SEX

41% of pre-menopausal women experience Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD), 64% in the 1st year postnatally! That’s a lot. And many women don’t talk about it - to their partner, their friends, or their therapist.

First of all sexual intercourse should NOT be painful and if it is you need to stop pushing through the pain and continuing to do it anyway. By ‘putting up with it’ you are essentially creating a loop of continuous pain cycle - ‘sex is painful ➡️ next time I have sex I anticipate it will be painful ➡️ sex is painful’. And the loop continues!

We are not machines. Most women do not have a linear model of arousal and desire like many men do. We don’t have a light switch!

Rather we have a circular model - there are many inputs that form our desire to have sex. Our thoughts, beliefs, body satisfaction, mental load, worries, tiredness, motivation - this all impacts on our sexual arousal and desire. It also impacts on our ability to maintain that arousal. Who has ever started being intimate with their partner and then just remembered that they forgot to hang the washing on the line (and it really needs to be done because your child needs a clean school uniform to wear tomorrow 🤦‍♀️). Cue arousal has just left the bedroom.

Moreover please remember we are not machines! You can’t be go, go, go all day (like many of us are who have young children) and then expect to turn into a sex goddess the moment you jump into bed with your partner. Sex is not something that should be a part of your daily/weekly/monthly list. If it is you are essentially making it another chore that you have to do. And who likes chores? NO ONE!

So take the time to relax and wind down. Don’t expect to cook tea, put the kids to bed, make lunch boxes, clean the house and then jump into bed ready to go. Treat sex like sleep. Wind yourself down, relax, and prepare for that feeling of arousal and desire. Do it because you want to not because you have to.

What things do you do to relax and wind down?

Connie x