Exploring Your Perspective Of Pleasure

How do you feel about pleasure?

Exploring Your Perspective of Pleasure

Did you grow up with education around how your body experiences pleasure? The combination of cultural messaging, lack of education and silence all factor into shaping our perception of sexual desire, as well as our ability to allow ourselves physical pleasure.

There is no shame in desiring, enjoying and experiencing pleasure with sex. 

More than likely, you don’t often see a woman depicted in a movie who enjoys and pursues sex for the pleasure of it. Even more unusual is a woman portrayed who desires sex because she wants to be pleased, instead of being desperate to please.

The exercise of understanding the messaging you have taken in around pleasure is important for your overall sexual health and ability to pursue pleasure. Investigate what your internal voice says and what you have come to believe about pleasure. Take some time with the statements below and ask yourself questions such as:

“Do I believe this?” or “Do I tell myself this?” 

• Sex is a performance for someone else.

• My partner’s pleasure and satisfaction are what matters most.

• Sex is not for my pleasure

• My sexual pleasure is wrong, not allowed or doesn’t matter.

• I am a vehicle for pleasure; I can’t receive it.

• My pleasure is a bonus, not a focus of intimacy.

• My partner is responsible for my pleasure.

After working through these questions, decide for yourself what holds true and what doesn’t. You have permission to throw out ideas you no longer believe and grab onto new ones.

You can give yourself - permission for pleasure!

Learn more on this topic:
Are you having sex worth wanting?
Permission for Pleasure Podcast
My letter to young women
10 ways to be sexual without masturbating

Listen: 'How to Navigate Sex During Pregnancy' on the Mamas in Training Podcast

I was delighted to join Jessica Lorion on the Mamas in Training Podcast for a two-part series on all things Sex, Pregnancy and Postpartum.

This rich conversation goes far beyond whether sex during pregnancy is safe. I encourage listeners to rethink desire, intimacy, and sexual activity in new and different ways.

One frequently asked question I address in this episode:

What if I don’t desire sex or my partner doesn’t desire sex during pregnancy?

Here’s a clip from the show notes: “We often think about sex in a very narrow way and Cindy shows us how to shift our mindset and communicate with our partners. Oftentimes during pregnancy and postpartum, our bodies can feel like a machine, or it can begin to feel foreign to us, so how do we check back in and find that sexual desire again? Your relationship doesn’t have to suffer during this time and there are ways to navigate this tricky subject that Cindy gives us in this episode.”

This was one of my favorite podcast interviews to date. Give it a listen via the links below.