Desire Solutions: Signs that you're rushing penetration & what to do instead

Why does penetration feel painful, numb, or just... meh? And why does rushing to it kill desire over time?

If you're experiencing pain or numbness during sex, struggling with low libido, or wondering why your partner seems less and less interested, this episode is for you. It reveals one of the most common desire killers: penetration before the body is actually ready.

You'll learn how much time most female bodies need before reaching full arousal,  how to recognize true readiness for penetration, what to do if impatience is getting in the way, and how rushing this one thing can tank desire for years.

Whether you're a higher-libido partner wondering why sex isn't appealing to your partner, or a lower-desire partner who's been crossing your body's boundaries so long that sex has become something to endure – this episode has practical solutions for both of you.

Perfect for couples dealing with mismatched libidos, pain during sex, or anyone wanting to understand what bodies actually need for pleasurable, desire-building intimacy.

Get my free guide: 5 Steps to Start Solving Desire Differences
(Without Blame or Shame), A Practical Starting Point for Individuals and Couples, at https://laurajurgens.com/libido

Find out more about me at https://laurajurgens.com/

Transcript

0:01  
Welcome to the desire gap podcast. I'm your host, Dr Laura Jurgens, and whether you want more sex than your partner or less, you are not wrong, and your relationship isn't doomed. You just need better tools to solve the struggles of mismatched libidos. That's what we do here, so

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welcome and let's dive in.

0:23  
Hey everyone. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome Today we are talking about a really important issue, if there's low desire going on in your relationship, or if you are just a human being who wants to understand how to have great sex for your whole life and not have it get screwed up by accidentally rushing things.

