The Second Circle Series 4: BAD SEX
Episode 3: Why is it so hard to feel good?
One in eight women and one in twenty men say they lack enjoyment during sex.
For all the conflicting messages we get around sex, most of us know that on some level we’re supposed to enjoy it. But there are a lot of things that can stand in our way.
The Second Circle is produced, written, hosted by Franki Cookney | Editor: Lucy Douglas | Audio production: Anouszka Tate
Theme music: Roof - Big Spoon (Instrumental Version) | Incidental music: Tilden Parc - Wanna Know, Moon Craters - A Spinning Earth, Maybe - The Universe is a Bitch | All music courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com
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S04E03: Why is it so hard to feel good?
L 00:00
I actually had a lovely experience the other day in the hairdresser's when, you know, when you go to hairdressers, and they wash your hair for you, and it's just so lovely. And suddenly, I thought, because I'm aware that I need to kind of relax more into my body and to not feel worried about my partner in order to feel relaxed enough to have an orgasm. And that's true with or without a toy. And, I suddenly had this kind of fantasy while I was having my hair washed that like someone were to go down on me now, that would be great. I want there to be a room in the Torture Garden where you just get your hair washed, and then people can come and service you.
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 00:45
Sign me up for the oral sex hair-washing room! I love everything about this fantasy, not least because it really taps into the fact that sex, above all, is about pleasure. It’s supposed to feel nice – that’s why we do it! But so many people struggle to experience pleasure during sex. In fact, one in eight women and one in twenty men say they lack enjoyment during sex.
In an era that has given us vibrating cock rings, CBD lube and air suction technology… why is it so hard to feel good?
[THEME MUSIC]
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 01:17
You’re listening to The Second Circle. This is Series 4: BAD SEX.
I’m Franki Cookney. I’ve spent the last five years writing and reporting on sex and relationships and each time I read a piece on how to make sex better, how to improve, how to spice things up, I get the increasing sense that maybe we’re coming at this from the wrong angle. Instead of papering over the cracks, I say we dig down and have a proper look at the foundations. In this series I’m turning sex advice on its head and exploring what makes sex bad in the first place.
Needless to say the stories you’ll hear and the language people use to describe their sexual experiences can be pretty explicit so listener discretion is advised. All the sex we discuss in this series was consensual but it wasn’t always enjoyable and some accounts may be distressing.
In the first two episodes we looked at how culture shapes attitudes around sex. We examined the notion of “sex positivity” and whether it’s really as fun as it sounds. We talked about our expectations of what sex “should” be and how they might be stopping us having a good time.
In this episode we’re turning our attention to sexual pleasure. As I mentioned at the start, a surprising amount of people lack enjoyment during sex. Or, maybe that’s not so surprising to you. These stats come from the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL). It’s one of the world’s largest scientific studies of sexual health and lifestyles conducted every ten years or so since 1990. We’re due a new one, actually. The fieldwork for NATSAL 4 was supposed to start in 2020 – like everything, it has been delayed by the pandemic – so the figures I’m referring to come from NATSAL 3 which was carried out between 2010 and 2013.
Along with the stats on lack of enjoyment, researchers also found that one in 12 women said they experienced no excitement or arousal during sex and one in six had no orgasm or took a long time to reach orgasm. Perhaps predictably, the numbers were lower for men. Just 3 percent said they experienced no excitement or arousal and just under one in ten said they had no orgasm or took a long time to orgasm.
Now, it’s not clear what exactly people mean when they say “a long time”. There have been various studies suggesting average times to orgasm for people with penises and people with vulvas but I don’t actually know how useful it is to cite those here. The more important point seems to me to be that if you’re feeling like you’re struggling, or worrying about how long it’s taking, that in itself is not a very pleasurable experience.
So we’re going to be digging into all of this and hearing first hand from people who have struggled to experience pleasure during sex. It’s a particularly upsetting situation. For all the conflicting messages we get around sex, most of us know that on some level we’re supposed to enjoy it. But there are a lot of things that can stand in our way.
Fran Bushe is a comedian and the author of the book ‘My Broken Vagina’ which is all about her experiences with painful sex and the struggle to find pleasure. Her one-woman comedy show, Ad Libido, also charts this journey and you’ll hear us reference both during our chat.
Fran’s problems started the very first time she had sex. She and her boyfriend were sixteen and like a lot of people, they followed the script they’d been handed for what constitutes Real Sex. They kissed, they got a bit handsy with each other, some genitals got perfunctorily touched, and then it was time for the Big Moment. The P in the V. Except in Fran’s case the V was not having that. In her book she describes her vagina as feeling like a brick wall, a dead end. And trying to push through that… well, it hurt!
Some of you might be thinking, so far so typical for a first time experience. But six months later, when Fran and her boyfriend still couldn’t make penetration work, she decided to seek help.
Fran Bushe 05:54
I went to the doctor's, which took a lot of courage. I remember really building myself up practising saying the phrase I was going to say to the doctor when I arrived because I was so sure that I'd get there and I would panic and I'd get flustered and suddenly I'd be telling them about a verruca I had instead rather than saying ‘Actually, I'm trying to have sex, and it's not working, and it's painful.’ So I really, really built myself up, and I got into the room with the doctor, and I told them that I was finding sex painful. I don't think at that point, I was talking about enjoying sex at all. I don't think that was even on the horizon for me, I just I just wanted to do the deed. Because I had it in my head as this real, almost like Sword in the Stone type ceremony. And I was really scared that my boyfriend was going to leave me for someone who had a more spacious vagina, which I think I thought was everyone. I was looking around, like, yeah, she's probably got a more spacious vagina, they’ve probably got a more spacious vagina.
