What Strings Are You Attaching To Sex?

This episode will walk you through the 5 main types of emotional strings we attach to sex that can really tank a couple’s fun together. I'll explain why this can be a hidden, but very common, reason for sexual avoidance. Then I’ll help you inventory this in your relationship and start looking at how to release the weight so you can have more fun, carefree, pleasurable playtime.

Get the free guide Find Your Secret Turn Ons to discover the roadmap to your best sex life at https://laurajurgens.com. You can also learn more about me and how to inquire about coaching availability.

Get a transcript of this episode by going to https://sexhelpforsmartpeople.buzzsprout.com/ Click on the episode, then choose the transcript tab.

PS: If you are offended by some swearing, this podcast is not for you.

Transcript

[00:00:19] Welcome to episode 25. This one is all about the strings we attach to sex. So -- the emotional baggage we add, how and why that can really tank a couple's fun together. And I'll be going over the most common strings I see with couples and the baggage that's attached to them, helping you inventory it in your relationship and start looking at how to release that weight so you can have more fun, carefree, pleasurable playtime together.

[00:00:58] So I want to invite you to take a moment and just imagine how it might feel when you are engaged in the most delicious, fun, sexy playtime. Just consider for a minute, how would you be feeling? And I'm guessing that for most of you, It feels kind of playful, because sexuality is really the adult playground, right?

[00:01:24] Our erotic playtime as adults. And when you imagine feeling the most delicious and fun, sexy times. You're probably not imagining feeling the weight of ensuring the security of the future of your relationship or feeling on the hook for validating your partner's attractiveness or lovability through sex, and you're probably not imagining it's so much fun to be making their performance, orgasm, erection, mean something about you and your own sexiness or worth.

[00:01:59] But these are the kinds of strings we attach to sex and relationships. All the time, and then we wonder why our sex lives are tanking. So, it is really common, really normal, if you're doing any of these things, I want you to know that it is fixable and you are not alone. So today we are going to unpack this inadvertent pressure that loads of people are putting on their sex lives so that you can feel more free and playful.

[00:02:29] Or at least, you know, that may not happen right away. It's a bit of a process on unhooking these strings and the baggage attached to them. But at least being aware of what the problem is rather than thinking there's something wrong with you or that your relationship is doomed or your sex life is doomed or you have to give up, usually that is not the case.

[00:02:51] So it's helpful to actually look at these things, kind of get in there and take a look at all the strings we're putting on so that we can work towards feeling more free and playful. Okay, so if you or your partner are attaching emotional baggage to sex, it can cause inadvertent reluctance for sex, and just a really subconscious turn off.

[00:03:16] A lot of times we don't realize that we are having sex. attaching strings to sex. And if it's our partners who were doing it, where they're attaching strings to sex, we don't understand why we're turned off or reluctant for sex. And sometimes we think there's something wrong with us, but it actually makes total sense.

[00:03:36] We are subconsciously picking up on all of that emotional baggage that they're attaching, right? And deep inside, we know darn well that it's not going to make for fun. free, playful times. So we're saying no, even if we'd actually dearly love that experience of fun, free, playful sex. Even if we deeply crave it, we are saying no to sex because we know that's not the sex we're going to get.

[00:04:05] So today we're going to break this down and look at the most common emotional strings people attach to sex so you can just start bringing this stuff into conscious awareness and then work on releasing those strings. And that's how you get to have that fun, free, playful, pleasure oriented sex most of us are really actually deeply wanting.

[00:04:24] So There are five main categories of emotional strings, and y'all know I love a good list, like an organized list for you all. I feel like, you know, as a former university professor, that organizing things for people to take in just really helps. So there are five categories I organized for you, and they are super common, and I'm gonna go through them all in order, and I want to just invite you to think through them.

[00:04:52] honestly and just kind of reflect on whether any of these are happening for you in your partnership from your side or whether you suspect it may be, whether you're getting sort of spidey senses that maybe your partner might be attaching these strings or whether you're feeling like that. Now look, that doesn't mean you can just assume that you're right and that they are.

[00:05:14] There could be something totally different going on, but it's also worthwhile to check in with your intuition and see whether You know, maybe that is the case and you really want to check in with them and have a conversation about it. Okay, so here they are. Number one, making sex the thing that lets you feel valued, wanted, loved, connected.