0:45  
And if you're a woman who wants to know sort of how to take good care of your relationship with your genitals, if you are a partner of a woman, whether that's a man or a woman or non binary person, who wants to make sure that you are fully respecting your partner's body and not doing anything to contribute to them having low desire if you want to have great connection between your bodies, and also, if you're a man who happens to bottom or be with men who happen to bottom, this All actually applies to butt holes too. We are going to mostly talk about penetration in the context of vaginal penetration, because this whole situation of penetration too soon really tanks desire for millions and millions of women in heterosexual couples in particular, but it also happens for gay men, sometimes, especially because butt holes and vaginas are very similar, and that they are do not like to take foreign objects until they are good and ready and at the pace they need. And a lot of this is this real commonality of this, the fact that it's so common in heterosexual couples rushing vaginal penetration is really it's not anybody's fault. It's really due to a cultural expectations that are all oriented around men's pleasure, cultural sexuality in the US, for sure, and many other countries, is very much oriented around what men like, and that has just been passed down from the patriarchy. Thank you very much. But it's not helping anybody, and it's not helping men, it's really not helping anybody to not understand that estrogen based bodies really require a different pacing, because we have a very different time to full arousal. We can get incredibly aroused, extremely highly aroused, but it takes a lot longer than it typically does for a body who's operating with a penis, and if our culture and our sex lives are really oriented around bodies operating with penises, we are going to miss something really fundamental for people who have vaginas, which is it we really need a lot more arousal before We're ready for any objects, fingers, toys, cocks to be inserted in there. And we're going to talk today about this, because it, oh gosh, does it tank women's desire. It is incredibly common to be rushing penetration. It is one of the most common causes of low desire and sexual disinterest in women, a very common contributor to lack of orgasm, and it is a very common cause of pain and numbness, because that is your body doing what it needs to be doing to protect you, and it is operating properly by telling you that you are crossing its boundaries. That's why we get pain right right to give us information, and if we continue to do stuff that hurts us, we often get numbness, and that's what's happening. It makes total sense. So we're going to talk about all this today, but I want to rewind for just a minute to put it in context, in the context of the two biggest reasons for low desire, and we'll talk about these a lot on this podcast. But in a nutshell, the two biggest reasons for low desire are one, emotional stuff that you haven't been dealing with, either with yourself or with your partner or both. So emotional stuff that you might not be dealing with with yourself. Some examples, we'll talk more about them in depth in other episodes, but some examples are shame, a lack of feeling safe in your relationships. And that doesn't mean that your partner is abusive. It might mean that you have some attachment trauma from childhood, for example, or that you just don't really know how to connect vulnerably. Or your partner doesn't, right? And that's some other examples of with a partner, misattunements, poor communication. But even with just ourselves, emotional stuff we might not be dealing with could just be a feeling pressure to be different than we are, feeling pressure to be like what we see on TV or what we see in porn. Right? So number one, emotional stuff we haven't dealt with. Number two, reason for low desire is not getting what your body needs for great sex. If you're not getting what your body needs for great sex, you are not getting all of those yummy chemicals that tell you you want more of it. Now notice, neither one of these are hormonal. Hormones can contribute to low desire, but they're typically not the end of the story. So these are the top two reasons I see emotional stuff we're not dealing with. We're not getting what our body needs for great sex, and I want to tell you that part of not getting what your body needs for great sex is typically pacing. Pacing, especially for women, is almost always at play in some way, shape or form. And so in the context of what we're talking about today, look, women need a lot more time. Typically, the average time for heterosexual intercourse in the US start to finish is about 10 to 13 minutes. And women need an average of 30 to 45 minutes just to become fully aroused, 30 to 45 minutes of foreplay. And there's no way, no way that that can coincide with the average time for heterosexual intercourse to be 10 to 13 minutes, start to finish, and have women being fully aroused before penetration. This is why most of the people I see who are in female bodies are not getting anywhere near the foreplay and arousal that they need before penetration, and it is causing problems. It is causing their desire to shut down. It is often causing their body to shut down. And sometimes it's causing their body to shut down in ways that, like, they don't know how to you. It's not a fast fix. Like, you can't just, like, Okay, well now we're gonna just start having more time and it's magically going to be better. Your body has to learn how to trust you. So I just want to be clear that if you are a person with a penis, you might not know this, but it does not feel good to have any objects in your vagina until you are fully aroused, it doesn't feel good. You know, we don't put in tampons and get off on it. It doesn't feel like either doesn't feel like anything, it just feels weird, or it actually hurts. Until you're fully aroused, it does not feel good. And so the same actually goes for butt holes. It doesn't feel good to just have something randomly shoved up your butt hole most of the time for most people. And so if you want to understand your female partner's experience, I highly recommend taking a dildo up your ass with plenty of pet preparation. Don't do it without enough preparation. You will learn enough of your lesson by how much preparation it takes and how much arousal helps you with that it will really bring home this lesson. It is very vulnerable to take foreign objects into your body, and your body really has requirements for the conditions under which that's going to feel good. If you are a person who has a vulva in a vagina, and you keep crossing your boundaries by accepting penetration too soon, it will show up as pain, numbness or loss of libido. It will at some point show up that way, period. End of story. So your body needs at least 30 to 45 minutes of full arousal, just like building arousal, and it needs it with the specific kinds of touch and energy that suit your arousal type. Now look, does this mean you can never have a quickie? No, you can have a quickie if you pre arouse yourself, if you go and, like, do whatever you need to do to get yourself super turned on, where you're just dripping ready, and your pussy is, like, super greedy, then you can absolutely have a quickie. But it's not short circuiting that arousal need. It's just doing it beforehand and getting ready. And yes, there are some moments in time, especially early in life, when you're like, really raging hormones, when your hormones can help you out here and kind of help you, like, speed up this process a little bit, or get sort of spontaneous. This desire and just from, like, I don't know, walking down the street having your jeans rub a certain way, that's what hormones do, is they kind of like, help us cheat, but you don't need to cheat. Sex can be delicious. You can take your time. There's no need to rush so you didn't want to get 30 to 45 minutes, typically, of specific kinds of energy, touch, flirting, foreplay, that work for your arousal type and your specific touch needs. So I highly recommend you go check out that episode on arousal styles that'll help you diagnose your own. There's three types. And if you are energetically inclined, you may require very specific grounded energy from your partner that whole time. And hint is, if that sounds really delicious, like, if you're listening to me say, Mmm, grounded. Like, really grounded energy. That's just like, super, super in like,

11:05  
like someone being in their own pleasure and fully embodied and really present. If that sounds delicious to you, then that probably part

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of your makeup. You're probably partly energetic.