I just, I thought the doctor would be able to help. But at 16, I was told to get out there and have more sex. And that would, that was the thing. I just had a very underused vagina.
The doctor had their fingers inside me for an examination at the time when they're just like, it's, it's very springy. Get out there and use it more. which feels like something you say to someone about a bicycle they bought for Christmas and haven't taken out for a spin, not their vagina. And so I always left doctor's appointments, because I went a few more times, in my teenage years, just feeling really unheard and stupid for going and like I'd wasted their time. And how audacious of me, but not in a good way to go in there and ask for sex to work. It wasn't like I was dying. It wasn't like I was constantly in pain. But I had this idea that the thing I was asking for was really unimportant. And actually, I should probably just live with it, just get on with things and live with it. Which was really upsetting.
Every time I would go to the doctors, I would see on their screens that they had written the word. I'm not even sure sometimes how to pronounce this word because we never hear it. But the word is dyspareunia, dyspareunia, which means painful sex, that was all that or just sort of genital pain. That was all that was written on the screen. I never fitted into a neat category. Because I found lots of articles about vaginismus. But they never seem to fit exactly. I found lots of articles about vulva pain, but that never quite fitted. And it was very difficult to untangle because I didn't know if sex was painful because I wasn't aroused enough. Or I wasn't aroused enough because I was worrying that sex was going to be painful. And then that became a bit of a cycle. And then, because sex was painful, and I was worrying about it being painful, I wasn't orgasming. And so that just sort of felt like I was like hurtling down a hill in a cycle with those things. So I found it really difficult to untangle what the problem actually was, but I felt like my head was in one continent, sexually, and my body was just in a completely different continent.
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 09:47
If you haven’t heard of vaginismus, it is the involuntary tensing or contracting of the muscles in the vagina. It’s thought to affect somewhere between 5 and 17 percent of people with vaginas. And if that sounds imprecise… well, it is. Clinicians themselves acknowledge that the stats are far from comprehensive. People are often too ashamed or scared to report vaginismus and seek treatment and even when they do, many get misdiagnosed with other things.
Understanding of what causes vaginismus is… patchy. And like a lot of things around sexuality and sexual function, it’s highly debated by the medical establishment. But among sex therapists and clinical sexologists there is a general consensus that it is a psychosexual condition. It most likely has a psychological origin, rather than a physical one. To be clear, that doesn’t mean the pain isn’t real. It just doesn’t necessarily indicate a physical problem. And as we heard, nothing about Fran’s vagina was actually broken, structurally.
The Vaginismus Network which is an awareness raising platform and support group for people with the condition says: “We strongly believe that every person living with vaginismus has a unique experience.” So there are no copy-and-paste answers here, I’m afraid.
While listening to Fran talk I was really aware of how many “scripts” were being followed, not just in how she and her boyfriend approached sex but in the advice her doctor gave her to “get out and use her vagina more”. I wanted to know more about what her expectations of sex were and how she had been led to believe her body would work and respond.
Fran Bushe 11:27
I thought that as soon as mine and my boyfriend's parts slotted into place, everything would make sense to me. Because at that point, I hadn't explored my body, I hadn't touched myself in any way that would either be considered sensual or sexua, probably. Though, I did remember the other day that my parents had these sofas. And I was really into horse riding. And so I think I spent quite a lot of time pretending to horse ride on the arms of this sofa. Which now in hindsight, I mean, I did really love horses. Horses are nice. But I'm wondering, maybe now in hindsight, if I, if I really liked horse riding, maybe I really liked horse riding.
I think a lot of my memories like that are very much of... what would be the word for it? The word that comes to my head is, is a ‘pounding’ on that. That doesn't sound very romantic or beautiful, but like, like, sort of thrusting my body against something like almost like a pressure a pressure, a pleasure-pressure.
Which, I think I mean, it goes to show you know, all those... I spent a lot of years trying to get pleasure out of penetrative sex. But actually, there are so many other things that I enjoy on a level, you know, we're looking at pleasure as a scale. I think I probably much prefer riding a sofa end to having penetrative sex sometimes. Not that I've tried it as an adult, but maybe maybe I should get back in the saddle.
Franki Cookney 13:22
Yeah, like I kind of love the idea of you going around to a date’s house and be like, babe, do you mind if I just dry hump your sofa for a bit? Before we get going.
Fran Bushe 13:31
Absolutely, they can sit there they can give appreciated noises like a horse riding crowd would give. But I think sometimes we don't listen to our instincts, because there's this narrative about what sex should look like. But if the kind of sex that works for you looks a bit different, there can be a lot of shame or embarrassment around that rather than really listening to that and going ‘actually, that's maybe that's what works for me.’
At 21, I had my first sexual experience with someone else where I thought, ‘Oh, this is maybe what people are talking about, maybe this is somewhere in the right ballpark.’ And that was with a partner who knew about the clitoris, essentially, that that was the difference. And sex was still quite painful. But even then, knowing just a little bit more about anatomy made a huge difference to me, but I think the thing is that I I still had penetrative sex really up on a shelf of greatness, like, top-shelf gold standard, holy grail of sex for me was penetrative sex.
