Tag: relationships

Constantly attracted to Peter Pan Men

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized
A client, let’s call her Anna, in her 40’s complained to me the other day,

“The only men that are out there are the Peter Pan guys. The ones that don’t want to grow up, get married, settle down, have kids.”

Peter_PanMAIN
(This topic of the Peter Pan or prince of princess complex in men (and women) is a fascianting one to explore in another blog post but for now, back to Anna. )

Anna would spend all her time, relentlessly  trying to “UN-PETER PAN” her partners. How exhausting that must have been!!

Yes, there’s a lot of these “Peter Pan” types out there but Anna wasn’t noticing all the more mature and honest men out there because she was so busy being swept up in another relationship with a Peter Pan and falling in love with their potential rather than accepting who they really were today.

Anna  wanted to know what she could do because she was truly starting to despair. It was impacting her sleep, work- everything. My heart went out to Anna.

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Anna was intuitive enough to know a few months into dating these men that something was wrong but would then spend her energy trying to ‘fix’ them. She thought if only she could get them to “see the light” they’d awaken and start treating her how she should be treated and mature and grow up.  Kind’ve like trying to stop the rain falling out of the sky or making a fish walk on land.

 
Anna was investing all her energy into the wrong people, the ones that were happy being Peter Pans. They don’t need to get married or have kids, they’re happy as they are. Sure they’re possibly emotionally immature but that’s their choice.  Anna would wind up wasting some much time and energy trying to change them. Why should they change? They love living a party lifestyle at the age of 45. They certainly weren’t interested in changing for anyone or in settling down. They’re ruled by their boy-psyche and it’s rather impossible to have a mature relationship with someone like this.
 
Sure, these men have problems but that’s not the point of this post. Anna was so preoccupied with their problems and how she could fix them she’d forgotten to look inwardly at her own problems and rescue herself.
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You cannot have a relationship with someone who isn’t who you thought they were or have a relationship with someone based upon what you hope they will become. You can’t get blood out of a rock and you can’t force someone to become conscious. This a choice someone makes for themselves.
 
Anna was trying to change them to want the same things she wanted and kept ending up wasting years and years in futile relationships that went nowhere. She was putting her power into someone elses hands and that rested on the crumbling future possibility that maybe one day in the future, not based on any hard evidence, they might change-maybe.
 
Her issue was HOW she was selecting partners and why was she trying to force them to change or ignore who they were. She’s continually attracted to the unavailable ones and had been repeating this cycle over and over again.
 
Anna might see a red flag early on but ignore it. Then she might see a combination of red flags but ignore them. Her friends and family might be concerned about this person she’s dating and try to talk to her about it but she’d block them out because she’d be embarrassed.
 
Why did Anna keep dating people who she knew were cheaters and liars? Why did she think they’d be different with her even though she knew they’d cheated on their exes or refused to commit to any of their previous partners?
 
Love rules our mind and seems to control the logical and rational part of our mind. The same part of our mind that controls addiction also controls our feelings of love.
 
There are so many opportunities out there for this woman that she wasn’t noticing. She wasn’t noticing the men that were in touch with their mature masculine sides and were genuinely interested in a committed relationship.
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                                                       INTERVENTION TIME.
We started with some gentle art therapy and meditation exercises to help Anna get  some perspective and look at her relationships with a birds eye view.

Then we started together to help her to open up and really start to look within herself openly and honestly.
During this self review process I got Anna to ask herself these questions; “What am I afraid of? How worthwhile do I think I am? Do I think I’m not worth more and have to settle for these people? “
 
Anna wasn’t in touch with her own ‘shadow’ and so kept being unconsciously attracted to the shadow in others. Getting in touch with her own dark side helped this pull. Anna also couldn’t see her own self worth.
 
Anna would go on dates saying, “I hope that they like me.”
Instead she should be saying, “I hope I like them..” And spend that date assessing that person to see if they’re right for her.
 
Anna thought she should put out everything there that she was looking for in a first person. Sadly there are so not so ethical people out there who will pretend to be that person she’s looking for just for their own short term gains and pleasure.

