10 Ways You Might Be Sabotaging Your Sex Life

How to go from frustration to satisfaction

If you find yourself experiencing more frustration than orgasms, it’s possible you might be plagued with bad partners — or you might be sabotaging your own sex life.

While problems around sex and intimacy often stem from early childhood, I’m not going to go back that far. Suffice it to say that our attachment styles and how our families approached these subjects had direct influences on the choices we’ve made and our perceptions of these areas — from the way they referred to our anatomy to how topics like masturbation and sexual activity were addressed. Even commentary around other people’s sexual behaviors could influence our own views around sex.

Internalizing that commentary can often lead us to self-sabotaging behavior when it comes to sex. While we might all be looking for satisfying sex lives, sometimes our own attitudes stand directly in the way of achieving anything resembling satisfaction.

We have skewed ideas surrounding consent.

No means no, for starters. Not try again. Not maybe. Just no. We can withdraw consent at any point — no matter how far it’s gone.

Consent also extends to what we do in the bedroom. Trying something new is great — but get permission first. The philosophy around sex isn’t Nike’s Just Do It; it’s important to have enthusiastic consent at all times.

There are people who can never truly give consent. I could start with children and animals, but that should be obvious. Consent can also involve disproportionate relationships — like bosses and their subordinates, teachers and students and other areas where there’s a significant power differential. Tread carefully in these scenarios.

If you’re not sure, stop and clarify. Some people think this takes the romance out of it, but I don’t find proceeding without consent to be romantic. It just shows a spectacular disregard for others’ bodily autonomy.

We have negative attitudes about masturbation.

Masturbation is one of those things that everyone does but no one like to talk about. In fact, there seems to be a sense of guilt and shame around self-pleasure that is curiously puritanical for a society that experienced a culture sexual revolution. We seem to forget that it’s difficult to have satisfying sexual experiences when we don’t spend time getting to know our own bodies.

We consider foreplay optional.

It’s not. It’s a part of the entire sexual experience — an important one. Instead of looking at this as a mandatory and time-consuming task, it’s an opportunity to explore each other and check in with our partners to make sure they’re feeling as into it as we are. It should be fun — not a boring task to check off before we can get off.

We are having one-player sexual experiences with two players in the room.

Our sexual experiences shouldn’t be only satisfying for one participant. If only one person is having an orgasm, this isn’t considered good sex. Or healthy sex. Sex with another person should be a mutually satisfying experience, or you would be better off masturbating at home by yourself.

When only one person is satisfied with the quality of the sex, there are major red flags in play for the relationship. Not only is there an element of ignorance involved, but it also shows disregard for the other person’s experience of the sexual relationship. If an encounter ends simply because one person reached orgasm, this is a deeply unhealthy sexual experience.

We use sex as a weapon.

This, of course, is a nod to Pat Benatar, but it’s also the truth. Giving sex as an exchange or withholding it as punishment — these aren’t healthy behaviors. Using it to make someone angry or jealous or using it as a form of revenge are unhealthy behaviors that lead us to treat people like objects to use rather than people to respect. Sex should not be a weapon we use against someone.

We don’t know the difference between fucking and making love.

Having sex and making love are not the same thing. When we fuck someone, it’s purely physical. There’s nothing wrong with that, but making love does bring intimacy into the encounter. It’s important to understand that both exist and to be able to have a healthy relationship that can encompass both.

We don’t ask for what we want.

This is an enormous cause of dissatisfaction in sexual and intimate relationships. We often don’t ask for what we want — often because we’re afraid or embarrassed to admit it. Asking for what we want could mean initiating a discussion of fantasies and a sexual bucket list, or it could mean that we just speak up and say what we do and don’t like in the bedroom.

We confuse sex and intimacy.

Being naked with someone doesn’t mean you’ve experienced intimacy with them. People can share their bodies while closing off their minds and souls. Sex can include intimacy — but it is not intimacy on its own. While it might be an important factor in healthy sexual relationships within committed partnerships, but it can also be experienced in casual hookups and one-night stands. Intimacy is about connecting with someone else and being fully present in the encounter. It’s a soul connection.

Being able to tell the difference is important, and if we’re not sure that we’ve had intimacy in our encounters, then we probably haven’t. Taking the time to make eye contact, kiss, and even have touching that is sensual rather than sexual can be ways of creating a sense of intimacy.

Of course, intimacy doesn’t just take place in the bedroom. Understanding how it evolves outside the bedroom — and cultivating it — can enrich our sexual experiences, too. It helps us feel more connected to our partners.

We view protection as optional parts of sexual encounters.

If we’re in committed, monogamous relationships, I can see a place for forgoing protection. Even in these relationships, if both partners aren’t enthusiastic about a potential pregnancy, contraception at least should still be in play. But in casual relationships, many people treat protection as optional.

I’m not going to list all of the very real and scary STIs out there or remind us all of the obvious potential for an unplanned pregnancy, but I will say that we often play Russian roulette when we discard protection for the pleasures of a sexual encounter.

Safety is important for many reasons, and one of them is respect for the other partners. Perhaps we should reconsider trusting someone so quick to agree to discard protection. People often omit the STIs they may carry in fear that revealing them may put a damper on amorous intentions. Suffice it to say, our motto should be safety first or no glove, no love.

We let other people make the rules.

Without discounting or invalidating belief systems, I will say that we shouldn’t allow other people to make us feel a sense of guilt or shame surrounding healthy sexual encounters. While it’s important to have a personal value system which might encompass a particular faith, we should be the ones making the rules when it comes to when we have sex, what we do in the bedroom, and how we express our sexuality.

Ideas like prude and slut are social constructs meant to place in a carefully constructed box for a reason. These words shame us for choosing to have sex — and for abstaining from it. We can’t win. The double standard is obvious here, but other people don’t get to make the rules. Throwing out social constructs (add virginity to the list) is an excellent way to empower ourselves to make our own rules.

I believe that it’s possible to have mutually pleasurable sexual encounters, but we often behave in ways that prevent us from doing so. We make choices that will naturally self-sabotage the things we say we want, and then we wonder why our interactions with potential partners are so deeply unsatisfying.

Having grown up in a conservative household, I’ve experienced what it is to let other people inform my beliefs while perpetuating incorrect ideas about human sexuality. I’ve also experienced unsatisfying sexual relationships of my own. It took practice to learn to speak up for myself and not to settle for unequal treatment — in sex or in my relationships.

We don’t have to self-sabotage our sex lives. But if we are regularly engaging in any of these behaviors, we’re probably experiencing more frustration than pleasure — or our partners are having that experience. If we’re old enough to consent to sex, we’re old enough to have mature conversations about it.

If we keep an open mind and practice both self-awareness and awareness of our partners, we may start having more orgasms and less disappointment.