I'm not wired up right, is something I wrote in my teenage diary. I had this idea that I've been given this body and everyone else’s worked in a specific way and mine just wasn't wired up right. And those are really hard labels to shift out of your mind. My brain goes a million miles during sex. So I find it very difficult to be present with the person I'm having sex with.
Franki Cookney 15:21
If you could go back and tell your younger self, what you know now about bodies and how they work and how sex works for you. What would you tell her?
Fran Bushe 15:31
Lubricant would be the first word out of my mouth. Lubricant, lubricant lubricant. I had this idea that if you use lube, it was because you were dried up and your body didn't work and you there was something medically wrong with you. The idea of taking lube on a date was deeply humiliating to me. The thought of bringing it out of my bag of asking to use it. I felt like that was an admission of being broken. The idea that it is an alien thing in the bedroom or something that you will need if your body isn't working is so silly, because it just makes everything better. It means that you can relax. It's pleasurable, it adds pleasure.
For me, using lubricant is like, you know, if you're having a really lovely pudding and then you add custard or a lovely sauce or just something to bring it all together. And it's not a feeling of Oh, this, this brownie is too dry, I need to add this sauce to make it edible. It's actually a really crucial part of your dessert.
I think the other thing, linking in to lubricant, that I would tell my younger self is that sex can be about you. And if you don't want to have sex a certain way, you don't have to have sex a certain way.
I think if the standard kind of sex that I'd been taught about was oral sex, my life, my sex life would be completely different. If the way I, the way I thought about sex hadn't been so much, well, this is something that I give to someone else I'm here to give, my body is almost like a gift, my virginity or something to give away, that I think my sex life would have been completely different.
Franki Cookney 17:29
In your show, and in your book, you describe all of the weird and wacky things you tried to do in order to fix sex as you put it, and it it does get pretty wacky like it gets seriously woo. There's a whole section, listeners, about the time Fran spent in a sex cult, I mean, sex camp. I'm not gonna spoil it for people who haven't seen the show or read the book. But can you kind of summarise what you're sort of eventual realisations about what you needed to do in order to make sex work for you were.
Fran Bushe 18:14
To make sex work for me, I needed to slow the fuck down, I needed to really slow down. I think through anxiety, I was rushing, I was rushing every single part of sex. And I needed to get to know my body, I needed to know that my body working the way it does, is okay. And taking any of the shame around that away. And knowing that actually, it's okay today, if you just want to spoon with someone, it's okay today, if you just want to have a lovely bath on your own and feel really nicely immersed in water and give yourself a massage. That is okay. It doesn't always have to be it doesn't ever have to be the kind of sex that you see in films, or hear about or feel like you should be having.
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 19:14
Fran’s story is a classic example of how the scripts we get handed about sex, the things we feel sex “should” involve and that we “should” enjoy can be a huge barrier to us actually experiencing pleasure. Firstly, because we’re pursuing activities that actually don’t feel good to us. And secondly because if we’re concentrating on adhering to a script, on trying to reach some perceived Holy Grail of sex, we’re not paying attention to what we really want and need. We’re not connecting with ourselves or really with our partners.
So how do we start to disentangle ourselves from these expectations, to loosen up the pressure on ourselves to experience sex a certain way? Make no mistake, these are really big questions. I’ve been grappling with them both personally and professionally for a number of years and one of the people whose work has helped me enormously is Meg-John Barker. Their book Rewriting The Rules is an interrogation of all of the messages we receive around sex and a gentle demonstration that we can, actually, choose our own path, if we want to. More recently they’ve worked on a series of graphic guides which explore subjects like sexuality, gender and queerness. They are absolutely brilliant, highly Instagrammable, and I think I have all of them on my shelf. Honestly, I’m such a fangirl, it’s embarrassing.
So, against a backdrop soundscape of seagulls (because MJ lives by the sea) we had a chat about connection, expectation, and what’s really standing in the way of us having pleasurable sex.
Meg-John Barker 20:48
I'm actually just starting to write a graphic guide on mental health. And I realise pretty much the whole idea that I'm going to be putting across is that a lot of our mental health problems, or just general suffering in our distress struggles, is because of disconnection at all levels.
You know, and this is what kind of spiritual people point out, you know, existential theorists and Buddhists points out, you know, that we're interconnected and interdependent beings, but we act as if we're these separate atomized units. And the human problem is that we disconnect what's actually connected. So of course, we're gonna approach sex in that way.
Franki Cookney 21:29
I think that idea is really scary to a lot of people both going into a sexual experience, and even one in a sort of long term relationship and, and saying, I want to connect with you, because that's, I don't know, it seems quite serious, somehow.
Meg-John Barker 21:46
Serious sex! But it's also but for the connection that happens in the least serious moments, too, right? Like the moment we share a laugh, you know, that's, that's when we connect, right? So it's, I think, fun comes from connectedness often, when we're when the shame is lifted, you know, we're not self-monitoring anymore. We're just in the moment. You know, that's when the fun stuff happens. That's when the sexy stuff happens.
A really good exercise that people might like to do that I've done a few times, it's just to think of a particular kind of sex, or it might even just be kissing or a hug, or, you know, some kind of way that you connect some erotically or, or whatever with another person or romantically. And just think of an instance when it went really well. And then incident when it went really not well, not not abusive, or non-consensual, but just you weren't feeling it. And just think about what were the differences. And this is what generally comes up, it's that sense of I wasn't connected to myself and the other person, I didn't feel present, I was self monitoring, I had all of these ideas about how I should be behaving, you know, all of that was getting in the way. So really, it's about lifting the stuff that gets in the way more than anything, isn't it? But a lot of that stuff is this cultural baggage. So it does involve like changing the whole of culture, which is a fairly big ask.
