"“No. No, I don’t want my hands restrained.” “Yes. You do.”"
It can be difficult, in this connected world, to stop. It can be hard to not think about the last email, the dirty floors, the cobwebbed ceiling, or the work deadline looming.
Even when you're getting it on with your partner of years.
There are many ways of dealing with this issue. I want to lay out for you one that might not be immediately obvious, but has some real benefits over alternatives:
Bondage
Wait, stay with me. You might think it sounds strange, or you might think it doesn't even address the issue. And, yikes, bondage. Stay with me for a second. The world we live in is full of choices, and we make millions of them every day. It's probably a big reason why we can't turn our brains off. Our thoughts roll around on their little mental hamster wheels, trying every second to figure out what we need to do to make sure we make the best of everything.
Sex is no different. Where should my hands go? Should I move more? Is my wax up to date? Should I change cell phone providers? Finger in his asshole? You get the idea. It's all too easy to find ourselves working really hard to figure out what might please our partner but somehow never get around to actually doing it. We REALLY do not get around to really being aware, and present, in our own pleasure.
It sometimes goes even further than that. Even when the sex is amazing we can let our much too busy lives impinge on our time in the bedroom. The outside world creeps in and suddenly that rising orgasm is a distant memory replaced, unbidden, by the grocery list. One of the ways it can creep in is through paying too much attention to your partner and too little to your own sensations. It's a much smaller jump from "Does he want me to touch his balls or his neck?" To "Did I pay the cable bill?" On the other hand when your mental vocalizations are focused on, "That feels so completely amazing!" The jump to "Am I satisfied with my vacuum cleaner's sustained suction?" Never happens.
One way to make concentration easier for your partner is to take away their options. Bondage is ideal for that task.
If you're tied up, you don't need to decide where your hands should go. Nothing is in your control, so nothing is your responsibility.
As an aside, even if you don't want to restrict the movements of your partner you can indulge in the single most effective tool for reminding someone to quiet their mind and concentrate on their sense inputs- Blindfolds. If you can't see you can't plan. You can't focus on what your partner needs, you can't look at the dirty ceiling and think about cleaning. All you can do is let yourself go and allow your partner to do all the thinking for both of you.
It's a real gift to your bottom (sorry to use the BDSM community terms, but nothing else works as well) to take the full responsibility of sex away from him or her. He or she is, paradoxically, freed up to really concentrate on the experience. The only thing that needs to be in his or her mind is "Does this feel good?" The only way he or she can change something that doesn't feel good is to talk to you. He or she can't do anything about it so he or she don't need to come up with a solution. Your experience is totally outside of the realm of what he or she might consider. If you want him or her to move, you'll do the moving, and if some sex act will be more to your liking you'll make sure it happens. Every time he or she tries to move the ropes they will remind your captive that he or she don't need to even consider body positioning. You'll do it for him or her.
It may seem strange to make bondage mostly about the experience of the person being tied up, but I'd argue that it's the only way to think about it. When you're the one doing the restraining, it's really easy for the world to think that it's all about you. The fact is even the most sadistic top always has to be thinking about the bottom's experience, if only because people are fragile and breaking someone is a good way to end up single. Another consideration for the top is if the bottom isn't having fun at some point they stop letting you tie them up.
The bottom can't do anything so you have to be completely aware of how he or she is reacting so you can change what you're doing to make the experience better for your partner. Strangely enough, this addition of options and choices can also really focus your mind on the task at hand. Not a lot of time and mind space is available to you when you're remembering your knots, considering the next move, monitoring your partner's every tiny reaction and still feeling what's happening south of the old belt buckle.
I guarantee that once you've committed to tying up your partner you won't be making mental grocery lists while they're twisted into pleasant and vulnerable shapes on the bed in front of you. You'll be totally in the moment or you won't be doing it much longer. Your partners will reward that attention with their attention, and their trust, and their amazing reactions to your ministrations.
So, with one easy addition to your sexual routine you can make sure that everyone involved feels loved, supported, cared for and is living in the moment. Banish the hamster wheel of whirling thoughts from your bedroom with ropes, blindfolds and the committed, loving, generous exchange of power.