[00:05:37] Right? And doing this really exclusively with sex so that you don't really feel valued, wanted, loved, or connected unless you're getting sex. And this is not to say that it's bad to have sex be emotionally connecting. That is okay. What we're talking about here, what I'm talking about is when sex is the only thing that feels emotionally connected and you have to be having sex or sexual attention to feel cared for and connected to your partner.

[00:06:07] That is putting way too much pressure on sex itself and on your partner to fulfill emotional needs. And I see this really often where in couples it can happen a lot where one person feels really only gets connection through sex, and the other person wants regular ongoing connection and in fact needs it in order to feel safe enough to have sex.

[00:06:32] But the person who only allows themselves to be emotionally connected through sex is really creating their own worst nightmare. They won't ever get that emotional connection they crave because they aren't able to offer it or be in connection outside sex, which is what their partner needs. So the work is really learning to nurture connection and be open to both giving and receiving emotional connection outside sex, so that sex gets to be the cherry on top of emotional connection and not the whole thing.

[00:07:07] cake, right? So as a side note, I do see this as extra common with people who had emotional needs be shamed at some point during their childhood. And even if it wasn't through their parents, sometimes it's by society, such as being socialized as a boy. They might shut down their emotional needs, except in sex where they don't feel like they're really able to be kind of vulnerable and have emotional needs outside the bedroom.

[00:07:36] So that's super common for men in particular. And we do a lot of opening that up in my practice. It's really beautiful and liberating and really empowering for men and wonderful for the couple. And if this is you, you can start by really owning your desire for connection. That it's okay. to want to feel valued and loved.

[00:08:01] Owning that you need to learn how to offer and receive that value and love outside sex. Like owning that for yourself, that that is a skill you need to learn. And actually practicing seeing and seeking love and valuing yourself and feeling valued by your partner in other ways. If this is your partner, you can help them by pointing it out with compassion, not with blame, right?

[00:08:29] And expressing your own needs clearly, not people pleasing them through obligation sex, which I promise does not actually help. It creates more problems than it solves. And if this is your partner, just really being open to learning and helping them learn to connect in ways that feel good to both of you, including through other types of touch than just sexual touch.

[00:08:53] Okay. Number two, making sex the judge and jury about your attractiveness. This is a really common string to attach to sex. It happens for people of all gender identities, and it happens when you decide your appeal is tied to whether your partner wants sex. And it almost sounds somehow reasonable, but I can promise you it's not.

[00:09:19] It's not helpful. It actually isn't helping you or your sex life. Part of the reason this is a big problem is because it always makes sex feel heavier. to your partner and it makes you feel really sensitive to a no. Because all of a sudden if they don't feel like having sex, maybe they're tired from a long day at work.

[00:09:42] Maybe they've been just like exhausted by taking care of children or breastfeeding or whatever is going on in their life. Maybe they're just like, They haven't been getting the connection that they wanted. Maybe, like, who knows? There's a whole list of things. In fact, I have a whole episode on why people might not be wanting sex, and that's episode four, and that's if it's regular that they're not wanting sex.

[00:10:01] But if it's, like, every time, that your partner doesn't feel like sex. It's a referendum on whether you're attractive or not. It makes it so hard for you to hear a no. So like deeply invalidating and it makes it feel so heavy for your partner because now all this like baggage is attached to whether they say yes or no.

[00:10:26] That takes away all that like playful fun stuff. So Really, when the weight of your own self validation is attached, it is a problem. And actually, there's another episode, Episode 9, about validation seeking and sort of how not to be a validation kind of black hole that could really be helpful for you, too.

[00:10:48] The key thing is that you actually need to find ways to stop demeaning yourself in your own head, which is why you're putting all this pressure on sex to overcome that and validate you. So, it does take a lot of practice to change this habit of demeaning yourself for your attractiveness in your own head and learning to build yourself up instead.

[00:11:08] But it's so worthwhile. It feels amazing. And it will also take so much pressure off your sex life and your partner and make it way easier for them to want to fuck you. The rejections that you might be getting if this is something you're doing are actually not about your looks. And so it's really important to realize that.

