And how do I know if I am doing it?

performative sex and the cost to women

On my saddest and most angsty of days,  I am prone to thinking that the entire sexual paradigm we live in as women, is set up to help us fail. 

From porn setting unrealistic expectations. To advertising setting unrealistic expectations. To the church setting unrealistic expectations. To education setting unrealistic expectations.  I could go on.

Literally, nothing about our female upbringing is set to help us listen to our physical bodies. Apart from their outward appearances of course, nothing about our bodies is seen as being worthy of attention. Especially not our bodily experience of sex and pleasure.

Quite the opposite in fact. We are trained instead as women, to put our attention on others and to serve their happiness. To the great detriment of our sexual experiences. We are taught to perform from a very, very early age.

When was the last time you felt that your own embodied sense was important, for example? And did you listen to it even if you felt it? Perhaps, like so many well trained women, you simply learned to dismiss your embodied knowing as an unquantifiable and unreliable source of information. Just another damn feeling.

This affects us in every area of our lives. 

Any wonder then, that you may have started to perform in sex too. 

When everything about your life is judged according to your performance as a woman, why on earth would this not infiltrate your pleasure?

The paradigm of performing to the paradigm of asking

Name me a good girl who changed the world. You can't. Because she can't.

KASIA URBANIAK 

performative sex and the female trauma body

All this focus on keeping others happy before ourselves has an effect then.

Indeed, I would go so far as to say it has caused a kind of gendered trauma body.

Because pressure to perform and keep others happy is stressful. It is disembodying. It takes us out of flow and into fight or flight and survival mode.

It’s actually pretty common for stored trauma or stress in the body (of any kind) to affect the sex organs. For example, I recently discovered that the diaphragm - the central breathing muscle of the body that moves 20-22k per day - is actually connected through the fascia deep, deep into the pelvis. 

If we tighten or restrict our diaphragms then, the movement and health of our pelvic musculature is also affected. So stress and trauma (which changes our breathing from healthy to hyperventilated) will literally cut off the supply of blood and nerve sensation to our sex.  Our diaphragms stop being relaxed and connected to that which is below. And start sending the breath upwards into the shoulder and neck region.

This tendency appears with many of the women I coach too. They come unsure as to "what happened to them." They have no memory of direct sexual abuse. No rape history, for example. And yet their sexual responsiveness is seriously dampened. They understandably come to me wondering why.

But if you consider my point above about the diaphragm and the fact that we can dissociate from feeling our pelvic area through a certain type of breathing alone? Imagine what else we can atrophy and cut off from sexually if our bodies undergo prolonged physiological or mental stress. Our sex is sensitive. And pleasure will respond to our physiology, without a doubt.

Of course, given the fact that we are conditioned to need to be seen as behaving sexually in certain way. And given that more often than not we would love to be able to experience more authentic pleasure during sex than we actually do. It makes sense that we would start putting on an act.

I mean - what else are we supposed to do? Fake it til you make it is a thing already.

how do I know if I am doing performative sex though?

Firstly - promise me - you won’t take this performance thing as another stick to beat your self with. 

Pinky promise?

Okay then.

In which case, if you intend to use this information as a way to help reclaim or accelerate your sexual responsiveness and pleasure between the sheets, let’s have a look at the clear warning signals that you and your partner are performing sexually, and what to do about that, as follows:

1. You Never Communicate Well - and Especially Not About Sex

Sex is the ultimate act of communication and connection. If you are failing to communicate well and in a way that “gets you both off” in day to day relating, then the harsh truth is this is more likely than not going to translate into the bedroom.

Of course, there are exceptions. We all know people who have massive sparks sexually with someone, but inexplicably find it hard to hold down a decent conversation with their lover. And that’s all fine. A good time is a good time. Naturally though, relations like this tend to fizzle out and disappear in the end.

What I am talking about mostly here is longer term, or deeper relationships. The ones that really matter to you.

