The Weekly Mindfuck: Nerves

Sex can be rough and sex can be gentle, aggressive and desperate or meaningful and slow, but sex is rarely feather-light. Eliciting an orgasm from your body or your partner demand kneading, rubbing, speeding up then slowing down then speeding up again. Touch, it would seem, is an inescapable and fundamental component of the process - at least in the physical sense. 

There is a kind of contact, though, when that touch is so light and airy you can't be sure it's touch at all. It's not quite tickling, though it can feel that way sometimes, and it rarely imbues the desperation of desire in its most voracious form. It's likely you've done it a million times - sometimes when you're admiring your partner's body when the light of the morning creeps in, sometimes mindlessly in that requisite pause that prolongs the grand finale.

When you were younger, it wasn't quite so sexual. It might have been asking your best friend to tickle your back, or your mom running her nails down your arm to soothe you when you couldn't sleep. Regardless of when or where or how, this feather-light graze down your back and your arms and your stomach and your thighs achieves one comprehensive purpose: It makes your skin, anywhere on your body, incredibly sensitive. In a way, it wakes up your nerves - for whatever may or may not come next. 

It's my favorite part of foreplay now, when things are a little more languid. There's something about being touched and tickled in such a delicate way that both teases and arouses me, a process that means when things get more heated - faster, harder, hungrier - all my senses have been magnified.  

--

You can contact the author at [email protected].