Mid-thrust is not the time for boundary setting
Turn-on Tonic: Dose Eight
Setting boundaries during sex was never high up on my list of skill sets in my late teens and early 20s.
It sat somewhere between eating a whole and varied diet and drinking moderate amounts of alcohol on a night out.
And since I was on The Special K diet for one year (and not the 14 days suggested), and drank half a bottle of vodka before leaving the house for a night out…
we can both do the maths and conclude that sexual boundaries were not tried, tested, or even something I knew one could have.
For me, my body was a source of validation. Mainly validation through the eyes of men.
So starving it, making it attractive, and then serving it up as currency was what I did.
Weird. I wonder why?!
And I quote:
“What little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired.”
— Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
When it comes to the work I do now, which is supporting women to return to aliveness, pleasure, and their erotic current after life’s seasons and initiations, it’s important to talk about where I’ve come from.
Because I don’t see boundaries as a fun thing to play with in sex.
I see them as a fundamental part of remaining in connection with ourselves during sex. Which is what allows us to trust ourselves, and trust that we won’t override our needs in order to please or placate our lover.
In HEARTH (my practitioner training), I teach multiple ways of accessing and embodying sexual boundaries, not as theory or Instagram-therapy, but as a lived, visceral experience.
One of these practices works like this:
In pairs, we explore the body’s felt sense of YES and NO.
One person makes an offer to do something to the other. Some offers are gentle or socially acceptable, like:
“Can I stroke your hair?”
Others are clearly invasive or violating:
“Can I slap you around the face?”
And many live in the grey, ambiguous middle where confusion, compliance, and collapse often hide.
The key constraint:
The receiver is only allowed to say YES.
So as the human moves closer, bringing their desire, their suggestion, their body, the receiver becomes acutely aware of what feels good… and where that line is crossed.
They feel the moment pleasure turns into discomfort and safety transitions into threat.
And then something crucial happens.
They feel the NO rise up within them: strong, clear, and undeniable
but due to the nature of the practice, they override it and have to say YES.
And the body registers this instantly.
You’ll literally see the woman in front of you overriding her NO, closing in, collapsing… the spirit and light leaving her expression.
Often, as this is felt, memory floods in. The nervous system remembers all the moments we overrode ourselves for someone else: partners, authority figures, family members. Times when our body said no, and we betrayed it to maintain connection, safety, or love.
At this point, the partner begins to embody that person.
The one it was hardest to say no to.
Or the one who ignored or violated our boundaries entirely.
Only then do we practice something radically different.
We access a part that lives deep in the center of the body, the place where NO is not a polite word, but a full-bodied event.
A no that ripples through the spine.
A no that reorganizes posture, breath, and presence.
A no that is grounded, undeniable, and coherent.
A no that no one would dare fuck with.
This is not about communication skills.
It’s about restoring sovereignty at the level where boundaries are actually formed:
the nervous system, the body, the center.
Something I’ve noticed across my own life-long legacy of having to learn this the hard way (!! lol !!)
is that setting boundaries and expressing specific needs during sex was far harder to muster the courage to do.
Especially in comparison to when I was in a less compromising position AKA not when someone was inside me mid-thrust (!!!), but before.
So, if you too have struggled to speak during sex, particularly when it comes to communicating what you want…
This Turn-on Tonic is for you.
I received the question:
“I need help with communication during intimacy. Specifically stating boundaries clearly and compassionately in the situation.”
I was super interested in what everyone had to say about their experience with this. So of course, I had to ask the community on Instagram:
Who finds it difficult to communicate / set boundaries during sex?
89% of you said it is harder than it looks.
And only 11% said that they are able to say it in the moment.
So let’s talk about communication and boundaries during sex, shall we?
Because let’s face it…
Mid-thrust isn’t always the best moment to start explaining
Of course you can communicate in the moment.
Guidance like “slower”, “softer”, “hey, can we try it like this” is beautiful.
That kind of direction is healthy, and following the flow and current of the moment.
But here’s a simplification that’ll make everything much easier:
The deeper the erotic state you are in, the harder it can be to use words.
This is due to biology…
In BDSM / kink spaces, this is deeply understood and practiced.
Consent, boundaries, desires, limits are generally discussed BEFORE you get into the sexy mix together.
Safe words exist for a reason. When you’re in altered states of arousal, intensity, surrender, explaining yourself can feel impossible.
A single word is easier than a paragraph.
And it’s normal to need one.
Sex is beautiful, and sex is also intense!!
When I used to offer genital healing massage, I wouldn’t touch a client’s body for at least 30 minutes at the beginning of a session.
We would sit first and talk through intentions, boundaries, a safe word, consent + how their body expresses a yes, no, or maybe (because consent isn’t just verbal, it’s somatic and lives in the body).
When I was deep in the sexuality scene, most of my encounters began with something called RBDSM.
R: relationship
B: boundaries
D: desires
S: sexual health
M: meaning
Which is essentially a pre-sex workshop!
You talk through: what you want to explore, what’s off-limits, what feels tender, what feels exciting, what support you might need.
During an RBDSM it’s also the moment you can say things like:
“I sometimes find it hard to communicate my needs during seggs.”
“Could we make slowing down and checking in part of our connection?”
“Would you be open to pausing and talking if something shifts for me?”
That conversation alone can completely change the quality of intimacy.
We’ve been conditioned to think sex should just happen, with no talking, pauses, or space for reflection.
Which means most people are running on sexual scripts, rather than presence with what’s actually going on.
But sex can be: workshoppy, playful, exploratory, illuminating, and (my favourite one) healing
when we let it be something we co-create, rather than just unconsciously performing.
So if communication during sex feels hard, don’t force it in the moment.
Create the conditions around sex where communication is already welcome.
And if a partner or new lover isn’t willing to talk about sex, needs, boundaries, or consent beforehand: that’s a red flag boo!
If they’re not open to communication, curiosity, and care, you’re signing yourself up for an exploration full of emotional laziness. NOT erotic freedom.
You feel me?
Sex gets better when we stop pretending we’re supposed to know everything and start building it together.
If you fancy getting into the juice of exiting your ingrained sexual scripts and diving into a world where sex is literal magic for your soul…
Come and join me in Sex is Medicine.
Because sex isn’t just something you do. It’s a gateway into who you are.
So if you are ready to step away from seeing that sexuality is a side-topic or a problem to manage.
And instead experience it as your life-force, your creativity, your clarity, your connection to the world, to others, and to yourself.
Just click right HERE.
Love,
Grace
P.S. If RBDSM intrigues you, this is part of what I teach inside my programs Wellspring and HEARTH.
Wellspring is where you embark on your own sexual healing and erotic nervous system repair journey.
HEARTH is where you’re trained to guide others as a practitioner.
Truly authentic sex asks for real, honest conversations. The kind where you get naked in every sense. And that’s hard to access when you’re disconnected from your body, your desire, or parts of your sexuality you’ve never fully explored.
If you’re ready to shake it up.
I have two spaces open for Wellspring: The Full Path which includes my direct support during your 3 month journey. Learn more here.
The HEARTH Practitioner Training waitlist is here.