A podcast to educate and equip women with the information and confidence they need to express, experience and enjoy their sexuality. Cindy Scharkey RN, BSN, brings her 35+ years of experience as a healthcare professional to open the doors to healthy conversations about sex. This is a community where you can listen and learn to give yourself permission for pleasure. Visit www.cindyscharkey.com for educational blogs and newsletter.
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Dabbling with hot and cold sensations can be a tantalizing way to explore erotic sensuality alone or with a partner. Our bodies have so many sensitive erogenous zones that can respond to temperature changes. Play with these simple ideas to create exciting and sexy anticipation for your body and brain as you bring the heat or cool things down.
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Hello everyone and welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey, your host, and as always, I'm delighted you're here listening and learning alongside me. And I wrote a blog recently about temperature play, and so many people showed interest, had questions, interacted with me about it. I decided I'd make it a quickie episode here for my listeners. I know a lot of people like to listen more than they like to read, and so it's a quickie, but I think it'll be interesting for you if you want to dabble in different temperatures for just a fun way to bring variety, playfulness, and new sensations into your sexy time. Well, there's certainly levels to this with temperature play, and it can shift more towards kink. These ideas are so simple and easy, it's more like a few rainbow sprinkles on vanilla. I'm going to offer three ways to bring the heat, three ways to cool things down, and one intensity add-on. I did a community poll recently asking, do you feel like your foreplay is in a rut? And I had people choose one response. Either we usually do the same thing, we change it up occasionally, we mix it up a lot, or we do something different every time. The overwhelming majority responded with, we usually do the same thing. And the same thing can be a little boring sometimes. I mean it's great, but occasionally we want to add some variety to spark energy and bring a little fun. And so these ideas that I'm introducing with hot and cold can be an intriguing way to explore with your own self or with a partner. Change up that foreplay rut and explore your body's many erogenous zones. It can be easy to focus solely on the genitals and forget the many sensitive areas over the entire body. I talk a lot about focusing on your senses. You probably have heard me talk about that before, but it helps you to stay present in the moment, out of your head, in your body, paying attention to what you're feeling. Adding temperature is a relatively easy addition to sensual play. If playing with temperature isn't your thing, I have a whole blog on using all your different senses for fun foreplay. Or if you want to listen to it, you can check out episode 33 foreplay 101. I'll link to those in the show notes. If you're getting curious about incorporating hot and cold and you want to do it with a partner, always negotiate consent around it beforehand. Another addition to what this does is it kind of alerts your brain, if there's agreement, of course, to prepare and be on alert, so to speak, for new sensations, turning your brain on. It can create exciting and sexy anticipation for your body to experience something new. So let's jump to three ways to bring the heat. Number one is to use a massage candle or warm massage oil to explore erogenous zones with heated wax or oil. You can do this on yourself, no partner needed. Or if you're partnered, you can actually extend this a little bit with a pleasure exercise I have on the blog and in episode 51 called Exploring Erogynous Zones. You're just going to use this hot oil or hot wax, it's really just warm wax, just to rub on different areas of the skin and see how it feels. See if you like that warm sensation. I'll kind of link to one of my favorite massage candles in the show notes. Another way to bring the heat is to drink something warm before kissing or before oral sex. This can create new sensations with your mouth and with your tongue. Anytime you're going to bring something hot or cold again, ask for consent. You can also bring the heat with bathing, focusing a shower head with various degrees of warm water on your body everywhere or just on your genitals. Pay attention to what you feel and where it feels the best. Now let's talk three ways to cool it down. You can keep an ice cube in your mouth while kissing or during oral sex. See if bringing that cold element is positive for you or for a partner. Again, asking for consent, especially if you're going to focus on genitals because they are delicate tissue. Take care with the temperature. I think ice is underrated. It's the cheapest way to bring temperature play to your bedroom. Costs almost nothing, right? You can also run a piece of ice down your throat and follow the drip down to your navel, or if you're partnered, they can follow the drip with their tongue. You can try sensations of cold, raising nipples or earlobes, or anywhere else on the body that appeals. The last way to cool it down would be to play with popsicles or whipped cream and have fun licking it off. You can incorporate this outside, clothed. It doesn't have to be inside and all serious. It could be a fun way to play together. One way you can add intensity is taking away one sensation because when you do that, it heightens others. So you can consider blindfolding a partner with consent on the receiving end of temperature play. This can add an element of surprise and intensity to the hot or the cold sensations. So easy, right? These ideas are so simple. Get curious, inquire of your own self. What would be fun, interesting, erotic to try with your own self or with a partner? And you can incorporate one of these options into your foreplay so easily just to add a little variety and create anticipation. I would be delighted to hear your feedback about these ideas and the podcast over on the podcast page in the question box. And please do take one moment to rate the show on your listening platform and leave a review on Apple if you listen there. Friends, pleasure is a practice. Let's keep learning to give ourselves permission. Permission for pleasure.