[00:11:28] They're actually because validation seeking and insecurity are really big subconscious turn offs for most people. No one can help that. No matter how gorgeous you are, If you are seeking validation and feeling really insecure and hanging it on whether your partner has sex with you or not, it is not going to be sexy.

[00:11:52] And some of the most aesthetically good looking people in the world, when you actually, if you meet them face to face, they are so incredibly secure, insecure, that in a real world, like face to face interaction, you are instantly unattracted to them, even though they look great on a movie screen. So just remember it's not about how beautiful or sexy you are.

[00:12:14] It's about that habit of validation seeking and that insecurity and that's something that you want to get a handle on for yourself too because you will feel so much better in all the rest of your life if you can walk through the world feeling confident in your own attractiveness. And remembering that your partner is still around and still is like with you, right?

[00:12:39] So of course it's not coming from them, right? Usually that, that shit's coming from inside. Okay. Number three. This is another where you're making sex the judge and jury, this time about your relationship security. As if sex is the sort of decider of whether you are okay as a couple, whether you're on firm footing.

[00:13:02] And if you're not having sex today, or your partner doesn't happen to want it, it means you don't want it. Let yourself indulge in all this anxiety about the solidity of your relationship. Okay, y'all. This is really common. You are not alone if you do it. And there is no shame. Right? You have a reason, probably rooted in your past, that you are scanning for abandonment, or feel challenged to feel secure when you're not having sex.

[00:13:31] So, we need to help you unpack the reason and really understand it and start not heaping that onto your sex life. Because that part is not helping your partnership or your sex life. It is not helping the security of your relationship to put so much pressure on sex to validate whether your relationship is okay.

[00:13:53] You want to actually instead have real heart to heart conversations, right, with your partner about that. How is the relationship for both of you and actually check in with each other and be able to talk about how you're doing as a couple. That's where we want to help you get. And if that's really challenging for you, there could be lots of reasons for that.

[00:14:14] And that's okay. That's challenging for a lot of people. And I promise it's fixable. And if you are having a challenge trusting your partner to be honest with like with you, like if you believe that you sat down and asked, are we okay, and your partner would lie, then that's worth examining as a real issue for both of you.

[00:14:33] But it doesn't mean that somehow sex is a more honest assessment of how, or a reliable indicator of how your relationship is doing. People have All kinds of reasons for wanting or not wanting sex that have absolutely nothing to do with how committed they are to the partnership. So, see if you're doing that.

[00:14:52] Check in with yourself. Am I making sex about relationship security? Is it how I validate whether we're okay or not? Or whether somebody is like, like, still loves me and, or isn't mad at me about something? All that kind of stuff. All right, number four. This one is also super common. They're all really common, actually.

[00:15:13] And this one is making sex a reward for adulting. Most people are not doing this on purpose. In fact, I haven't actually ever met anybody who's doing it who knows that they're doing it, but this is when you are inadvertently seeing sex as your reward for being a decent person and an occasionally thoughtful partner instead of being a selfish asshole.

[00:15:36] Like, you take out the trash, you bought some flowers, you parent your own kids, you're a nice person, whatever. And then you feel entitled to sex as your reward, and this is usually subconsciously. This is most common for men, and it's due to socialization around sex and adulting and generally kind of low expectations we have as a society for boys, for their sort of self responsibility But unfortunately, this will bite you in the ass.

[00:16:06] It is a giant turn off. And it tends to breed heaps of resentment in relationships. So, I see it really often with men who are actually angry about not getting as much sex as they think they quote unquote should be getting. And whether they try to hide that or not, the pattern can lead to actual revulsion in the partner if you don't get a handle on it.

[00:16:34] And to be honest, there's really good reason for that. It is kind of the feeling your partner gets is kind of like having a little boy want sex from mommy, which feels gross and really not sexy. Very different from an actual mommy kink, which is like a whole planned consensual thing where everyone knows what they're doing.

[00:16:52] So you can start on this one by Getting on to yourself about it and really getting honest with yourself, investigating whether you feel entitled to sex as your reward for good behavior. Alright, number five, and this is the last one for today. And this is also really common for all gender identities. And it is about having strings attached to performance.

[00:17:23] So it's not just whether you're having sex that the strings are attached to, or how often, or whether your partner wants it in this moment, or, you know, quote unquote enough to fit whatever standard you have in your head. But it's whether you or your partner is getting or staying hard or wet, whether they are having an orgasm, whether you are having an orgasm.