Instead I encouraged Anna to ask open questions on dates and really find out slowly what someone was like and not rush into anything in a blaze of emotions.

Part of our therapy was relationship education. We discussed healthy relationships versus unhealthy relationships. We talked about what she thought she deserved and worked on identifying her needs. Anna had grown up witnessing her parents violent relationships so wasn’t even sure what a healthy relationship was. Sadly our schools don’t give us much education about this either.

 
Now Anna has to be really honest with herself about what’s she is looking for and pay attention to red flags appearing in a relationship every single day. She doesn’t cut out her friends and isolate herself if ever they show concern about a partner.  As we worked together to help her see her strengths and build her self esteem she gained the courage to leave relationships if she felt she wasn’t being treated well whereas in the past she might stay there for years and years of abuse.
 
 
 
 

How to stand up for yourself in relationships

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized

When your needs are being made unimportant in a relationship what do you do?

Have you been in a relationship with a controlling or pushy person who always put their needs in front of yours? Perhaps you didn’t know how to communicate to them how unhappy you were with them doing that? Perhaps you were bullied at home or at school growing up or were never taught the skills to stand up for yourself in a healthy and assertive way.

How you communicate this impacts how successful you will be at getting your point across.

Your needs are no more or less important than someone elses. I speak to a lot of clients who believe their partners needs are more important than their own but over time the unhappiness and resentment builds as their needs are never accounted for.

I love the similarities between friendships and relationships this video highlights.
There’s no rule that says you have to do what you don’t want to do.
It’s totally fine and acceptable to set a limit on what you want to do.

This is a wonderful and cute animated short video that was aimed for high school adolescents but I think it’s fitting for adults too because it explains things so simply. So many of us didn’t receive this education when we were at school so it’s important to learn it no matter what age we are at.  It was made by the The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society.

I love the scales at the end that shows what you need and what I need in a relationship together are of equal importance.

Watch the video here!

How to deal with mismatched desire (in a relationship)

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized

Are you in a relationship where one of you has much more sexual desire than the other?

I’m going to share a secret with you.

Sexual desire problems can be the most amazing thing that occurs in your relationship.

Now before you get angry at me and tell me how you’re tearing out your hair with sexual frustration or angry at being pressured to have sex, just bear with me.

I’ve been there before. I feel your pain.

Read the rest of my article about mismatched desire in my first blog for Adult Matchmaker here.
I also bust some of the biggest myths about sexual desire in relationships.

I’d love, love, LOVE if you logged into their website and wrote a comment/question or feedback on the article! It’s my first article for Adult Matchmaker so I’d love some feedback!

When are values relationship deal breakers?

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized

Susan in Married at First Sight doesn’t know why she was matched with Sean. Susan likes to volunteer to save bears in Asia. Sean wears a belt buckle he won at the rodeo.

One key detail has been missing from the reality tv series about what tore them apart-Sean’s love of the rodeo-in particular calf roping. You can read more about the cruel practice in this article about the reality tv couple here.

“I don’t understand how someone could use animals for entertainment like that. I’m never going to accept that cowboy image.”

I have a lot of clients that spoke to me at length about this TV reality show during its airing and how the topics coming up were similar to things in their own life.

Despite my misgivings I could see how the program did bring up issues that were important to couples or dating singles -although I was concerned with how it was all handled.

I can see how the concept  fires up the imagination but the lack of ethics of the show and the strange references to “science” and decisions and actions of the “experts” were umm… certainly interesting and worrying to me as a relationship counsellor and clinical sex therapist.

Isn’t it interesting how things are edited to give a sanitised view of things in reality tv?

susan sean

Value Systems as Deal Breakers

Anyway let’s get right into the meat of the issue this article brings up. Susan has compassion for animals and fights to save them. Sean loves rodeos and “calf roping” and other areas where animals are used for entertainment. Hmm.

As Susan says, that was the deal breaker for her. Despite these reasons for her choosing to break up with him never being shown on the TV program, the clashing value systems were the reason she didn’t continue the relationship.

