Do you like to dance? Do you enjoy the adrenaline that builds as you step out onto the floor? The weightlessness that is born from shedding the noise of the day, releasing tension as you catch-up with the rhythm, eventually surrendering to the music, transported by the freedom that comes with pure, unbound movement, emotion, and energy? Some of us have had, or even do have, that kind of relationship with dancing. When that happens, it’s pure magic. But how often is that your experience? How easy or challenging is it step out on that dance floor, in the presence of others, maybe even in the presence of a particular other, and just dance because maybe we are concerned about how our body looks to those around us as it moves, how our steps may or may not be out-of-synch, how challenging it is to let go of control, how safe or unsafe we may feel in our own skin or surroundings, how to choreograph our movements so that we look like we ____________ (are confident, are “good” at dancing, are having fun, can blend in, are kind of sexy but not too sexy, on and on…). Fairly quickly something as inherently abstract, emotional, and primal as dancing can go from transcendent and liberating to uncomfortable and restrained with the simple introduction of our own complex, never-resting, self-aware, self-conscious brain and it’s what if’s. Sex is the same.

           As a sex therapist, clients present in my office with a wide variety of sexual struggles, yet often very narrow ideas about what to expect from therapy. Frequently, the impression is that I will hand them a few new positions to reignite the spark, strategies for initiating to break past the awkwardness, or that I will simply “fix their partner” (aka, make their partner what they would like them to be in order to enjoy the kind of sex they imagine wanting) without digging into their lives, who they are, and how they see themselves outside of the bedroom in any meaningful way. These ideas, and others like them, reflect the ways we treat sex in our society: as an aspect of human life that is distinctly separate, compartmentalized, or walled-off from the other realms of who we are and how we navigate life and relationships. In this separate arena, sex gets reduced down into a series of behaviors that we move through in ways that we judge as skillful or not. It becomes something to fail or succeed at, largely dependent upon our technique, amount of experience, and ability to magically intuit how to pleasure others. Within this framework, sexuality and desire impossibly exist independent of mood, the goings-on in the life of the person and their relationship(s), the past, their day, sense of self-esteem, and so on. “Shoulds,” expectations, performance, and control in the face of an experience that asks us to let-go over and over again in the midst of our own vulnerability is contradictory, and confusing, and the perfect breeding ground for anxiety; a feeling completely at odds with sexual arousal and functioning, and therefore a feeling we want to take very seriously.

If sex therapy lived up to it’s reputation by “staying in it’s lane,” and addressing solely what lives on the surface of who we are sexually and how it manifests, we would be neglecting the critical role anxiety plays in our challenges, bypassing the primary barrier to pleasure, sensation, arousal, learning, connection, play, and fun. We would be missing the most vital aspects of the work that lead to meaningful, lasting change and a dynamic and ever-evolving sexual life, nearly “should” free. The kind of sexual life that doesn’t allow itself to get stale and perfunctory with time. The kind of sexual space that is dynamic and therefore adaptable to the ceaseless stream of changes that inevitably happen in the life of the individual or relationship. Without casting a wide net, and addressing the stew of emotion, psychology, and relationships that sexuality and sexual functioning is built from and of, the client with erectile dysfunction will still sit with worry about whether their erections will last or show up at all. The client with performance anxiety will still be confronted with overwhelm and stress as they go to employ that new technique or position. And the client who has experienced sexual pain will still navigate the kind of tension that lives in the body as it braces for another potentially uncomfortable experience with sex, regardless of style.

           Sex is endlessly more complex than we give it credit. WE are endlessly more complex. The struggles that we encounter in the bedroom are made of so much more than meets the eye. Our anxiety, stress, worry, and fear (and therefore aversion, erectile dysfunction, early ejaculation, vaginismus, delayed ejaculation, etc.) are manifestations of our history and relationship to ourselves and others connected in the present by a desire to step into an experience that asks us to risk, let-go, trust and surrender. It also asks that we: share, reveal, play, connect, express, attune, respect and exercise boundaries. It requires us to be vulnerable, even with a stranger. These elements aren’t optional, our physiological response, our arousal and pleasure, depends on a level (albeit never perfect) of comfort in our relationship to them both in and out of the bedroom. Anxiety can be found lurking within and among these elements as aspects of our humanity that we all struggle with to varying degrees, translated and manifest in sex. Addressing anxiety in the body and mind directly correlates to more freedom in the bedroom, it’s that simple.

Who am I?

