I really, really like pizza- it’s probably my favorite meal.
In my neighborhood we have about half a dozen different pizza shops. My favorite one is my family’s least favorite; I like my pizza with a lot of sweet and spicy tomato sauce, a thick, fluffy crust, and not too much cheese. The pizza from the shop my husband and kids like best is cheesy with a thin crust, and not much sauce. It’s so bland and unappealing to me that when we order from there, I’ll just have something else instead. If that were the only pizza shop in town, and I’d never had pizza anywhere else, I would probably think that I just don’t like pizza. When in fact, I love pizza, but it depends on the recipe.
Sex is kind of like pizza.
Most of the couples I work with have been having more or less one recipe of sex. It’s generally not one that involved a lot of research or experimentation; it’s just the one that evolved naturally, with very little knowledge or communication. Some of them feel that they don’t like sex. But often that’s because they’ve been limited to only a few specific ingredients, a particular choreography that isn’t really their taste.
Sometimes they feel it’s the partner that’s the problem, and occasionally that’s true. But often the same pizza chefs can try different recipes and end up with a sexual experience that’s more palatable all around.
The first thing to do is figure out what ingredients you like. I mean, if you hate cilantro, then you’re not going to want it in your pizza, right? And if you love broccoli, then you could totally add it as a topping. (To be clear, cilantro is gross and broccoli is awesome. This is a professional opinion. I will not tackle pineapple here, because I don’t want to be polarizing right now.) So if there are certain types of touch and spots on your bodies where you enjoy touch, you definitely want to communicate that to your partner, and ask for feedback about their preferences too. Cuz the whole point of the activity is pleasure- what a pity to be baking all that nasty cilantro into your lovemaking if one or both of you hate it. (I know hate is a strong word. But some herbs leave us no choice.) Now, what if one of you loves broccoli, but the other has never tried it on pizza before? Well, you can discuss the possibility and see if it’s worth a try. But you won’t know until you discuss it and then possibly try it. Pizza is more of an art than a science, like sex, and there a lots of different possibilities, permutations, and toppings you can explore.
What if you don’t know what other ingredient and topping options there are available? Well then you might want to do some research. Read, consult, and converse with your partner, and possibly a professional or sex educator, to find out what else you can try. Because like pizza, sex has the potential to be wonderfully enjoyable when you figure out how you like it.
(Pssst- in the resources section of this website, there is a section with recommended reading to fill in the gaps of your sex education. If it’s time to go back to “pizza school,” that might be a great place to start.)