The document discusses the concept of erotic intelligence, emphasizing the importance of healthy, imaginative, and exciting sexual choices after recovery from sex addiction. It outlines key components of intimacy, the impact of shame on sexuality, and the need for self-acceptance and connection within relationships. Furthermore, it highlights the significance of spiritual and erotic dimensions in fostering deeper connections and pleasurable sexual experiences.

1. Erotic Intelligence:
Igniting Hot, Healthy Sex After
Recovery From Sex Addiction
Alexandra Katehakis, MFT, CSAT, CST
www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com
SASH Conference San Diego, CA
September 25, 2009

2. Coming 2010! HCI Publications
• Igniting Hot,
Healthy Sex
After Recovery
From Sex
Addiction

3. Do we achieve “Erotic Intelligence” or
become sexually whole?
• Sexuality is at the core of our personhood
• When our sexuality is tampered with in any way
as a child or young person it creates a shame-
based sexuality and shame-based sense of self
• Shame is at the core of most sexual dysfunction
• Sexual shame is at the core of sexual addiction
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

4. Definitions:
• Intelligence:
• Erotic:
• the ability to learn or
• of, devoted to, or understand or to deal
tending to arouse with new or trying
sexual love or desire situations:
• REASON: also, the
skilled use of reason
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

5. Problematic/Addictive Sex
• Sexual addiction:
repeatedly engaging in
any sexual behaviors
that are secretive,
shaming, and/or
abusive (to self or
others)
• Sex addicts lack EI –
they are aroused by
sexual desire but are
devoid of the skilled use
of reason
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

6. Problematic/Addictive Sex
• Addictive sex is rigid and unimaginative
• Reenactment of past trauma
• Sex addiction is an intimacy disorder
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

7. We Live in a Sexualized Culture
• Our culture has become more
sexualized and also repressed at the
same time. This paradox pulls people in
two directions.
• The unending conflicted messages from
film, television, magazines, billboards,
fashion, and our culture at large,
coupled with easy access to
pornography and family-of-origin trauma
have made sex shameful and confusing.
• Virtual connections, no face-to-face
contacts, infer that sexual exchanges
are happening in one’s head, devoid of
any heart connection.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

8. What is Intimacy…
• Most private or personal
• Very close or familiar
• Deep and thorough
meaning
• What 2 people share
who are in an agreed
confidence with one
another
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

9. Four Cornerstones of Intimacy
• Acceptance
• Connection
• Responsibility
• Empathy
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

10. Cornerstone #1 - Acceptance
• Acceptance of yourself without
judgment
• Know yourself: what you like,
dislike, when you become scared,
when you take risks, where your
growth edges are
• Self acceptance means you know
who you are and are comfortable
with it
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

11. Cornerstone #2 - Connection
• Allows for a deeper relationship with family
and friends
• Requires diligence and discipline
• Connection creates novelty in the brain
• If the connection is sustained, a stable
relationship can form
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

12. Cornerstone #3 - Responsibility
• Responsibility within intimacy is about
accountability for your own feelings
• Telling the truth
• Listening to your partner’s response
• Being truthful about preferences
• Self-regulating your behavior consistently to
reach your goals
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

13. Cornerstone #4 - Empathy
• Empathy is your ability to recognize or feel
another person’s thoughts and moods
• Being empathic in relationships helps you to be
comfortable with another
• Can you empathize with how your partner feels?
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

14. Attachment vs. Autonomy
• Attachment feeds autonomy
• Autonomy means you know who
you are and you allow the same for
your partner
• This process is called…
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

15. …Differentiation
• You have the ability to not overreact to
your partner’s upset
• You can operate autonomously even
though your partner may want you to do
things their way
• You can tolerate the tension that is
inherent in every relationship
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

16. …Leads to Intimacy with
Self and Other
• The relationship game is about
you making you okay!
• Differentiate while connecting
closely
• Create a healthy inter-
dependency
• No blame, no shame, no
games
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

17. How do we get there?
• Healthy Sex +
• Intimate Sex +
• Erotic Sex +
• Spiritual Sex =
• Erotic
Intelligence!
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

18. Healthy Sex…
• Adds to your well being
• Is free from behaviors that
create destruction to your
psyche, feelings and physical
body
• Healthy sex can have a tone of
innocence
• May restore your character as
a result of the sexual act
• Healthy sex is free from
shame and pain
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

19. Self-Care for Sumptuous Sex
• Grooming • Cleanliness
• Health • Clothing
• Diet
• Exercise
• Poor general health =
poor sexual
functioning
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

20. STRESS
• Reduces testosterone
• Irritablity or anxiety reduce
sexual desire
• Can create erectile
dysfunction
• Hormonal related issues
• Structure a lifestyle around
nutritious eating, movement,
and sleep.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

21. “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”
• Love isn’t what we think or feel it’s a neurobiological
state
• We’re hard-wired for love
• These states are: love, romance, and attachment
• Love is a chemically based chain of emotional reactions
that cause us to feel attracted, sexy, romantic,
affectionate, and desirous
• Striving to move beyond the temporary attraction and
lust stage toward the attachment stage demonstrates a
commitment to an enduring relationship
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

22. “What’s Love Got To Do with It?”
Cont’d.
• Desiring another takes work over time
• All decisions about how to approach your
preferences for desire and arousal are “in the
moment” and involve mutual willingness
• Your goals are to stay truthful about what you are
learning about your sexuality and your partner’s
sexuality
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

23. Intimate Sex
Couple-ship is defined as two adults
who choose to commit to relationship
with each other.
Each person makes an active choice to
be the kind of partner they want to be
You choose your partner because you
want her.
A realistic view of intimate sex is that
your sexual desire and that of your
partner consistently changes.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