There are all sorts of communication techniques out there for you to choose from of course - from NVC to Imago. Needless to say, teaching skills of communicating and listening is imperative in the work I do with couples. (Couples make up the mainstay of my 1:1 work actually - which often surprises people.) 

But whatever technique you choose, you are probably going to have to come down to some form of connecting to your own desire, and then articulating it openly and with total legitimacy that it’s heard. 

2. Speaking of Desire. 

Do you know what you want sexually?

Are you free to express it? (Remember asking as a simple antidote to performing?)

If not - and believe me there are a huge amount of women out there who have no clue as to what they want - then it is time to sharpen those skills and see how it improves the authenticity of your sex.

One thing to help you navigate this is simply to use an exercise called "Follow Your Impulse." I teach this exercise in my 6 week online Orgasm course. In a nutshell, it has you following the whispers of your body all day long. You need to pee? Don't hold onto it for an hour - respond now. You are hungry? Don't wait - feed now. 

One client of mine had an absolutely wonderful experience of this recently. We laughed and laughed as she recounted how just the simple act of giving herself permission to go to the bathroom at the exact moment she needed to, opened up a whole day of desire-based pleasure. It was almost like as soon as she started listening to her body and giving it what it desired moment by moment, that her body responded with a kind of rapture.

Desire is wonderful like that. It simply cannot wait to start playing. And is a powerful way out of performance based pleasure.

3. There is a Linear Path to Climax (and Climax is Required.)

At the end of the day, there is nothing like an agenda to put your body off of experiencing pleasure.

Queer female friends of mine often laugh at me when I bring this one up. They raise eyebrows because, as women,  they innately understand and serve one another's wave like rise and fall of pleasure.  In other words, they know that female orgasm naturally goes up and down into peaks and troughs before climax. Put two women together? And this orgasmic dance is kind of inevitable. 

Put a penis and a vagina together, however? Into a situation where one organ has a simple “on until it's off” switch, and one doesn't?

Welllll... tends to be one organ there  leads the show, and one generally starts to dance to the others' tune. (At least, where performative sex is concerned this is what happens.)

This is where we get quite radical as women then. Because if we begin to insist that our more topsy-turvy route to climax is followed, instead of the linear upward path of the penis to ejaculation, then sex becomes a whole lot more pleasurable for women.

This different route to climax can be really key in helping sexual partners steps out of performance mode too.

Orgasmic meditation is a technique that is simply fabulous for practicing this. (And if you want to learn you can DM me.) It's where I started my sexual discovery journey, actually. And the place where I first began to receive the right and proper education about how to help my sexual responsiveness.

4. One Activity is Revered and Counted Over Any Other

Generally speaking, this would be penetration. Like of course it would. Like how many of us actually believe that the sex does not count if penetration does not happen?

Think about that for a moment.

There's your most common performative trap in a nutshell.

Because sex is clearly not just about penetration. And the whole delusion becomes even more insidious if we frame sex as what happens only when there is penetration by a penis.

There is a whole heap of unspoken expectation and pressure right there. Whereas if you can wipe the slate clean of the self-perpetuated demand that your pussy is penetrated. If you can experiment with different techniques and ideas - then you stand a good chance of bringing authentic pleasure in instead.

5. Routine

The same thing goes for sexual habit. Another clear indicator of performative sex is that you always do the same thing. You opt for the tried and tested.

Generally it works. I get it.

I coached one woman once who could only ever climax if her clitoris weas massaged in a specific way and for a specific amount of time. She loved the experience - but she was hungry for more.

Performance based sex does not allow for experimentation, however. There is no safety in venturing outside of the sexual box when performqance is an issue for you. Perhaps, like the lady above, you are focussing so much on the goal of climax, that you are losing connection to your experience along the way.

So I appreciate that it is easier said than done - but if you can try to set up a sexual experience which has no goal at the end of it, you will help yourself out of a performative experience.

6. Spectatorism

Another clear sign that you are performing in sex is that you are completely unable to switch off your head during the act.

Sp - have you ever felt like you are watching the experience from the outside? Or like the only way you can enjoy sexual contact is if you are actually fantasising or using your own mind to get you off?