Franki Cookneyn 22:48
Yep, no probs the podcast is gonna do it.
Meg-John Barker 22:53
Yeah yeah exactly! A lot of us are chipping away. And that's, again, that's the thinking with the books idea, as well as like, Can I bring together all the voices that are saying this stuff and point people in their direction, instead of like another lousy sex advice book that's telling you that you ought to be having this kind of sex and, you know, here's a bunch of positions, you know, that's going to change your life. It's really not, it's really that's never going to solve it, like finding a new position to have it in is never going to be the answer. I'm sorry.
Franki Cookney 23:20
I think that sex educators and and people working adjacent to the field of sex education, often talk about the fact that very few of us get taught about pleasure. And that's why we have bad sex, which does make some sense, right? You know, if we only focus on the mechanics, no idea what feels pleasurable, no tools to begin exploring it. So it stands to reason that we would struggle to achieve it. But I wonder if in attempting to address that, it might be possible that we focus too much on physical pleasure. And orgasm.
Meg-John Barker 23:52
Yeah, again, I think it's this problem of sort of separating sex from everything else, because we're not really teaching kids to tune in to themselves in so many ways. In so many ways, we actually teach kids not to, you know, certainly around emotions and feelings, right?
It's like, we we try and teach people ‘Oh, yeah, tune in to what you find pleasurable.’ Like, how?! You know, you've, you've been taught your whole life, under capitalism to do lots of things to yourself and your body that are really not pleasurable, and so maybe pretend that they are pleasurable? Yes, we've got a really messed up relationship with all this stuff. So it's, it's a much bigger job, right? That we’re really asking people to do and we just sort of seem to kind of put this like a ring around the bedroom and assume that once people are in there, they're going to be able to do all of these things like consent and tuning into their body, that they're literally being taught the opposite of outside of that room. You know, impossible. Just not not gonna happen.
Franki Cookney 25:02
In what ways would it benefit us to sort of make sex a bit less goal-orientated? Because so much of the messaging, as we said, about more orgasms, stronger orgasms, blended orgasms.
Meg-John Barker 25:14
What's a blended orgasm?
Franki Cookney 25:17
I don't even know, MJ! It’s a made-up thing.
Meg-John Barker 22:20
Okay!
Franki Cookney 22:20
It's just another way to feel bad about myself.
Meg-John Barker 22:25
Oh, yeah. I mean, they keep inventing new kind of orgasms to make people feel bad about themselves for sure. Yeah.
Franki Cookney 25:31
But yeah, so much of the messaging we get is about, oh, get more pleasure, have bigger, better orgasms, and it Is it possible that's not actually helping us?
Meg-John Barker 25:41
Yes. And again, the same with everything that the focusing on the goal just doesn't make for, you know, pleasurable experiences. You know, it's, it's a cliche, right? It's the journey, you know? Yeah, trying to get there. And that's, again, this, we have this real kind of, you know, the happily ever after the success story. And it's really written into our culture that's all about, you know, people spend so long trying to get to these various points in life rather than, yeah, enjoying the journey or being present to the encounter. And I think, yeah, again, that better, better sex happens when you're enjoying the moment, you know, and again, is this real basic kind of mindfulness stuff really, like, you know, that just is, everything is more enjoyable, the meal is more enjoyable, you know, when you're present to it, the conversation is, the solo sex is, the sex with other people is. And it's a big ask again. So, again, it's not just really something you could, you know, open the bedroom door, and then suddenly, you're able to do this, you know, you would have to be practising it and the rest of life, and that is quite a countercultural act, you know?
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 26:42
Oof. Heavy stuff. We’re going to take a quick break now but stay with me because when we come back we’re going to hear a bit more from MJ about how we can tap into the pleasure of the journey. Back in a tick.
[AD BREAK]
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 26:54
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Franki Cookney [voiceover] 27:14
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[END OF AD BREAK]
Franki Cookney 28:00
I really love the stuff you've written about how it would be great if we could approach sex by asking each other not so much ‘What do you want to do?’ but ‘How do you want to feel?’ I love that. but can you say a bit more about that? Like, why does that matter? And how can we incorporate that attitude?
Meg-John Barker 28:18
Yeah, this sort of idea of thinking how we want to feel, rather than what are we going to do seems like a really good… a way around, you know, this sort of doing focus, and a much more being. You know, how do we want to be with each other? Yeah, so just a great question to be asking. Rather than be focused on the partnered stuff with other people, and that it's the sex stuff that's important, rather than all of the different things we might want to feel. You know, we might want to feel comforted, we might want to feel nurtured, and actually, a lot of people are in the sex for those things, but they’re kind of hoping to get them by accident, almost. Rather than being able to say on the surface of it, you know, like, actually, I want to feel really looked after, I want to feel really held or I want to feel comforted or soothed or you know these things. And then you can say, Well, you know, do we want that to have sex in the mix, whatever we mean by sex? Or do we want to get that, you know, simply by cuddling and watching TV, or all these other things we could do? And again, how can we give that to ourselves as well as to other people and getting it from other people?
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 29:31
When we ask ourselves how we want to feel during sex, instead of what we want to do, we open up a whole new world of pleasurable possibilities.
