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“In America the men say to each other: how far did you get. In France, the men say: how long did she scream…Go figure.”  --Wendy Strgar, Founder of Good Clean Love

There is something to be said about yearning and desire, and the experience of holding back despite the urge to hurry things along. When I was growing up, this forbidden, delicious angst had all sorts of names: ‘making out’ and ‘heavy petting’ ring a few ancient memories, but these no longer seem like befitting terms for most women in my demographics.

I know I’m not the only mother/wife who wants to maintain a healthy romance and pleasure in my marriage without sounding like an adolescent. That is why I like a newer term, Outer Course; to me, it’s just a more grown-up way to describe those parts of making love that have nothing to do with penetration and everything to do with pleasure.

Most of us lead busy, rushed lives, and the recuperative benefits of sexual intimacy sometimes take a back seat to the urgent insistency to just ‘get it over with.’ I know I felt that way in my first marriage, certainly towards the end. I’d given up on thinking that we’d ever recapture those early days of lust and satisfaction. It took a divorce, serious soul searching and personal explorations to understand the importance of all aspects of physical play.

That is why I believe it’s important to refrain our expectations and spend time pleasuring one another without the pressure of intercourse or orgasm. The benefits are numerous.

For one, it takes the pressure off of men to perform; no erection is necessary to spend ten minutes gazing into each other’s eyes, or massaging one another’s backsides. After a long, hard day at work, getting your naked bits to rise to the occasion is not top of mind, but what man wouldn’t love a little hand?

And women – answer me this: don’t you sometimes wish he’d wash your hair for you? Or rub your feet? And to be petted, here, there and anywhere, not like a cat, mind you, but a living, breathing, vibrant human being who sometimes just needs to be stroked?

All that sensual touch raises good hormone levels, the kind that sustain relationship; I’m thinking about oxytocin, nature’s way of bonding us and increasing intimacy. In the beginning of a relationship, those levels tend to be higher, accounting in part for those early honeymoon feelings.  True, cuddling and romance are only one aspect of a healthy, authentic love, but in my observations, non-sexual touch is a balm that many could use more of. 

Ultimately, the definition is less important to me than the end result; by putting a name to everything else besides the finish line, we elevate Fore Play and After Play to their due levels. We recognize that sexual intimacy is about more than the moment your parts fit together. Blame, Clinton if you will: when he looked us all in the eye and on camera said - I did not have sexual relations with that woman – we collectively had to ponder just what physical intimacy entailed…. 

For me, it took a long time to learn the importance of this aspect of sexuality. Only after years of going without regular tender loving care followed by a divorce and remarriage did I figure it out. Outer Course is all of the sweetness, magic and tenderness of physical love without the pressure, and ironically enough – it’s the one thing I know that keeps the embers burning, like kindling, to reignite sexual passion between partners.

Tinamarie is a top-rated writer of sex, love and relationships. Her columns can also be read at Examiner.com, Greenprophet.com, and EdenFantasys.com, among others. You can read her personal blog at www.tinamariebernard.com, twitter and facebook. She is a regular ShareWIK.com columnist.
 

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