Based on her book Erotic Intelligence: Igniting hot, healthy sex while in recovery from sex addiction, Alexandra Katehakis, MFT, CSAT-S, CST-S, walks women through a presentation to help them hone their inner Erotic Intelligence.

1. Erotic Intelligence
For the Recovering Woman
Alexandra Katehakis, MFT, CSAT-S, CST-S
www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

2. What is Erotic Intelligence?
• Intelligence:
• Erotic: • the ability to learn or
• of, devoted to, or understand or to
tending to deal with new or
arouse sexual trying situations:
love or desire • REASON: also, the
skilled use of
reason

3. Problematic/Addictive Sex
• Sex addicts lack EI
– they are aroused
by sexual desire
but are often
devoid of the
skilled use of
reason.
• Does desire own
you or do you own
your desire?
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

4. Can we achieve Erotic Intelligence and
move towards sexual wholeness?
• 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

5. Shame-Based Sexuality =
Problematic or Addictive Sex
• Addictive sex is rigid and unimaginative
• Reenactment of past trauma
• Sex addiction is an intimacy disorder
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

6. What is Intimacy…
• What 2 people
share who are
in an agreed
confidence with
one another
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

7. How does intimacy
relate to sexuality?
• Intimacy is NOT a
euphemism for sex!
Great sex is the result of
intimacy.
Intimacy is knowing yourself
as well as building a deeper
relationship with another
person.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

8. Four Cornerstones of Intimacy
• Self-Knowledge
• Comfort and Connection
• Responsibility with discernment
• Empathy with emotion
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

9. Cornerstone #1 Self-Knowledge
• Take a stand for your personal
truth even when it’s
uncomfortable, in order to
create change
• Self knowledge means you are
comfortable knowing who you
are
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

10. Cornerstone #2
Comfort and Connection
• Allows for a deeper relationship with
family and friends
• Develop a capacity to comfort your
anxieties and connect without
reacting to your partner’s feelings
• Connection creates novelty in the
brain
• If the connection is sustained, a
stable relationship can form
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

11. Cornerstone #3
Responsibility with discernment
• You are accountable for your own feelings and
needs meaning you are assertive, direct, and speak
up for yourself
• You tell the truth even though it may be difficult to
say and for the other to hear
• You listen to your partner’s response rather than
reacting to it because you’re hurting
• You are truthful about preferences vs. being mean
and hurtful
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

12. Cornerstone #4
Empathy with Emotion
• Empathy is the ability to
recognize or feel another
person’s thoughts and moods
• Can you empathize with how
your partner feels?
• Can you understand and
validate how those feelings
affect them?
• Can you do this without making
their feelings about you?
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

13. Four Cornerstones =
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, especially the tension that
comes with living with someone and loving them
deeply
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

14. Differentiation =
Intimacy with Self and Other
• The relationship game is about you
making you okay!
• You have to allow for discomfort in
order to grow up emotionally and
sexually
• Create a healthy inter-dependency
• No blame, no shame, no games
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

15. How do we become
sexually adult women?
• Healthy Sex +
• Intimate Sex +
• Erotic Sex +
• Spiritual Sex =
• Erotic
Intelligence!
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

16. Healthy Sex…
Being present, focused and embodied means:
Focus on the here and now
Slow down
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

17. 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 and simplicity that feels
beneficial, healthful and sound
• May restore your character as a
result of the sexual act because it
feels good in the moment and
leaves you feeling good afterwards
• Healthy sex is free from shame
and pain and does not create
disorder or drama
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

18. Deconstructing your sexuality…
• Where do you limit
yourself sexually?
• What scares you about
sex or your sexuality?
• How does the culture at
large inform you about
sex and sexuality?
• What impact does this
have on your sexuality?
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com www.thecenterforhealthysex.
com

19. Moving toward intimate sex…
• Desiring another takes work over time
• First, you discuss your sexual desires and
preferences to assist your move into intimacy and
openness
• 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’re
learning about your sexuality and your partner’s
sexuality while managing the tension you are feeling
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

20. Intimate Sex…
Strong connection to one’s partner
Good, clear boundaries
Self-knowledge
Self-acceptance
Sense of humor and laughter
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

21. Conscious Connection
Each person makes an active
choice to be the kind of partner they
want to be
You choose your partner because
you want her, not someone else
A realistic view of intimate sex is that
your sexual desire and that of your
partner consistently changes,
requiring adaptation throughout the
lifespan
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

22. Your positive sexuality, cont…
• What are the real reasons
you are “shy” to talk about
what you like sexually?
• What stops you from
making preparations for
sex and/or planning?
• What arouses sexual
desire in you?
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com www.thecenterforhealthysex.
com

23. Be Explicit!
• Speak what’s on your mind in a clear and practical way,
this is an absolute necessity in relationships.
• When you make your thoughts explicit in relationships, you
start the critical conversations. This challenges you to
stay present with the process.
• Extend your generosity to your partner in all ways
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

24. Create Sexual Agreements
• Sex is relational • Can you give and receive
• Bring a sense of play and compliments without
joy to your sexuality shame?
• Notice and compliment • What does it feel like to
your partner. Speak your be seen as a sexual
appreciations aloud. being?
Sensuality desires and
calls for a lavish • Can you revel and delight
abundance of words, in that?
thoughts, and feelings.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

25. Play!
• Play with each other
in loving, adoring,
respectful, raunchy
ways
• Raunchy meaning
earthy, sexual, and
explicit.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

26. 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 parts • You must have your hearts
of yourself (shame) and in place in order to talk in
challenge yourself to these ways or to try new
change. things.
• The goal is to meet in the
arena of eroticism, which
is different from the arena of
intimate love, but includes it.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

27. 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

28. Moving toward erotic sex…
• Erotic relates to having the
intention to arouse sexual
desire in oneself and the
other.
• Arousal is a verb, and
erotic translates into
actions and insinuation,
which can be subtle,
solitary or shared.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

29. Erotic Sex…
Deep, penetrating sense of trust
Mutual respect, deep caring, genuine acceptance
Desire, chemistry, attraction
Love
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

30. Erotic Sex
• Erotic sex happens when • Touching each other is one
you have truly taken a stand key to erotica.
for who you are sexually and
have revealed it to yourself • If you were creating a
and your partner. seductive, romantic
evening with your partner
• Differentiation is the balance
for hot sex, what would it
between individuality and look like?
being together.
• Erotic sex allows a freedom
to unleash the ravenous
while staying relational.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

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

32. Essence of Eroticism, cont’d.
• Our brains are stimulated by what
we see. The more novel it is, the
more interesting and arousing to
the brain and body.
• There is a definite connection
between auditory stimulation and
the experience of sexual pleasure.
Studies show that focus on sounds
of your bodies during sex increase
arousal and orgasm.
• Taste and smell are intertwined
sensory modalities for stimulating
pleasures and fragrant memories.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

33. 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. You accept
that part of your adult sexuality, and you
recognize it as the engine that arouses
you and your partner.
• Speak your love, your carnal desire,
what you are seeing, would like to see
or do with your partner, whether it be
lovely, lustful, or lascivious. This kind of
connection flames your partner’s
physical arousal.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

34. Sexual Fantasy
• “Sexual fantasies may call
forth new life in the guise of
new sexual experiences,
and so the motive for
repressing these fantasies
may not be as much moral
sensitivity as fear of life’s
irrepressible abundance.”
• Thomas Moore
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

35. Sexual Fantasy
• 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.
• In a healthy relationship, sexual
fantasies keep desire alive.
• 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

36. Masturbation…
• What’s the purpose of masturbation?
• Do you tell your partner that you
masturbate?
• What do you think about when you
masturbate?
• Do you tell your partner about your sexual
fantasies?
• Do your fantasies include your partner?
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com www.thecenterforhealthysex.
com

37. Sexual Fantasy Cont’d.
• You are willing to give up
• You and your partner build
control, be in a state of
your sexual fantasies
together, about, and with not knowing, and make a
one another, means you space for your eroticism
have no secrets, no shame to emerge.
and no abuse. • Erotic sex requires the
• In erotic sex, we invite the maturity and
spiritual.
responsibility for oneself
• When fully naked and
and the other that only
vulnerable, sexual potential
comes from surrender and an adult can muster.
not trying.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

38. Your erotic sexuality
• How do you arouse
sexual desire in
yourself?
• How do you arouse
sexual desire in your
partner?
• What do you need to
work on?
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com www.thecenterforhealthysex.
com

39. Spiritual Sex…
Emotional nakedness: vulnerability and surrender
Loss of constricting beliefs
Sense of bliss, peace, and healing
Sense of “high” akin to meditation
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

40. 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

41. Spiritualizing Sex
• Spiritual sex combines how you express
your love with your intentions or
blessings you bring to your partnering.
• Spiritualizing sex is willingness…we
create a spiritual bond through a
commitment to completely know
ourselves with our partner.
• To be true to the nature of your gender,
the feminine opens to energy and
invites the masculine in. The masculine
directs the energy to empower the
feminine to feel it, be warmed by it, to
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com
glow in it.

42. 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. Notice what
you feel in this engagement.
• 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

43. 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. Repeated rituals are a means to train your
body and your mind to focus fully on the event and
engage the person with heart and respect. Rituals
create the time, space and energy to connect with
each other.
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

44. 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

45. 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

46. HCI Publications, Inc.
• Igniting Hot,
Healthy Sex
After Recovery
From Sex
Addiction
http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com

47. http://www.TheCenterforHealthySex.com