How to unstick a stuck sex life (Pt 3 of 3)
Part three of three articles to move you from frustration to flow
Andrea Balboni and Julia Kukard
This article is for solos. Single people or those somewhere in between here and committed relationship(s), who feel stuck when it comes to sex.
In the first article we gave you an overview of the Cycle of Sexual Stuckness and introduced you to the benefits of having a stuck sex life. The second article explored how the cycle works in the context of one couple’s.
Some people make sense of solitary sexual activity by following certain religious norms. If this works for you, that is fine by us. For those of you who want to do things differently and have a rich solo sex life, then this is for you.
Before we explore Adela’s story below, it is useful to note that masturbation has many health benefits including an improved capacity to manage stress, better sleep and mood. It can also enhance sexual desire and pleasure in a way that benefits your sex life – even when you are no longer solo and with a partner, should you make that choice.
When you know and understand your body intimately, especially how pleasure shows up for you throughout the different stages of your life, you experience a greater sense of self-knowing from the inside out. Unshakable confidence in sex that comes in part from that.
It is also useful to highlight that our bodies change dramatically over time. Our ability to stay connected with these shifts allow us to stay connected to our pleasure. When we develop the confidence and the vocabulary to speak about the changes that we’re experiencing and share our experience with our partners, they can more easily and readily support our ever-changing sexuality leading to greater sexual fulfilment for us — and them.
Common ways in which solo sexual stuckness shows up.
We can get stuck in our solo sex life when masturbation becomes addictive and interrupts our relationships, school or work activities.
It’s opposite is also true as we explore below. We can get stuck if we are unable to experience or reach the level of pleasure that we want and solo sex becomes frustrating or doesn’t happen at all.
Transactional sex addiction, where we have sex solely with partners that we feel no emotional connection to, can be another form of solo sexual stuckness.
All of the above are problematic when the behavior or experience we’re having interrupts our relationships, school or work activities in ways that disempower and disconnect us.
Practical, applicable solutions for this are beyond the scope of these three articles, however if you find that you desire an experience different from the one you are having, we encourage you to seek professional help and / or the support of a community or individuals that can help you to move beyond your stuckness.
A reminder of the Cycle of Stuckness
The story of Adela
STAGE ONE: We find ourselves in a situation where we are triggered, perhaps a hurt or unhealed wound from the past rises up in the present moment.
- Adela is 45 and has never had a relationship that’s lasted longer than a few months. She wants to share her life with someone, but she grew up watching her mother abused by her father and told herself that she’d never have a relationship like that. As she turns 45, she begins to realize that she gets to determine the kind of life she wants to have.
- For a long time she thought she’d wait until she got married to have sex, but when it was becoming clear that that wasn’t going to happen any time soon, she decided to go for it with a guy she really cared for. At least she could have the love part of the equation even if marriage seemed a distant dream.
- After that relationship ended well over a decade ago, Adela decided to take a break from continual ineffective attempts at dating. And from sex. If she can’t have sex with someone she cares for and trusts, she isn’t going to have it at all.
- And that means self-pleasure too. Adela had never really considered masturbation as ‘having sex’ anyway. It simply wasn’t ‘on her radar’ as an option. She’d always seen sex through the more traditional lens of two people coming together and making love and felt like masturbation was a cheap replacement for that.
- She closes down her own erotic desire and represses any overtly sexual feelings or behaviors, preferring to channel her creative energy into work and her active social life.
STAGE TWO: The wounding dominates our inner and outer worlds. We disconnect from our full selves, others, and sex loses meaning.
- In truth, Adela feels lost. She has a very demanding job and a full social life, but both were feeling less fulfilling over time. After so many years and so many more failed attempts, dating feels like a complete waste of time. No one is good enough or interesting enough or worth the investment. Sex she thinks, is something she’ll live without and be just fine.
STAGE THREE: We feel helpless, disconnected, and frustrated.
- Adela is aware of her pattern of rejecting men before they even get a chance to be near her. She also begins to think that maybe she’s just not that attractive to men.
