Depth is not a measure of how much you want him. It's a dial — and on this ride you set it on purpose. Usually low.
Fighting the "more" instinct
The instinct runs the other way, and it's strong. Taking him all the way down feels like more. Fuller, greedier, like you're not leaving any of him unused. So you sink to the base. And then the live edge goes quiet.
Here's the trade you're actually making when you sit all the way down. The sensitive front-third — the ring your pendulum swings on, the live wiring — sits up shallow, in the first couple of inches. That's not folklore; it's where the working nerve endings cluster, while the deep end is comparatively sparse. Sink to the bottom and you swap that bright, workable ground for the deep dull: the vague pressure at the far end, and — on a bad landing — the cervix, which mostly just protests when it's bumped. The map is reported correctly all the time, and then overridden anyway, because more is such a hard instinct to argue with.
So argue with it on purpose. Half in is not settling for less of him. It's choosing the part of him that actually pays you. Half in puts the grip on the middle of the shaft — the only place the pendulum can swing. Half in keeps the live front-third in the game instead of bypassed. Press-fit, not buried: you want the snug working grip at the entrance, not the dead weight of full depth that jams the ring to the base and flattens your hips.
"But isn't deep good for anything?"
You might feel a contradiction coming. Chapter 1 said shallower. Now this. Surely deep does something? It does — and it's worth being exact about what.
Depth isn't wrong. It's the prologue, not the engine. The slow, deep stroke is how you open — how you read the shape of him, spread the warmth, and set up traction for the shallow swing that follows (that's the next chapter's whole subject). What depth is not is the main event. You visit the bottom to set up the top. You don't live at the bottom.
So here's the discipline: ride half in by choice, knowing exactly why, and let full depth be the occasional slow opener it's good at — never the place you grind for the finish. Set the dial low, and leave it low once the engine's running. That's depth on purpose. It's the only kind worth having.
---
