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Reclaiming Female Sexual Desire | Pamela Joy | TEDxPaloAlto

May 29, 2021
Hi, I'm Pam Costa and I'm struggling with that zyre right now, that sounded a bit like starting a meeting and in many ways it's because I struggle with

sexual

desire

and I'm guessing many of you are too now. I'm a researcher, so I'm going to hypothesize that if I share my experiences with you, you'll feel less alone in your experiences and maybe you'll have the power to do something about it now, it might be helpful to step back again because believe it or not. I wasn't always so comfortable talking about sex in a room full of strangers I grew up in the Midwest this is my family I was nailing the shy, awkward part of childhood, as evident in the photo of me and the one above on the right. corner with glasses and a bow on my head in a very unusual move for me when I went to university.
reclaiming female sexual desire pamela joy tedxpaloalto
I flirted with this guy and we started dating with my hormones and I was so excited about how things were going with this guy that despite the withdrawal. promise I had made in church about six months into our relationship I had sex for the first time it was great we finally got married we moved to California and started our careers in technology it was my personal fairy tale that's how the years went by anyway that I started To notice a trend every 6 to 12 months, my husband would tap me on the shoulder and say We need to talk, we would sit down and he would look at me with a feeling of rejection on his face and say: I want more sex.
reclaiming female sexual desire pamela joy tedxpaloalto

More Interesting Facts About,

reclaiming female sexual desire pamela joy tedxpaloalto...

I look back with this feeling of guilt on my face and I say no and I don't know why but we are engineers so we try hard to think and we find solutions, maybe you are familiar with some of them. of these was the solution "I know we're going on vacation", which is probably hormonal. I'll just switch out the birth control solution and of course the ever popular weekly date night solution. We were good engineers and all these solutions worked for a while. Fast forward 15 years and this was my life, a pretty stereotypical married with kids scene.
reclaiming female sexual desire pamela joy tedxpaloalto
I was a busy professional and sex was at the bottom of my to-do list, so the next time my husband came to me and said we had to do it. Talking something felt different, it felt more serious this time like our fairy tale was falling apart. I decided to get a medical checkup and went to see my gynecologist and explained to her that I am really struggling with