- Adela’s few half-hearted explorations of her own body leave her feeling like she’s trying to make up for what is lacking in her life — someone to love her. Masturbation as she sees it, is a way that desperate people plug the gap. It only made her feel more sad and lonely. So she stops completely.
- And so she once again re-focuses her energy on work, but this time a bit more half-heartedly. And every now and then she dates, but feels more and more cynical and tired just thinking about it.
- She resigns herself to the thought that her life isn’t so bad as it is. But then feels deep pangs of longing for companionship and intimacy that go far beyond friendship. She knows deep down she wants more.
STAGE FOUR: Healing begins as we attend to the hurt from the past, present and even future. This means moving through shame and grief.
- Adela finally resigns herself to the fact that she’s going to have to do something dramatically different if she wants things to change. But what? She begins to ask herself some difficult but important questions — like whether she’s keeping herself so busy at work because of her fears about relationships.
- She wonders whether she’s holding back from pleasure, experiencing it, embodying it and her sexuality because of this fear. After all, if she allowed herself more freedom to express her sensuality, that might draw in the ‘wrong person’. Abstinence and control were keeping her safe from that. But they were also keeping her from opening up to love.
- Adela becomes more curious around her sexuality and begins to explore pleasure through masturbation. This time she does so with the support of a coach who gives her practices and introduces her to sex positive communities where women can talk openly about their experiences.
STAGE FIVE: We reconnect to ourselves, others, and find new meaning in sex.
- Slowly over time, Adela learns to trust her body’s response to her own touch. She learns what feels good and what she doesn’t like through self-exploration. It’s at times a highly emotional process where she finds herself releasing waves of grief and shame that she didn’t know she was holding. She experiences this even as she grows her capacity for pleasure and orgasm. There is space now at last for bliss. And the deep self-knowing that comes from her self-pleasure practice fills Adela with a sense of power and meaning.
- Adela opens up to a close friend about how frustrated she still feels about being single. Her friend shares that she too struggled with balancing a highly demanding job and finding time to work on relationships and intimacy. Adela finally says yes to a date with a man that her friend has been trying to set her up with forever. They hit it off and Adela begins a new relationship.
- Adela and her new man have sex. It is difficult for Adela to have an orgasm with another person because she is only used to doing it solo. It’s a bit awkward at first, but Adela knows her body so well by this point and is so confident in her own skin that she’s able to communicate to her partner what she likes. He gives her what she wants more of and over time their erotic life blossoms.
STAGE SIX: Our sex life peaks, and then plateaus, we start to get stuck in a rut and a new wound is triggered.
- Adela’s new relationship grows slowly over time. She finally feels like someone’s got her back. She decides to make a career change into more meaningful work. And experiences a whole new set of challenges.
- Adela puts all her energy into her new work. She is tired at night and this affects her sexlife with her new partner. He is worried that she is losing interest in sex. And so the cycle starts all over again.
It is highly beneficial to your body, heart, mind and we believe, soul, to cultivate a healthy relationship to pleasure and your unique expression of it through your sexuality.
When you get stuck in sex, we encourage you to notice that this is an opportunity to get to know yourself, your body, your being in rich, new and more nuanced ways.
It also offers a chance to connect with your partner if you have one(s), on different and oftentimes deeper levels. We feel vulnerable when speaking about and exploring our sexual landscapes. And it is this vulnerability that, when accessed in ways that feel safe and secure, can broaden connection within a relationship. Intimate ones especially so.
And so we invite you to embrace stuckness in sex for gifts and opportunities that it promises when you have the courage to lean in.
And if you feel curious and willing, but feel that you’d benefit from some support, know that there are an ever-growing number of professional coaches and therapists specifically trained to help you move out of stuckness and into the ease and beauty of flow. There are also support groups, sex-positive communities, and safe spaces to explore it in the company of like-hearted others. Use your discernment and discretion when engaging in any of these places and spaces and with any individuals. Trust what feels right and leave the rest.
May your journey through stuckness bring you to a place of joyful, blissful pleasure however you experience it.
Andrea is a certified Sex, Love and Relationships Coach at Lush Coaching. Her mission is to help people experience as much pleasure and fulfillment 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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