Health/Psychology: Healing and Enhancing Sexual Desire

For fifteen years I have been treating couples and individuals with sexual issues and have been amazed by the sheer numbers of women reporting that they have little desire for sex in their long-term relationships. Patients tell me, “I really want to feel desire. I don’t know why it’s not working.” Clinics like Masters and Johnson estimate that fully one out of three women in long-term relationships are distressed by lack of desire.

Often, what’s holding women back from feeling sexual passion is old wounds from unfinished business of the past. The concept of unfinished business is popular in psychology and generally refers to emotional traumas and hurts, great and small, that are holding you back from being truly present in your life. We are all susceptible to hidden bedroom “partners” which stifle our responses just as if they were real life spectators that sabotage sexual desire. These hidden spectators are the voices of our parents, previous partners, abusers, and any other sex negative influences we have experienced in our lives.

It is necessary to eliminate thoughts and beliefs preventing you from surrendering to sexual desire. Negative thoughts can arouse disgust, aversion, and even fear. These emotions can hinder otherwise pleasurable feelings. They block the effects of physical arousal even when the conscious mind tells us it should be time for sex. Once you have grappled with your personal unfinished business, you become free to respond in the moment with relatively few expectations. The concept of “responding in the moment” is especially important to sexuality. It means you can respond sexually without anxiously anticipating the same negative outcomes as in past experiences.

Many women feel an immediate need to deal with the problems they have with their spouses when they come for sex therapy. Although their mates do need to change, it is a basic truth that change must begin with the self. Beginning with personal work anchors us in our authentic loving selves. We can make new choices for ourselves although we may not be able to change our partners.

In order to consciously bring your sexual energy into balance, you will need to understand which psychological areas are in need of healing. The following discussion is organized around the first four chakras or energy centers of the body.

Early Sexual Exploration and Sex-Negative Messages: First and Second Chakras

How old were you when you first experienced sexual feelings? How did you feel about acting on them? Who told you the most truth about sex?

We all have some degree of guilt or shame associated with our developing sexuality. Shame and guilt are socially motivated emotions, intentionally evoked by caregivers to prevent acting inappropriately. For example, Gina was told ad nauseam by her mother, “boys only want one thing” and “don’t let any boy touch you.” This instilled fear of exploring sex as a teen. Her parents used fear as a way to prevent her from devaluing her worth as a virgin. She had not been able to eliminate fear-based sexual prohibitions and enjoy her husband’s touch after marriage.

Another patient, Sherry, constantly heard her father say, “why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” She often felt degraded after intercourse, even though she loved her husband. You may have had parents who talked in platitudes about sex: “Save it for the one you marry,” or you may say, “they didn’t tell me anything.” In any of these situations, you have automatic thoughts and uncomfortable feelings to overcome.

Messages about self-stimulation tend to be quite negative in households where the parents were uncomfortable with sexuality. You may have been discovered masturbating and associate shame with wanting to pleasure yourself. These feelings continue to operate in your subconscious as powerful blocks to sexual desire. Shame and guilt may have dissuaded you from sexual activity, but they may also indicate sources of taboo sexual fantasies. These forbidden images may still arouse your most intense, sexual feelings.

Identifying people who told you the most truth about sex helps you understand the source of positive attitudes. One woman’s source was an older cousin who was about to be married. Her cousin told her,

“it’s real fun with the right guy.” That encouragement allowed her to explore sexual pleasure with her steady boyfriend in high school. Her adjustment to marital sex was enhanced by this exploration. Much traditional sex therapy provides the counterbalancing voice of the therapist as a source of permission to explore sexual pleasure. Whatever the sources of information, they have made a significant difference in your developing sexuality and your attitudes about relationships between men and women.

First Blood Experiences-- Self-Esteem and Body Image: Third Chakra

What were your experiences surrounding your first menstruation?