24. Conscious Connection
• Know who you are and use good communication.
• Have honest, crucial conversations.
• Explicit talks may bring up resistance.
• Develop a variety of friends who you can practice talking
honestly to.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

25. Implict/Explict Strategies
• Speak what’s on your mind in a clear and practical way
• Implicit means to hold your thoughts inside
• When you make your thoughts explicit in relationships, you
start the critical conversations.
• Extend your generosity to your partner in all ways
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

26. Create Sexual Agreements
• Sex is relational
• Bring a sense of play and joy
to your sexuality
• Notice and compliment your
partner
• Can you give and receive
compliments without shame?
• What does it feel like to be
seen as a sexual being?
• Can you revel and delight in
that?
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

27. Challenge Your Sexual Limitations
• Men often say, “I wish she • Being able to use sexually
was more wild and animal explicit language is
like” arousing to the brain and is
• Women often say, “I wish important in the language of
he was more relational” eroticism
• Look at the disowned • You must have your hearts
parts of yourself (shame) in place in order to talk in
• The goal is to meet in the these ways or to try new
arena of eroticism things
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

28. Pillow Talk
• Your quiet privacy is a
good space for pillow
talk.
• Two aspects of pillow
talk are essential to
your well-being. 1)
Being able to say “no,”
mean it, and have your
boundaries respected.
2) Saying “yes,” being
heard and following
through.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

29. Pillow Talk and More…
• Sex with your partner is
associative, connected,
• Erotic relates to having
and embodied. the intention to arouse
• Happiness is your gauge sexual desire in oneself
for knowing how well you and the other.
are communicating and • Arousal is a verb, and
interacting with one erotic translates into
another.
actions and insinuation,
• Happiness is the sum of
your best and hardest
which can be subtle,
moments together. solitary or shared.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

30. Erotic Sex
• Touching each other is one
• Erotic sex begins to happen key to erotica.
when both people have self-
differentiated • If you were creating a
seductive, romantic
• Differentiation is the balance evening with your partner
between individuality and being for hot sex, what would you
together like to do?
• Sex is the intercourse, the
• Erotic sex allows a freedom to
merging or convergence of
unleash the ravenous while
staying relational. who we are.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

31. Essence of Eroticism
• Setting the erotic stage by • “No matter how
evoking the five senses is a
good platform with which to familiar we are with
begin. each other, with our
• A slow pace during erotic sex surroundings, we
keeps the entire body cannot get bored if
stimulated
we truly pay
• The man must understand
how to slow to the women’s attention.”
pace. • Philip T. Sudo
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

32. Essence of Eroticism, cont’d.
• Sex is about inviting a kind of
nervous excitement where
there’s no rush to cover it up or
push it away.
• Speak your love AND your
carnal desire. This kind of
connection flames your
partner’s physical arousal.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

33. Sexual Fantasy
• Fantasy is healthy, especially when you’ve reached a level of
trust in yourself and with your partner.
• Sensual toys, not necessarily sex toys, are in order if they are
appropriate to you and your partner.
• Use your imaginations and clarify about your boundaries, your
willingness to hear invitations and to say and hear “no.”
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

34. Sexual Fantasy, cont’d.
• In adult sexuality, you pay attention to
your current fantasies and discuss
them with your partner and listen to
his or hers without reaction or
judgment.
• Both partner-replacement fantasies
and mental wanderings are an escape
from emotional connection with your
partner.
• Fantasies that include your partner
and that you invent together increase
your erotic styles.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

35. Sexual Fantasy Cont’d.
• You and your partner build
your sexual fantasies
together. • You are willing to give up
control, be in a state of
• In erotic sex, we invite the not knowing, and make a
spiritual. space for your eroticism
to emerge.
• When fully naked and
vulnerable, sexual potential
comes from surrender and
not trying.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

36. Spiritualizing Sex
• “Love is our true
destiny. We do not find
the meaning of life by
ourselves alone – we
find it with another. The
meaning of our life is a
secret that has to be
revealed to us in love,
by the one we love.”
• Thomas Merton
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

37. Spiritualizing Sex - Breathing
• During sex, stop, relax and notice the sexual
excitement in your bodies. Breathe together and feel
the warmth as it radiates throughout
• Breathing is not a one-breath event, but a conscious,
circular experience. You relax and focus on the
breathing, you’ll flow in and out; sensations heighten,
and tensions release. You are fully present with your
partner.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

38. Spiritualizing Sex - Ritual
• Rituals prepare each of you to meet the sacred in
each other. Breathing, prayer or meditation sets the
stage for inviting your highest selves to a sexual
feast.
• Rituals start as simple acts of preparation or
kindness.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

39. Spiritualizing Sex
• Spiritual sex is about the
attitude of respect and actions
of kindness. It can also be fun
and reverential, giving you the
freedom to try things your way,
not in the prescribed ways we
learned or how our culture
determines it.
• Spiritual sex suggests that you
move beyond orgasm into the
connection with yourself, your
partner and the divine,
recognizing them all as one.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

40. Erotic Intelligence is…
…the ability to make sexual choices that affirm life in healthy,
imaginative, and exciting ways. In healthy sexual
relationships, eroticism is the deliberate seeking of pleasure
for the sake of connection with oneself or another without sex
or orgasm necessarily being the end point.
One of the great challenges of living a recovered life is to
experience this kind of sex with a partner with whom one feels
safe, secure and connected with, while revealing the depths of
our erotic, sexual, spiritual selves.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

41. Coming 2010! HCI Publications
• Igniting Hot,
Healthy Sex
After Recovery
From Sex
Addiction
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

42. http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com