stress and sexuality
It's difficult to fully realize just how much stress many of us have endured over the past many months. Stress impacts us in so many ways, including how we experience our sexuality. Maybe you haven't noticed any change at all, but for a lot of people, stress can affect the process of accessing arousal and desire. This is normal and relatable!
Emily Nagoski distills the research around this phenomenon into an accelerator/brake analogy. We each relate to circumstances that lead to arousal and desire (accelerators), and circumstances that make getting to that space of readiness more challenging (brakes). Stress, as you can imagine, is generally a brake.
This basic concept is really powerful because it reminds us that there is nothing wrong with our relationship with our sexuality - or our relationship to others - if we aren't feeling as easily connected to desire and arousal as we were during a less stressful time. Within this framework, there are ways to acknowledge and work with the stressors you may be enduring to create an environment that has more accelerators and fewer brakes.
As a brief exercise, try identifying:
3 personal brakes
3 personal accelerators
To spark the imagination…
Some brakes I've heard include:
time proximity to children and family responsibilities
thoughts of contamination and corresponding anxiety
financial pressure and how that impacts the sense of self
sadness around the climate crisis
fear about the political and cultural landscape
Some accelerators I've heard include:
time and space to separate from family responsibilities
feeling connected to one's body after some kind of physical movement
allowing time for a self-guided fantasy
connecting with trust and the desired power dynamic within a relationship
anxiety reduction as a result of a time-out when possible from cultural stressors
Taking time to think about and plan for the type of relationship we'd like with our sexuality can be a good thing.
Thinking of all of you.