In her 1978 essay The Uses of the Erotic, black lesbian feminist writer Audre Lorde wrote: “The erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing.” Any activity that draws on our senses, she argued, has the potential to be an erotically satisfying experience, “whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea.”
Pleasure, then, is so much more than just the physical stimulation of sex. As Fran discovered, it definitely helps to understand how your body works and think outside the box when it comes to which activities might feel good, but a large part of sexual pleasure comes from how present and connected we are in that moment. Or, as Lorde says, “how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing.”
It is REALLY hard to feel acutely and fully when your head is telling you, you shouldn’t be doing the thing at all. In the last episode we heard from writer Alya Mooro about how shame can affect our experiences of sex. In her book, she wrote about her feelings following an experience of dancing with a boy but it immediately struck me that it could apply to sex as well. She wrote: “I wanted to be enjoying it, was enjoying it. But I felt so uncomfortable at the thought that I might be that I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.” She also described a friend who waited until she got married to have sex, like she was told she was supposed to, only to find that when she finally was allowed to have sex… she just couldn’t let go and enjoy herself. I asked Alya to say a bit more about the impact shame can have on pleasure.
Alya Mooro 31:40
I think, you know, you can really get into your own head a lot of the time. And even in terms of having an orgasm, if you're there. And there are... I think there's levels of shame here. There's the shame, which is like, I shouldn't be doing this, I shouldn't be enjoying this, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, which is definitely gonna make it really hard for you to come. And then there's like another kind of shame, which is, I think, Oh my God, why is it taking me so long? And then you start to feel bad? Like, are they tired? Is it okay, that I'm taking this long, and then that’s also, that's not letting go at all? So I think there is so many levels, and it can, it will, I think the most thing is that it will make it really hard for you to have an orgasm. But then even in terms of like being able to be present and to let go and to actually be in the moment. If you have these voices in your head, you know, voices of shame, one way or the other. You're not, you're not being present.
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 32:33
OK, someone’s got to say it. This is now, what? The sixth or seventh time someone’s mentioned being present in this episode. It’s such a zeitgeisty term isn’t it? Being mindful, staying present, is touted as the answer to so many of our problems, from stress and burnout to productivity, creativity, and focus. We’re told we’ll sleep better, eat better, feel more balanced… and here it is cropping up in our sex lives too. Anything this trendy makes me feel instantly sceptical. But one of the things that has come up time and time again when I’ve talked to people about their experiences of bad sex is the idea of “not being able to get out of your head”. So maybe there’s something here.
Doing these interviews made me think of another conversation I had last year. Dr Amani Zarroug is a clinical psychologist and psychosexual and relationship therapist. I’d called her to get her insights on something I was writing about and in the course of that chat she told me about sensate focus. Sensate focus is a kind of psychosexual therapy which was developed by pioneering sexologists Masters and Johnson in the 1960s and 70s. You might have heard of them – they’re the folks who wired people up to sensors and watched them bang, all in the name of science of course. As part of that, they observed people’s responses and came up with this therapeutic approach which, when we place in the context of today, looks an awful lot like… you guessed it, mindfulness. So can it really help us be more present during sex? I asked Dr Zarroug.
Amani Zarroug 34:07
So I teach mindfulness a lot in sex therapy. I asked people Firstly, to take a mindful shower, where I say, you know, you need 20 minutes in the shower. Normally, when we're shower, we're kind of thinking of a million different things. But I asked them to consciously decide, okay, this is my time to do that. Turn off their phone, no distractions, and really feel feel the water feel present. What does it feel like and then also to touch their entire body not in a sexual way, but in a sensual way. And to have a conversation with their body, what are they thinking, what are they feeling, and know that your mind will wander but to just bring it back. And to you know, if you want to continue that you could towel dry yourself in the same way, put on lotion in the same way. And that is the basis. That's the kind of foundation that we will repeat in several exercises when we do like a sensate focus programme.
Franki Cookney 35:21
That sounds so nice. I want to go and after that I want to go have a 20 minute shower this evening. Can you tell me a bit more about sensate focus, and how it works?
Amani Zarroug 35:33
So imagine, there are two people in the room. And you ask them both to plan in their diary to have an hour that they can take, they can do the first step of the programme, and one of them agrees to remind the other one. That's what we call the initiator. And when that person does that, they then go and take their mindful shower. Then when they're done, they tell the other person, okay, I'm done. And that person, the second person, let's call her Mary, goes and takes her mindful shower. And let's say Sarah, the first person comes back and prepares the room. So prepares the room means it's warm enough for them both to be naked, preferably, if one of them's uncomfortable being naked, or they mirror each other. So if one wears underwear, the other one does, too. And so Mary comes back from her mindful shower, she lies down. And Sarah then touches her from head to toe, avoiding genitals initially, and in the kind of slow stroking movement in the same way, she touched herself in her shower. So the whole time both people are thinking, How does this feel for me? What am I thinking, what am I feeling? And so she touches one side of her body, then then she asked turnover, touches another side of her body, and then they switch roles. So they both are experiencing being touched, and doing the touching. And it's usually very relaxing for people and usually just kind of gets them really present in their body. And then that becomes a practice.
People be able to do what they want to but I get asked many times, you know how, how long is sensate focus meant to take? How long do we have? And I'm thinking, well, it's it's up to you, why not instead just be open to figuring that out when, when it happens and enjoying the moment.
