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A Psychotherapist Explains How To Reprioritize Pleasure In Relationships
Why is something that feels so good so hard to fit into our lives? As a mother of three small children, the demands of modern life sometimes get in the way of me choosing pleasure. I often prioritize what I have to do over what I want to do.
It's not just me—we live in a culture that rewards productivity, yet what we know about desire is that it feels stifled by routine.
As sex educator Emily Nagoski described in Come as You Are, we all have a "sexual response system" that functions like a car, with an accelerator (that picks up on "erotic stimuli," or reasons to have sex) and brakes (that picks up on reasons not have sex, like responsibilities, life transitions like losing a parent, or racism/misogyny/other socially oppressive forces).
As sex gets harder to "fit in" in the midst of so many "brakes," many couples stop prioritizing it. And yet, the research1 shows that a healthy sexual relationship is considered a major signifier of marital happiness.
How do we re-center our pleasure?
Mothers, in particular, are often encouraged to create space for our children's needs over our own. We brainstorm activities that make them happy but don't think of how to nurture our own peace, ease, and joy. We spend an hour playing Legos, but we don't invest time in asking ourselves "what brings me delight?"
According to British psychotherapist and social critic Susie Orbach, Ph.D., being a "good" woman means deferring to others, defining the self in relation to others, and anticipating the needs of others. By trying to get it "right" with others, we often lose touch with what feels good for us.
9 accessible ways to reprioritize pleasure in a relationship
What if being a good woman is at odds with being a turned-on and alive woman? What if your pleasure mattered to you just as much as the effort you put into making others feel good? Here, how to do that:
Figure out why you aren't having sex
We don't have satisfying sex lives for many reasons. Some people didn't like the sex they were having and stopped because they didn't know what to do about it. While some have body insecurities that make being present in sex hard, others feel depressed or anxious, as both nervous system states make it difficult to connect to our emotional world or the emotional worlds of our partners.
And some wilting sex lives are indicative of other disconnects in the relationship, like the buildup of feelings of resentment or hurt.
Before you can find a solution, it is important to identify what the disconnect is, as the first step in charting the appropriate path forward. Is this something that you have to address in yourself, take up in your partner, or band with others to address out in the world?
Nurture your friendship
One of the top identifiers of romantic partners with a happy sex life are those who are friends. Consider the ways you nurture your friendship. Ask yourself:
- Do you make time for shared experiences you love?
- Conversations with eye contact?
- Things you both laugh about together?
Stop trying to go from "stress" to "sex"
Our nervous systems need to be regulated for us to be willing to approach intimate and deep connections. It is difficult to go from a stressful bedtime routine with a toddler or an argument with a teen and then feel "in the mood."
Before you even approach the idea of sex, ask yourself, "What would make me feel in my body right now?" It might be...
- Holding the hand of your partner
- Taking a shower together
- Playing a card game
- Sitting next to each other on the sofa to watch a movie
- Making a warm cup of tea
- Taking a walk around the block
This "in-between" stress and sex activity might be the necessary step for you to feel more open to sexual connection.
Get clear on the science — desire follows will
Sex in the movies tells us that we should be "in the mood" for sex. Desire, for many of us, ignites in response to stimuli and is not out of the blue.
In other words, once we get started and open ourselves up to the sexual experience, the feeling of desire builds.
Make time for it — whether that's spontaneous or scheduled
Couples tend to leave sex for after all the other "stuff" of life—cooking, cleaning, making phone calls, etc. If you have a window of time available, have sex first to ensure it's prioritized.
And it's not just jumping at your chance spontaneously—it may take a bit of planning. Though this can sound really unsexy, scheduling sex is one of the most fundamental aspects of a thriving sexual relationship.
When you think about it, even when you were single, you still scheduled sex; it was just less explicit. You knew that after your dinner date at around 11 p.m., you'd do it.
Forecasting your week ahead with your partner and getting it on the calendar increases the likelihood that you will actually have a sexy experience as opposed to leaving it up to chance.
Make a sex menu
Sometimes sex in long-term relationships can get boring. As humans, we change constantly, and so do our sexual preferences. Create a menu that includes appetizers (what gets your appetite going), the main course, and then dessert. Ask your partner to do the same, and consider creative ways to share your menus with each other.
Take it off the pedestal
It's normal to have five-minute sex. It's normal to have 12-minute sex. It's normal to have 30-minute sex. Feeling like you need a lot of time or energy to have sex might mean you never have it.
While making time for a satisfying sexual experience is important, don't let that be a deterrent to you and your partner having a physical experience together. The more sex we have, the easier it is to commit to and build on better sexual experiences.
Nurture your own pleasure-centered life
Oftentimes, when I ask women what they want in therapy or support circles, they have no idea because no one has asked them. We have to know what feels good within ourselves before we can expect our partners to know.
Great sex is about how much you like the sex you're having—which is in part your attunement to yourself and in part your partner's attunement to you.
Consider how much you allow pleasure—what makes you feel good, inside and outside of sex—to guide your choices? Do you spend time doing what you love? Do you allow yourself to feel good without needing to earn that relaxation, excitement, or ease? What fantasies does your imagination hold?
The more we warm up to the idea that it is our birthright to feel good, the more space we will want to create for sexual goodness.
Say no to the nonessentials
Oftentimes, people report that centering their pleasure wasn't about adding in more things but rather taking things away. In Pleasure Activism, Adrienne Maree Brown reminds us that "Your no makes the way for your yes. Boundaries create the container within which your yes is authentic."
The more we say no to the nonessentials, the more space we create for feeling good.
The takeaway
There are many forces conspiring against you feeling good. What I have found is centering my own pleasure makes me feel more alive as a mother, a partner, and a worker.
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