This time Simone is talking to Nynke, a sexologist

"It took me a long time to understand sex.

And I don't just mean "how to have sex with someone that makes you both feel amazing"—I mean how to be a sexual person at all.

It seemed to me that for others, sex was a given, but I could be in the most romantic setting and do everything right, and at most feel a tingle.

I grew up with a lot of sexual repression and fear, so early in puberty, I learned to shut myself off from sexual feelings, and actually from my entire body.

As a result, I was in my twenties before I even tried to masturbate. To my great disappointment, it did nothing for me. It didn't matter how or where I touched myself: I just felt a little weird and uncomfortable.

Reading books and magazines with sex advice didn't help at all. Most of it was focused on "try this trick" or "use this toy," which was useless to me. Even the better advice, like "communicate with your partner about what you like" and "don't be afraid to explore your fantasies," was completely unhelpful, because my problem was that I didn't even know what I liked.

To my surprise, it was something I never thought could be related to sexuality that ultimately helped me.

Before I go on, I want to give a shout-out here to all my asexual friends: many, many people are not interested in sex, and that's perfectly fine. I am actually very grateful to the asexual and demisexual community for providing me with a safe space to explore my feelings about sexuality without things being said like, "So you've never had a sexual fantasy?!" They were a wonderful, supportive, and accepting group, and they didn't even blame me when, after a few months of searching, I concluded that I was indeed sexual, but just very disconnected.

What brought about the turnaround for me was something I had started doing for completely different reasons: a meditation technique called body scan.

By sitting quietly and focusing my attention on how my body felt, I realized how disconnected I was from my body. It slowly made me aware of hundreds of subtle feelings that were constantly happening beneath my consciousness.

It also helped clear the way for sexual sensations – and slowly I noticed that I experienced pleasure or arousal with certain touches or certain thoughts.

The media will tell you that great sex means you have to be wildly experimental, master the right oral sex techniques, and try many different positions. All these factors can contribute to a great sex experience. But above all, the most important thing for sex to be great is a deep connection with your body and fully experiencing the sensations you feel.

That level of body connection is not obvious for many people.

Especially if you're a bit of a nerd like me, or if you have a lot of guilt or shame about your body, or if you've adopted the typically Western view that the physical is inherently inferior to the mental and spiritual, it can be difficult to be fully present and connected to your body.

As a sex educator and writer, I never talk about "getting better at sex" or "improving your sex life." Again and again, I talk about "connecting with your sexuality."

It may be an unusual phrase, but for me, it perfectly encapsulates the essence of sexual pleasure: a deep connection with your body and fully experiencing the sensations you feel.

3 Reasons to Connect Instead of Improve

1. It helps you let go of the benchmark

I find it very difficult not to think in terms of how I relate to others: Am I better than him? Worse than her? And I apply this to sex, even though I know it's both nonsensical and counterproductive.

Of course, sex is sometimes "wild ecstasy" and sometimes "happy and comforting," but "more intense" is not always equal to "better."

And nothing kills sexual pleasure faster than worrying if it's good enough.

When I work on connecting with my body, it doesn't matter how I compare myself to others, or to my own past experiences or my ideal situation. All that matters is how I feel in this moment.

2. It helps you focus on how you feel instead of how you look

Especially for women, sex often revolves around how attractive you look to another, rather than how you can experience sexual pleasure yourself. You could read an entire issue of a magazine like Cosmo without reading a single word about improving your own inner sexual experience.

That's bad enough, but the biggest problem is that we often internalize that focus on being sexy.

During sex, I often worried more about how sexy I looked externally than about how I felt and what I experienced.

It took a lot of conscious effort to break this learned habit and instead focus on how sex feels inside my body.

3. It enables diversity

You would never know this if you only get your sexual information from popular magazines: Different people are different.

Everyone is different, not only in what they find sexually attractive, but also in how sexual pleasure feels.

Take an orgasm, for example. It's difficult to describe what an orgasm feels like, partly because it feels different for everyone.

I was two-thirds of the way through my study of human sexuality when I discovered that the way I have an orgasm is one of many normal – and very different – patterns people experience.