[00:17:44] However many you have decided you or they, quote unquote, should be having to feel good about yourself. It's where those thoughts come from. Strings are attached to sort of how the sex plays out, the performance, and specifically oftentimes it's attached to erections, lubrication, and orgasm. Those are the things that we're sort of trained by porn and media to think are the like benchmarks of whether we are good enough lovers or the other person is quote unquote responsive enough, right?

[00:18:19] If this sounds familiar, here's a couple questions you can start with asking yourself. So first off, what direction am I doing it? So am I making it my own responses mean bad things about me? Or am I making my partner's responses mean bad things about me? Or bad things about them? Then get curious about the specifics.

[00:18:42] So what exactly am I making it mean? And you don't have to blame yourself to get curious. Remember, we're trying to take responsibility for sort of inadvertent subconscious thoughts, most of which are not put there by us on purpose. Right? They are things that we kind of learned and, and stuff that's like sunk into us from society.

[00:19:02] So don't give yourself a hard time. Just get honest with yourself. What exactly am I making these things mean? What kind of performance am I holding up as the standard to validate? myself. And try to notice how unhelpful it is. So this puts loads of pressure on you and your partner. And the kicker is that pressure itself is literally the leading cause of performance issues.

[00:19:31] So it is the number one erection killer and the number one orgasm killer is feeling pressured to have an erection or have an orgasm. So when you are using erections and orgasms as the measure of how good you are in bed or how sexy you are or how much you are loved, whatever it is that you're making it mean, right, go back to that question, what am I making it mean?

[00:19:54] You're literally doing the worst possible thing for the erection or orgasm. And it's not like your partner doesn't know. We all can pick up these subconscious cues from each other. So it's worth being honest with ourselves about What is going on under the hood here, right? And when we are inadvertently putting pressure on our partners or ourselves, it feels awful.

[00:20:21] It feels really bad. So, and, you know, 99 percent of the time, orgasm and erections are totally unrelated to attraction and love. They are not a measure of how attracted your partner is to you or how much they love you or how great you are in bed, even. That's it. Sometimes there's some technique stuff, but most of the time, you know, a lot of the time it's related to that pressure.

[00:20:48] So let's get a handle on that and, you know, check ourselves around it. All right, my dears. If you have none of these issues, I am so excited for you. Huge congratulations. Yay. I am celebrating you. Great way to go. But at least you know now what to watch out for and you can prevent them cropping up, which they often will do in long term partnerships.

[00:21:14] So if you don't have that problem now, you know, keep an eyeball out and just make sure that you're onto yourself about if any of that stuff starts sneaking in. But if you are doing any or literally all of these things, you are not alone. And the great news is they are all safe. all fixable, every single one of them.

[00:21:35] So when you get a handle on the strings you are attaching to sex or your partner is, it can be so liberating to realize there's a reason for the heaviness attached to your sex life. And there's so much reason to hope because it's totally possible to solve each one of these things. And it's really common for some, like, in a partnership, for one partner to be doing some of these things and the other partner to be doing the other, other ones.

[00:22:01] So be really careful that you don't make this all about your partner being the only one who's doing it. Like, definitely try to be honest with yourself. Awareness and honesty are the first step. So my exercise for you today is to really invite awareness and honesty at least with yourself to start. So I want to invite you to take some time to reflect, you know, carve out a little chunk of time, like maybe 20 minutes, go for a walk alone or with your dog, whatever you like to do, and really, you know, go weed the garden, whatever, and ask yourself, what am I making sex or sexual performance mean?

[00:22:44] What strings am I attaching to it? Okay. That is today's episode, y'all. And I have a request for you. If you find this podcast useful, please consider sharing it. The reason I do this is because so many people are struggling with just not knowing where to turn, getting crap information in the media, and struggling with shame, and just not having a lot of this information.

[00:23:08] So you can bring help to someone by just spreading the word, and you never know who they'll spread it to, right? You may be changing people's lives. So I really appreciate that. Thank you. And I will see you here next week. Hey, if you're curious about how you could have better sex and connections, go grab my free guide, find your secret turn on.

[00:23:28] It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com and the link is in the show notes. I'll see you here next time.