Again - so utterly normal. I hear women speak of this problem again and again.

And it can be so tempting to fake it if that’s how sex is for you. Of course. Why wouldn't you perform pleasure if this is your experience?

It’s just - what a lonely expereince that can be. And my guess is that you know there is something more available to you just by the fact that you have landed on this very article.

So take heart. Ending spectatorism and mental distraction during sex is a little bit like insomnia. It’s like a mental tic. What’s needed is a slow and steady re-entry into your direct, felt and embodied experience moment by moment. And that is 100% possible for you.

I teach the technology to make this happen for you.

It’s my practice too.

7. You Have Rigid Expectations of Your Partner’s or Your Own Body..

Another classic tell tale sign.

You fail to get wet one time - massive internal meltdown.

Your partner fails to get hard - you make it mean something highly dangerous to the state of your relationship.

Here’s the thing.

Bodies are messy.

They don’t always perform.

(And that just gets infinitely worse at peri-menopause lemme tell ya.)

But - sex is not an athletic sport. 

You can train, for sure. But any truly authentic sexual training is going to lead you into deeper and deeper approval of what arises within your pleasure moment by moment. There is simply nothing more to it than that.

The best thing you can do if this happens to you a lot is just to start to notice. The pressures and expectations you are putting upon the experience. And what you make it mean if the experience does not live up to these. It can be super enlightening to see what a hard time you give yourself .

It can help to think of your sex like a gorgeous semi-wild pet. 

How would you treat your sex if it were an animal you loved? Would you shout at it every time it did something “wrong”. 

Self-love is an art that deepens sexual authenticity. Promise me you'll give that a try some time ???? 

8. Tolerating Pain or Discomfort

Oh wow, this is a big one too.

Remember my paragraph above about the diaphragm and how stress or trauma will affect the condition of your pelvic muscles? Well, it goes without saying that over time this is something that can lead to further stiffening and pain. Blood supply is lost. Nerve endings numb out. Muscle tone becomes too loose or too tight.

Likewise, entry before your pussy is genuinely ready can also be a real cause of discomfort. 

You know for sure you are performing in sex then, if you are unwilling to give yourself enough time to truly digest and allow for your pussy to open at her own pace and accept penetration only when she is literally begging for it.

Personally, I have known lots of women who have healed their chronic pain issues and opened to more enjoyable sexual experience as a result. And so take heart if this is a difficult issue for you - over time it can be changed.

9. Fear and Anxiety

The normal route this performative sex leads to is - yes - you guessed it - more anxiety and fear around sex.

Some women find they are so trapped in performing that they are unable to engage sexually with their partners (sometimes even with themselves) at all anymore.

They burden themselves with the belief that they are broken.

They repeat the mantra that there is something wrong with them.

And yet - this crazy-making dissonance between socially accepted reality - that women are climaxing all over the place and in beautiful ways and generally at the touch of a button or as a result of the next luxury purchase - is so radically removed from where we actually are in this society as women. That I sometimes look at it as like some enormous, socially engineered gaslighting project that happens at our expense.

(Of course, men suffer terribly from performative sex also. But generally speaking, they get a climax out of the experience more often. Although, perhaps even this is getting less and less reliable as we progress further into late stage capitalism and all its glory.)

Back to women though.

(‘Cos I love you like that ;))

Take a moment to behold the gap that exists between what you imagine your sex life to be, and what it actually is.

That gap? Is where you start performing.

10. Sexual Healing and Building Authentic Female Sexual Experience

My job then, as a curator of the erotic (which is quite some fancy job title, I'll admit.) Is to both practice expanding and receiving greater and greater pleasure into my own body. In order to be able to pass some of this wisdom onto helping you expand into greater authenticity and pleasure in yours.

One thing I can guarantee - is that it’s not an overnight path - but that it is one with lots of fruit and reward.

The beautiful thing about your pleasure is that if you begin building a relationship with her, she is generally pretty quick to start loving you back.

Check out my FREE masterclass below to find out how....