How to unstick a stuck sex life (Pt 1 of 3)
Part one of three articles to move you from frustration to flow
Andrea Balboni and Julia Kukard
We know you have had moments when you have felt stuck in sex; either bored with the sex you’re having or frustrated by not getting enough of the sex you want. We know this because all people get stuck with sex at some point in their lives.
Your sex life is more crowded than you think
Getting stuck in life is difficult enough, but getting stuck in sex is even more challenging. This is because our sex life is a very busy stage where all sorts of actors turn up to influence proceedings.
Firstly, our conscious minds and unconscious inner worlds influence the sex we — and our partners — prefer. Old pleasures and delights or troubles and challenges from the distant past show up in the current context of the bedroom.
It is also the stage upon which the leftovers from our day wander in and out, like things we should have done, or the fact that our partner forgot to buy bread (so now he is not getting a blowjob). And then there are cultural and societal expectations, the influence of religion, and now more than ever before porn which all inform us on how we should look and behave when having sex.
Our sexuality is a very busy stage with contradictory characters playing out on it, so that despite the promise of sex as a space of peace and connection, pleasure and joy, it’s no wonder we get stuck in it from time to time.
The joy and promise of sexual stuckness
We may think that getting stuck sexually is bad and an indication of our own or someone else’s defectiveness. This is absolutely not true. Sexual stuckness is a joyful opening to the possibility of a new experience of sex and sexuality when we’re able to learn and grow from it.
Stuckness in sex is a momentary impasse where we are confronted with our own limiting learned beliefs and experiences from the past so that we can begin to digest it all more fully, and create a more satisfying sex life for our future.
The fact that it can be painful and frustrating is not a signal of the death of our sexuality, but rather the expression of the deeper parts of us demanding better sex because we are designed for it. Healthy sex is our natural human expression. And pleasure is our birthright.
Common ways that sexual stuckness shows up
Some of the most common ways that sexual stuckness shows up are when couples experience the disconnection of mismatched libidos or they struggle to feel mutual satisfaction. Differing sexual preferences demand different expressions of pleasure and many people do not know how to find ways through this. Couples and individuals often confront sex or porn addiction, the inability to experience orgasm or to feel mastery over their body so that they have ejaculatory choice. There are also ways in which we can get stuck in solo sexuality (see article 3 of this series).
If there’s one thing that exacerbates stuckness the most, it is communication breakdown and the inability to express what you’re experiencing — and what you would like instead. This is because emotions that accompany stuckness in sex are most often silencing shame, crushing self-doubt, a paltry sense of self-worth, and a lack of confidence in owning our sexuality however it wants to express.
There are many other elements that can make the stuckness more sticky including the difficulty of moving from a solitary sexuality if you’ve been solo for a long time into a couple context, or when our bodies change as we move through different life stages, and when the old routines that used to bring us pleasure no longer work anymore.
However stuckness shows up, the causes often relate back to some form of difficulty in our past. The good news is that we can move beyond the stuckness into a fluid, healthy, pleasure-filled sexuality whatever that looks like for you. We explore how to do this below.
The Cycle of Sexual Stuckness in six stages
The Cycle of Sexual Stuckness is a cycle of learning and healing, one that we must travel many times in our life. Each iteration of the cycle allows us to digest our pasts and create a future of better and more satisfying sex.
A narrative summary of the cycle is that we find ourselves getting stuck in sexuality when a problem arises. These problems tend to relate to an old wounding such as a difficulty in our childhood, for example in asking for what we want, or getting our needs met. When we face this wounding as it is appearing in our sex lives, our thinking becomes dominated by our thinking at the earlier stage when we first faced this difficult issue. As a result we focus on the wound and disconnect from our fuller selves, our partner, and the meaning of sex becomes diminished. We also start to exhibit old behaviours from our earlier experience and these have no traction in the current context. We are now stuck.
To become more fluid in sex we need to work through the shame and pain of our pasts and the current situation. This enables us to soften and begin to reconnect with ourselves and others more fully. When this happens sex becomes more meaningful. We carry on in this more fluid way, enjoying sex and then our growth plateaus. This is when we re-enter the circle from the beginning again through the appearance of new wound or even another iteration of the old wound.
Below is the Cycle of Sexual Stuckness showing the six stages we go through in moving from stuckness to fluidity.
In our next two articles, we will go through the stages of the cycle in more depth as well as provide you with relatable case studies. We hope you will come along to hear more about how you can move from frustration to flow.
Andrea is a certified Sex, Love and Relationships Coach at Lush Coaching. Her mission is to help people experience as much pleasure and fulfilment in their personal intimate lives as they desire.
Dr Julia is an existential coach and psychotherapist. She is a personal and professional expert on stuckness. Routledge is publishing her book “The Art and Joy of Stuckness for Coaches and their Clients” in December 2024.
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