So you want to spice up your romantic intimacy with a tantalizing striptease for your lover? Great idea! Performing a burlesque-style striptease for your lover can be an exciting, vulnerable, hilarious, and super sizzling way to deepen your connection and charge up your sex life.

In my tenure as a burlesque performer and instructor, my Burlesque For Your Lover Workshop has been my most frequently requested lesson from non-performers ready to dip their toes into the style. And I love that! Because the truth is — the secret to a stellar burlesque for your lover is connecting deeply with yourself (imagine that!).

Here are my 7 Golden Rules to guarantee a great time as you embark on this sexy and exciting journey with yourself, and the lucky lover who gets to receive alllll of your powerful T-ease energy during your performance.

#1) Connect To #1 (YOU!) = Center yourself on an authentic expression of loving, curious, playful energy by tapping into your fantasies and sensory experience.

1. In seduction, your partner can only match YOUR energy, and grow with you from there. Starting from less than, or coming to the experience from a space of lack, anxiety or insecurity, will not create optimal results for anyone.

2. The goal is to come to your seduction from a space of emotional wholeness. What does this mean? It means first you need to get excited about YOU. Rev your own engine up, and take the time you need to generate your own well of juicy, sexual energy. 

#2) Take Your Time = Anticipation Matters 

1. This one is about the build-up between you and your partner, not the build-up within yourself. 

2. Here you can start spending some of that yummy energy on teasing your partner, and creating positive tension for the experience. Decide on your communication strategy, and start putting it into motion.

3. Taking your time also applies during your actual performance — slow down! No one is in a rush here. Giving yourself and your lover the opportunity to really savor and enjoy your movement will be well worth it.

#3) Practice Activated Presence

1. The sexiest thing in your seductive arsenal is a genuine smile. Get to know yours, and plan to use it a lot! 

2. Practicing activated presence in the context of sexual intimacy means being mindfully aware of your body language and energy during both flirtatious and performative exchanges, to create richer experiences for yourself and your lover.

3. By tapping into your sensory experience, you can offer a wealth of seductive and entertaining energy during the expression of your performance.

#4) Touch Yourself (A Lot) The Way You Want Your Lover To Touch You

1. Seems pretty simple right? Self-touch is actually a really big deal. Regular masturbation has always been part of my soapbox, but this takes it several steps further. 

2. Being comfortable touching and celebrating your body in both large and small ways is the only way your lover will be able to as well.

3. Showing authentic excitement and pleasure from receiving any measure of your own touch is one of the most seductive aspects of performance for your lover.

#5) Imbue + Employ Totems Of Your Sexual Power

1. Intentionally project all of your revealed items onto your lover.

2. What you touch holds power. What you put on your body is given your energy. In a burlesque for your lover, that means that every reveal item you remove can achieve max impact by being engaged with your lover physically once you remove it.

3. Toss it on them, use it to blindfold them for a moment, have them pull it off of you, or tease them in some way with it, before leaving it on their body or in their hands.

#6) Use Your Environment = Remain Flexible + Welcome Mishaps

1. Get comfortable with the understanding that no amount of practice or preparation is going to allow you to avoid all mishaps leading up to and during your performance. This is just the nature of entertainment!

2. Your environment is your friend. Using what is around you as needed for movement, balance, and more can add stability, but also creativity and excitement to your performance.

3. You can prepare yourself with the understanding that you are seen and safe in your environment, are adaptable, and can recover with grace, humor, and all the sexiness that naturally comes with those two attitudes from any challenge that comes your way.

4. You and your lover both have your back. You are set up for greater intimacy and emotional closeness no matter how the performance itself plays out. Your effort and intention in showing up this way for a lover is, in and of itself, one of the cooler things someone can receive. Win win!

#7) Release The Pressure (Right Now!) // Have FUN (Right Now!)

1. In life, expectations limit outcomes. Stop thinking about the end result, and start thinking about all the FUN and growth and pleasure you are going to receive from this process, starting right now! 

2. You are putting yourself on a journey of sexy self-exploration, with the goal of having fun and deepening intimacy with someone special in your life. That's self-care, honey! And that savoring and excitement for the joys of the process begin today. 

3. Ultimately, you are the expert here. You know yourself, your lover, your environment, your body, and your desires better than anyone else. I am providing you with a guide to help you create your own roadmap for this experience. But, there is no 'wrong' way to go about it.

4. Release a little of the pressure from your mind right now, realizing that the gift you have to give your lover is already being activated by simply creating intention around this experience - you are sitting in acknowledgment of the desire and intention to connect to yourself and your lover in an exciting way, and taking action steps on those desires. That is a gift in and of itself. You can only go up from here!

xoxo,

Jay