The Sexual Pleasure of Erotic Dance

What makes you feel sexy and alive? Mind blowing sex, or masturbation, with a super-charged sex toy? When it comes to sexual pleasure we often focus on those acts that bring us to orgasm, but pleasure doesn’t have to be about a big act or an end goal.

Over a decade ago I experienced medical trauma that left me feeling disconnected from my own body. I no longer felt sexual desire, and I struggled to actually feel like a sexual being. What I missed, perhaps even more than enjoying sex itself, was simply the pleasure of feeling desire and sexual energy in my body.

Since then, I’ve tried many things to get back that sexy feeling, and erotic dance is one of my latest discoveries. Shaney Marie is a sexuality guide and Tantra educator, who runs an online course called ‘The Magic Of Erotic Dance.’

Shaney’s erotic career began in topless bars, but the erotic dance practice she now teaches isn’t about dancing to turn on another person. It’s a way to feel physically embodied and turned on yourself.

And it’s more than that. The ‘magic’ of erotic dance is quite literal. It’s a way to experience yourself as a powerful being, tapping into ancient wisdom, and the ability to manifest your desires through the power of sexual energy.

Here are some of the benefits I’ve found from learning erotic dance.

An Increased Sense of Well-being

When I felt low, I put on a video and followed along with the moves. I noticed that within just a few moments my mood would shift. It was the perfect pick-me-up to start my day and get moving. And the feel good sensations were different to just doing a regular workout because I also felt a sense of sexiness and enjoyment of being in my body.

An Increased Sense of Self-Esteem

In our modern capitalist world, sex is used to sell us things. Advertising can sometimes make us feel inadequate, like our sexiness is based on the clothes we wear, or our body shape, or attracting a certain lover. How many of us have fallen into the trap of thinking that our worth is determined by a certain person liking us?

When you try erotic dance, you get to feel sexy, independently of all those things. It helped me realise that deep down, sexiness isn’t about external attributes. It’s an internal feeling. Everyone has the right to feel sexy, no matter our body shape, the clothes we’re wearing, or how we look. There’s nothing you need to buy, or no particular sexual experience you have to have, to be sexy.