3 Approaches to Erotic Engagement: Relating, Trance, Role
Did you ever have the most amazing sex and then find your partner was disappointed because you just “went for it” and didn’t look at them?
This can be the cause of tension,conflict and even break-up, when the real issue is the differing ways we are oriented regarding relationship.
Relating, Trance and Role are the three ways of relating you want to be able to identify in yourself and your potential partner.
Relating focuses on the “we” in your interactions. It can include communicating, making eye contact and negotiating your wants and needs. It is often ensuous with a gentle energetic rhythm.
Trance is almost the opposite of relating. It is a state of arousal which is very internal and self-oriented. It is usually high energy and focused on intense sensation, including altered states of consciousness.
Role is a landscape of erotic exploration which expresses itself in a range of roles – e.g. top/bottom, sub/dom, leather, bondage, lingerie as well as a range of dress-ups and imaginative scenes like doctors & nurses or captive.
Without awareness, these innate tendencies can create dissonance in an erotic encounter or relationship.
With awareness, they can provide an endless platform of expansion, creativity and erotic satisfaction.
Once you realise your penchant for a particular style, you can check whether that fits with your partner. If yes, then you are likely to have a compatible erotic engagement. But be warned, it is not likely to maintain its freshness and vitality. The good news, is you have two more styles to explore…and the work is to find the willingness and the ways that support that development. Au contraire, if you notice a dissonance in your erotic styles, then there is room to expand into engaging in small steps towards the style of the other.
Note that without a willingness to expand out of set patterns of erotic behaviour, boredom is inevitable…which usually leads to a sometimes relentless pursuit for “fresh meat” – same, same but (not) different.
“Life is a daring adventure, or nothing.” – Helen Keller