The way your first blood experience was handled strongly influences your sexual self-image, yet many women do not realize it. Recently, I attended a women’s full-moon ceremony in my community. We gathered in a circle and recounted our first blood stories. Most of us related some tale of embarrassment or humiliation from which we had learned shame or loathing for our natural body processes. However, some of the stories were truly enlightening because they were so different. The women told of special celebrations honoring their new Maiden status, conducted by a beloved female relative. The women’s stories about positive support and festive events gave us great inspiration and a goal for the future. The stories inspired many of the women to seek ways to initiate their own daughters in the spirit of the ancient, feminine way.

First Intercourse-- Personal Power and Self-Esteem: Second and Third chakras

What was your experience with first intercourse? First intercourse is a major rite of initiation. In our culture it is usually not very satisfying for women. When women recall their first intercourse, their answers fall into three categories. One group says that it was painful or disappointing. They report thoughts such as, “is that all there is?” or they tell me, “it got better after a while” or, “it didn’t hurt as much over time,” but their first intercourse was a negative experience. Some of these women may even say, “I hated it, and still find it uncomfortable.”

Another group of women respond with, “I don’t really remember what I felt” or “I guess it was okay.” This group has blocked out memories of the first defining moment of male-female genital sex and they are unaware of any issues stemming from it. The third group says many things about their first intercourse. They say they desired the experience, or looked forward to it. Even if it was awkward, they had many opportunities to repeat pleasurable exploration with their lovers, enhancing their sexual responsiveness. They talk about the conditions that made their first experiences positive. Rarely do I hear, “I loved penetration the first time,” but women of this group fondly recall their first love relationship which included intercourse, and are likely to feel the most empowered about their sexuality.

Loss of Basic Trust and Security: First Chakra

Did anyone abuse or abandon you? How did you react to the experience?

If you have been neglected, physically harmed or sexually abused by a parent, relative, or trusted adult, you have been deeply wounded. You may find intimate relationships threatening. Your early care taught you that caregivers failed to meet your needs, or they actually hurt you. They may have failed to attend to your cries, neglected your needs for nourishment and cleanliness, and damaged your sense of security. Your experiences with negative touch determine your ability to tolerate and express physical affection, the foundation for healthy sex. You may function sexually, but block feelings of intimacy. Such barriers to intimacy erode your sexual desire in a long-term relationship.

Many people assume that these early experiences have no bearing on their current sexual relationships. For example, you may think that you were no more disadvantaged than others, that physical abuse was just strict discipline, or that you adapted to the neglect. In my experience, most people downplay their neglect and abuse until they are confronted with circumstances that tap into their buried feelings. Many learn not to trust, which creates the desire to control loved ones, due to such early rifts in primary attachments. A supportive, therapeutic environment is necessary to deal with all the issues associated with physical and sexual abuse.

Attachment-- Early Wounds in the Affectional Bond: Second Chakra

What losses or rejection from loved ones did you suffer in your life? How have you coped and what resources have you discovered?

You may have sustained a loss, disappointment, or heartache as a child that raises anxiety when you have attachment feelings. Attachment refers to the sense of connection and closeness that we all need from the primary caregivers in our lives. This relationship is called “the affectional bond,” because we learn to express and receive affection, which impacts us throughout our lives. The early mother-infant bond is the basis for the ability to form attachments throughout life. Our mothers, or other family members who provided nurturing, are the initial “significant others” to whom we attach. If we are separated, it causes serious issues in our psychological development.

Primary relationships teach us whether our needs for attention will be met or not. Holding, visual attentiveness, and nurturing touch are all part of our attachment needs. If your mother was distant or unavailable, you may have experienced significant anxiety as a child, producing a need to control loved ones as an adult. On the positive side, you may have had a good foundation of loving, nurturing parents. This has probably resulted in a reasonably secure childhood that gave you tremendous insurance for the slings and arrows of later life. Any losses in adult relationships may have been painful, yet the foundation of good experiences with early nurturing may have mitigated the devastation.