You can have many differing interests to your partner and that’s fine and healthy, however opposing value systems can be more challenging.  Value systems are the foundation to who we are, why we do what we do, our boundaries, how we react to things and who we choose to spend time with.

Value systems don’t have to be exactly the same in a couple but they do need to match up or at least slightly overlap somehow.

If someone is psuhing up against our values you can feel uncomfortable and pained.

Have you ever been with someone with completely opposing value systems? What happened?

Differing value systems are a big point of conflict for couples and good communication can see things through.

However if the value system is that jarringly different even the best communication skills can’t necessarily see it through.

I wrote about a couple where one of them was an animal rights activist vegan and the other was a hunter and a fisher for fun not food in a feature for Ciao earlier this year and their various struggles.

In sessions where I see couples that are struggling with very different value systems and all the strain that goes along with that they can feel stuck. To help them move forward I get them to fill out a common values assessment.

Values can include everything from wanting children or not, religious beliefs, how you see animals and how your diet relates to that, political beliefs, environmental beliefs, moral responsibilities, loyalty, commitment, education, family, caring about others, security, self direction, seeking pleasure, avoiding harm to others, personal success in life, understanding self and others, independence in thought and action, stability of self, belongingness in groups..

Value systems are important to look at and often couples can rush so quickly through the dating process and get so physically hooked on each other so early on they neglect to look at these things until much later.

If it’s not in the deal breaker arena couples can learn to live with differing values -I’ve had a couple where one was a hardcore atheist and the other was deeply spiritual. This caused conflict but it wasn’t a deal breaker for them and was more a matter of practically negotiating their different issues and respecting and accepting their differing views. On the days she went to her spiritual circle he went to hang out with his aetheist friends.

Exploring what their value systems meant to each of them and how that influenced their different behaviours and reactions shed a lot of light onto various everyday conflicts and resentments that were occuring.
I think a lot of reality tv can be appalling in its moral bankruptcy, more exploitative than a social experiment and manipulatively constructed but I’m glad this topic was brought to light.

What did you think?

What are your core values? If you’re single how important is it to be with someone who has the same core values as you?

If you’re in a relationship how similar are your core values and what problems do the differences cause? Please let me know in the comments below and don’t hesitate to book a session with me via skype or in person if you and your partner are stuck on issues relating to your vaules. 

Www.creativesexpression.com

How to deepen the connection in your relationship

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized

I have so many clients that tell me about how their partner doesn’t touch them much. They speak about how they always sit far from them, on their phone or playing games and it’s like they’re a remote island.

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If you are in a relationship how much time do you spend in close physical contact?
Do you wish you had more touch or less touch?
I don’t necessarily mean just sexual contact but any touch whatsoever.
A lot of us are touch starved in our tech saturated world.
We all need touch! It’s how our brains are wired.

Studies of baby monkeys show that the desire to touch and be touched is stronger than the desire for food.

Research shows that human babies and children need touch and physical comfort and these needs don’t disappear when we grow up into adulthood.

We need touch to truly thrive; it is fundamental to our health, communication and bonding.

  In fact children and babies who don’t experience much touch growing up can be more violent, have weakened immune systems.
 and a host of other problems.

If you don’t spend much time hugging or touching there’s a chance that your hippocampus in your brain might be smaller- the smaller this organ is the harder it is for your brain to regulate your stress response.

So, hugging and touching your partner is good for you, your relationship and your brain!


 

Physical touch also helps reduce stress. 


I’m talking about everything from sex to giving a kissing, massage, holding hands, cuddling, hugging, stroking, tickling and lots more..

These examples are medicine for your body and your relationship. This kind of touch helps to preventatively maintain your health and healing ailments you may have according to the latest research.

Join my inner circle here if you’d like to learn how to deepen your connection with your lover through a daily touching ritual. You’ll notice the difference within a few days or a week.  Just fill out your name and email address in the pop up.

