There are only certain people who are certified to work on the mechanics of big, passenger airplanes.

Those people receive loads of training—but when it comes to sex, we receive no training at all.

And sex, it seems, is much more complex than a jet engine. So much so, we regularly get into trouble using, abusing, or ignoring our sexuality—filling our lives with the excitement of tight-wire acts, but without the requisite practice or net.

If there was a tiny Phillips-head screw on your genitals that increased or decreased pleasure slightly, you would tinker and mess with it until you broke it. Then you would have to go to a specialist who knows about such things and try to get it fixed.

We virtually never practice sex at all. Each time we are lucky (or unlucky) enough to find ourselves in bed sans boxers or panties, we—like total sexual beginners—giggle like little kids playing with a chemistry set or our first set of tiny paints, and we make a mess that only Mommy knows how to clean up. It looks more like monkeys were playing, rather than a science experiment, art, or learning experience—and much less like the pleasure we imagine.

First Sexual Mistake.

The first sexual mistake we make is to get our hearts involved, which instantly makes sex serious, rather than just so much goofing around. Though well-meaning folks are likely to suggest that sex and relationships go together, we have to admit that most of us are afraid of both, but we continue—under the flimsiest of pretenses—to seek the more dangerous of the two.

The big mistake we make—a real sexual faux pas—is to imagine that our hearts and love have anything at all to do with sex. They don’t, and they shouldn’t. And when they do, we are almost always on our way to court, embarrassment, parenthood, or an argument.

Keep love and sex as far apart as possible, and you are likely to have a high time. However, bring sex even remotely near love, and you’ll be in the unenviable position that I saw a guy in just the other day. He wanted a cigarette so badly, he was having one while filling his gas tank up with petrol.

Only when we’re sexually satiated can we be trusted not to blow sex out of all proportion.

Don’t put a match to the gas tank—and don’t use combustibles like love, commitment, and relationships in proximity to sex. Just don’t do it.

If you do, you are likely to end up with too much (or too little) sex—an ongoing and consuming problem so rampant that it fuels our economy while driving everyone, from the ditch digger to the president, positively batty.

Second Sexual Mistake.

The second mistake is talking too little or too much about sex. Often, it is best to let sex do the talking for us, but with as little sex as we have, that would turn us all into mimes and mutes. In a recent sex course, I had all the people who claimed to love sex move to the left side of my bedroom, and all the people who didn’t care so much about it move to the right.

Well, the left side was packed like anchovies, and the right side was as empty as deep space. Then I suggested that the people who had sex the most in the past month move to the left side of the room, and the people who had it seldom move to the right.

There was a mass migration, indicating that when it comes to liking sex, we are a throng of eager locusts—but when it comes to actually having sex, we are less like insects and more Mary Magdalene. If we are ever going to get sex right, we need to give our genitals some serious (and playful) practice, so they get the message that what we are after is some wild and hilarious fun—not just some expression of our physical embarrassment and then a fitful, horny night’s sleep.

Yes, as odd as it sounds, if you want to get better at golf, yoga, or even sex, it takes some playful practice without the stakes being so high that you have to frown while humping, pumping, and faking orgasms.

Practice—sex will get better.

And when it comes to sex, practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does help us lighten up and enjoy the inherent rewards of touching and being touched.

Third Sexual Mistake.

The third mistake most people make while having sex is to treat physical intimacy like another thing to do.

It isn’t. In fact, sex is the prize for taking the kids to soccer, fixing breakfast, calling your mother, or reading a self-improvement book.

Sex isn’t a medical problem or procedure, but it is medicinal. It should come with a warning label that you shouldn’t engage in it when you are feeling serious or seeking confirmation of your self-worth.

Sex—like going to the park, taking a vacation, or eating a small-plate meal at a fine restaurant—should be undertaken in the spirit of adventure, wonder, and curiosity. Nobody (including you and me) knows enough about their own or another’s body to approach sex with any sort of confidence.

When it comes to sex, we all have more to learn than what we already know. So, let’s kick back, gather our inhibitions, our hang-ups, and turn-ons, and flush everything we already know about sex down the drain. Let’s get on with the art of sexual exploration, practice, and indulgence.

Let’s trust our bodies to chase both pleasure and pain in equal measure. We can do this—really we can—if we just let go of our expectations, history, and everything our parents taught us (or didn’t teach us) about sex and sexuality.

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Relephant Bonus:

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Author: Jerry Stocking

Image: WikiMedia Commons

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina