Co-authored by Galit Romanelli
Maya and Ben have three young kids and have been stuck in a mommy-son dance for years. This session, Maya mentions they had two good days. I’m curious to hear what changed. “Can you share a specific moment where you felt you were in a different dynamic?”
“We were just sitting on the couch drinking some arak, chatting and laughing,” Maya says. The kids kept trying to bother them.
I ask her what Ben did or said that made her feel like they were equals.
“It’s just enjoying time without it having to be sex,” she says. “Not having to chase.”
“So you were just enjoying each other as friends?” I ask. She says yes, and turns to Ben. “Usually the couch is not really a place we hang out together. That’s usually where you’re half lying down and half working. This time it was different. We playfully sent the kids away. It was just us having fun.”
Then I offer them another word. “Between friendship and sexual, there’s a category. That’s what happened to you on the sofa. That’s called sensuality.”
I ask each of them to define it. Maya says, “It’s the attraction, but without the sex.” Ben says, “It’s just play. Maybe it goes this way, maybe it doesn’t, but that’s part of the point. You don’t know.”
“When you’re drinking together, that’s a sensual experience,” I tell them. “You’re sitting on the sofa, your legs are touching, drinking together. This is a perfect example of a sensual, but not a sexual, experience. From there, it could go sexual, or not.”
Ben remembers how they first got together: the two of them running around the city discovering restaurants and bars, laughing, eating, and drinking. “The sensual piece was the key,” he says. For a moment, they both drift back to sweet memories of a young couple.
Sensuality Is the Highway
Let’s play a game. Complete the sentence intuitively:
Sensuality is ________.
For many of us, especially men, sensuality is connected to the world of sex. Yet sensuality is really the experience of all our senses: smell, sight, touch, taste, sound. Sexuality is only one expression of that wider sensory experience. I learned this after 16 years of kissing my wife wrong.
In every marriage, there are three relationships: lovers, partners, and friends. Lovers isn’t just about sex. Lovers meet in eroticism, passion, desire, and romance. Many couples forget that the main arena for lovers is the senses. We knew that in high school, when even standing close or holding hands would send a rush all over our body.
Enjoying time together as equals is also the domain of friendship. When we share simple sensory moments, we’re strengthening the friendship too. Sensuality is the bridge between the friends and the lovers.
When you have young children, the partners’ bond takes over. Diapers, bedtime, bath time, repeat. Couples lose the everyday sensuality of lovers. Then at night they try to go from partners straight to lovers. That’s a big leap, which often leads to rejection and frustration. This is where Maya and Ben kept getting stuck. They couldn’t find the bridge back to lovers.
When our kids were born, Galit was touched out. The kids were always hugging and pulling her. She didn’t want any more touch. That was hard for me, as my love language is touch. What we didn’t know at the time is that sensuality is a wide playground. Touch is just one of the senses.
If couples don’t work on their lovers and friends bond during the early child-rearing years, what they’re left with is bitter partners. Sensuality is what’s going to future-proof your relationship.
The Great Equalizer
Sensuality is a great equalizer. If one of you is holding most of the parental weight, like Maya, it’s hard to meet your lover at eye level. After a whole day of being your partner’s parent or boss, you don’t feel very erotic toward them.
When we both focus on our senses, we move beyond our roles. Two different subjects, feeling something together. It’s not a parent and child dynamic anymore. We’re both eating ice cream. We’re both enjoying this song. We’re rubbing each other’s feet. We’re both drinking arak.
Sensual Healing
Sensuality lowers the pressure off sex, especially for women. Imagine sexuality as the top of the sensuality pyramid. The wider the base, the higher the peak. Therefore, the best way to improve your sex life is to widen your sensual playground, not just in the bedroom.
Here are a few first steps.
Block out the time. This sounds cheesy, but like anything else, you’ll need to put in the reps. Prioritizing sensuality means taking a break from the never-ending logistics.
Decide a priori that it (probably) won’t lead to sex. This isn’t foreplay. It’s a fun exploration of the senses.
Keep it short. Ten minutes. Five minutes. You want to finish with a taste of more. That helps rewire your brain to link your lover with pleasure.
Try different senses. Music, a concert, a sunset, a museum, a meal. Singing together is also sensual. What turns dinner into a sensual experience is your mindset: to connect and enjoy yourself and your partner through the senses. A good place to start is the 30-day touch challenge.
Come as equals. Come as mutual explorers. Get curious about what happens in your body and between you.
Sensuality compounds. You get to experience the song, the meal, the view, through their senses too. I love seeing Galit’s reaction to yummy food, as my palate isn’t as sophisticated as hers. In those moments, the dish becomes an even richer delight. You get to experience the world twice. Instead of five senses, you get 10. Imagine that.
Now stop imagining. And go get sensual.
Galit Romanelli is a certified relationship coach, Ph.D. candidate in gender studies, and co-creator of The Remarriage Roadmap.