Relationship mistakes according to a behavioral economist…

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized

You’re dooming your relationship if you’re fantasising about outside options.

Relationships get better when you invest in them wholeheartedly. (And I’m not talking about the second you’ve met someone! I definitely suggest slowly does it! Get to know someone slowly… In this blog I’m talking about long term relationships.. )

“When we are in a relationship but continuously with one foot out and continuously thinking about how the outside world is more tempting and more interesting and so on, it’s actually not a good recipe for investing in a relationship. It’s not a zero-sum game–it gets better when you invest in it.”
Dan Ariely

I see this a lot. Couples where they are together. Sort of. Yet one or both of them has a foot outside of the relationship.  They think the grass is greener on the other side. The problems they are experiencing in their relationship that could be worked out in some of our sessions with dedication and work are used in their mind as an excuse to get out and find someone else where it will be “easier.” Then a year down the line the same problems come up again. With a different person. Because they never learnt how to overcome them and kept running from them.
Or perhaps they spend a lot of time on facebook or tindr looking at all the other options open to them when they’re with someone else.

Some people can be hooked on that first initial honeymoon phase of a relationship. You know the phase where your body and mind are buzzing with feel good hormones. This can be really addictive for some people especially people afraid of intimacy. They can just go from one person to the other in short lived relationships that never go longer than two years because as soon as they start seeing their partner warts and all they want out!

Watch the video and let me know what you think. Don’t beat yourself up if you think you might be doing this. Awareness is the first step to getting focussed and grateful for what you have now.

Tips for low libido women- avoid bad sex advice, don’t fake orgasms and leave your porn sex ed at the door

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized

woman with empty cage

Ahhhh I’m getting sick of reading BAD SEX ADVICE for women!

I’m especially sick of reading and hearing BAD SEX ADVICE for women who want to bring back their sexual desire.

I’m so sick of it I throw up my hands in the air and make noises! And not sexy noises!

It seems the ruling consensus in BAD SEX ADVICE for women who want their sex drive back seems to be a long list of “how to pleasure your man.”

No! No! No! This will not work!  Sexual desire is complex and multi-faceted. Low libido in women will not be helped by focussing more on what the man wants. YOUR PLEASURE MATTERS!

We need to unlearn EVERYTHING we learnt about sex.

Sex is NOT something that women do just to pleasure men or about getting more okay with doing sexual things that men want and love. If your relationship starts out like that your sex drive aint gonna last the distance. If you want to have your mojo for the long haul in a long distance relationship you have got to start being REAL.  Take charge of your own pleasure.

I know that’s a very strong storyline in a LOT of porn out there but it is not true and we need to let go of this idea like –now!

I see a lot of clients where men (bisexual or heterosexual) have learnt everything about sex from porn. In particular, porn where women are faking their sexual pleasure and the scene centres around the man’s pleasure and orgasm.

This makes sense because good sex education in our culture is pretty thin on the ground! It’s normal for young people to be curious about sex and so they get their main education from porn. This is problematic in itself. The current basic education (–here’s how you put a condom on a banana and here’s how to unwrap a tampon-) does not prepare young people to navigate sex and relationships in our digital climate.

Current education is often delivered far too late. The average age of first exposure to porn is 12. Two-thirds of young people in the UK have watched online porn by the age of 15.  42% of porn scenes depict violence towards girls and women.

woman wants be somewhere else

Porn is pretty confusing sex education for girls and boys. Imagine if you’re a teenage male virgin who spends years and years watching porn without any dose of criticality -because you’re way too young for that and school didn’t teach you any of those skills—- and now imagine that boy as an adult about to have sex for the first time with a real life woman.

This porn education can lead to real life sex where the man is purely focussed on his own pleasure and at the same time has unconsciously eroticised women’s physical pain.

This bad porn sex education aka “conditioning” really stuffs with men’s radar to identify women enjoying AUTHENTIC sexual pleasure. And I’m not talking about BDSM at all here, I’m talking “standard issue” hetero porn.

And no, I’m not an anti-porn crusader by any means! I’m purely speaking about the problems of teenagers using only porn as their sex education.

