Woman on Fire (24 page)

Desire has been identified as an issue for women that is centered in our brains, so big pharmaceuticals and researchers are avidly working to find drugs that can change women's brain response around desire. They see big dollars with the drugs they could sell, and already there are drugs that have
not
been approved by the FDA because the risks and side effects are too great. The disorders listed in the
DSM
(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
have been called at various times hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), inhibited sexual desire (ISD), female sexual interest/arousal disorder (SI/AD), sexual aversion disorder, female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD), and female orgasmic disorder (FOD).

It makes me dizzy. No wonder so many women think something is deeply wrong with them. Research has shown that nearly a third of premenopausal women and more than half of postmenopausal women fit the criteria for low sexual desire. Our sexuality has been so pathologized and medicalized, and the context of our lives has been so removed from all of the brain-focused research on our sexual experience, that most women end up with more questions and few answers. With all of these confusing messages about desire, no wonder people are left feeling like something is wrong with them if
they have an unclear desire or lack desire. Problems with desire can lead to feeling like “I don't love right” or “I'm not desirable enough.” None of us want to believe there is something fundamentally wrong with how we love or with our desirability.

We do know that sexual desire operates differently in women than it does in men based not only on biological factors but also in the cultural context of our lives. Sexual disorders in men have focused on the physical—boiling it down to making sure men can get and maintain erections. Men's sexuality also exists in a context, and this approach side-cuts looking at some of the underlying emotional and psychosocial issues for erectile dysfunction. Everyone gets shortchanged.

This picture is tremendously flawed because it doesn't take into account everything that can impact desire. There are a few things we need to seriously consider in order to address a lack of desire in women. The first is that many women do not know what they really desire sexually because they are following the sexuality of men—particularly those women who partner with men. We are taught this larger narrative about what sexual pleasure looks like and how to fulfill it, and many women just go along with this ubiquitous idea of sex: man feels aroused and wants sex, erection is present or imminent, there might be a little bit of what is often called “foreplay” to juice things up and try to get the woman in the mood, which leads to penis-in-vagina intercourse where the man climaxes and the woman, more than likely, does not. Game over. Not very satisfying, and yet millions of women have sex like this and never know anything else.

Lesbian, bisexual, and queer people tend to have a different orientation to sex. Because our roles are not pre-prescribed, there is more built-in freedom to explore, to broaden ideas of desire, and to ask the question: “What kind of sex do you like or want today?” There is also more communication because there
has
to be for same-sex couples to have sex. Heterosexual couples make assumptions about the type of
sex they will have. There is an assumed penis-in-vagina approach to sex. For same-sex, gay, or queer couples, there is often an understanding that there are many kinds of sex that can be enjoyed and different roles to play. Open communication about sex helps people to figure it out and negotiate what they want, and having to negotiate helps to flesh out one's desire. You have to say it out loud.

If you removed the assumption that you would have this one particular kind of sex, what kind of sex would you want? Some women go blank when I pose this question because there aren't many models for other kinds of sexual experiences. It's difficult to remove the model from which you've approached sex your whole life. Yet you can have new and different kinds of sex and sexual play if you allow yourself to think about sex more broadly.

We also know that women are much less likely to have “spontaneous desire” that just erupts and leads to sexual play and pleasure. Many women think something is wrong with them because they don't spontaneously feel desire, yet many researchers have identified differences in male and female bodies that partially account for this. By and large, women have less testosterone than men do, although it varies. Because testosterone has a clear relationship to physical arousal, men can be more spontaneous or quicker to feel arousal and desire, whereas women can require more stimuli or time to get there.

A lot of women are having really unsatisfying sex with partners who are engaging in this unfulfilling aroused-to-orgasm, penis-in-vagina, done-quick model of sex and are not speaking up about it because they think this is what sex is supposed to be and that they should like it. Women are often a slower burn. We tend to need more buildup to feel sexy and fully aroused physically. If your male partner doesn't take the time to get you really aroused and just puts his penis in your vagina before you are good and ready and wanting it, it won't feel very good.

The term
foreplay
diminishes many of the sexual acts that actually arouse women and get us off. Calling it foreplay makes it seem
ancillary to the main thing. Why are the things that actually bring women to orgasm, like manual stimulation or oral sex, not part of the “real” thing? They are indeed sex, and again, for women who partner with women, sometimes they are a much bigger part of sex. It's all sex. It's “all play.”

As we talked about in the body chapter, you've got to know what turns you on and be able to teach your partner how to do it. That's not always easy. Some partners just don't have the touch you want. Some don't take enough time. Some men get so focused on utilizing their erection while they have it (afraid they'll lose it) that they skip all the things that will make intercourse actually feel good for you. Men have to learn to be better lovers, slow it down, develop more sexual skill beyond having an erection, and address you as a whole person. As you learn what your body likes and what your desires are, you have a responsibility to communicate it to your partners so they can meet your needs, or you will end up feeling perpetually unfulfilled.

Then there are the ways that life just gets in the way of desire and pleasure. Sex is not divorced from the life stress and emotional and mental states you experience. If you are not emotionally present, you won't be in your desire and pleasure. If you are thinking about the laundry and your long things-to-do list, you won't be there. If you are busy “spectatoring” (watching yourself have sex) rather than being
in
the sex, you won't be able to fully enjoy it. If you are focused on how your body looks or are feeling nervous about being seen, it takes you out of it. All of those mental and emotional states impact you. Desire exists within a context.

