If you’ve grown up in a family that cooks, no doubt your parents have taught you the techniques and dishes that are tried and tested. The most flavourful lasagna sauce your Nonna has perfected, perhaps, or the whisk wrist action your Great Uncle swears by to get the perfect puffiness on his pavlova.
I’m about to compare sex to pasta here, and I need you to stay with me.
As Kim Nguyen, a Sexological Bodywork expert and GP from Queensland tells Mamamia, the lack of sex education in our society has left us in a reality where we’re basically asking our daughters to start with bread and butter again, instead of passing on our fine-tuned four-tiered perfectly ratio’d lasagna recipe.
To give you an example, there’s a large chunk of women out there completely clueless to the fact that 2 o’clock on their clitoris is the most sensitive point of their genital region, and therefore key to unlocking their orgasmic potential.
“It’s funny that sex has been around for as long as time, but when teenagers all reach a certain age they start from scratch,” Kim tells Mamamia.
At Kim’s practice, she teaches women and couples how to pleasure themselves. Her clinic looks a bit like a massage room, and clients can be as naked or as clothed as they want, as they explore their sexuality in an open, safe space.
The biggest age group that Kim sees is women aged between 30 and 60. She says we’d be surprised how many middle-aged women still don’t know how to pleasure themselves, or alternatively, just aren’t.
“Everyone’s education level when it comes to sex is so bad. There’s a huge gap in what we [society] know,” says Kim.
“The truth of it is, everyone is going through some kind of difficulty when it comes to sex and sexuality because the truth is it’s the doorway to our mind,” she explains.
Kim has had women orgasm for the first time in her clinic. Sometimes with her help, sometimes just with her direction.
“It’s not on the first session, it’s as they get more comfortable with themselves and me that it happens. It’s amazing – it’s really special to be a part of it,” Kim tells Mamamia.
So how does she teach them?
“We often start with something called a robot massage. Normally when you get a massage they do it all for you. Here they tell me what they want, and they create their own massage. So I’ll do the same stroke and the same movement until they tell me they want something different. That could be slower, faster, or a different stroke altogether.”
Kim says it’s about getting someone to practice asking for what they want.
“It’s about rewiring the body and forging the connection between mind and body again… it’s about learning what type of pleasure your body enjoys verses the kind of pleasure you’ve been happy to receive,” she says.
Kim calls this "authentic consent." So instead of engaging in sexual practices because friends are, or because they've reach a certain age, or because the media says they should be "doing it more with their partner" - it's about having sex when someone's in a place where they physically, sexually and spiritually want it.
For those who claim they've "tried and can't orgasm," Kim says when she really gives people the time and the space to sit in silence with touch, women are always able to "come up with something. Be that a technique, or a stroke, that works for them.
Kim's also had to leave the room when a couple gets a bit carried away with what they've learnt in her clinic.
"The goal is for them to get carried away," she insists. "Even though they're there for more educational purposes, the more they can relax with each other the better, and yes, there have been times when I've had to leave the room."
For long-term couples, there are a few issues they come to Kim for.
Most of the time, it's because things have just gotten a bit routine beneath the sheets. But it's not as simple as seeing Kim and getting "10 techniques to try".
As Kim explains everyone is different, and she'll do something called genital mapping to work out what pleasure points work for different people.
"Think of it this way; some people are ticklish some people aren't," she says.
The reason things might become a little stale in the bedroom for couples who've been together awhile, she adds, is because they become "narrow-minded" in their pleasure.
"They get used to orgasming with one specific rhythm and one specific stroke. So it's about opening that back up again and getting them to experience different types of arousal.
"It would almost be like dancing, except dancing the exact same dance every time. You lose the enjoyment of it after awhile, but because you're so used to it you just keep doing it. It's comfortable and easy and what you know."
In Kim's opinion sex is no longer seen as an art-form, and people have lost their patience in really practicing it with the time and undistracted attention it deserves.
Another common couple complaint, is women not being able to orgasm during penetrative sex, and Kim is adamant it's something every woman can do with practice.
She gets these clients to try orgasmic meditation.
"It's a practice where you have your partner sitting with you and they touch your clitoris in a circular pattern undistracted for 15 minutes on the most sensitive spot at 2 o'clock," explains Kim.
Couples are supposed to practice this for six weeks, and they're to treat it like normal meditation - allowing themselves to just sit in the sensation fully and completely.
Over the days and weeks the "external chatter" that women experience about what they're supposed to do with their body, what noises are acceptable, how long it's acceptable to take to climax - all of that disappears as the practice comes with no expectations or "end goal".
"Your orgasmic potential increases and it makes it a lot easier to orgasm during sex," says Kim of the practice.
"Everyone that I've known that has done this practice is mind blown by it and how amazing it is."
It's a common preconception that men "take less time" to be pleasured in the bedroom, but according to Kim, that's not true and she thinks if we talked about it more we'd realise that.
"If they [men] want to actually fully experience the pleasure of an orgasm they need the same amount of time [as women] to lubricate themselves. Just because they have the capacity to orgasm quickly, doesn't mean it's orgasmic and fulfilling," she says.
Kim hates that we don't talk about sex more. After all, it's as important as eating healthy and exercising.
"What makes us the most happy and human is connecting to other people and it's one of the big ways we do that," she tells Mamamia.
She says everyone seems to be secretly ashamed that they're not having the best sex all the time.
"It's like a secret expectation we all have of each other, and no one wants to admit they're having difficulty," she says.
But despite the external societal pressures, Kim says the secret to a great sex life is allowing yourself to be completely open to your own sexual thoughts and desires, and accepting them and not being ashamed of them.
"That's the biggest and most important part of the journey," she insists.
If you're on the Gold Coast, you can book into see Kim here.
Feature image: Getty/Mamamia.
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