If young men only learnt all about sex by watching women PRETEND to have sexual pleasure with someone they’re not necessarily attracted to, whilst performing in front of camera and a camera crew then how are they supposed to know when their sex partner is faking an orgasm? And a recent study found that 85% of men believed their female partner had an orgasm during their last sexual encounter but only 60% of women said that they did.

That’s a lot of women being dishonest out there and a lot of men not realising it. 

Jenna Jammeson spoke about having sex with men she found physically repulsive and having to fake desire on camera.

“Arnold Biltmore had a soft, pasty body; a porous, greasy complexion; and a kindergarten haircut, parted in the middle and combed to either side. Nothing about Arnold  turned me on.  And in ten minutes I was supposed to have sex with him.

When our scene started, he tried to kiss me. I turned my head away from the camera, so that no one could see me grimace…. As my head kept bumping into his stomach while I gave him head, all I could think was, ‘What the hell am I doing here? This is disgusting.’ ”

I had one wonderful young couple who came to see me for sex therapy and relationship counselling. Let’s call them Jack and Jill. Obviously not their real names. Jack told me they were here to see me for Jill’s low libido.

Jill had been faking orgasms for the entire three years of the relationship and Jack had no idea her orgasms weren’t real. Now Jill’s desire had almost completely disappeared because she was sick of faking and wasn’t enjoying sex. Jack was frustrated that the sex had ended and wondered why Jill had “become frigid overnight.”  Jill was sick of doing things she didn’t want to do but Jack wanted to do because “everyone does that.”  Well everyone in his favourite pornos might.

No amount of “how to pleasure your man in bed” ie BAD SEX ADVICE  tips would help this situation and I’m so glad they came and see me.

They needed a creative sexpression therapy and sex ed road map stat!

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Jill originally felt like sex had to be about what Jack liked hence her burn out.  Jack couldn’t tell Jill was faking because she was doing everything  actresses do in the porn he’d watched. It felt safer for Jill to cater to Jack’s pleasure than be vulnerable and say what she wanted and needed. Jill’s main priority and all her energy during sex were about making Jack feel like he “did” a great sexual performance on “her.” Jack had never seen a woman in a porn scene online say no to aggression, violence or crossing boundaries.

We’ve got all sorts of things at play that we worked through here;

  • the broader social and cultural implication about gender and sex (the man as the “sex boss” the woman as always sexually submissive)
  • the words used to describe sex (he nails her/she takes it/I’m going to bang you etc)
  • unlearning what they’d learnt about distorted messages from porn and re-learning about healthy and respectful sexual relationships, boundaries, limits, consent etc
  • their emotional barometer–brushing needs under the carpet
  • a new responsive to the other-understanding genuine response
  • whether they believed their needs were important or worth articulating
  • some overdue good and healthy sex education.
  • sexual communication and the confidence to say what you need! For example- the ability to own your pleasures and your desire. To say- THIS IS WHAT I LIKE! This is what I want.

Jack and Jill were only having sex in the missionary position with Jack’s body pressed down on top of hers. This made it very difficult for Jill to orgasm and that, alongside the other stuff that she didn’t enjoy at all- combined to explain her lack of interest in sex.

Some women don’t orgasm from vaginal sex alone and Jill needed to feel confident enough to explore and experiment with Jack- try new positions, get in control and enjoy genuine sexual pleasure.

Not faked, not a performance. Not just focussed on looking sexy all arranged on your back on the bed but REAL. RECKLESS ABANDON. WILD. SENSUAL. INTIMATE. SEXY AS FUCK!

So don’t fake orgasms. Please. Ever. Ever ever ever. Just stop now.

Being genuine, intimate and vulnerable with your partner is DAM SEXY!