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So all of this is normal to need. If you are a woman, 30 to 45 minutes of full foreplay or more, some women need more, and there is no shame in that. It's absolutely okay. So many of us think we have to be faster or have to do things on a man's timetable, and that is from our culture that is oriented towards men's sexuality. That is not actually true. You do not need to be any different than you actually are. You do not need to have different arousal needs than you actually have. It is okay. In fact, is wonderful to be a woman. In a woman's body, you can get massively aroused, and there's nothing wrong with taking time. It can be lovely. It can be wonderful. It can be really connecting. And here's how to know when your body is ready for insertion. I used to wonder about this, and I learned, and you will learn too if you if you don't know when your body is ready for insertion, which is really common, there's no shame in that. You probably just haven't actually taken the time with yourself to learn yet. But what will happen is your pussy will literally get greedy, like I need something here. Now it feels kind of like, almost like this. To me. It feels like, kind of like an internal like, little like about to throw a tantrum if I don't get what I want, kind of thing. And your pussy should feel like that before anything, even a finger goes in. There. No joke, you wanted to be really, really hungry for something to get in there before you put anything in there. And so if you're like me, and you never even figured out if you like penetration before it was literally, literally thrust on you, and you just kept doing it because you thought you were supposed to and that you were supposed to like it, I want to invite you to take this moment as an invitation to learn what feels good to you and when what your body's pacing is. You deserve that connection with your own body's pleasure, and it is okay for you to take the time and do whatever you need to do to get that understanding of your own pleasure response and what you like. So if you relate to the idea that you're not even sure if you like penetration, you're definitely don't know if your pussy has ever been greedy, then I want to invite you. This is maybe going to sound a little scary, but I want to invite you to actually pause penetrative sex for a while. Pause it for a little while with your partner. Get yourself a dildo of an appealing size to you. Doesn't have to be big, doesn't have to be small, whatever it is that you like, and go very, very slowly playing with yourself how you like, until you can figure out if you actually do want to explore with penetration, and when you do it going slow Enough with a lot of lube and a lot of preparation of your own body, whether that's with your fingers or a vibrator or the womanizer or whatever your toys of choice are, figuring out if you like it and under what circumstances, what kind of pace you like, how. How you like, the timing of insertion to go, how deep of penetration you like, but I want you to play on your own with penetration with no partner involved, because then you won't be distracted by wondering what they want or their needs, or their pacing or taking care of them. And so it really helps to pause. And this doesn't mean you never have to have penetrative sex again. It just means pausing it for a few weeks or longer, to figure out for yourself if you really like this, and to learn that sensation of starting to feel greedy when you are ready to play with a partner, because you already know that you like penetration. When you're ready to have penetrative sex with a partner, and you learned your own body's signals of that sort of insertion timing and how the greedy feels, then make sure you go back to doing that 30 to 45 minutes of you specific foreplay and all that yummy warm up and escalation that you need in order to get there. And please don't use lube as a shortcut for not doing enough foreplay or arousal. That's what a lot of people use lube for, and it's really not a great idea. It might reduce pain, but it is not going to help you in the long run, and it is not going to help with the way that early penetration actually tanks desire. So don't use lube as a shortcut. That's my that's my micro TED talk on that. One of the things that can come up with this as you try to think about extending your time before penetration or insertion based sex, which I actually prefer the word insertion, because I don't know, it's kind of like eating a banana. You don't penetrate your face with a banana, right? You are engulfing a penis. You are choosing to take that into your body. If you are struggling with the idea of extending the time or taking a pause, you are struggling with patience. And if you are struggling with patience, there are some emotional issues at play that need to be solved. You will maybe need some help with those, but you can try to just practice patience on your own first. And so from both sides of this issue, if you are, I want to address the patient's bit for people with penises and people with vaginas. So if you are a person with a penis and you are finding yourself impatient, you may either be worried about something like your sexual performance. You may be performance focused, and you may be worried that your partner taking more time or taking more time for her arousal is going to influence your quote, unquote performance, so that you might be worried about losing your erection. You may be worried about Ed type of problems, or you might be worried about the other side of things, about premature ejaculation and ejaculating before you want. And if you're worried about those kinds of performance metrics, I want to let you know that the best way to be a horrible lover is to focus on your performance and not your partner's pleasure. Women don't care if your erection comes and goes. We don't care if you pay attention to us and give us what we need, and we feel delicious and wonderful. Then it's okay if your erection comes and goes. It's even okay if you come early. And there's ways to work on that, and you can work on that, but you can switch to a dildo or some fingers, or maybe it's, you know, time to do penetrative for insertion based sex. Another time. The best way to be a good lover of women is to slow down and learn to tolerate slowing down. And I promise it's actually good for both PE and Ed to learn to slow down and to learn to really be present in your body with your arousal, more extended pleasure for you, letting it, letting yourself relax, letting yourself release the anxiety and the performance pressure, and actually just be present with your partner is one of the best things you can do for both PE and Ed. And I say that as an expert, so I want to encourage you to just like, open up the possibility that it could be even better for you than you ever imagined. And if you're a person with a penis who simply wants to go faster because you like that pace, I want you to think about saving that for your masturbation and with your partner, practicing, learning the joys of edging more extended pleasure for you with your partner, because. Because be having like, an agenda to just like, go to pound town with a female partner is a really bad way to be a female lover, a lover of women. So I'm gonna be honest with you. Critical skill for being a great lover of women is to slow down and be really present with giving her lots of yummy pleasure. And I, in my experience, 99% of heterosexual men find that they really love that really love it. Getting your partner to the absolute heights of arousal is just a beautiful thing, and it allows you to also relax and really enjoy yourself and have a longer time together, which is all good, all right, if you are a person with a vulva and you are finding yourself impatient, chances are one of two things, or both of these, is happening. You are thinking that you don't want to take too long and or you don't actually enjoy what's happening and you want it over with,