Franki Cookney 37:29
I wonder whether you think this sort of taking the time is part of a lot of people's problem. A lot of people I've spoken to, this seems to be a bit of a rush to get to the main event. And I guess what I'm hearing about doing a sensate focus exercise, like this is like, wow, that would that would take quite a while. And even I, I feel like I'm very on board with this. Even I would struggle to just let that happen and not sort of be thinking, Oh, is this taking too long? Like are they getting bored of doing this now? Should we move things along? Is that Is that a real problem that people have?
Amani Zarroug 38:08
It is it is a problem. I mean, let me first explain that with with this exercise, the couple have to agree that they're not having sex afterwards. So they both know that it's not going to lead to sex and so that they can just be present. And it allows them to kind of release the associations they have with having sex. So the anxieties they may have also diminished. But the you know, our language about main event, and sex, you know, usually we think of sex as some kind of penetration, but it doesn't really have to be and these exercises help you kind of use your entire body and figure out well, actually, what other sensations Am I feeling? Is it sexual? Is it enjoyable? What is it? Where does it come from? How do I like it? Do I like fingers? What kind of pressure Do I like? Do I like someone to kiss me in certain areas? Do I like them to use their tongue? You know, what, what is it that that I want? And how can I experience that in many ways and experiments, and be creative and be playful?
Franki Cookney 39:18
I really like what you said about kind of approaching sense of like playfulness and curiosity, you know, as opposed to a sort of idea in your head of what it should be like on what you definitely should enjoy. But I'm interested to know, in your experience, what are some of the main reasons people struggle to experience pleasure during sex?
Amani Zarroug 39:38
In my experience, some of the main things that get in the way of people enjoying sex is something that we call spectatoring. So spectatoring is kind of observing yourself. And what it means is that you're not really present in your body, you're kind of outside of yourself, watching yourself. And anytime that you're not present in your body, it stops you from feeling the sensations. And obviously sex is a sensual experience, as well as psychological experience. So and the other things that I noticed also get in the way of people enjoying sex is anxiety. And as I said, not being present in their bodies.
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 40:22
This term “spectatoring” was a new one on me. I’d not heard that before but it immediately resonated. I’ve definitely been in the situation where I’ve felt almost as though I’m observing myself having sex, monitoring myself… worrying about whether the position is flattering, whether I’m making the right noises or… I dunno, pulling sexy enough faces! Whether I’m being a hot enough partner. And yeah, it’s really hard to be present in my own pleasure when I’m doing that.
This message that mindfulness can really make a difference to our experience of sex and pleasure is starting to trickle down into the mainstream. Sexual wellness apps such as Lover, Ferly and Coral all combine mindfulness exercises with information and education to help users connect with themselves and tap into pleasure.
These developments are heartening but connecting with yourself is not always easy, particularly when you’ve experienced things you’d rather not connect with, things that in some cases cause you to dissociate from your body and your feelings.
I say at the start of every show that the sex we discuss here is all consensual but I want to share a story with you now that involves non-consensual sex.
If that’s something you’d rather skip, please feel free. You can rejoin us again at around 49:20.
If you listened to Series Three of The Second Circle you may remember L. L is a woman in her thirties in a non-monogamous relationship and she came on the show to talk to me about what it’s like to navigate sex and relationships with multiple partners.
I knew she had what she describes as “problems with her orgasm” but she’d always put that down to the fact that she never had much education around female pleasure when she was younger, and was never encouraged to explore her body (she didn’t start masturbating until she was in her 30s). I also have to admit on some level she and I probably thought it was down to pot luck. We talked about messages and expectations in the last episode and as “old millennials” one message both she and I received growing up was that the female orgasm is a rare and elusive thing. It is complex, we were warned, and quite possibly mythical.
Anyway, L got back in touch with me last summer and told me she’d recently started digging into her sexual history, working with a therapist and attending some self-pleasure workshops to try and get to the bottom of why orgasm was such a challenge for her. And what she had discovered was quite upsetting.
L 43:06
Over the pandemic, it given me time to kind of look into my kind of deeper struggles around orgasm and, and it's kind of finally getting the chance to reflect and start to process the fact that my first sexual experience wasn't great. Because I was when I was 13, it was with a boyfriend, and it was what I'd now understand as a non-consensual sex. You know, I was 13 and I wasn't really that aware of what sex was, I mean we’d had very basic sex ed in school, but I certainly I was quite a swotty child that wasn't certainly wasn't going out, you know, drinking and stuff. I wasn't, I wasn't a particularly grown up teenager, although I think that I had reach sexual maturity in that I'd started my periods and I had breasts and curves. And so I think often women, you know, girls reach their bodily sexual maturity way before mentally you're ready to take on all that kind of stuff. And I'd always known that my my first sexual experience was not okay. When it happened, I think I was trying to bluff it out. And as I said, trying to say, 'Oh, this is fine this, that this thing has happened to me and it's I'm quite proud of it because I'm like the first girl in my class to lose my virginity and, like, aren’t I special, do I get a badge?' Whereas, as I kind of went to university and stuff, I was kind of realising Oh, yeah, that was icky. And, even though I knew that it wasn't okay, and that I didn't think it was a good experience, and I wouldn't want it happening to anybody else, I hadn't really connected it to my difficulties. And in fact I was quite resistant to connecting it as well. Because I wanted to understand more about my difficulty around orgasm, so I've done a self-pleasure course over over the pandemic. And I've had therapy, and the specific sex therapist I went to to talk about my orgasm, of course, she asked, What was your first sexual experience? And I could just hear myself saying things like, Oh, yeah, well, there was this thing when I was 13. And you know, it wasn't great. But we don't need to talk about that. There's nothing to see here. Let's all move on. This is completely not relevant.