I liked Jack and Jill. They came willing to do the work to change their relationship. They did all the homework exercises. Their enthusiasm as things started to change was infectious.
Jack stopped making Jill do things in bed she didn’t want to do and she learnt to communicate her sexual boundaries. Jill’s sex drive came back. Jack and Jill completely and utterly transformed their sex life. Jill no longer fakes orgasm with Jack and they no longer only have sex in the missionary position. Jill has taken charge of her own orgasms and has begun having orgasms in intimate explorations with Jack. She’s  finding her voice and not giving her expectations away to Jack.  Jack has been learning about real female desire and satisfaction.

They look like a completely different couple now. The energy has changed. They look like a couple that only just started dating a few months ago. The chemistry is off the charts.
BOOM! I love a happy ending. Well it’s more like a happy beginning for this young couple as they continue to work on their healthy sexual exploration together.

If our schools had a program intergrated into our sex education (and the Australian government is looking into this right now) or a framework for kids to decode, contextualise and analyse porn then kids would have a way of testing these values against real life relationships and sex and not accept this as “real sex.”

Kids would also learn to critically evaluate the violence towards women shown in so much mainstream porn and dicuss consent and boundaries.  How much better would this make our daily life!

*******************************************************************************

Back to the topic of  talking about giving yourself away to someone else needs for a moment…  Porn star Jenna Jammeson in her book, “How to Make Love Like A Porn Star” speaks about how she was giving herself away to the needs and expectations of the men in her life.

“Joy had booked interviews and photo ops for me every ten minutes. And I was excited to do all that work. I was willing to do anything to be someone who everyone loved. Looking back on it, it was just a new type of insecurity replacing the old one, and I was giving myself away to the needs and expectations of the public instead of the needs and expectations of the men in my life. It was just a new form of dependence developing. And it was equally detrimental to any sort of emotional stability.”

It’s not sexually empowered to only ever have sex in the way your male partner wants and put all of your energy into pleasing them at the expense of your own pleasure. Sure this might be fun to do some of the time of course but by no means should this be the default mode.

I’d like to close with a worrying excerpt from a book that thousands of women have bought and read. More bad sex advice for women. Please book a session with me if you want to bring your mojo back. Don’t read the below book! No!

Joan Sewell writes about a book she read called “Date Like a Man” by “dating coach” Myreah Moore.

“In it (Date Like a Man) there’s a section with the bold title “How to Have Sex Like a Man.” But very curiously, the majority of the chapter deals with what men want sexually, not women. Here are some of the headings: 
Men Like Blow Jobs 
Get to Know Mr. Happy 
Kiss It, Lick It, Squeeze It, Tease It 
Deep Throating 
Men Like Women Who Swallow 
Men Like Pornography 
Men Like Lingerie
Men Like to Talk Dirty
 Men Like Women Who Bring on the Noise 
Men Like Women Who Are Flexible 
Men Like Lesbians”
 
“I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido” – Joan Sewell

Book in with me to bring your mojo back and learn a new sexual and relationship repertoire

You can bring sexy back and recharge your relationship. Start now.

Are you just a booty call but want more?

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized

narcissusandecho

Are you a booty call, friend with benefits, fallback or in a casual relationship when you want more?

Many people want the companionship and regular sex of someone with the least amount of effort possible. This is fine if you’re both on the same page with this, but I see so many clients who want commitment and possibly children but they get stuck in relationships going nowhere fast. Their pain and dissatisfaction is heartbreaking.

Our instant online gratification hook-up culture has extinguished our relationship expectations. Nihilistic and jaded anti-love sentiment can make us way too casual about ourselves. I see so many clients trying to convince themselves they won’t “catch feelings” and that they can keep it simply physical. Just stop. Your values are important and you can clearly articulate what you want.

Hopper, Excursion into Philosophy 1959

How to tell if you’re in a pseudo relationship

They’ve told you they don’t want a relationship or anything serious right now but you still stick around. You can’t change their mind. You can’t prove yourself to them. You won’t win by waiting it out after a year of casual sex. You’re not a car that needs multiple test drives.

You’ve been giving all of yourself whilst requiring nothing more than a bare minimum in return. This reflects how little you value yourself and what you’ll tolerate.

