Advice From A Sexpert

Advice From A Sexpert - Relationships And Sexual Health

Dr. Jessica O'Reilly travels around the world speaking at events, hosting retreats and working with some of the most powerful couples in the world. She's also the author of several books including Hot Sex, and is a contributor to Women's Health Magazine, Men's Fitness, Cosmopolitan, Showtime and Playboy TV, to name a few. This sexpert is a busy lady, but I had the opportunity to host a live webinar with her - exclusively for my Academy students. Here’s an excerpt from that hot and heavy Q & A.

Kelsey Matheson: When you feel like the attraction for your partner has faded, what can you do? Is this something that can be helped or changed?

Dr. Jess: So if the attraction doesn't fade, I'd be more questioning of it. Attraction inevitably fades and it's a simple chemical process, so once you get to know them, once they become predictable, once you feel close to them, once you're attached to them. Inevitably you're not going to be as attracted to them because we are attracted to the unknown, so I kind of answered the second part of that question in that first statement. Ultimately, what you need to do if you want to feel more attraction is you need to ignite more of the passion chemicals. When you first meet someone, it's the dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, and so you need to do things that actually get those chemicals up as opposed to just doing things so that you stay attached and loving and connected and bonded and intimate. So if you want to feel more attraction, first of all, the simple part is the physical; what can they do physically to be more attractive to you. That's actually the easiest part, and it's not like, "Oh, I want you to go get a six pack" or "I want you to go lose 10 pounds." Not that, but could they make an effort? When they showed up on their first, second, third, fourth, fifth date. What did they do differently? Because we all did things differently, and so that's the first part, and I think it's perfectly fair within the contract of a relationship to say, "This is what I need from you to feel physically attracted."

Kelsey Matheson: Right, the goal is not to hurt our partner’s feelings but to be able to communicate to them that this is going to get me going. This is going to rev me up and that, I would assume, would also get them excited to do something new.

Dr. Jess: It is about, I want an outcome here. I'm not saying this to make you feel badly. I'm saying it so that we can have this exciting thing that we probably used to have, and even if you didn't used to have it, it's okay.

Some people will ask, "Well, what if we never really had that spark? It was more of a friendship to begin with?" That's fine, you can cultivate the spark and if you expect it to feel like it did on your third date, or if you expect it to feel as exciting as maybe the flirtation with someone at the office feels, then you're setting yourself up for failure. That's not what your life is about. Your life is not just about excitement.

 Optimal Health & Conscious Living Academy Student #1:

My question is more or less related to our feminine energy. I think as we get older, and granted, I don't have kids, but I live with my boyfriend and we have a busy life and I find that as we get older, we put more and more on our plates and sometimes our appearance slips, and sometimes the connection to my feminine energy, or that feeling of sexiness and confidence can slip even if you live a healthy lifestyle. I'm fit and I'm put together, but as I've gotten older and as my life has picked up, I've noticed that I've lost that spark and connection with my feminine energy so my question is what is, What is a quick and profound way for someone who's busy to tap into their feminine energy so they can feel more womanly and confident like they used to in their 20s?

Dr. Jess: I don't know if it's so much that we lose our feminine energy as it shifts, right? It kind of goes to the back corner or morphs a little bit and one way, and a simple way, is to masturbate consciously. So conscious masturbation involves not just touching yourself to rub one out and get off, but to really feel, to just slow it down. Take 20 to 30 minutes and engage in this process of conscious masturbation, where there's no goal of orgasm. Remembering it’s not all about the orgasm, which is the result of how we were trained from when we were younger and it's what we see on television. Conscious masturbation is just about touching yourself and feeling yourself and breathing and letting the energy, and also the physical sensations, flow throughout your entire body and just seeing what happens.

Optimal Health & Conscious Living Academy Student #2:

My question is a little bit similar to the last question. I'm 48, my libido basically kind of died as soon as we had a child, which is interesting because we adopted the child.

But it still is like having a child in the house made it immediately an unsexy house. I just completely lost it. Things were getting a little bit better, and then I just turned 48 and I feel like I'm bordering menopause, and all of the sudden the last few months, my body has really started to change. I've gained all this weight and it's just around my middle, where you gain it when your hormones are getting crazy. I feel unattractive right now… even though I eat so well and I exercise my body. Right now what's happening is that I'm having a harder time feeling sexual at all.

Dr. Jess: So what I'm thinking is that you might need something new in your sex life. You might need to play a brand new role in order to get to sex because you're kind of moving into the next phase of your life… If you're approaching menopause, it's common to lose interest in sex. Number one, if your body's changing do not complain about it to your partner. That's the boner killer, the sex killer, the relationship killer. We're always teaching men how to make us feel sexy and how to compliment us and how to boost up our body image, and then we do everything to tear ourselves down.

My second suggestion is that I think maybe you need some sort of a change, some sort of a shift, something new and exciting. Do you use toys? Do you read erotic novels? I think you need some sort of a distraction that's new so that you're not like, "Okay, it's the same thing and I don't like my body right now, and it's menopause." We kind of treat women, once we hit menopause, like, "Oh, it's all over, let's just say all the same things, like use lube." And that totally doesn't suffice, it doesn't fix the fact that I'm in a bad mood, that I'm tired, that I'm hot, that I'm sleepless, that my body is changing, but there are companies that have developed interesting products worth checking out like Damiva and We Vibe.

Optimal Health & Conscious Living Academy Student #3:

My partner works in the restaurant industry so our schedules are totally opposite and even though I find him very attractive, I struggle with my own feelings of sexiness. I think what has happened is that when we do have sex, which is not often, but when we do, I feel like I'm responsible for my own orgasm and I would love if he would take a bit more responsibility for that. I would just like to be touched more in places that aren't just the three spots. So how to encourage that in a not "You're not doing it for me" kind of way?

Dr. Jess: A couple of simple ways is just to take his hand and move it, and then you reinforce it by saying, "Oh my gosh, when you do that, it feels so good."  

I think it's okay to lie and say, "Do you remember that time you did this? That drove me wild." I think it's totally fine to say, because at some point in your relationship, he probably did it. They need to learn to slow down. Men tend to move really quickly. They tend to treat our bodies like ovens. They tend to press the clitoris like that doorbell or whatever it is and we need to slow them down. 

Dr. Jess is just one of the experts sharing game-changing insights in my Optimal Health & Conscious Living Academy. The 8-week online course is not only dedicated to sexual health and relationships, but deals with the most misdiagnosed and ignored health issues for women aged 35 – 55 so that they can find balance and feel vibrant.