I could hear myself and I'm thinking, you idiot, like you're clearly running away from this. So talking about it a bit more and acknowledging more how much it hurt at the time how confused I was, at the time, how angry I guess I still was that I hadn't been letting out. And also just the fact that maybe I wasn't angry at that specific boy, you know? He's just a horny teenage boy, he was sixteen or seventeen. So yes, he should have known better. But he was also brought up in it in a in the same way that we were all living at that time, and in some ways continued to exist in this kind of culture of men's ownership over women's bodies have kind of getting past a no. And the realisation that my reluctance and discomfort around the fact that he really wanted to have sex was something for him to overcome as a horny boy, not something that should have been taken account of and then think actually, my, you know, quite young girlfriend doesn't seem like she really wants to do this. And, and the fact that my kind of survival mechanisms to cope with that for years was to think that that was okay. And of course, I don't think it's okay, now! That reluctance around sex is something to be got over, or that the fact that this boy wanted to do this to me meant that it was okay, and that I had to be okay with that and had to get over it.
Franki Cookney 46:35
So how do you think that that experience impacted on your relationship with your body and your ability to orgasm?
L 46:49
That first kind of traumatic sexual experience definitely impacted my relationship with my body in that it wasn't my sexuality kind of wasn't my own. When I met my now husband in sixth form, it was a case of, Oh, I'm really sexually experienced because I lost my virginity at thirteen so I know exactly what I'm doing and everything's fine, and this kind of bravado. And this kind of everything's… again, everything's okay, nothing to see here.
And then you know when when we opened up and since you know, I've been having sex with other people. Definitely this thing of them wanting it being the most important thing and me giving it to them; feeling that I'm in some kind of contract, I don't know. Like as soon as, you know, when I've been on Tinder sprees and stuff, feeling that the fact that I've swiped right on someone, that because it's someone I've chosen, that I kind of almost wanted to show that I'm okay with, with whatever you want. Because that's how I'd coped with being raped at thirteen and being okay with it was to convince myself that, But that's what he wanted and I'm fine with it. You know, it's been a really painful process to recognise that, that I haven't actually been listening to my own body. And one of the weirdest experiences since kind of having therapy and delving into this a bit more, was saying no to my first Tinder date. So saying no for the first time to someone that I'd swiped with, messaged with, agreed to meet, met, thought was lovely, but recognised that I won't actually that sexually attracted to them. But being pulled in two directions, because my habituation was going, But you're wasting his time, but he's going to be disappointed. And I ended up talking to him about that and saying, Look, I'm I kind of, I feel like I'm wasting your time. And he was, luckily, he was a really nice guy. And he was like, absolutely not, you know, that's a terrible reason to come home with me is thinking that you're wasting my time. And I was really grateful to him. But then on my drive home, I was in tears realising that, Oh, gosh, that's the first time I have actually honoured my no; that I felt like that a lot of time. I've had sex out of politeness and obligation a lot of time. And that is probably some largely to do with my first sexual experience.
Franki Cookney 49:10
Do you think that your focus on what your partner wants and the sort of people-pleasing aspect that you said, and your disconnect from actually what you want, is part of what has prevented you accessing orgasm?
L 49:29
I definitely think that the whole people pleasing thing has stopped me just tuning into what my body wants and how long it might take for my body to want it. I actually had a lovely experience the other day in the hairdresser's when, you know when you go to hairdressers, and they wash your hair for you? And it's just so lovely. And I suddenly, I thought, because I'm aware that I need to kind of relax more into my body and to not feel worried about my partner in order to feel relaxed enough to have an orgasm (and that's true with or without a toy). And I suddenly had this kind of fantasy while I was having my hair washed that, like, if someone were to go down on me now, that would be great. I want there to be a room in Torture Garden where you just get your hair washed, and then people can come and service you. And I think the reason that that was suddenly like Oh! in my head was because if I'm lying then having my hair washed, this is service, I am not expected to do anything. And so I think I'm going to work on trying to get that feeling into, you know, my my future sexual experiences and convincing myself that this I am just being served right now, I don't have to be like, Oh, are you bored? Or do you need a blow job or any of this stuff? Yeah!
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 50:36
This conversation with L brought up an important question. Does good sex have to involve an orgasm?
L 50:43
I don't think orgasm needs to be part of good sex. I've had loads of good sex. And as I said, you know, I very rarely orgasm, because I'm very rarely with someone that I trust enough to be able to put to one side, the fact they might be getting bored. And even though orgasms themselves are obviously amazing. And when you're having them like this is the best experience ever. I definitely don't want to have sex without this. But especially considering that I do have difficulty with orgasm. I sometimes feel relieved when I've said at the beginning, or I'm saying, you know, actually, it's not gonna happen, or that I will do this later. Or we can do this together later. But right now, I just want this kind of sex. And I want you to do this to me and me to do this to you, and for orgasm, because maybe it's become such a big thing for me, not to be the be all and end all. But on the other hand, I'm really aware of that being a bit of a get out of jail free card for the orgasm gap in general. I don't want to be part of the bad sisterhood that's like, Oh, you know, of course, it doesn't matter, because my pleasure doesn't matter as much as yours.
Franki Cookney 51:47
To kind of flip that question on its head. Is sex without orgasm automatically bad sex?