There are at least three significant attachment losses, in childhood through teen years, which impact sexuality: loss of a parent through death, or divorce, and loss of adequate parenting. Some of you may have had alcoholic, drug addicted, mentally unstable, severely depressed, cold, distant, seductive, or emotionally abusive parents. All these problem parents have one element in common. They could not or would not provide adequate, emotional nurturing for you as a child.¹Your parents may have been emotionally cruel, withholding affection, but quick to deliver critical messages. This deprived you of the chance to build healthy self-esteem.

Two additional losses in teen years affect adult sexuality: the betrayal or loss of a cherished friend and your first “broken heart” in adolescence. These are critical to developing sexuality because they teach either valuable skills for negotiating and ending relationships, or ways to detach from attachment needs in order to numb the pain.

Codependence and Control: Third Chakra

Right now, if your partner asked you to do something you didn’t want to do, could you say no?

When there are attachment problems from your early life, you may feel the need to control others, whether directly or through subtle manipulation. Codependence means centering your attention on the other. It is the illusion that you can somehow fix your partner’s problems, control unwanted behavior, or get to him or her to change. Many women, as well as men, hold tenaciously to such illusions that are permanently doomed to failure. Such behavior inhibits sexual self-expression and blunts sexual desire. Codependent women accommodate their partners’ desires and bypass lack of sexual feelings to engage in sex, simply to please. Bypassing uncomfortable feelings to accommodate your partner’s desire erodes your sexual responsiveness.

This question directly targets your ability to stay individuated in your relationship. Acting in your own best interests is the opposite of codependence. You can refuse your partner’s request when it is not in your best interests, and work on soothing your anxiety about his reaction. If you are totally honest in your answer to this question and you find it hard to say, “no,” you need to strengthen your boundaries. You must begin to set limits on unwanted behavior and act in your own best interests more often.

Distortions of Compassion: Fourth Chakra

What do you need in your relationship with a partner? Can you imagine being able to have this in your life?

The classic statement, “I don’t really need to have orgasms, I just want to know that he’s enjoying it,” or some other variation of the theme, “I don’t need anything for me,” is a distortion of compassion and a loss for both partners. If you have isolated the sexual part of yourself from your “good girl,” loving self-image, you may be unable to access genuine desire. You may feel helpless because your cannot respond to your chosen mate. If you are unable to integrate sexy behavior with your wife-and-mother image, you may have internalized a distorted view of compassion and disowned your sexuality.

If you get involved, perhaps repeatedly, with men who are abusive, rage at you with explosive anger, or are cold and distant, you may think your love will save them from their withdrawn or violent behavior. However, you are distorting your compassionate, heartfelt love by enabling such relationships to continue. Compassion sustains satisfying sex with a long-term partner only when it is experienced as reciprocal. Without reciprocal compassion in a committed relationship you will have a wellspring of resentment.

If you deny your resentment in order to appear to be a loving and giving partner, you will be like an empty vessel, having poured out all your caring with nothing left to give. Such distortion of your natural nurturing and compassion damages female sexual desire because it results in sexual accommodation, without any genuine sexual energy.

With the sex-negative conditioning of our culture, Life Force energy is blocked, producing leaks that dissipate available energy. Any time our energy is distorted and out of balance with the pulsing Life Force there can be harmful consequences. Since all humans generate sexual energy, it is crucial that it becomes relatively free flowing in order to enhance our connection with the Source. Denying our sexuality, or rigidly limiting its expression, creates leaks that are the source of sexual distortions such as excessive focus on controlling others, various sexual addictions, and violent sexual acts.

©Copyright 2003 by AlternativeApproaches.com

Linda E. Savage, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and sex therapist who has been exploring the mysteries of sexual healing for over 25 years. Dr. Savage is the author of Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality: The Power of the Feminine Way (published by Hay House) which presents a view of women’s sexuality that blends the ancient wisdom of the Goddess cultures with current clinical knowledge.

To order Dr. Savage’s book, Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality: The Power of the Feminine Way from Amazon.com, click here. Visit her web site at http://www.goddesstherapy.com. No part of this article may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from Linda Savage, Ph.D./Hay House Publishing.