           As a young person, I studied sex to appear “cool” and “experienced,” masking how frozen and stiff I felt when approaching the actual experience of it with others. I fantasized that friends and potential partners might imagine I was amazing in bed and that I clearly must be with my knowledge and comfort with the topic (keyword being topic). I studied sex because of how uncomfortable it made me, how completely disconnected I felt from my body and sensuality, and how entirely overcome with anxiety I felt trying to navigate it with partners. I did sex to get love, without ever understanding what my wants and desires were, how to speak to them, how to let-go in my body, how to be ok with my very small breasts and lanky physique. I was, and very much still am, the person very reluctantly and self-consciously stepping out onto the dance floor.

As an adult, I continue to study sex, not only because studying and working with sex is in-and-of-itself healing, but because the curiosity and fascination I began this journey with as a kid expands with time. I’m a terribly anxious person with a complex and evolving relationship to my sexuality, and I help people navigate the same. I am in the same boat as my clients, which is inevitable as we all are. I have the privilege of talking about sex all day as a therapist with clients; as a supervisor, mentoring therapists on their path to sex therapy certification; and as an instructor of sex therapy. My familiarity with anxiety has enabled me to see the profound impact it has on our sexuality in every arena (understanding and living our gender expression, sexual orientation, our kinks, relationship structures, etc), and it has revealed itself as the primarycause of the common sexual “dysfunctions” we’ve grown so familiar with (barring any medical or physiological diagnoses). Sex therapy is anxiety therapy.

How To Use This Book

This book is broken down into three main parts:

Part 1 of the book will define anxiety, both in terms of our experience of it as an emotion and quality of thought, and as a physiological process. We will take a look at how it operates, how we succumb to it’s influence, and how and when it’s useful. We will examine the physiology of anxiety and the ways it interrupts our sexual functioning directly, impeding the unfolding of arousal and our arousal processes in ways that we inadvertently reinforce.

In Part 2, we will investigate the question “what is my anxiety trying to teach me?” by looking at common elements of socialization, upbringing, and culture that contribute directly to our experience of ourselves as sexual beings and inform our sexual behavior and experience in ways that are restrictive. By delving into areas including our family of origin; race, religion, gender, sexual orientation; sexual trauma, sex and aging, and the ways in which sexual behavior and preference is pathologized, we come to understand how the ideas and values we’ve carried interfere with what sex asks of us (letting-go, surrender, vulnerability, sharing, revealing, connection, play), and how to relinquish them in favor of an embodied understanding of sex that is of our conscious choosing today.

With the sexual self-knowledge gained from Parts 1 and 2, we jump into practice in Part 3. We will learn through practical, actionable exercises and techniques how to minimize or even completely eliminate the influence of anxiety on our sexual experience and functioning, tapping into the ongoing learning, pleasure, and potential that can be found when we address it’s message. Specific sexual challenges will be addressed, in addition to a general framework for coming into a more intimate, embodied sexuality that allows for significantly greater ease in sexual interaction, both with one’s self and others.

Moving Forward

           What happens when we stay on the dancefloor rather than listening to our anxiety and shuffling off? What happens sexually when we make different choices from greater insight, communicating different messages to the body, enabling an inner freedom that no longer depends on a lengthy list of requirements from our external context (aka: I need to be in this kind of mood, with this kind of stimulation, avoiding these parts of the body, focusing on this particular thing, with this amount of control)? What happens when we get out of our own way? This book is that exploration; a way to help you understand sex, help you understand yourself, in order to get you and your body on the same page, and out from underneath anxiety’s grip. You will be picking up where you left off, or never even really began, in terms of evolving your understanding of yourself as a sexual being, with sexual values, wants and desires that move and shift alongside you, because forging an intimate, accepting relationship with your sexuality is the gift that keeps on giving.

We all deserve a space where we can show up, let go, and connect – in a way that feels true to us now, in this moment, given the day we had, the feelings we’re feeling, and what we’re needing from sex right now. Can we give that to ourselves? Letting-go of the performance, releasing the fear, and surrendering into what is, at it's core, an expansive, wild and boundless love for self and others.

Who are we talking about when we refer to “we” in terms of the origins and ongoing influence of funky ideas and values around sex? Larger systems, colonialism, white supremacy, religious ideology, patriarchy, etc. And ourselves! We have carried forward and embodied harmful and limiting ideas, an inescapable consequence of being a human embedded in context. All of that and more is connected to sex, and all of it surfaces as you read. The book is meant to reveal the questions, you get to determine the answers.

This is not a research paper, and I am not a researcher in a traditional sense (I simply don’t have the brain for it). Nor does this book cover the vast array of cultural, societal, and historical influences on our ongoing sexual development as they interact with anxiety. The information contained in this book is the very condensed result of many years of conversation and learning with and from clients, students, and fellow therapists who have trusted me journey alongside them and to oversee their cases.