You’re making all the right sounds. You’re moaning and groaning. You’re twirling your hips. You’re swishing your hair. You’ve said, “yes”, to everything. You’ve done the dress up and role play.
And now you’ve faked your orgasm 🙄
Now you’re lying there feeling bored, confused, and sad, because you didn’t actually feel much, while you’re partner is lying back smiling because he thought that you loved it (because this usually happens in heterosexual dynamics).
Sound familiar?
If it does, it could be because you’re trying to perform during sex, rather than actually enjoying it. And it’s so common in women and people with vulvas.
Performing isn’t enjoying
From porn to movies, to lack of pleasure-focused sex education, to shaming messages about being female and being sexual, to how women and people with vulvas are socialized to be people-pleasers, it is so common for women and people with vulvas to end up “doing” sex as a performance rather than something you actually want and enjoy.
There are so many reasons why you may be performing rather than enjoying, none of them are bad or wrong. From not wanting to hurt your partner’s feelings, feeling insecure, wanting to keep the relationship intact, worry about being rejected, to thinking this is how sex “should” be.
Sixty-seven percent of heterosexual women admitted to occasionally faking orgasm in a study published last year in the Journal of Sex Research (Vol. 47, No. 6), and I wonder if it’s more than that.
In sexology it’s known as, “performance anxiety”- and while it’s typically known as something men or people with penises experience, it actually occurs to all genders, for varying different reasons.
Want it to be different? Here’s what you can do about it.
How To Stop Performing In Bed And Start Enjoying Instead
1. Notice when you’re doing it
You may not have been aware of it before, so the first step is to either notice it when it’s happening, or to reflect afterwards.
Are you making all the right noises but not actually feeling it? Are you pretending you like something when actually you’re not? Are you more caught up in how you look and moving in a sexy way rather than how it feels? Think about what your “tells” are.
2. Pause and take a breath
In the moment when you notice it and you’re right in the middle of hair twirling, hip grinding, and groaning, the first thing to do is pause and take a breath.
That’s it. You could say, “Can we pause for a second?” to your partner or, “I’m noticing that I’m trying to perform for you and I’m not sure how I feel, can we pause for a second?”.
Slow down or stop what you’re doing, ask your partner to pull out if needed, and take a breath.
3. Focus on what feels good right now
What actually feels good right now? Do you have a felt sense of what that is?
Try placing your hand on your heart and another on your belly or your vulva and check in with yourself.
What feels good? What do you actually want? What do you actually need right now?
If in doubt, start focusing what feels good right now, and go from there.
4. Go slower
When you start again, go slower, much slower.
(Unless what your body was telling you was, “Hell yeah I DO wanna go harder, baby!”)
As you’re feeling into what *actually* feels good, you may find that you actually need to go much slower and lighter.
5. (Afterwards) Now what feels good?
Now it’s time to start exploring what you actually like and what feels good! Explore self-pleasuring and self-touch, play with toys, fantasize, journal, move your body.
This is a space to start exploring what actually feels good to you rather than what you think you should like.
Write out a sex bucket list, read books, explore what you really, really, reeaaalllyyy want.
Want more?
Join The Shameless Woman Immersion.
In The Shameless Woman Immersion, we go deep into what actually feels good to YOU, what YOU like, and HOW to feel it, so that you can start having sex you want to be having.
We do a monthly movement practice to get out of your overthinking head and into your body using exercise from tantra and taoism.
Lucy Rowett, CSC – Pronouns: She/Her/Her