If I had never pursued a master's degree, I might have assumed my entire life that there was something wrong with my sexual functioning because of the way an orgasm works in my body. And I suspect there are many variations and diversities in sexual experiences that no course covers.

The only thing that can tell you how your body is supposed to work is your body itself. Connecting is a way to listen to what it has to tell you.

But how?

4 Ways to Connect with Your Body

Mindfulness exercises that focus on body awareness are fantastic ways to develop a stronger connection with your body.

Many of these exercises, especially body scan and walking meditation, stem from the Buddhist tradition of vipassana meditation. They all use the basic idea of focusing your attention on the feelings in your body, without judgment and without a specific goal: just becoming aware.

The most important thing is to be kind to yourself and do what is good for you.

For some people, connecting with their body through awareness is particularly difficult or fraught, due to body dysphoria, past traumas, or other factors.

What is a gentle and healing activity for one person can be a trigger for another. Therefore, never feel the need to force yourself to do something that doesn't feel right.

If you want to try these exercises but know that body awareness brings up issues for you, it may be wise to consult a therapist or spiritual leader for additional guidance and support.

1. Body Scan

This helped me break down the initial barriers and discover my sexuality.

Like all meditation techniques, it can be done in various ways, but the essence of the body scan is to sit or lie still (I have to sit upright, otherwise I get sleepy) and slowly move your attention through your body, part by part.

As your attention rests on each part, simply notice what is happening in that part of your body – how it feels, all the subtle sensations you normally block or ignore.

For me, a body scan is a deep and loving way to connect with my body. It helps me remember that my entire life takes place in and through these limbs, and although I still see "me" as something separate from the body, we are inextricably linked, and I feel best when we are friends.

Here is a detailed description of how to do a body scan. If you prefer to listen while a voice guides you, there are countless guided body scan meditations available on YouTube: here's one I like, which is only 11 minutes long.

2. Moving Meditations

Meditation and mindfulness don't always have to mean sitting still.

You can also bring the same awareness and connection to your body into movement: walking and dancing are two forms of movement that are practiced meditatively in many spiritual and wellness traditions.

Although I don't practice formal moving meditations myself, I have experienced some of my most powerful moments of connection with my body and healing of old wounds when I put on music, closed my eyes, and danced in silence, letting my body move freely.

3. Body Awareness Check-in

After regularly doing body scan meditations, I developed the habit of connecting with my body during my daily activities.

I would stand there, doing the dishes or waiting for the bus, and simply tune into one spot on my body. When I first started exploring my sexuality, I checked in a lot with my erogenous zones.

I don't know about you (and it's probably different for people with penises), but I tend to ignore what's happening to the sexually sensitive parts of my body unless I'm in an overtly sexual context.

By occasionally checking in with my body during my daily life, I feel the sexual energy that constantly flows through my body.

4. Sensate Focus

This method is more explicitly sensual than the other forms of body awareness. It was developed by sexologists Virginia Johnson and William Masters, who found it to be a very effective technique in sex therapy.

Sensate focus adopts the same attitude of awareness and acceptance and applies it to touch.

In traditional sensate focus exercises, one partner sits or lies still, while the other touches and explores their body. Both partners are encouraged to focus on their own sensations, not on what the other feels or experiences.

You can also do a sensate focus exercise by yourself, where you are both the touched and the toucher. Try to shift your focus between the two.

It's about what your fingers feel as they glide over your skin and how your body feels as it experiences your touch.

A sensate focus session differs from masturbation in that the goal is not sexual stimulation. It is simply an open exploration of the body and touch, with attention to what it feels like at each moment.

In fact, in the first few weeks of formal sensate focus sessions, therapists are allowed to touch anything except the erogenous zones.

Sometimes we get too focused on goals and the pressure to achieve a certain experience, and sensate focus allows us to let go of that and connect with our body in the moment."

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Note from Simone: There are many ways to connect with your sexuality. These are just a few. Anything that helps you be present with your body, without judgment or expectations, can strengthen that connection.

And creating a strong, open channel between yourself and your body makes sex increasingly amazing, even if you do nothing else.