we are living in an age of trauma 

We live in an age of trauma - everywhere we look somebody's nervous system is kicking off about something. We all get caught online with positioning at best, fighting at worst. Mental health disorders are at an all time high, and they are hitting younger and younger too. Just the other day I found out another friends' daughter has been cutting. It's horrifyingly common. Marriages are breaking down. Families living apart. Our tweens are initiated into sex via frequently violent porn. And... Oh God I can't go on.

Here's the good news...

Trauma can be healed.

This article will focus on the role of the human nervous system, how it can go a bit skew-wiffey, how that tends to affect our sex and how it can be healed. Even better, how sex can heal it too. (Or the right kind of sex for you.)

Your nervous system physiology

So to understand the affect of trauma and what it does to your nervous system, let's first have a quick look over your nervous system itself. In a nutshell, your nervous system is made up of two components - the central and peripheral. (You can read all about the science of that here.)

Where the nervous system of a human being becomes very interesting in terms of trauma and trauma healing however, is how it is divided into two main functions - the somatic (or voluntary) and the autonomic (involuntary.)

Obviously, the somatic nervous system will oversee everything about your body that you have control over - so your brain says jump and it's your somatic nervous system transports that central command and your body jumps.

The autonomic nervous system oversees all things over which you have no conscious control - so for example breathing rate, heart rate and survival.

And survival is the key point here. Let's dig a bit deeper into how your survival physiology can both protect you and also hinder you if it gets stuck.

how trauma affects the nervous system

It gets a little more intricate and complex still - are you ready?

When it comes to trauma, we need to look at the ANS or autonomic nervous system function. This part of your nervous system is divided into two branches - the sympathetic and parasympathetic. Perhaps these are terms you have heard of? If not , to make it simple, it is good to understand that the sympathetic nervous system response is what oversees your fight flight response. It's the bolt of lightning. The one that electrifies your muscles and gives you superhuman capacity to run or attack. It increases your breathing rate to deliver more oxygen to the cells, it increases blood sugar for energy, etc etc. (In fact, almost every physical sign of stress you can think of is related to this fight flight activation.)

Then there's the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the part of the nervous system otherwise known as the vagus nerve. We could go even deeper here and explore the different levels of the vagus nerve itself. But I think what's important is that we understand the overall function of the parasympathetic, which is that it oversees our rest and digest functions, plus our social engagement systems.

But let's take a step back for a moment - because the one thing all these different aspects of our autonomic nervous system have in common is that they work very hard in synchronicity to maintain your personal safety.

Being attacked? The SNS (sympathetic) will kick in. If this doesn't work and escape or overpowering your attacker is impossible, then the PNS (parasympathetic) will kick in and your system will go into total freeze shut down. In other words your nervous system will make you do whatever is most likely to help you survive. Fight, flight, or play dead until the attacker loses interest.

There is also another aspect of this survival system known as the fawn response. Women in particular can have this one turned up to the max - and that is the capacity to people please or to give people what they want in order to avert or avoid attack in the first place.

Do any of these sound familiar to you ?

Me too.

And the problem with these survival physiologies or in built stress responses is not that they exist, of course. Without them we would not be alive. The problem is that they become habituated. Trauma after trauma compounds and the stress response loses its capacity to let go of us. We become used to them. We are used to being permanently ON.

HOW ALL OF THIS ACTUALLY FEELS 

I know for me personally that all of those survival physiologies are familiar to me.

Until I started to experiment with sexual energy and mindful sex practices, where I began to experience what my body actually felt like when those parts of my physiology were not being activated, I actually had no idea what it was like to exist normally. 

My stress response was almost permanent. The fawn response was acute - especially during sex. I was so attuned to reading the other person's needs, that I did not know how to locate mine in relationship in real time.

I had become absolutely in service to the altar that is other people. Most of the time, I found myself worrying more about what my lovers thought about me, than about what I actually thought of them.

Then there was the daily oscillation between fight/flight and freeze. Often times the only way I knew how to get out of bed was to drink a couple of strong espressos and get up to try and win the day.

Everything about my life was driven. I felt I needed to fight just for the capacity to take up an inch of space. When this wasn't going on, and at the slightest provocation, I found myself collapsing. There was an ongoing sense of the defeat of life - like I was running out of steam to deal with even the littlest knocks. Hardened, but nowhere near relationally robust.

