As a sexologist, what do you think the most common thing I tell my badass female clients?
No, not you need more Kegals, or to master the Karma Sutra.
It’s “You’re normal!”
It’s not sexy, it’s not going to make you feel special or significant, but it’s the news I break to my clients time and time again.
Here are some of the most common ‘problems’ you think you have, and why they’re not really problems - you just haven’t been taught how your body really works.
‘I just don’t work like everybody else, I can’t orgasm without playing with my clit.'
This is natural and normal. 85% of all female orgasms involve direct clitoral stimulation, the other 15% involves indirect stimulation. It was Freud who somehow decided that only vaginal orgasms counted. You should never feel wrong about using the one organ, whose sole purpose is pleasure.
'Unless I am relaxed, I just can’t get in the mood.'
Well, yes. Your sympathetic nervous system or ‘fight, flight’, switches off your ability to get turned on. This is the case for 90-95% of us. Fairly normal I’d say. Learn to complete stress-cycles before embarking on foreplay.
'I don’t get wet like everyone else.'
Consider who the ‘everyone else’ is? Often our reference point comes from watching porn, where the stretching and bucket loads of lube… just doesn’t make for a sexy intro. Actually, it really is common for your genitals not to respond the way they ‘should’, it’s called non-concordance and happens all the time. Buy more lube and learn what foreplay feels best for you.
'I have a low libido.'
In comparison to who? A teenage boy, your partner, your friends… who don’t necessarily talk openly and honestly about sex? People with vulvas are often told they have a lower libido than people with penises, when in fact we just get turned on, and off, in different ways and at different speeds.
What turns the average man on, will not have the same effect on most women.
For 99% of all conversations I have, the simple answer is that we just haven’t been taught how arousal actually works, or, if we have, it's based on an assumed, male arousal pattern.
Given that our bodies, our hormones, menstrual cycles, neurological patterns and experiences are completely different, it would be a logical assumption that our bodies behave differently when it comes to arousal. Not the same as men, or lesser, just gloriously different.
We just aren’t taught how our bodies actually work.
Sex education in the western world, particularly in Britain and North America, is the equivalent of learning to drive by watching a 30-minute video of horrific car crashes, showing graphic detail of injuries, limb losses, blood, guts, death and utter grief.
Then being shown the open road and handed some keys and a helmet. Can you imagine the carnage?
My sex-education consisted of the business end of a mature lady giving birth. I can still remember the noises and the gore. I know it can be a beautiful experience, but at the age of 11, I hadn’t even seen my own vulva in any detail, never mind someone else's stretched to the size of a grapefruit. I felt like I was watching Alien.
Without the right information, we rely on cultural messages:
Society – “Sex is between a man and a woman, but if women enjoy it outside of marriage, they are a slut.”
Media – “To be sexy you must be slim, pretty, have massive tits and a Barbie-doll shaped vulva. If you don't have the gymnastic abilities of a porn star and/or aren’t ready and willing with the libido of a teenage boy, you are a prude”.
Medicine – “If you have sex you will get diseases or pregnant”.
Little or no information on how our bodies actually work, and these pretty mixed messages from our culture – mean we easily assume there is something wrong with us, like we’re somehow broken.
This is why I created SOUL-LED SEX-ED, to help women really understand how the two most powerful parts of themselves… their body and their soul, really work.
If this resonates with you… join me for a very special online workshop, that teaches how to feel turned on and create deep, meaningful connection, even after a year of yoga pants and Netflix:
How to claim a year of lost sex. Thursday 18th March | 7:00 - 9.00pm
* Caroline D’Arcy is a Sexologist, Coach and Founder of Inti-Mate.co , the home of SOUL-LED SEX-ED for women. She has been featured in Killing Kittens, Nourish Life, Sex+zine and more.
If you can’t make the workshop but are curious about empowering your sex life, sign up for her free workshop here: https://www.inti-mate.co/
