HotmailHow to restore your ‘sexual confidence’
The “Big O!” hormone
When we are tenderly touched by another human being, a wonderful hormone called oxytocin is released. Then what happens? We feel good about the person who touched us and we crave even more touch from the same person. It creates a powerful, relationship-building upward spiral. The more we’re touched, the more we want to be touched, and the more touching going on, the more oxytocin is being produced. It’s like a powerful magnet drawing us together with greater and greater force.
Oxytocin is exponentially more effective when coupled with estrogen (which women produce far more of than men), which explains why women form such a deep emotional bond with their sex partners and have a more difficult time “letting go and moving on” than men do when a relationship crumbles. This also explains why women place far more weight on the “emotional/spiritual” side of sexuality than on the “physical/mental” side. We simply fail to recognize that it’s the “physical” side that results in such a strong emotional connection in the first place.
Oxytocin can be triggered by emotional cues such as the glance of a lover or the sound of a loved one’s voice. These cues can create stars in our eyes, fireworks in our mind, and swarms of butterflies in our stomach. This hormone increases testosterone production in both men and women, which sends our sex drive into high gear, and oxytocin levels skyrocket to the highest levels when women experience orgasm. As our nipples and genitals are stimulated, even more oxytocin is produced, which creates an overwhelming desire for sexual intercourse and orgasmic response, which creates more oxytocin, and so on, and so on. If you want to reignite the flame of marital passion, oxytocin is just the fuel you need.
So the next time you feel as if you’re hitting a sexual wall and you can’t imagine “giving in” to his sexual advances, simply determine to climb over that wall instead. You may very well experience what many other sexually confident wives experience on the other side of that wall — absolute euphoria.
Also be aware that oxytocin production (or the lack thereof) can work against your sex drive. If this hormone isn’t being released in your system regularly, you may feel an overwhelming temptation to withdraw emotionally and physically, creating a downward spiral in the relationship. Perhaps you or your husband is not satisfied with how often you experience “the big O” (orgasm) or how often you desire to engage in any sort of sexual activity, but the real culprit may be that you don’t get enough of the “big O!” hormone (oxytocin). If a woman isn’t touched regularly enough outside the bedroom, she may find that she is violently opposed to being touched inside the bedroom. A vicious cycle is created, as she is no longer open to the very touch she needs. The remedy for not feeling like you want to touch or be touched by your husband, therefore, is to touch anyway. Go through the actions, and your feelings quickly catch up. Oxytocin production ensures this will be the case.
I would never be so cold as to say to a woman struggling with her sexuality, “Get over it, and get naked!” But I’ll let you do the math. One naked, oxytocin-producing man plus one naked, oxytocin-producing woman equals one intimately connected couple. If you need a second opinion, here’s what Paul and Lori Byerly (authors of The Generous Husband and The Generous Wife) have to say:
The fact that sex increases oxytocin levels can be helpful for women who complain they “never feel like sex.” Having sex, even when you don’t have a drive to do so, will actually affect you in ways that will result in a greater sex drive. This also explains, at least in part, why many women fi nd that the more sex they have, the more they want, and the less sex they have, the less they want.
Many women mistakenly assume that they only need sex when they are horny. But a woman’s horny radar often reads “Zero-Zip-Zilch-Nada.” However, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need to feel pair-bonded with her husband. In our house, we have numerous kinds of sex rather than just “I’m horny” sex. We have make-up sex to bring closure to disagreements, celebration sex to share joy over an accomplishment, comfort sex when our skies are feeling a little gray, connection sex whenever one of us is about to leave town, and so on.
Maybe you are thinking, But I’m too stressed out to have sex. Good news! Oxytocin also serves as a stress reducer. Even just holding hands, playing footsie, or giving/getting a massage releases oxytocin into your system, creating a sense of attachment and the desire to cuddle up close. Not only that, but studies involving both celibate women and sexually active women reveal that oxytocin production (through regular orgasmic experiences) can also help prevent cancer, so sex doesn’t just feel good — it’s also good for your health!
So when you experience even an inkling of those warm, fuzzy feelings, don’t pull away or busy yourself with something else. There’s nothing more important than feeling this special connection with your special guy. In doing so, you are fulfilling the main purpose of our sexuality — to strongly pair-bond us.
Getting sticky again
I wish I had known what a powerful glue oxytocin is much earlier in life. It could have helped me connect more intimately with my husband much earlier in our marriage. It also could have helped prevent me from “pair-bonding” so deeply with many other men beforehand. Little did I know that sexual intimacy is like a clear strip of sticky packing tape, bonding us tightly to each other. When that bond is broken, we lose physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual fragments of our being to that person. We are stuck with similar fragments of the other person, creating “baggage” we carry around internally until we manage to sever those soul ties (which we’ll talk about in Chapter 5). It becomes harder and harder to stay connected with another human being because we are so accustomed to breaking that bond over and over such that our “tape” is no longer sticky.
But becoming a sexually confident wife is all about restoring the stickiness of your tape. It’s about learning to connect intimately with your husband, not just physically but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as well. It’s about getting on the right track toward genuine intimacy and fulfi llment, and rediscovering the true purpose of sexuality — to create a powerful bond between husband and wife that fuels our deepest passions and satisfies our very souls.
Excerpted from "The Sexually Confident Wife". Copyright (c) 2008 by Shannon Ethridge. Reprinted with permission from Broadway Books.
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