I am not unusual in this - I see this in my clients all the time too.

how does trauma affect sex?

So as you can imagine, living in a permanent state of stress activation is no way to live. (Though most of us live there.)

But this article is about sexual pleasure and the nervous system, let's dive a bit deeper into how all this affects our sexuality.

One of the really interesting things about trauma, is that it does not have to have been sexual in origin in order to affect your sexual responsiveness or pleasure. 

In fact, a nervous system that is in high level stress activation will automatically shut down your sex. It's just ... nature. Sexual arousal is pretty counterproductive when running from the bear. So nature being the wisest task master, will make sure blood flow is diverted from unnecessary organs and into the muscles that need it the most to escape danger. Nobody's genitals get engorged when they are terrified.

Hormone activation that is normally associated with sex also gets shut down. So what is the point of oxytocin when you're in immediate danger, for example? Adrenaline and cortisol are the name of the game as far as your stress response is concerned. Every single system in the body gets pointed towards your immediate survival and sex is not a part of that physiology.

Likewise the freeze response - who even wants sex when everything about life feels shut down and flavourless? 

It's also worth noting that when this stress response becomes chronic, many other homoeostatic systems in the body can also become dysregulated, and that these can also affect your sex. For example inflamed or tight muscles - a standard in long term stress - can lead to vaginal pain or pelvic floor tightness. Chronic yeast infections are another issue of dysregulation etc etc. 

And that's all before we even get to climax. I wrote in this article HERE about how climax involves the letting go of vigilance in the brain. In other words, to experience sexual surrender, a woman cannot also be on the lookout for her survival. The two are absolutely incompatible.

Consider then how your stress physiology in overdrive is basically the same thing as survival stress - and you can begin to see how many many women find climax near impossible. Or certainly not as powerful as if her nervous system was feeling safe.

the fawn response and your sex

The fawn response gets a special mention from me when it comes to your sexuality too.

Remember how we outlined your stress physiology as overseeing your fight, fight or freeze response? And how modern trauma commentary has added another aspect to our survival system in the form of fawning - aka people pleasing?

Fawning during sex is common. In fact, so common in women that I would go so far as to say that it has become a near universal female sexual practice. In a heterosexual setting, women are conditioned to perform for male satisfaction during sex. 

In my opinion, male privilege plays out in many ways in our society, but sex is obviously one of the biggest ways. How this often translates is that male orgasm is a given conclusion to the experience (unless there are specific problem with this, of course). In other words, the very spectrum of sexual experience that women are expected to engage in (in heterosexual terms at least) is normally within the container of inevitable male ejaculation. (Granted, the nicest lovers work towards your climax first. But often even that is so that a badge of honour, the "I made you cum" badge can be worn. In other words, even your orgasm can become all about him.)

Honestly, sometimes this conditioning is so subtle it can be hard to catch - and it can pervade every aspect of your sexuality too. From the seduction dance - constantly worried about whether you and your body is good enough. All the way through to the lack of capacity to relax and feel what is going on for your feminine sexual body moment by moment and let go into turn on. Right up to freezing, literally, during sex.  The dissociation. The place where we leave our bodies and fake it.

This is where sex can really begin to hurt as a woman.

We are so far out of our own physical experience, that our fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses are the only things activated at all. Little wonder we can find it hard to access our orgasmic pleasure from this place.

It's painful on so many levels. We consistently serve up our bodies and our pussies before we are actually ready, and then berate ourselves for our shoddy performance. "I can't climax/I can't feel/I have pain/I don't lubricate."

It's like we judge ourselves for being wrong, rather than turning the light of our attention on the arena in which we play, and tending to that instead.

how does safety increase sexual turn on?

So if we agree that the arena in which we play and make love is rigged, then let us take that arena and craft it for our pleasure as women. Let us curate the space so that we feel safe enough to actually, finally, ecstatically let go.

And how do we do that then?

The first place I go with all this is back to the original idea for this article - sex and safety. And if we first understand the need for safety (ie the first half of this article), then we can begin to look at what safety might actually need for our nervous systems when it comes to sex.

Because at first glance, safety doesn't really seem that hot, does it?

Typically, when it comes to sex, we women are not that concerned with safety. (I mean STI protection yes. Birth control, sure. But nervous system safety? PAH!)

