What Is Sexy?

In a recent session, a client was struggling to accept and get on board with her husband’s ideas of what is sexy.  According to her, he even went so far as to say he doesn’t find her sexy because she doesn’t look or act like the women he sees in porn and he finds those women sexy.  (This is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t tell our partners everything we think and feel.)  She then told me how she’s been trying, albeit with a lot of anger and resentment if she’s being honest with herself, to be more like the women her husband sees in porn but as a result of that resentment it’s been a half-hearted attempt and ultimately unfulfilling because that’s just not who she is.  She’s come to see me to examine her husband’s ideas about what is sexy, how those impact her and their sexual relationship, and how she’s come to feel very un-sexy over the years.  I interrupted her and said, “You don’t think you’re sexy?”  She said no earnestly.  And I said, “I see a smart and feisty woman who, after decades of conforming to her husband’s ideas about all things sex, is finally giving a shit about her own sexual experience and her own sexual pleasure.  And THAT is sexy!”

Because it is.  And I’ve learned over the years that most people seem agree with me.  I’m referring to how my clients say they want their partner to “want to want to have sex.”  That "wanting to want" is an IRL energy, attitude, and enthusiasm that is sexy to most people.  More than any nameless digital visual will ever be.  And if more people thought about ‘what is sexy’ in this way instead, perhaps they’d find the eroticism, sexual pleasure, and connection with their partner that perhaps they have been longing for.