21:06  
if it's the first thing where you're worried about taking, quote, unquote, too long. You got some patriarchy in your head, and need to start practicing letting yourself take a long time. Be lots of greedy about the like, super greedy about the pleasure in your body. Be Greedy about all that foreplay. Like, get what you get. Yours. Get what you want. Get what your body wants to be aroused. Sex is meant to be savored, and you got to stop treating yourself like you're supposed to be a man or somebody different, because almost all women, almost all women, really need some time. So embrace being a woman and stop giving yourself a hard time for taking quote, unquote, too long. It's not too long, okay. And I mean, don't compare yourself to porn stars. They've been getting fluffed and aroused behind the scenes for at least half an hour, if you need to, and I highly suggest you do this is have a talk outside the bedroom with your partner to get the reassurance you need that it's okay for you to take time really talk about it if you're afraid that it's not okay for you to take time, let your partner know that you need more time and that you're Feeling really vulnerable about that and that it's hard for you to take it. You feel like you're you know it's not okay, and I want you to let yourself be reassured by them, let yourself internalize and believe your partner when your partner says it's okay for you to take the time you need, and look if he's not willing to take the time you need, in the words of Dan Savage, ditch the motherfucker, already. Dtmfa, your pleasure matters, and you do not want to stay with a partner who doesn't believe that your pleasure matters. All right. Number two, if that's like, I really try not to give people too much like direct advice, but that is some direct advice, and I'll own that. I just did

23:01  
that. If it's I just like, I don't like

23:05  
to tell people what to do. I like to invite you to decide if you want to try some things that might work better for you, you know. But really, if somebody's not willing to give you the time you need, you don't need to be with that person. You can go to couples counseling if you want. But you might also find that if they really are reticent, but you might be wrong too. You might be wrong that they don't want to give it to you so you can leave the door open. In that case, all right, if it is the situation where you don't enjoy what's happening and you are impatient because you just want to get it over with, there are some deeper issues at work that's not okay. Like, if you're really like, that's not having sex for you, you're having sex for somebody else. You're having duty sex or obligation sex, and that is going to shut down your libido, I promise you, more faster than anything else in the world. So if you do not want to have a libido, if you want to never want to have sex, just keep doing what you're doing. Have sex for somebody else that you don't like, because it will, if you don't like the sex, it will just tank your libido, I promise. So if you don't like what's happening and you just want to get it over with, you need to be able to tell your partner that this isn't working for you and try to find ways together to play with things that are going to work better for you. You do not have to ever tolerate having sex that you don't want. You are not a sex toy. You are a human being with her own sexuality that deserves to have things that feel good to you and only to have pleasure that feels fully consensual for your body and feels good to you, and if you're trying to tolerate and get things over with quickly, that is not what's happening. You are not having pleasure for yourself. So there's some emotional issues going on there that you haven't been dealing with because you're people pleasing with sex, which is an whole that's a whole can of worms. I haven't. Episode on that, probably go back and listen to it, but you're going to want to get some help with that, because that's probably coming from some places of insecurity that you need to root out so that you get to live your life feeling entitled to your own pleasure, and feeling entitled to say no when something's not working for you. And anybody who loves you, me and everybody else who loves you would tell you the same. If you do have a history of ignoring your body's boundaries, you may need to think about taking insertion or penetration off the table for a little while until you can rebuild trust with your body and start to relax and feel pleasure, and that may be a few weeks or a few months, my hope is that your partner can be really supportive about that, and it's okay if they're supportive and have some anxieties or fears that's really normal. They may fear that you're not going to be able to connect in that way again in the future. But I promise, if you are the partner listening to this, it is much, much better for your partner to take a pause and reconnect with their pleasure than just push through in order to please you. That will end badly for both of you and make things worse if you need help with that. If you need help with any of this, please reach out either to me or to somebody that you feel comfortable with. If it feels impossible not to have obligation sex that is definitely part of the problem, and there is emotional stuff that needs to be sorted out. If it feels impossible to talk about, and if it feels like you just don't know where to start, right? But I really want to encourage you to really consider making sure you're getting enough arousal to get to that point where you get really greedy for having a cock or whatever it is that you're playing with in there, whether that's your vagina or your butthole. Make sure you get to the point of, I really need it now, if you don't know that point, if you haven't learned that point, take the time with yourself to do it where you don't have to pay attention to somebody else, and you can really pay attention to your own sensations, and don't force it on yourself. Go really slowly. Maybe you need a few weeks of non penetrative masturbation first. That's absolutely okay. This is all in service of you having true, authentic desire, because you are really paying attention to what your body needs for your pleasure, and that is wonderful and is always worth your time and energy and always worth asking your partner to support. All right, my dears, I'll see you here next time. Hey. So before you go, I have some more free help for you. If you are okay with sharing your email, I will send you my free guide, five steps to start solving desire differences without blame or shame. This is a practical starting point for individuals and couples. You can opt out of my emails at any time, but I think you'll want to stick around. I am not a spammer. Go get it at www.Laurajurgens.com/libido. Make sure to spell my last name right and the link is in the show notes.