Women often tell me, “I’m married to a great, understanding guy who wants to please me in the bedroom, but I don’t know what I want.”
I have three reasons why this happens to so many women.
#1: You’ve never had the opportunity to learn what you really want.
Culture reminds us time and again that men are responsible for our sexual pleasure and know our bodies better than we do. It’s conditioned Women to think that asking for what they want in the bedroom is almost an unacceptable question. It could be that, in your relationship, the focus has largely been on your husband and his pleasure. You’ve never had the opportunity to ask, “What do I want?” from a real, authentic place.
#2: You think the things you do like in the bedroom aren’t enough.
Women feel pressure to run everything they like through a litmus test of how sexually exciting it is. There is pressure to fit our sexual encounters into a narrowly-defined box of acceptable sexual acts, which a lot of women just don’t enjoy.
You have permission to widen the box!
Make a list of things that you really do enjoy. Your list can include anything to do with your body, your senses, and your husband’s body. For example, I like it when someone squeezes me tightly. I like to have a still hand on my lower back. To breathe deeply. And I love it when my husband says reassuring words or words of appreciation.
I also love looking at my husband’s calf muscles, or to rub my husband’s hair when it’s just been cut. I like cheek kisses, forehead kisses, and kisses on my shoulder, but not necessarily mouth kisses. There’s so much available to you, but if you feel like it has to meet a certain expectation or pass a certain test, then you’re going to end up saying “I don’t know what I want.”You do know what you want! You just don’t think that it’s sexual enough or acceptable enough.
# 3: You think others’ needs in the bedroom matter more than your own.
Women receive so many cultural messages that mess with our heads. We’re supposed to be quiet and ladylike and say things like, “oh no, you go first” or “I’m fine. I don’t want anything.”Even the word pleasure has been defiled in our culture because it’s connected to female sexual pleasure. These cultural messages tell us that our need to feel good is not as important as our partner’s needs. Therefore, we should put all of our resources and energy into helping the men that we’re with feel good. We should even have orgasms so that our partner feels better about being with us!
For so many years, I thought what I really wanted in the bedroom was unacceptable. I thought I was asexual, numb, and couldn’t experience sexual pleasure. Turns out, I am excellent at finding pleasure- just not when it’s forbidden to have the kind of pleasure that actually gives me pleasure. I encourage you to make a list of the things that you actually enjoy, no matter how big or small they are. My list includes things like:
- I like when my husband puts his hands on me in a very casual way. I don’t like him gripping my legs or my body. I don’t like his fingers running over me. I love the warmth and stillness of his hand. That makes me feel really safe and comfortable.
- I like to hug my husband, but he’s six feet I’m 5’3″. Therefore, I want him down low on my level.
- I don’t really like mouth kissing, but when I do I initiate. I want his mouth to be relaxed and I like to run my mouth and lips over his mouth and lips.
My challenge for you.
If you are saying, “I don’t know what I want?”, I challenge you to ask yourself…is it really that you don’t know what you want in the bedroom, or are these barriers coming up, and underneath you do know what you want.
What I’ve found through supporting over a thousand women in Wanting It More is that it’s usually the latter. Women know what they want. They’re just worried and feeling the pressure that what they want is unacceptable in the sexual realm.