L 51:53
I don't think sex without orgasm is automatically bad sex. And I think it depends on the reasons around why you’re not having an orgasm. I think sometimes it is, you know, generated by the partner being a bit lazy or a bit doesn't care enough about your pleasure and your experience. And I think that that that is bad sex, because you know, sex is about connection. And to a certain extent, you know, that the complicated reasons around my difficulties with orgasm to do with trauma, that baggage coming into sex makes it bad sex for me. There's so many more bits of fun and mess and connection with sex that isn't how doesn't have to be around orgasm. And I think a lot of it is when orgasm is the big thing in my head is when it becomes bad sex because of the lack of orgasm.
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 52:41
I really like what L says here about how it’s often the baggage around sex that makes it bad, rather than the activities themselves. But the realisation that our baggage around sex can stay with us long after we think we’re over it, after we’ve laughed it off? That bothered me. It made me wonder just how many of us are carrying around toxic internalised messages borne out of early sexual experiences. I went back to Dr Zarroug.
Amani Zarroug 53:10
What you're describing is really important, really, really, really common. And often, you know, even even outside of sex, even mental health issues, but it definitely including your sexual experience. So often you, you realise that there's a problem, because it's something that's happening in the present. But the roots of that happened way back in the past, and your body will let you know. So if you haven't dealt with something emotionally, eventually, your body's going to tell you. And that may might be in kind of when when you're having sex, it might be to do with your anxiety. So that's, in some ways, it's a great signifier. It's a great signal to you to kind of be like, Okay, I'm not responding in the way that I would like to I don't really understand why I need to speak something to someone about it, who maybe has some experience and can help me but you're right. I think it's appalling. That so it's so common, it's so common for women to experience some kind of sexual harassment growing up, and you're right, we often don't even realise that that's what's happening.
Hearing L's story makes me feel really sad. Because obviously, that is a lot for her to go through and to process now she's an adult, but also made me happy that she's seeing a therapist and really kind of feeling safe enough to go back there and look at the root causes and think about how it impacts her relationship now and her own kind of sexual relationship with herself.
Franki Cookney 54:52
I'm, I'm really wary of making my constant recommendation that people get therapy, right, because I think all the way through this podcast series, it's like, oh, it's definitely like an anti-quick fixes, anti-kind of hot tips, type thing. But I'm concerned that the flip side is, oh, you need to get therapy. And I'm really aware that that's just not accessible for a lot of people. So I'm wondering if you have any other advice, any other kind of resources you can signpost to, or any other advice you would give to people kind of struggling to tap into pleasure? Other than getting therapy, which I think we can all agree would would be a really great thing for a lot of people to do.
Amani Zarroug 55:33
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right, I think definitely therapy shouldn’t only be accessible to people who can afford it. I honestly and I'm not just saying this because of your podcast, but I do think podcasts are a way to start being open to conversations. I think there are so many forums online but I also think just getting to understand your body and and think about okay, when do I feel the most sexy, what turns me on? And it might not necessarily be anything physical or anything visual, you know, it might be that you found yourself being really witty talking to someone and that made you feel confident or just when you're feeling your best for whatever reason. That might be when you feel the sexiest and kind of understanding that that's how you function is a really great starting point.
[THEME MUSIC]
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 56:29
When I was crowdfunding for this podcast series, I very much billed it as something that was going to look past the whole culture of quick fixes and life hacks and soundbite sex advice. But inevitably people are going to listen and think yeah sure but, she’s gonna give us the answers, right? She’s gonna give us the tips. And we’re going to solve bad sex. That’s what I signed up for. And then they’re going to get to points like this and there’s going to be this awful moment of realisation that… no, that’s really not happening. There are no tricks. You just have to really interrogate your relationship with sex and kind of sit with it… for a really long time, maybe. So. Sorry. I did try to warn you.
But I think if we can hold onto one thing from this episode it’s that fact that there aren’t actually any rules around what counts as pleasure and how you should be experiencing it.
Let me say that again: There are no fucking rules.
So. If that is a message that feels exciting to you, then you should definitely come back next week when we are going to be talking about bodies.
Flo Perry 53:33
It’s basically like, kind of psychological miracle that like, we're somehow programmed to be like, Oh, I'm like, you know, in normal life, I am hygienic and like to, you know, wash my hands after coming anywhere near my genitals, and then you get into the bedroom, and you're, like, sit on my face!
Franki Cookney [voiceover] 57:54
If you’re enjoying this series, or you have thoughts you want to share, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me an email at secondcirclepodcast@gmail.com or - even better - send me a voicenote, come on! I wanna hear your dulcet tones. Go to speakpipe.com/TheSecondCircle to record one now.
Please go ahead and smash that subscribe button And don’t forget to leave a review, it helps boost visibility. I’ll see you back here next time for more BAD SEX.
The Second Circle is produced and hosted by me, Franki Cookney. My audio producer for this series was Anouszka Tate. My editors on this episode were Lucy Douglas and Rob Davies.
I could not have made this series without the incredible support of those who donated to my crowdfunder. Thank you to all of you. In particular I’d like to thank Rochelle Dancel, Rachel Wheeley, Christine Woolgar, Anna Richards, Quinn Rhodes, Hugh de la Bedoyere, Simon Eves, Clíodna Shanahan, Chris and Livvy, Paul Nixon, Tabitha Rayne, Douglas Greenshields, Tun Ewald, Jack, Laura Hunter-Thomas, and David Kreysa. You guys fucking rock.
[ENDS]
Episode 3: Why is it so hard to feel good?