Michelle did not come to me wanting to “fix” her desire. She came knowing there was this bigger picture, and it later turned out that her conflicts and suppression of her desire were at the epicenter of
what held her back. After months of working on releasing her false ideas about sex and desire, embracing her erotic fantasies and her previously unspoken desires as well as her sexuality as a whole, Michelle had major breakthroughs in her relationship dynamics with her husband and started to make more money in her business.

Since I have started looking at bringing sexuality into my life as a holistic piece of who I am, I am noticing that my creativity is beginning to nourish me again. I also feel a natural power and authenticity that comes with that. People are more attracted to who I am, and I feel that I am attracting people who are also more aligned with themselves. I feel that I can agree more with my fantasies rather than be disgusted or embarrassed. It has been important to embrace my desire as it is. I realized that my sexual desires are not bad at all, and that I should be aware of them and allow them to be part of me.

Now I am happy about the desire arising within me and I know more ways to explore it, acknowledge it, and encourage it. In my marriage I'm more apt to say honestly when I don't feel like having sex, and it has helped my marriage come out of a toxic place. I feel empowered when I am allowing my real desire to emerge. When I see behaviors that I was using to give my power away around my career, money, and relationships, I see if there is something I can change about that to become empowered.

I've been experimenting with role-playing and how I might like my partner to treat me in bed. I realize that there are times when I might want to be controlled and have played with how to bring that in a little bit. I have given my partner clear instructions about that, as I never shared that before. I am starting to see other roles I might like to play and how I can go deeper with this.

I am beginning to notice the different moods that come up with my desire. I notice when sexual energy flares up and I ask myself what it was saying about a person or situation. I see if it might be directing me to something new. As I became more empowered, my
desires shifted and they are more connected with my outer world now. They are fantasies that I can enjoy and play with rather than feel I want to put on the shelf and be ashamed of. I learned that desire is a good thing. Desire shows me things I might need to explore or try. And now I have the courage to try them. When I put things into practice I feel empowered and I learn more about myself. This empowerment carries over into how I show up as a whole. I now tell myself that sex is a part of who I am and it should be honored.

One of the most common issues I hear from women is that their long-term relationship has lost its juice. They are frustrated by lack of sexual feelings and have lost sexual interest. The relationship might be very intimate and they feel a closeness to their partner—a companionate closeness, a feeling of being best friends—yet the sexual spark just isn't there. In some cases, it was once there and dwindled away, and in others, it was never really there to begin with. Some women judge themselves for making this component of their relationship important or for feeling dissatisfied with their partner because so many other things are so good. However, I think sex is really important in a relationship, and if it's not working, it
is
something worth fighting for. It can be a deal-breaker.

It's sort of a cruel joke that we have this cultural ideal of having a life partner with whom we share our daily living and experience, our bills, and mundane things, and we also expect to have a juicy, fantastic sexual life with this same person. I say cruel because, as relationship expert Esther Perel (author of
Mating in Captivity
) has discussed, it's really hard to maintain sexual tension with someone you are highly familiar with and from whom you spend little time away. Some couples even work together and almost never have time apart. Absence is part of what creates a more dynamic tension.
Tension is what makes sex hot. There has to be a passion in the power dynamic, around missing each other and anticipating your reconnection, around roles and desires, around flirting, instigating, and receiving. When you are so familiar and comfortable with someone with whom you spend every day and night, it's hard to have a tension or passion that will spill into a sexy life. You have to work harder to create opportunities to actually miss each other. If you are in the rut of having the same sex all the time, you've got to change it up to keep it interesting. Rote does not sexy make.

Curiosity creates tension. Tension creates hotness. Absence creates wanting. Longing fuels passion. Whether or not you are in a serious partnership, tension builds desire. One of my mentors told me when she was in her sixties that the secret to her successful partnership of over twenty-five years was that she and her partner maintained their own apartments and had always kept their own spaces. That allowed them to have breathing room, to host each other and not take each other for granted or get used to the other being there like a piece of furniture you don't even notice half the time—until it gets moved or disappears. When I was in a long-term relationship in which we shared a home, my partner and I kept our own bedrooms and chose where we would sleep each night. This helped us to make fewer assumptions. It created space for each of us and intention about whether or if we spent our time together, slept together or alone, and was an important ingredient in our happiness. People who don't want to give their partner space and want to be on top of them all the time will eventually douse the passion like you would a flame without oxygen.

There is usually a strong tension when you first get together with someone. People in polyamorous communities call this “new relationship energy” (NRE). Most people will get a rush of NRE that fuels passion in the beginning of any sexy courtship. That energy simply cannot sustain itself. It doesn't mean there is something wrong with you or your relationship when it dwindles or disappears.
It just means you've moved into a new developmental stage of relationship that might be more about intimacy and companionship, and you have to approach sex in new ways to keep it juicy. Maintain healthy tension and that will do more for your desire than nearly anything else.

When I speak to women about their desire for desire, I ask them what it would do for them. I hear “I would feel more vibrant.” “It will feel like I'm fully alive.” “I would feel more freedom and wholeness.” “I would experience life fully.” “I would be more in my body.”

Desire is that core for us. It is that engine that propels you to experience the world, to go for what you want, to live the life you really want to live, to connect to yourself, to lovers, to nature, to your creativity, to the divine. It is the pull to grow and have more of your life. It's that burning passion in you to do something special in your life, to be of service, to create something important. It's the invitation to expand.