Is my anxiety stopping me from orgasming? I spoke to a sex therapist 

“It’s about developing the skill to notice when your thoughts stray from the main goal of paying attention to pleasure.”

Faking an orgasm is, unfortunately, a normal part of the female experience. We’ve seen it on TV shows, we’ve discussed doing it with our friends and we’ve probably done it ourselves at least once. I know I have. For many women, anxiety plays into their inability to orgasm, and I know this is the case for me. But once I found a really intimate and deep relationship with my partner, I expected I wouldn’t need to fake an orgasm (and I haven’t).

But despite how safe and happy I feel in our relationship, I still have a bit of trouble ignoring my worries and racing thoughts and reaching the ‘big O’. And it’s not just during sex; I struggle to reach climax while masturbating, too.

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I’m sure there are a number of factors contributing to this struggle, but I wanted to find out what can be done about it. With this in mind, I reached out and had a great (and revealing) chat with my go-to expert for everything sex-related, Relationship and Sex Therapist Selina Nguyen. 

I find that sometimes during sex or masturbation, my head is too loud for me to fully reach climax. I definitely enjoy the experience but I can’t let go of my thoughts and worries and just be present. Is this a common experience?

It’s one of the most common concerns that I see in session and it can feel really difficult to work through because there can be a lot of internalised pressure or pressure from a partner for us to orgasm… For women and vulva-owners, struggling to reach orgasm isn’t inherently an issue because it doesn’t disrupt the experience and we can fake our way through it so it can be easier to also avoid it altogether.

There’s also a valuable point in that there’s a common social narrative that pretends vulva-owners’ bodies are complex and it normalises that it’s difficult for them to reach orgasm. On one hand, this is great because it normalises many peoples’ experiences, but it also has the alternative effect of creating this mindset of ‘It’s too complicated, why bother?’. Coupled with the rise of antidepressants and the impact they can have on desire and arousal, there can really be this sense of hopelessness or shame around struggling with orgasms. 

Can past experiences with things like sexual assault play into this issue? I think this might be contributing to my anxiety. 

Of course, it can. In order for us to orgasm, you need to feel aroused and in order to feel aroused, you need to first feel relaxed. For many of us, it can be really difficult to relax in a sexual experience for many reasons like a bad body day [or] feeling unsure about what you like but sexual assault is a big one. [Because] when you’re having sex, you’re being placed in a similar situation that has previously caused you harm and trauma no matter how long ago it was.

Our brains are all about making predictions and survival, so when they recognise that we’re in a similar situation that previously caused us harm, even if it’s in the context of a safe, supportive relationship now or even masturbation, they still turn on all the fire alarms and put us into fight-or-flight mode to get us out of there. That can look like being in our head, freezing, dissociating [or] feeling like we’ve lost our voice, and none of these things support orgasms. 

Do you have any advice on how to be more present and less anxious? I would love to be able to lean into the sensations and reach orgasm more frequently.

The tried and true methods are really centred around practising mindfulness. So for example, closing your eyes, taking a deep and intentional breath and bringing your focus to each of your senses, paying particular attention to what feels good and following that thread. It is well and truly normal for our thoughts to be a little messy or distracted generally, let alone during sex, so it’s about developing the skill to notice when your thoughts stray from the main goal of paying attention to pleasure and then bringing it back into focus.

My most repeated piece of advice is also going slow! The longer we spend in the build-up and foreplay phases of a sexual experience, the easier it can be to not only reach orgasms, but orgasms of higher intensity – so really ask yourself ‘What’s the rush?’. If you’re feeling rushed from your sexual partner, it’s definitely worth a conversation about that.

For more on orgasm anxiety, head here.