Pandemic Sex: Five Queer Sex Tips to Improve Your Sexual Satisfaction
There is no doubt that the pandemic has affected couples’ sexual satisfaction and desire. Sexual desire is not spontaneous; it is responsive to positive sexual stimulation and cues. The pandemic has altered even the most intimate aspects of life. Quarantine and working from home mean couples share space and lose privacy. Worries about work, health, racial injustice, and the pending election all increase stress and anxiety.
Maybe you’re among the many stuck in a cramped space, doing the same thing day after day, ending each day bored, stressed, and unsatisfied.
Because of these current stressors, you might think that couples have less motivation for sex and are less interested in playing outside of a predictive sexual script. Typically, sexual satisfaction and frequency generally decrease with increased stress. Sex researcher Dr. Emily Nagoski writes, “If you’re anxious or depressed, you are less curious about novelty and are more interested in being in a comfortable, familiar environment” (Nagoski, 2015). In my experiences as a couples therapist, this statement rings true. When faced with a revolving door of change and unexpected loss due to a global pandemic, couples often find it difficult to step out of relational comfort zones and take risks.
Surprisingly, one study contradicts this hypothesis. It found that though couples are not having more sex during Covid-19, the sex they are having is more exploratory and adventurous. They have gone off-script. As a couples therapist, I encourage couples to utilize the pandemic as an opportunity to build intimacy and connection, to prioritize sexual satisfaction and desire.
You have the power to capitalize on time together to write a new chapter in your sex life.
As a queer woman in my thirties, my ideas of sex and sexuality have evolved, moving from rigid beliefs around sexual experiences and scripts into an open view that there is a dynamic world of sex that can be tapped into. Sex is critical in relationship; it increases the emotional bond with a partner and enhances overall relational well-being.
One way that long-term partners get stuck is in having predictive sexual scripts. Sexual scripts are influenced by belief systems, past relationship experiences, culture, gender, race, religion, and family of origin. Writing a new sexual script requires deconstructing sex and increasing sexual communication.
As a lesbian cis-gender woman, I am offering up five ways to use Queer sex practices to enhance your sex life. A 2014 study by the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that lesbians have orgasms 75 % of the time during sex, compared with 61 % for heterosexual women. A recent public health survey in England found that 50 % of women aged between 25-34 were not sexually satisfied.
Queer sex is liberating: it is a series of acts rooted in mutual pleasure, play, and the freedom to be fully seen. When you have been discriminated against for a marginalized identity, queer sex offers a safe space for exploration of gender and/or sexual identities free of prejudice, restriction, or rejection. Queer sex gives you permission to revolutionarily redefine sex, to rewrite the script so that it is rooted in you and your partners’ unique needs and pleasure.
1. Take the Penis Off the Pedestal! There are a million ways to have sex and penetrative sex is only one! An analysis of 33 studies over the past 80 years found that only 25 percent of women reach orgasm through penetrative sex (Lloyd, 2005). How would your sexual experiences be different if penetrative sex were off the table?
2. The Three C’s: Communication, Care, and Curiosity! The BDSM and kink community model stipulate direct and open communication before, during, and after a sexual experience. This model molded my communication patterns with partners around sex, focusing on transparency, care, and curiosity. Part of writing a new sexual script involves deconstructing sex and increasing sexual communication. To achieve that goal, talk with your partner about your preferred sexual experience. Checking in before, during, and after a sexual encounter increases connection and enhances communication. It also creates a space for ongoing consent. And consent is always sexy.
3. Focus On Your Yum: Focusing on your own pleasure is an invitation to get to know your body’s inherent wants, desires, and needs. Celebrating your own pleasure is an act of self-love. One way I encourage couples to focus on their own pleasure is by asking them to make a list of what sexual menu items they would like to experience. I ask each partner to not to share the list. I want my clients to let go of a rigid, constrictive way of thinking about sex and desire. Instead I invite them to get creative and feel free to list whatever item strikes their fancy. I encourage them to let go of shame and consider what sexual experiences would be on the list if they were not thinking about a right or a wrong way to experience pleasure. I ask couples to detail what makes them feel sensual and sexy. I give the example that taking a bath or going for a walk can incite pleasure. Moving the focus of sex away from a prescribed pattern and into a pleasure focus is a vehicle for increasing desire.
4. Fuck Gender Roles. Gender roles can be harmful if partners are performing according to how they are expected to behave, rather than what feels natural or satisfying to them. Sex educator Anne Hodder writes that "Sexual pleasure is difficult to enjoy when you're in your head and playing a role, rather than participating and connecting, and expecting others to behave according to our own gender expectations sets us up for instant disappointment and can cause emotional harm to our partners. Traditional gender roles — ex. the idea that masculine people are naturally dominant, sexual animals and 'take' sexual pleasure while feminine people are submissive, nurturing, and 'give' sexual pleasure — establish an instant hierarchy and power divide between sexual partners, as well as the binary assumption that in every successful coupling, there's a feminine person and masculine person." While playing with power can increase risk and desire for some, roles can be constricting and promote patriarchal and heteronormative sexual scripts.
5. Use Sex Toys! People who use sex toys report being more satisfied with their sex life in both quality of orgasm and quality of masturbation (Chatel, 2018). The more willing you are to explore your body and experiment with toys, the more likely you are to know how to bring yourself pleasure and reach orgasm. You, and only you, are responsible for your own orgasm. If you are inviting your partner into your pleasure process, understanding how your body reacts to touch or play is integral to educating your partner on how to help bring you pleasure. Sex toys are a way to flip a sexual script. When couples try new experiences by using sex toys, their exploration encourages communication and play.
Sources:
Chatel, A. Five mental health benefits of using sex toys in the bedroom. Bustle. (2018).
Lehmiller, J. J., Garcia, J. R., Gesselman, A. N. & Mark, K. M. Less sex, but more sexual diversity: changes in sexual behavior during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Leis. Sci. 17, 1225–1228 (2020).
Lloyd, E. The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution. 311 pp., bibl., index. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Nagoski, Emily. Come as you are : the surprising new science that will transform your sex life. New York :Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. (2015).
