The Not So Sexy Valentine’s Day

What’s an OT to do when Valentine’s Day is approaching, the clinic is covered in hearts and cupids, you're wearing red or pink on every portion of your body, yet your client shows up and says, “I’m dreading Valentine’s Day.”

You dig a little deeper.  

They say, “I’m dreading Valentine’s Day, because I know my partner will want to have sex with me and I have no desire for it.”

Ok, ok, ok, before you freeze up eyes wide open, here’s what you talk about:

Validate them: The hardest part about low desire when “sex is the last thing on your mind” is when it’s met with your partner’s higher desire – among all the things you’re juggling this can feel like a recipe for inadequacy, insecurity, resentment, guilt.

Knowledge is pleasure!  When your clients can understand the changes that happen in their body and how this impacts sexual health, they can also enlighten your partner better about what their experiencing.  

Next, know you can say no.  Reinforce to your client this exact message, have them repeat after you, “I cannot say yes to sex, if I cannot say no to sex.” Far too often I hear people tell me they go through with having sex to please their partners and then they tell me they don’t enjoy the sex they’re having or they feel check out during it.  I completely understand how people would not want to have sex in the future.  The first step in getting the sex that fills your clients up and gets them excited is saying no.  Saying no to the sex they don’t want or saying no to all of it.  

This might sound completely counter intuitive to the overall goal of increasing sexual desire.  When people say no to sex, they reinforce for themselves that sex is an optional activity not obligatory or another chore to check off the list.  Ok, so now that they’re reinforcing sex as a choice, they can start to consider what they want!    

Thinking about, asking for, and saying yes to what they want.   I always recommend exercising wants as integral to pleasure practices and routines.  When we can consider our wants, it reinforces to us that pleasure matters in our lives and deserves equal footing next to the obligations, surviving, and caregiving new parents often find themselves in. Wants can be completely non-sexual.  It’s normal to desire a clean house, 5 minutes of alone time, or a hot shower in order for your client to transition into a sexy headspace.  Or maybe they don’t want to have sex, but they want to cuddle or give/receive massages – tell them to ask for just exactly that.  Practice scripting this out with your clients, for example have them say, 

“I really like when you kiss my neck and earlobe before you go down on me, it helps me get in the mood.  But please don’t touch my boobs during sex, it snaps me right out of it.  Instead put your hands on my shoulders and arms – I love this.”    

Happy Valentine's Day, Darlings!