You have a history of casual relationships because you run from people who want serious commitment from you because it feels “uncomfortable”. You might be commitment phobic yourself and the “challenge” of the emotionally unavailable person means you don’t have to look within and confront your fears about commitment, abandonment and how loveable you are.

Your sexual partner doesn’t make time to see you regularly, doesn’t follow through fast enough after dates, isn’t interested in meeting your friends, family or you theirs. You may have ignored red flags and desperately don’t want to be alone.

There’s no emotional and sexual boundaries. They exploit kink and polyamorous identities as “excuses” for their bad behaviour. Respectful behaviour is important for any identity or lifestyle.

summer-in-the-city-1950

Your sexual partner keeps you at arms length and avoids emotional intimacy. The “relationship” isn’t developing and a year later you’re still their “once a week shag”.

You settle for crumbs and focus obsessively on them. Yeah, sure they like your company, like sex with you, maybe they did a nice thing for you last week… You might focus on that one tiny thing so much that you block out the negatives.

You hope by having sex you will get emotional intimacy. Don’t. If you get emotionally attached to people you’re being sexual with, take your time getting to know them first! Sex can bond you to the wrong person for years.

If you want a committed partner and you’ve been dating someone for a few months but they still don’t know what they want, it’s time to hold your head up high and say goodbye. You can’t force someone to commit. Stop clinging desperately to what you don’t want when you could be out there finding what you do want. You deserve it.

Cat O Dowd
Sex Therapist & Couples Counsellor
www.creativesexpression.com
cat@creativesexpression.com

Art- Narcissus and Echo: Solomon Joseph.

Excursion into Philosophy and Summer in the City:  Edward Hopper

She struggles to orgasm. Anorgasmia in Women.

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized
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Are you a woman struggling to orgasm with your partner?

Suzy* had never orgasmed with her husband. She came to see me after her doctor recommended she see a sex therapist. Her doctor couldn’t find any medical problems so together we worked to find the source of her “inorgasmia”. She was able to orgasm through masturbation (solo sex) but not partnered sex.

During our sessions we explored her attitudes to sex, her sexuality, her body, genitals and her relationship.

Suzy had been brought up in a strict religious family where she was taught that women should suppress their sexual appetite.

Cultural ideas that demonise and repress sex have a profound influence on women’s ability to orgasm and can block women’s sexual potential.

Suzy felt guilty for masturbating and thought her vulva was ugly and sinful because of her upbringing.

Light and Shadow Keinyo White

I set Suzy various homework exercises to do at home. Suzy’s homework exercises were to look at her naked body in the mirror, regularly masturbate, sleep naked and and have a good look at her genitals under a proper light with a mirror. She had never done these before and over time with support, they increased her sexual awareness and acceptance of her body.

Art therapy and positive sex education helped view her sex organs as cherished and beautiful.

We explored Suzy’s childhood to discover unconscious blocks. Her father abandoned the family when she was four and was sporadically available for a few more years before disappearing from her life altogether. The pain from this abandonment kept her imprisoned in a knee jerk response of emotional control whenever she felt vulnerable. She was scared of letting go and surrendering to her partner. Hypnosis and meditation helped Suzy to start to ‘let go.’

We looked at how her intimate relationship functioned. Research consistently shows that a woman’s happiness in her relationship and whether she feels ‘safe’ are directly connected to her ability to orgasm. Emotions are more important when it comes to orgasm with a partner than with masturbation.

There were power and control issues in her relationship surrounding the expectation that the man in a relationship is rightfully the sexual ‘boss’. Suzy didn’t want to offend her husband by asking for what she wanted. She wanted to ask for more foreplay and clitoris stimulation but was scared he might take it personally and feel like a failure. Her husband rushed foreplay and had only received sex education through pornographic films. They didn’t use lubricant so the condoms caused Suzy pain. Lots of lubricant is essential for safe sex always.

Together we worked on healthy communication styles where Suzy could vocalise her sexual preferences and share sex education resources with her partner. I set sensual “homework” exercises for the couple that started with non-genital caresses. They had to practice touching each other in ways that focussed on pleasurable sensations instead of orgasm.

