This morning, during sex, I was wondering what inspires bronc riders to climb on those huge, angry bulls and ride them for as long as they can.

I don’t think that it is the promise of an aches-and-pain-filled old age. Nor do I think it is the groupie effect or the money.

I have come to the conclusion that they ride those wild beasts for the same two reasons that we ought to have mind-blowing sex. First, because it is there—the same reason people climb Mt. Everest—and second, because of the people in the stands cheering them on.

I’ll address the second point first.

This morning, during sex, I imagined bleachers of adoring fans cheering us on at the top of their lungs with their attention fixated on our rising pleasure. It was positively intoxicating.

The drive “to come” disappeared completely as pleasure took center stage. There was nowhere to get to and so many witnesses sharing in our fun. Wanting to give everything I could back to the fans, I simply had to try something new.

While inside her, I placed three fingers heavily on her sacrum. She sharted, foamed at the mouth, and came for the fourth time. (Okay, she didn’t really foam much.) The audience erupted in spontaneous hoops, hollers, and applause.

Please remember that this was an imaginary audience, so it consisted of hundreds of people I didn’t know, but also included—my most recent ex-girlfriend, Mick Jagger, Dr. Laura, the ghost of Walt Disney (for animation), and my middle school physics teacher.

When making up your imaginary audience, use your imagination—that is what it’s for. And when having sex, always use your imagination—because then, sex becomes an ongoing act of ecstasy, instead of a short burst of relationship contrition.

Really, there is a correlation between the quality of your imaginary audience and the quality of sex. So let it rip.

Real audiences, I have found, tend to get in the way of sex, because if they reflect a sample of our general population, they are pleasure-phobic and tend to focus attention on beer, brats, and cotton candy—like baseball fans, missing the pleasure that sex can be as either witness or participant.

If you are horrified by the idea of an audience, I have some suggestions for you: read more science fiction and watch less TV, don’t ask your parents or the clergy for sexual advice, have way more animal sex, and set your imagination free.

Imagination leads us away from our tightly-packed sphere of truth and reality, while encouraging us to flex muscles in our mind we didn’t even know we had.

Imagination calisthenics—like cloud watching and slam poetry—tend to once and for all settle conjecture about whether you are crazy. You are—and according to therapists and neuroscientists skilled in such things, you are the most crazy when you think you are the most sane. So…go crazy—especially during sex—it’s the shortest route to sanity.

Okay, back to point one of why cowboys ride bulls and you ought to have much wilder, freer, and more passionate sex.

People do climb mountains because they are there—and they also have sex because it is there. But that isn’t enough. If it were, Mt. Everest wouldn’t be covered with corpses (which it is), and people would be having much better sex (which they aren’t).

“Because it is there” can get you on the bull or into the throws of sex, but it won’t spur you on to the sort of anti-Biblical sex that most of us need and our neurology and biology demand. It won’t keep us coming back to the same person for more sex, and it won’t get us over habitual-patterned-sex hump and into fantasy sex.

If you are having sex to have a baby, then go ahead and have mundane sex. But if you are interested in pleasure, then every sexual moment should give birth to a new you, a new lover, and a new couple. Grand sex is the original born-again experience.

Only a wild audience will get you to where you can go during sex. I’m not talking about a one-size-fits-all audience at a Lady Gaga, Super Bowl, or Nine Inch Nails concert. I’m talking about a personally tailored, insightful audience who eggs you past all goal setting, role playing, and attempts to subdue your sexual energy.

Your imagination opens the door to your pleasure like only fantasy can, and it is the energy of a perfect audience that finally puts you over the top whether you are running a marathon, making love, or reaching escape velocity from a mundane to an orgasmic moment.

~

Author: Jerry Stocking
Image: Flickr/Special K Files; Flickr/Cristina Souza
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina