Ask Dr. Brown: What a Strawberry Taught Me About Pleasure

There's a strawberry I will never forget.

I had COVID, and like so many people, I lost my sense of smell, and with it, my sense of taste. Days went by where food was just texture. Then one afternoon I made myself a bowl of oatmeal and grabbed some strawberries, mostly because I wanted something healthy. I wasn't expecting to get much out of it from a palate perspective.

I bit into that strawberry, and my taste came back.

It was the most amazing feeling, like I was tasting a strawberry for the first time in my life. I paused and felt the texture of the seeds against my tongue, the skin, the juice running down the sides of my mouth. It tasted so sweet after days of tasting nothing at all. A miraculous strawberry. The sensuousness of a strawberry.

And here's the thing: if I had eaten that same strawberry in a hurry, on the phone, half-watching TV, I would have missed all of it. I would have missed that strawberry.

We've lost the art of the subtle

We live in a culture that is fast, big, bright, and loud. Everyone is busy. We're expected to perform. Unless we make an intention otherwise, almost everything in our lives gets lived on the outside, experienced in the big and the bright and the fast. There is nothing wrong with that. Big, bright, fast things can absolutely bring pleasure.

But to fully enjoy everything available to us, we also have to remember how to slow down and enjoy the subtle. And a lot of us, especially those of us who grew up with our nervous systems constantly on and constantly overwhelmed, have simply lost the practice of noticing it.

So let's talk about sensuality. Not as something mysterious, not as something you buy in the perfume aisle, not an elegant scarf or a certain look someone has. At its most basic, sensuality is just our five senses. It's the practice of enjoying the things around us in our everyday lives, and for a moment, taking that experience out of a sexual context entirely.

Relearning how to pause and notice the subtlety of our senses matters, because we are retraining our nervous system to pick up on it, and to recognize how genuinely wonderful that can be.

Retraining the nervous system, one strawberry at a time

We can practice this in ordinary moments. Touching the texture of your clothing. Picking up a piece of fruit and actually noticing it. When's the last time you peeled an orange and paid attention to its different textures? If you cook, when's the last time you let your fingers run through dry grains and actually felt that? There are so many small openings in an ordinary day that can bring our senses back to life. It's simply a matter of being mindful and having the intention to pay attention.

Here's how that connects back to embodiment and sexuality: when we train ourselves to be mindful of our senses in nonsexual, everyday ways, we get better at enjoying sensation in our bodies more broadly, including sensations we've been taught to keep at arm's length.

A lot of people don't actually understand their own pleasure. One of the first things we have to retrain is simply noticing what feels good to us, and giving ourselves permission to feel good.

The permission problem

There is so much taboo around pleasure, and it isn't evenly distributed. It's one thing to say, "I take pleasure in eating an orange or a strawberry." Nobody blinks at that. It's another thing entirely to say, "I have pleasure with an orgasm." In a lot of places, especially if you're a woman, that still gets a reaction. Did she really say the O-word, and like it?

We'll go into that in a lot more depth in future posts in this series. But for today, the first thing we have to recognize is this: we have to give ourselves permission to have pleasure. Training ourselves in nonsexual ways is a genuinely useful on-ramp, because it teaches us to enjoy pleasurable things in life without so much resistance.

And if giving yourself permission for pleasure in your body has been difficult, it's okay to start slowly. Start with something as simple as saying, yes, I do deserve this.

Our bodies are built for this

Our bodies are actually made for pleasure. Our skin, the largest organ we have, feels amazing just to touch. Our genitals are built for it too. The clitoris, depending on which paper you read, has 10,000 or so nerve endings. That's extraordinary. And it's so much more than the small visible part; the clitoris is a vast structure that extends back into the pelvis and becomes engorged with arousal. The penis, of course, is the part everyone can see becoming aroused. We have erogenous zones throughout the body built specifically for pleasure. We are, quite literally, supposed to feel pleasure in our bodies. It's okay.

We'll go much deeper into anatomy and into taboo in future posts. For now, I want to leave you with a practice.

A practice to try: the subtle massage

This is an exercise I'm adapting from a tantric practitioner I studied with in Brazil, and I want to give credit where it's due, because it comes directly from her teaching.

What you'll need: a carrier oil that's safe for your skin (hemp, coconut, whatever you prefer), plus a scented oil you like, also skin-safe. This particular combination is very sensual and can be sacral-chakra arousing.

There's a technique in tantra, one of the most basic forms of massage, called the subtle massage. It can be done with a partner, but for this exercise, you're going to do it on yourself.

1. Dab two fingers into the oil.

2. Lie down somewhere quiet, where you won't be disturbed.

3. Wear as much clothing as you're comfortable with, but leave enough skin exposed to touch. As little as possible is actually best.

4. Touch your body very subtly, very gently, very slowly. Move from your head down to your toes, without skipping any part, including the creases and the angles we usually rush past.

5. As you go, repeat a simple mantra: I deserve. I deserve.

Do this for at least ten minutes. Twenty or more is even better, though I know not everyone has that kind of time.

Keep a journal nearby, because resistance often shows up. You might notice thoughts like I don't feel comfortable doing this, or I shouldn't be doing this, I have too much to do, or there's a spot on my body I don't like. You might also notice the opposite: I didn't realize how easy it was to give myself this much pleasure. Whatever comes up, write it down afterward. Don't judge it. Just let it be.

Try this three days in a row, or at least three times in a week. Here's why: the first time, there's often so much resistance that you may not get much out of it or go very deep. That's completely okay. But the next time you try, something else might open. And the time after that, something else again.

So give it a try. It's easy. It'll smell fantastic afterward. And hopefully, it'll leave you a little more relaxed and a little more in touch with your inner yes and your inner pleasure.

That's where I want to begin this series: with permission.