Picture a blanket in a field, music playing, nobody near. Your partner starts to touch you softly and sensually, and feeds you grapes.
For one person that is "oh wow, give me more, please". For the other it is "okay, when can we actually get to it?" Same blanket, same grapes, two bodies with two different ways in. That gap is what sensual touch is really about.
What does sensual touch mean?
Sensual touch means touch that switches on the senses: smell, taste, sound, warmth, the feel of skin and the look of the place you are in.
People who love it tend to love soft things, beautiful surroundings and good food. You may find yourself caressing your own skin or smelling it. The pleasure lives in the texture and the pace, so there is nothing to get through on the way to somewhere else.
How is sensual touch different from sexual touch?
Sensual touch feeds the senses. Sexual touch heads for orgasm, the climax, the finish line.
There is nothing wrong with the sexual way in. It only matters that it is one way in among several, and that a partner with a different way in can feel hurried by it. This is the pattern I see most often.
| Way in | What lands | What switches it off |
|---|---|---|
| Energetic | The charge before any touch: eye contact, flirting across a room | Touch that arrives too fast, or too much pressure |
| Sensual | Scent, food, soft things, a beautiful setting | Dirty socks on the floor, a messy room, a worry about not having washed |
| Sexual | Heading towards orgasm, getting to the point | No climax in sight, or a long build-up |
Why does one of us want slow while the other wants to get to it?
Because each of you has a different way into pleasure, in the same way that each of you has a different love language.
I teach five ways in: Energetic, Sensual, Sexual, Kinky and Shapeshifter. The set comes from Jaiya's Erotic Blueprints, which I credit. I am a certified Erotic Blueprint coach, and Jaiya is one of my mentors. Once you know your partner's way in, and your own, the whole world opens up. These pleasure languages are a different set from the five Touch Languages, which describe how you are touched by life.
How can couples practise sensual touch at home?
Start on your own, clothes on, and take sex off the table for the length of the practice.
- Settle first. Touch Base: thumb to forefinger, feel the ridges, say "I am safe right now", and hold for two minutes.
- Pick one spot. Begin on the inside of your right arm.
- Try one way in at a time. For energetic, let your touch lift off the arm and travel upward. For sensual, caress the skin slowly and notice scent and warmth.
- Notice which one makes you want more. That is your answer for that spot.
- Bring your partner in. Your partner repeats the same touch on you, and you say which one lands.
I map the whole body like this with my VIP clients, area by area, fully clothed. It shows each person that their way into pleasure can be different in different places.
I talk through all five ways in on episode 94 of The Scrumptious Woman, and I describe the body mapping in episode 8. If the pressure of every touch leading somewhere is the part that tires you, why touch always leads to sex goes into that.
The Touch Map is where I take the mapping further. The intimacy and communication cards, over 150 cards in the app, give the conversation about your way in a place to start. If you would like a guide beside you, that is what I do as an intimacy and touch coach in the UK, and The Beginning is the deepest way in for couples.
There is a different way into pleasure for each of us. Patterns can change.