey who said their sex was dead, this chapter and the prior one are exactly what you need. If your sex is alive but needs rejuvenating, this is still a good place to start.

However, most couples need something more: 53 percent said their sex was either comatose and in danger of dying, or asleep and needing a wakeup call. If you fall into this category, the next two chapters are for you.

Our two final chapters are more sexually explicit. They graphically describe things you can do to make sex more interesting, passionate,
erotic, and intimate. They address styles of sex and particular sexual behaviors many people love. You’ll encounter straightforward discussion of sexual realities appropriate for mature adults. If you’re faint of heart, easily shocked, or just plain not interested, you may want to stop here. Nonetheless, one out of every two couples needs the next two chapters, and I hope I’ve just whetted your appetite.

IDEAS TO PONDER

Ticklishness creates sexual desire problems. Resolving ticklishness involves getting a grip on yourself without dropping your alliance with your partner.

Tickling can cause powerful emotional and physical inter-actions—powerful enough to trigger involuntary reactions in your brain.