5 Ways to Improve your Sex Life - regardless of whether you are (or even want to be) with partners 

by Jamie Zane Brazell, Sex Therapist & practice owner

Step One: Sex Re-education: 

Consider yourself a student of sex education. There’s so much to learn and explore - regardless of how old you are, what your interests are, what your gender or sexuality identifies are. 

Know that the number of partners you have had (or hadn’t) and the years of experience you’ve had (or haven’t) do not equate to how good you are at sex. 

Most of us have had to re-learn a lot of things because we were either taught by a reluctant gym teacher who was showing us slides of the STDs, abstinence only garbage, or nothing at all. In rare circumstances, I find someone who was raised in this culture who had sex positive parenting and if that’s you - AMAZING - but I’m sure there’s still more for you to explore. 

Check out one of my favorite publishing companies: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Go to a local bookstore. 

Check out Vavavooom’s offerings. 

Visit our resources page.

Step Two: Assess for unwanted pain or discomfort and take steps to recover from this. 

Are you experiencing any sort of barriers to enjoying sex (with yourself or with a partner) that are induced by pain, discomfort, or is your body just not cooperating? 

Did you know that most doctors do not receive sex education - even gynecologists and urologists - and it can be a gamble whether or not your provider is even comfortable talking about sex with you? 

Did you know that Asheville has one of the most unique sexual medicine practices in the whole country called the Fosnight Center for Sexual Health? 

And that pelvic PT is an incredibly useful avenue to explore when needing to address all sorts of painful sex concerns? 

If you are experiencing unwanted pain, please know that sex should not be painful and it’s not something to ignore or push through. 

This is true whether you are a person experiencing vulva pain or someone who is struggling with bottoming and struggling with pain, tears, and tissue scarring. You can end up doing a lot more damage if you power through. Do not normalize unwanted pain during sex. Your brain will send signals to your body to create more nerve endings and your pelvic floor will start guarding without you consciously realizing that you are doing this. 

Step Three: Address SHAME.

It impacts all of us in some way, shape, or form. The Queen of shame research, Brené Brown says, “Shame cannot survive empathy.” So empathy is your antidote for shame. How do you find empathy for your experience? 

Brené has also been known to say that finding empathy requires the bravery of vulnerability, but first - people need to earn the right to hear your vulnerable stories. 

I get that sometimes there isn’t a friend to talk to about this sort of thing. If that’s the case for you, please know that you’re not weird for that - as we are living through an age of severe social isolation. Technology brings us together in superficial ways, mostly, but drives us apart and keeps us isolated far more often than not. 

Start with a therapist. Whether that’s a therapist in our practice or not, make sure they are a person who has a sex-positive attitude. Make sure that you can talk openly about anything without fearing their scrutiny. 

Remember that most people in our culture are facing shame - about our bodies, our identities, our preferences, who we love, and most of it is completely unnecessary. Sure, sometimes shame is an appropriate response to a moral injury, but oftentimes we are holding someone else’s shame for them - especially if we have survived or endured an unwanted sexual experience. 

Step Four: Build an extremely satisfying relationship with your own body that includes pleasure. 

Some of the best sex that we can have is with ourselves. And the definition of sex is expansive - especially when you are focusing on what makes you feel good. Some people will say that they do not like sex and that’s fine. Nobody should ever be forced to have sex they don’t want to have. And we should all be having sex that is worth having. But if you wanted to read this document, there’s a chance that you at least want to want it and therefore why not start with your own body? 

Take matters into your own hands. Or toys. Figure out what your erotic blueprint is and play with that. You can take the quiz here.

Step Five: Learn and implement communication skills that can enhance your ability to ask for what you want with a potential or current partner. 

Communication is important and looks different before, during, and after sex. 

Before:

This is the opportunity to discuss likes/dislikes, game out the adventure, name anything that’s off limits. 

During:

Our brains don’t work in the same way when we are in a state of arousal. We tend to have more limited access to language and therefore it helps to simplify. These are some helpful phrases:

“Right there.”

“A little softer/harder/more over here (and direct where you want the person to go).”

“Yes - that feels so good.”

“Pause - position change please.” 

After:

The aftercare communication is very important. It’s great to reflect and highlight what went well - focusing on the parts that you enjoyed the most is a sweet way to positively reinforce the behaviors that were most appealing. 

It’s also ok to share what didn’t work so well and sometimes it takes a while to get there in a relationship because of rejection sensitivity, lack of ego strength to handle feedback, and general lack of skills for how to say the hard things. These are also important communication skills to develop. 

Esther Perel - author of “Mating in Captivity” and the podcast, “Where Should We Begin” talks about how it can be helpful to frame conversations from a place of longing rather than criticism. Think about coming from that perspective the next time you have a sensitive conversation with your partner. 

It’s also helpful to get into the mindset of curiosity when it comes to communication - whether that be if you are communicating with a partner or we are focusing more on your internal communication that you have with yourself. If you approach yourself and your sexual interests from a place of curiosity rather than judgment, you are well on your way to improving your sex life.