Kristin Hodson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist. She is Founder and Executive Director of The Healing Group mental health clinic in Salt Lake City and Co-Author of the book Real Intimacy: A Couples Guide for Genuine, Healthy Sexuality (Cedar Fort 2011). Additionally she works as an adjunct professor teaching human sexuality to master level students working to become Social Workers and founded the Rocky Mountain Sex Summit in an effort to increase sexual health competency in mental health professionals.
She has a unique ability to break down the topics of sexuality into easily digestible pieces empowering people to further develop their sexual identity, hone their sexual values, improve their communication around sexuality all with the intention to improve people’s relationships with themselves and others.
One of the biggest questions I get asked at The Vagina Blog is about orgasms, especially how to have one if you never have or used to but can’t anymore.
Kristin recommends:
- Educating yourself in YOUR body. Become your own expert.
- Know your anatomy.
- Take what’s helpful (from books, advice, etc) and discard the rest.
- Understand that you can’t rely on your partner to know your body better than you do.
- Removing the pressure and making pleasure instead of orgasm the goal.
Books she recommends:
Kristin gives the most perfect analogy about picking your nose. We all grew up being told we shouldn’t pick our nose, but we all did! If you grew up never touching your own nose and having no knowledge about it and then expecting your partner to know how to do it, how successful would they be? How ridiculous is it to expect our partner to know how to better pick our nose than ourselves? The same can be said for our sexual arousal!
Should we ever fake orgasms? NO.
Talking to your partner about sex is a skill you have to develop. The time you don’t want to do that is during sex!
If you were a vegan and your partner wanted to go to a steakhouse, would you go? Would you go with them, eat a big steak and pretend to be happy? NO! The same can be said for what you do and do not enjoy sexually. If you need a restaurant that has more menu options, speak up and tell your partner!
Vegans don’t fake loving meat and you shouldn’t fake orgasms!
Addressing those that used to have orgasms, but can’t since a life change:
- Are you taking medications? Almost all medications have sexual side effects, be sure to look into it and see if any you are taking could be affecting you sexually.
- What are your stress levels like?
- Have you suffered a physical trauma or injury? After birth especially, pelvic floor muscles can be damaged.
- What other changes are impacting your overall health?
Doing a full medical rule-out can help direct you where you need to get help and is the first thing a sex therapist will do.
So how do I fix my libido if if feels broken? Or if it feels like it’s waning?
Sex is the symptom of a waning libido.
- Medical rule-out is the first thing to do. You can’t have poor physical health and expect to have a healthy sex life.
- For people around 35, they’re at the beginning of perimenopause. That’s a 15 year window of experiencing menopausal symptoms.
- What does your partnership look like? Is there an unequal weight in the relationship making sex a chore?
- Understand the difference between responsive and spontaneous desire (libido)
In the book Come As You Are, Emily Nagoski covers the difference between responsive and spontaneous desire. Typically women experience responsive desire instead of spontaneous.
While it can sound cheesy to say that sex begins in the kitchen, sharing domestic responsibilites can have a big impact on your sex life! Removing that anxiety about getting the house put back together or organizing can lead to easier arousal.
Partnership improves sexual desire and satisfaction. And it’s not like “I did the dishes, you owe me sex” it’s an overall change in partnership and approach and understanding that there’s always something on the mind and if we can make space for wanting or being open to sex, then we probably will.
Have open lines of communication about your sex life and partnership is essential. Sometimes transitioning from mom-mode or work-mode to partner-mode is hard and it’s ok to say, “I just can’t get my mind around having sex right now, but maybe later today or tomorrow I can.” If those lines of communication are open it’s much easier to communicate this and follow through. And sometimes switching out of mom-mode is as simple as brushing your teeth and changing out of sweats to feel like a sexual human again.
For those that feel like they’ve never had a libido and would like to develop their sexual selves, what would you recommend to them?
As a puritan-roots, abstinence-only education country and culture we often create a lot of shame around sex in our minds. Going back through our sexual history (Where did I learn about sex? What was I taught? What attitudes did I learn?) can offer huge insights to who we are sexually today. Even if that history is that you were never taught anything at all and it wasn’t talked about in your home. (What were the messages and how did you interpret sex not being talked about in your home? What was that like? What did you do with your questions? How do you know about sex?)
If you’re entire identity for the first 20+ years of your life is being “pure” or “chaste” and you associate that with not having sex, being in a sexual relationship and developing your sexuality and libido means shedding that previous identity. You were developing as a sexual being and this is how you developed, so now we have to go back and unpack that, and explore that to start rebuilding.
Unfortunately there’s not a quick fix or “3 Tips and Tricks” to develop a libido if you’ve never had one. It takes some other work.
Instead of saying “fix it” let’s pause and be curious about it and what got you to this point.
You are not broken. This isn’t something to fix. It’s something to wonder and be curious about. Decide: I’m going to claim my desire, starting at the beginning. That might be what finding your desire looks like.
IF you want to work with a sex therapist, do your research and find out what their training is. Not all sex therapists are created equal
So Kristin, what period products do you use?
Favorite, hands down, is the menstrual cup. And I love Thinx undies as well. What I really love is that we have so many choices!
Kristin, where can we find you?
My instagram is where I help parents, people and partners to become the sex experts in their life. That’s where you’ll find the most information. Or you can go to my website, kristinbhodson.com.