sexual

desire

. She laughed and said yes, you and everyone. Another woman in my practice actually said that you and all the other hyperbolic women may definitely be getting relief, but then she looked at my history and said there is nothing wrong with your hormones.
reclaiming female sexual desire pamela joy tedxpaloalto
II, the medical community really has nothing to offer her, but then she reached into her drawer and pulled out the business card of her own personal therapist, handing it to me saying that this woman helped me, maybe she can help you. I ran out to my car, sent her an email and she responded immediately saying I'm Sorry I'm fully booked, I'm not accepting new clients. However, she gave me about half a dozen other sex therapists and I approached them. Wouldn't you know it's completely full, I'm not accepting new clients. Now, my business side was like wow.
The market for people who struggle with sex must really be huge, but the personal side of me was getting a little frustrated, so I came home and got online with my husband and we found the website of someone who called herself a sex coach. and relationships, now I don't do it. I don't know about you, but I wasn't really sure what a sex coach did, so I called her and she assured me that we would keep our clothes on during the session, so we booked an appointment a few days later, we're sitting in her office starting.
To explain what's going on and a little bit through the story, she paused and asked me the first of a series of very important questions, she said: what messages did you receive about sex as a child? Now I pause because I've never thought about that before and As I search through the archives of my memory, I remember this time when I was six years old in my girlfriend's basement and she told me that if you put your hands here and move them, it will feel good. Oh, I tried it and it really felt nice. well, but as I was telling that story I realized that was the last positive message I had received about sex in a long time.
A few years later in third grade I was in a mall, I looked down the hallway and saw this man touching himself nicely looking at me, the message I got there was that sex was for someone else's pleasure and it made me feel a little icky. Cass Ward a few years later and remember that sex ed lecture you got in fifth grade? The message I heard there was that sex was dirty and dangerous and that if I did it I would probably end up pregnant or sick. My coach paused me at that point in the story and said, Wow, Pam, if only those were the messages he received.
No wonder you don't want to have sex. This huge wave of relief washed over me. I had felt devastated like something was wrong with me, but I was starting to realize all those messages from fairy tale princesses I had received since then. the age of two that ended with a kiss and nothing more, we are really hurting, how could I suppress my sexual side for so long by receiving all these messages and then just SPECT to turn it back on? My coach felt it was the perfect time for a lifesaver because I was sitting there wondering how it is possible for a woman anywhere to have a healthy sex life given this culture and she told me, it's okay to stay exactly as you are, there's no right way. of living a sexual life, but I'm curious if you would like to read with that part of you that you have been disconnected from for so long.
I said yes and over the next few months I learned to connect with my body by focusing on small things throughout the day that bring me physical pleasure, for example, like a hot shower, a soft sweater, the feeling of sunlight. sun on my face I learned to connect those feelings of pleasure to those feelings of pleasure, and in doing so, I realized that my path to wanting arousal looks very different than my own. The husband's is slower to build, but can often reach higher heights. Well, this was really exciting for me. I started to wonder what would happen if I shared my story with other women, so even though I was really scared to think about talking to anyone else about this, I pulled out my phone, texted a few friends, and moments later they responded oh my god, I'm having the same experience or oh yeah, but it's my partner who is having that experience and then one of them wrote to me and said. a very bold statement that changed the collective trajectory of our lives and she said, let's get together and talk about this, so we did, the following Sunday we met in the park and we all came wearing yoga clothes because we couldn't tell our peers where we were. .
No joke, that meeting was full of laughter, it was full of tears, it felt so profound that we decided to meet monthly, we continued to meet with Park himself and realized that no, no topic was off limits. First we talked about the social messages we had heard we talked about the messages we would have liked to hear instead we talked about masturbation how we learned it if we do it we talk about fantasy what we fantasize about and if we don't do it what stops us at the end of the year I looked I saw at least a group of women around me and I was very surprised by what I saw.
All their lives had changed. Many were experiencing better sex and better relationships just by talking about sex with their girlfriends. This was fascinating to me. I began attending medical and mental services. health conferences to learn more, you know, it's like a hobby, a part-time thing because my day job was as a data scientist. I decided to look at the numbers and discovered that over 40% of women at any given time are struggling. with some aspect of sexual function I also learned that there are new pharmaceutical options on the market that have debatable effectiveness and many side effects, of course I learned about sex therapy and sexual coaching and then if you had financial means and geographic access to someone who be fine.
I worked out, that was an option for you, but I was wondering what's going on with this group of friends who are just sitting around talking about sex. In fact, I got so excited that I came home to my husband one day and told him that's it. I'm leaving my day job and going back to school to research what effect FEMA peer support groups have on women's sexual health. I'm delighted to be here a few years later to share with you what happens when hundreds of women age. Between 25 and sixty-five people gather in living rooms around the world to talk about their sexual experiences.
Overall sexual function increases by 20% when broken down by subcategories desire, arousal, orgasm, increases range from 16 to 26. 26% distress about sexuality decreases by almost 30% and these women did not meet for a year they met for four weeks these changes are in line with any other medical and mental health intervention on the market and you don't need a therapist, you don't need a facilitator, you don't need to take meditation or medication, all it takes is for the women be brave enough to sit together and talk about sex. There is really only one guideline for the group and that is that we are not allowed to share advice because women really like to share advice, but these groups were about sharing experiences, the qualitative part of my study showed that when women As they gather and share their experiences, they not only feel normalized in their own personal experiences but also feel inspired and empowered to explore more about their own sexuality, of course they do.
By talking to their girlfriends about sex, they gain communication skills that translate into being able to talk to their partners about sex, but by far the most interesting thing I found in my research was that women with children reported that they could talk to their children about sex. sex for the first time these groups were having a multi-generational impact what started as a personal journey has led me to talk to an increasing number of people about my sexual experiences first my gynecologist then my coach my research participant friends and now you I know things are changing for those I've spoken to, which makes me wonder: what if thousands or millions had the opportunity to talk to a trusted friend about their sexual experiences?
What would happen if you approached a woman you knew and asked her about her particular experiences? those who bring you pleasure and joy, thank you

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