Historically, women’s “lust” has been viewed as shameful, dangerous, and sinful. Men’s desire, on the other hand, has typically been valued and encouraged. For centuries, these gender-distinct expectations regarding sexual desire have shaped how women’s issues are represented in legislation, politics, education, business, culture, medicine, and other spheres of interest and influence. They’ve also created long-standing psychological blocks that have continued into the 21st century. Recognizing these blocks can lead to greater erotic agency—and more sexual desire. Here are three common blocks to women’s sexual desire and how to increase the female sex drive. There are a number of problems that arise when you focus too much on your own “desirability.” First, it tends to keep you in your head—which is to say, disembodied. Living in your head more than you need to is like spending all your time playing a virtual reality video game and thinking it’s real life. Thoughts can help you navigate issues and problems, but they can also become the problem unless they’re balanced with other forms of knowing. Embodied intuition is another form of knowing. It draws on a felt sense of your entire self—mood, sensations, energy—in a feedback loop with your surroundings. This “sense” of things is very different from the straight-up mental chatter, judgments, and opinions that constitute “thinking.” It even incorporates the subtle (and not-so-subtle) signals from your nervous system. It’s as if your body has multiple “feelers” that are always picking up on what’s going on both within you and around you. When you learn to tune into your embodied intuition, you can draw on important “data” related to what you want in the here and now. And this, the “here right now”—your lived, embodied experience—is the birthplace of sexual desire. Shifting your preoccupation away from others’ perception of you to your own experience of life as it’s unfolding through your senses (what you see, feel, smell, hear, intuit, etc.) is a way into your erotic life force. With practice and over time, feeling what you feel, sensing what you sense, and allowing yourself to be as you are—without changing yourself to fit real or imagined externally dictated expectations of desirability—can break the grip of this common block. Saddling your partner with a disproportionate amount of responsibility for your arousal can limit them and disempower you. It leaves you in a position where you’re dependent on another person for your own sexual engagement. I’m not saying people shouldn’t strive to get to know their partner’s sexuality and sexual preferences or that there’s no such thing as skilled lovemaking. I am saying that expecting your partner to arouse you can set up an all-or-nothing dynamic that blocks your own sexual desire. This expectation has as its subtext, “Either you know how to arouse me, or you don’t. If you don’t, we’re not a good match.” This can lead you down the path of unrealistic hopes and erotic rescue fantasies. Ultimately, you will grow from facing your sexual inhibitions and shame, from getting to know your own body and sexual preferences, and from learning how to communicate more directly and openly about sex with your real-life, imperfect partner. Conductors need to know each instrument well, to immerse themselves in music and sounds. When it comes to your arousal, it helps when you do your own version of this—immersing yourself in all the different parts of you that play into a sexual experience. Get to know the different “sections” of your orchestra: emotional, physical, sensory, spiritual, psychological, interpersonal, imaginal. Rather than expecting the music to happen (or fearing it won’t), try participating more in the creation of the music. Be willing to look at what makes it hard to get to know any particular section of your orchestra with your partner. Many of us think we’re “smart” enough or progressive enough to not buy into this definition, yet often this message still sits just below the surface, creating a serious block to experiencing sexual desire. Sometimes, this block comes in the form of a compliment, such as “You’re such a wonderful listener!” or “You have a quiet strength.” Conversely, words like nasty or bossy in reference to a strong, ambitious, outspoken woman are examples of this block in insult form. This block inhibits women sexually because it turns them against parts of themselves. It puts a lid on women’s assertiveness. Anger, for example, might seem “unfeminine” if this block is active for you, leading you to disconnect from your natural, necessary, and vital feelings of anger in different situations, to the point where you’re not even aware you’re angry. When this block prevents women from consciously connecting with their anger, it’s harder to use the important data anger provides to express needs or set boundaries. Anytime a woman buries her authenticity—whether she’s doing it to stay connected to her partner or her peers—there’s a sexual cost. When you disconnect from, dismiss, judge, or avoid parts of yourself, it syphons off your life force energy (which is also your erotic energy) and channels it into tension or constriction. Energy you might naturally use to be your true self—feeling, expressing, and taking action that’s in synch with your desires—gets repurposed to hide, inhibit, or numb your truth—your experience in the present moment. This block can lead a woman to judge or suppress her ambition, anger, joy, or other aspects of her passionate nature, dampening her access to vitality, authenticity, and sexual desire.