How many women do you know, for example, who probably should not throw themselves quite so willingly and with quite such an open heart and pussy to that man who really hasn't really engaged with them as a grown up human just yet? But they do it anyway because, well......turn on. And the fact that the desperate hunger of women for good sex is real. They are willing to suspend judgement and hope. 

Have you done this yourself? I know I have. 

Just the other day I was coaching a woman around this. She told me how she was experiencing a deep attraction for a man in her vicinity. And I asked her what she wanted. She was very clear about this (which is also a rare thing, because ask a woman what she wants generally, and generally what you get back is a vague answer.)

But not this woman. This woman had done a lot of work with her desire and her power. She knew what she wanted - EXACTLY. She wanted this man to begin by holding her, and touching her gently. She wanted him to do that every day for a week. She wanted to feel fat and saturated with his touch in a way that did not obligate her.

Of course, the man wanted something more. Which is totally fair enough. My point is not to berate him - but to ask what do you think she should have done in that situation? What would you have done?

My coaching to her was actually to hold out for her desire. To advocate for it. In the certainty that had she done so, her sex would have come on at the pace it wanted to, and all the way on. That if this man was a man who understood the true depths of feminine orgasm, and how it unfolds like a flower to the sun if the conditions are right (approval, safety, love, attention), then he would surely respect her container?

He would say okay. Let's go slow. Because, ultimately, I know where slow is heading, lady. And I like that place too.

the power of a container

There's a reason why I coach women regularly around their orgasm to actually take the control of the container back again then. And nervous system safety is a big part of it.

I also come back to this idea of containers with couples frequently too.  (Indeed, there's no reason why your partner cannot co-curate the container with you by the way. This is not about women becoming more in control in their relationships full stop. It's actually about defining boundaries so they can experience more surrender in the end.)

You can opt in to my 8 Day to Orgasm Upgrade HERE if you would like some more ideas around how to do this, and how to tend to your nervous system during sex and expand your pleasure sense. But, ultimately, any container safety you create for yourself is typically going to involve the following:

Slowing the fuck down

Creating boundaries around the experience

Practicing articulating desires in real time.

Almost every sexual coaching practice I ever trained in - whether tantric or otherwise - involved some combination of the above.

how pleasure heals

breaking the sexual trauma spell

So if there was one thing this article might impart to women that might help us break the trauma spell once and for all, it is this:

You are not fragile.

In so many aspects of our lives we are hypnotised to play the victim role. We complain about our lover's selfishness or lack of sensitivity to our needs, but we don't turn up to articulate them in any way. We berate ourselves for not being sexually normal and feel disgusted by the ways in which our genitals and sex won't perform as they should, without paying any attention to what our bodies are asking from us in order to be able to actually feel. We serve up the best, deepest and most orgasmic parts of our natures on a plate for our lovers, without any attention to our own needs or boundaries.

We have no impact on our lovers hearts and minds, and we let them get away with that shit.

We betray ourselves over and over and over. And then blame our sex partners for the mess. Because... trauma. And trauma is like a spell we are living under. It's like a hypnotic belief system that we daily collude in.

Yet our bodies were built for pleasure - it's like a second sense for many of us women. And so raising awareness of trauma and how it plays out in the body and the ways we can engage in healing that, is a deeply political act in my opinion. Great sex for all, is as feminist as it gets.

Because once upon a time we knew the power of sexual ecstasy. We used that for fuel.

And look at where we are now.

Look at us.

Perpetuating our terror.

Faking it.

and so where do we go from here?

Just the other day I was on a digital marketing accelerator programme call.

"So what do you do, Julia?" asked the host. "What's the transformation you are offering people?"

"I work with women to get the best orgasm of their lives in 30 days or less" I said.

(I mean I was impressed. I thought I had it down.)

But you know what happened? TOTAL CRICKETS. 

It went on for at least 10 seconds and I was just sat there in the comfort of my own bedroom wishing that some cyber hole would open up and swallow me whole. A Zoom hole.

"Well I think that's shocked us all into silence" said one, brave woman.

And I thought to myself, really? REALLY? You mean we can get together online and have some really serious stuff going on here - like the woman who is running a programme to help people cope with death of a child. Or the person who is helping people make money in a global pandemic. Or the lady who is helping challenge the school system. And still here I am in 2020 not able to mention female pleasure without practically shutting down the fucking internet?

Well, I thought to myself. Well, then. I mean to change that.

My sincere hope is that this article has gone part of the way towards that aim.

In service to your orgasm xoxoxoxo