Years ago, I had the pleasure of attending an AASECT workshop led by Peggy Kleinplatz, Ph.D.. Kleinplatz is a clinical psychologist, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Director of the Optimal Sexual Experiences Research Team, at the University of Ottawa. She has been conducting empirical research on understanding what creates optimal sexual experiences and captures this in her book, Magnificent Sex. 

Rather than focus on dysfunction, her team studies folks who enjoy sex. Kleinplatz wanted to know, for the folks who report having great sex, what makes it great? How do they achieve this? What can we learn? 

The qualities discovered were universal across different groups. This included folks young and old, male and female, LGBTQ or straight, monogamous or consensually non-monogamous, kinky or vanilla, able-bodied or with disabilities.

Her research revealed information that she then broke down into 8 major components. I often reference these principles directly and indirectly when supporting my clients in creating a sex life worth wanting. 

I find this research critical to helping you understand how you can enjoy sex over the lifespan. Sex is not a static experience, rather it’s dynamic, always shifting according to time, space and context. Sex changes because you change and your relationships change over time. 

Read the components below and consider whether or not you practice these principles in how you think and feel about sex, approach your partner, respond to your partner, or engage sexually.

Components for Optimal Sexual Experiences

Being Present, Focused, Embodied

Being present, focused and embodied means being completely absorbed into the experience of touch, pleasure and sex. Kleinplatz emphasizes that this is not to be confused with mindfulness. 

Unlike mindfulness, which invites you to develop awareness of self from a detached view, great sex invites you to practice awareness and full immersion simultaneously. This requires bringing your fullest attention to the interaction, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually and leaning into the experience. 

The attention to self and to another is purposeful and leads to an immersive experience. It requires the removal of internal and external distractions. When you’ve arrived into the deepest parts of this state, you don’t think, you just instinctively, do. Body-led. No thought required.

Connection, Alignment, Merger, Being in Sync

It’s all about connection. Great sex feels like a fusion, where participants merge and become one. This merger is the deepest form of intimate connection. Flow is often experienced when folks are present, embodied, focused, aligned and merged. 

Often, participants in the study noted that these experiences don’t just happen. Extraordinary lovers prepare and plan for optimal sex. Whether that’s intentionally choosing to leave the mental to do list in another room, set a date on the calendar for connection, or, to clean up the space so that it’s free from distraction, a choice is made to connect on a deeper level.

Deep Sexual and Erotic Intimacy

This is where the relational component shapes the experience. Folks noted that magnificent sex involved feelings of mutual respect and trust. Many cited long term relationships as the field from which magnificent sex is most possible. Interesting considering that many folks in long term relationships struggle to sustain “the spark”, right?

This intimacy was characterized by words like care, trust, respect, liking and valuing the other. More than noting love as a component, these extraordinary lovers cited specific values or behavios that seemed to support the concept of love, more than love itself. All of this organically leads into the next component, which Kleinplatz highlighted as the most important of all the components. 

Extraordinary Communication and Heightened Empathy

In the conference, Kleinplatz shared that effective communication creates effective sex, but that magnificent communication gives you magnificent sex. Her point? Become a master at communication, not just average. 

Keep in mind that communication is both verbal and non-verbal and occurs before, during and after sex. Communication can include sex itself as a form of self-expression, but also the words that might be said, the body gestures or movements that might occur. 

Kleinplatz notes that extraordinary lovers share themselves fully and completely, bearing it all to their partners, unapologetically. Their expression is alive, engaging and vivid. They invite their partners into the exchange. Heightened empathy is a prerequisite for such vulnerability. 

Authenticity, Being Genuine, Uninhibited, Transparent

How often do you share your most private desires, interests or fantasies with your partner? Honesty is a hallmark of magnificent sex, and of course, this requires a foundation that includes empathy, trust and complete acceptance. 

Kleinplatz notes that unlike the many spaces that you occupy in life, magnificent sex creates a space where you can fully let go of your inhibitions so that you can lean into pleasure. This is a space where you can grow relationally, revealing and receiving your truths, together. 

Vulnerability and Surrender

This component ties into the concept of the merger. True vulnerability and surrender feels like an out-of-body, or better yet, fully embodied experience. In fact, it’s so embodied that it can feel like a loss of self into the other, being swept up into the experience, no thoughts, just full surrender into your partner.

In order to allow yourself to go into the depths of this type of surrender, it inherently requires a willingness to be vulnerable and to trust the experience fully.

Exploration, Interpersonal Risk-Taking, Fun

Sex is play between consensual, mature adults. It can also be a path toward personal growth and discovery when you allow yourself to push or expand your own boundaries. It’s a place where you can explore your curiosities, laugh, experiment with something new, relax and simply play together. 

This isn’t so much about technique or positions as it is about sensually playing into the unknown, just beyond your familiar boundaries and taking risks to discover something new. 

Transcendence, Bliss, Transformation and Healing

Sex may start as a physical experience, that includes body positions, words, gestures, breath and/or toys, but magnificent lovers shared that ultimately, sex felt transcendent. Not in a religious or spiritual sense, but as a heightened sense of self, beyond their thinking brains, as if they’ve moved beyond their own skin into something greater.

This isn’t surprising since magnificent sex captures two distinct others merging as one. Time and space seem to become blurry when in the throes of this experience. It’s a reminder that as an individual, you might be amazing, but when merged with the other, you become so much more; magnified. 

Conclusion

Consider all of the places you might read or learn about how to have good sex: magazines, social media, websites, movies, novels. Nowhere do they capture what magnificient sex really looks and feels like; that it’s not so much about the physicality as it is about communication, empathy, connection and full embodiment.

For these extraordinary lovers, sex is a beneficial, growth-producing, expansive, other-wordly, transformative, life-altering experience. It contributes to their becoming, individually and relationally, across their lifespans. 

Kleinplatz has been able to capture hope; that sex can actually become better with age and maturity, and that everything that you need to make it happen lies deep within you. 

Let me repeat: Everything that you need for magnificent sex lies deep within YOU.