By the end of our sessions Suzy had achieved her first “coital orgasm” and had showed her husband how she liked to be touched in a non-confronting way. They’d opened up their sexual repertoire to pleasure and intimacy as the goal rather than orgasm. Together they had  improved their communication. Suzy had challenged her own internalised beliefs, accepted she was entitled to sexual pleasure and reclaimed her sexual power.

*Not her real name.

Cat O Dowd: Sex Therapist, Relationship Counsellor, Art Therapist.
www.creativesexpression.com

This first appeared in my column for Ciao magazine. You can read it in the magazine here.

Art- Light and Shadow: Keinyo White

Art- Page  from Sketchbook # 20 [man and woman sleeping in bed] Diebenkorn.

 

How is consent like a cup of tea?

Posted on by Cat O Dowd in Uncategorized

 

How is consent like a cup of tea and how did the Brits managed to turn it into an eduational video?
Check out this wonderful video from the Thames Valley Police in England for their #consent is everything campaign.  It uses the metaphor of making a cup of tea to explain sexual consent.

While the law is more complex than this video it’s still a very helpful video to explain consent and it is very engaging.  There’s been some pretty nasty consent education campaigns in the past that have blamed victims so I’m so happy to see something entertaining and simple to raise awareness about this very important issue.

The narrator speaks over animated stick figures,

“If you say ‘Hey, would you like a cup of tea?’ and they’re like, ‘Uh, you know, I’m not really sure,’ then you can make them a cup of tea, or not, but be aware that that they might not drink it.  And if they don’t drink it, then—and this is the important bit—don’t make them drink it. Just because you made it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to watch them drink it. And if they say, ‘No, thank you’, then don’t make them tea. At all.”

“If they’re unconscious, don’t make them tea. Unconscious people don’t want tea, and they can’t answer the question, ‘Do you want tea?’ Because they’re unconscious.”

“You should just put the tea down, make sure the unconscious person is safe, and—this is the important part again—don’t make them drink the tea.”

A recent study revealed that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 20 men had been sexually assaulted whilst at university. We desperately need good sexual education at schools that explain that you need “affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement” before starting any sexual activity. Consent means the people involved must be actively saying yes much more than the previous “no means no” model.

There is so much confusion out there about what consent actually means. A lot of us received no education about consent at all.  This can lead to many damaging situations where consent is ASSUMED when it was never given at all.

Survivors of sexual assault aswell as dealing with societal shame, stigma and victim blaming can be very confused about past events and struggle to understand clearly whether it was consensual or not. This can lead to years of emotional pain and anguish.

It’s important to remember that it’s never okay for someone to force or pressure you to have sex.

Survivors can end up internalising shame about experiences that happened  when they were younger that they weren’t sure whether they were consensual or not. It’s this burden that survivors can carry from their childhood or teenage years well into their adulthood. Here’s what some survivors have said.

Maybe it was my fault? I never explicitly said no as such… I didn’t run away…. I just lay there….. I thought that’s what I was meant to do….. I was too scared to say no……   I was so drunk I didn’t know what was happening…..  S/he was my boy/girlfriend so I didn’t think I could say no…..Isn’t that what you have to do at the end of dates?  They pressured me… I felt I had to give in..

 

The law says that silence doesn’t equal consent. Lack of protest or response doesn’t equal consent. You can withdraw consent at any time and consent isn’t guarranteed just because people have had sex in the past.

The new affirmative-consent movement is trying to get rid of all the layers of ambiguity and assumptions. Sometimes someone might be too scared to say no and feel pressured. They might say, “ok” or “fine.” This isn’t consent.

Detective Chief Inspector Justin Fletcher explains,

“The law is very clear. Sex without consent is rape. Awareness of what sexual consent means and how to get it is vital.

If you can understand how completely ludicrous it is to force people to have tea when they don’t want tea, and you are able to understand when people don’t want tea, then how hard is it to understand when it comes to sex? Whether it’s tea or sex, consent is everything.”