The benefits of being erotic…allow for a deeper and more meaningful experience all around.

If you Google “sex,” you’ll get a range of pages aimed at improving your sex life through the use of vitamins, exercises, better techniques, and tips on how to make the experience more pleasurable. You’ll find pages upon pages dedicated to toys and tools that can be used to spice up your sex life. (And yes, you’ll find a lot of porn sites, too.)

While these tips and techniques are all geared toward improving your sexual experience (and many of them do have valuable insights, for sure), they fail to address the entire sexual picture. As we’ve mentioned here before, sex is more than just a physical experience—it connects to the bigger way you experience pleasure, and is just one aspect of being sensual or erotic.

A sensual experience is more than the position or toy you’re using, and even more than whether you have an orgasm or not. It involves arousing all of the sensations in your body and using each of your senses. It’s about being 100% present and open to pleasure, exploration, and surrendering to the moment.