Book Cheat: Better Sex Through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire
Hello and welcome to another Book Cheater Blog!
I’ll read those clinical books, and you can pretend you did. It’ll be our little secret!
This month we’re investigating a book I have been itching to read for months, Better Sex Through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire by Lori A. Brotto, PhD.
Who is Dr. Brotto?
Dr. Lori A. Brotto is a registered psychologist in British Columbia. Dr. Brotto is currently the director of the University of British Columbia’s Sexual Health Laboratory and is the Executive Director of the Women’s Health Research Institute. I also looked over her publications and research, and that list is extensive. Needless to say, I trust her guidance on women’s health and her thoughts on desire.
And now, let’s jump into the first chapter of Better Sex Through Mindfulness.
Chapter 1: Sex in a Multitasking World
I won’t pretend or beat around the bush. This book is research based. It may be hard for your average Joanna to get past the statistics and research discussed in this chapter. However, the research discussed is so monumental and important to know moving forward. Why? It normalizes our experience as women.
In DBT, we talk about myths that get in the way of us being skillful. Dr. Brotto debunks the myths that surround sexual desire and women. One of which is that when women are young, our sexual desire is at peak levels, and as we age, we will lose sexual desire because that’s just what happens.
But the research points otherwise.
In a study published in 1999, three thousand men and women participated in an interview with a researcher face to face. Among women, says Brotto, the most common sexual complaint was lack of sexual interest, which was endorsed by 32% of the youngest age group,” (Brotto, 15). Unbelievably, this age group was ages 18 to 29! Even more interesting, the inability to reach orgasm was most commonly found in younger women opposed to older women. Take that ageism!
Brotto raises the issue of culture and sexual difficulties with women. Brotto goes on to discuss that even if women are having difficulty enjoying sex, they are more likely to turn to Dr. Google, rather than seeking help from a sex therapist. Women, who sometimes feel embarrassment even talking with friends about sexual desire, are hindered by shame when it comes to reaching out for help.
Low Desire
Women are not the only ones who are facing low desire, “how often people were having sex decrease from 6.3 episodes per month in 2001 to 4.8 episodes per month in 2012,” (Brotto, 20). One possibility of this decline presented, was depression. Brotto states that depression is a major risk factor for low desire.
Beliefs Surrounding Sex
Brotto suggests that our beliefs around sex are important to consider when discussing lack of sexual desire. Some women believe sex is recreational, fun and a way to connect with a partner. Some women believe sex is for reproduction purposes, and that sex as a leisure activity is out of the question. This can play a large predictor, says Brotto, in whether you develop a sensual problem in your lifetime. Again, this could come back to culture.
From whom did we receive sex education? Our parents, our gym teacher, our best friend, or a trained professional?
Stress and Sex
It is really no surprise that humans grow more stressful as time marches on. Work, inflation, politics, children, you name it, it is a stressor.
To cope with the massive amounts of stress that piles on, we engage in multitasking. Though we may find multitasking effective, neuroscientists (and DBT clinicians) argue that we are not multitasking but simply shifting between tasks rapidly. When we do this, we carry a “cognitive load” that can slow down our brain’s processing ability.
When we are stressed, how do we become “unstressed?” As a DBT clinician, I would say there is a need for coping skills when it comes to stress. In a survey, the participants’ answered revealed that most Americans are reaching toward sedentary ways to relieve stress, like listening to music or sleeping (Brotto, 32). When we are stressed, we enter a “fight or flight” response.
As you may see, our bodies are telling us to GET UP and most of us are only sitting down.
Think about how, when you are stressed, your need to multitask goes up. If we are so engaged with multitasking all the time, we spend extraordinarily little time in the present moment. When we are constantly distracted, it makes sense that our brains may not pick up sexual cues.
Chapter 2: Seeking Sexual Ecstasy – from the Couch to the Brain Drug
This chapter’s clinical explanation provides a history of sex therapy. Starting with the Father of Psychology himself, Sigmond Freud.
According to Freud, a woman’s inability to have vaginal orgasms means she was not able to develop past the third stage of psychosexual development. He also believed that immature women could only achieve orgasms. Little did Freud know he was contributing to a lifetime of further research by sex researchers in the future.
Masters and Johnson
William Masters and Virginia Johnson helped the evolution of sex therapy in the mid 1900’s. Masters and Johnson coined the term, “spectatoring,” which is where a person is preoccupied with themselves during sex, judges themselves and their partners performance, instead of participating and immersing themselves in the sexual encounter. Think about the times you have thought, “I probably have two chins at this angle,” during a sexual encounter, and you will see what I mean. To combat spectatoring, Masters and Johnson suggested touch to bring clients back to the moment.
Sensate focus is a series of touching exercises in which partners touch one another without the goal of sex. It’s like exploring, touching, and noticing your partners body with curiosity and without judgement. Masters and Johnson found that both partners were able to gain pleasure using sensate focused touching.
The Miracle of Medicine (for men)
Though Masters and Johnson made headway in the sex therapy realm, big pharma could not keep it’s hands off an untapped market. 1990’s birthed Viagra and a wave of sexual research. Viagra flew off the shelves (Brotto, 46), but women were still left without medical interventions. Most of the medical interventions for female like Viagra was a loss, and eventually became unfunded.
Stress
Brotto suggests that if we can harness our stress, we can begin to improve our sexual desire.
Stress reduction can look like deep breathing and paired muscle relaxation (two DBT skills!). These exercises elicit the relaxation response. Pairing these reduction techniques with cognitive challenging can be helpful in stress reduction. Challenging your beliefs by checking the facts and reframing can help us produce a thought that is a more accurate reflection of reality (Brotto, 57). These techniques have proven successful in improving sexual desire.
Brotto finally introduces Mindfulness at the end of this chapter. What if we could accept the present moment as it is, and fully accept life as it comes and goes, could mindfulness really help with sexual desire?