[00:00:00] Welcome back y'all to another episode of the vagina rehab doctor podcast. It is women's history month and I'm actually recording this episode on international women's day. So I want to tell everyone listening to this, even though you're going to be listening to this, when the holiday has passed, happy international women's day.
Let's continue to celebrate each other, to support each other. for being here. And to encourage each other to pursue health to pursue wellness happiness freedom and pleasure I am very excited to get into today's topic. I am continuing the series as a woman for women's history month So as a woman is the series this is now part two and what we're going to be talking about is low libido I'm struggling with low libido But I want to want sex.
I get this question, this concern a lot from my community. And I want to talk about this. And I also want to say that you don't have [00:01:00] to be a woman to struggle with low libido, This is something that can happen to every gender, but I do want to discuss the ways in which we can start nurturing our libido and our sex drive.
I'm going to be sharing with you three major tips that can be so helpful in not just increasing your libido, but being more connected and in tune with your sexual desires, your sexual energy. And your sexual preferences, you're going to be walking away with practical tips on how you can start to tap into more sexual desire.
And the other thing that I want to say is this, leave me a review. Listen, if you've been coming back to this podcast, maybe you've, you've been listening to podcasts after podcast and you haven't left me a review, I want to know what you think. So if you are looking for ways to support me, I would love for you to leave a.
Five star raving review and share this podcast with a friend. [00:02:00] Okay, now let's get into the episode. Let's get into the episode low libido. So one of the things that we can do in terms of increasing and listening to our libido is by knowing our sexual desire style. That is number one, write this down. Like this is, this is, this is deep.
Many of us have what's called a responsive sexual desire. this means that in order for you to feel desire, you need to be touched in the right way. You may need to be kissed in the right way. Maybe you might need to see your partner. cleaning or cooking or, you know, bringing you flowers. There are certain things that your body responds to and then you feel the desire.
This is completely natural. So this is responsive. After you are making out, after you are being touched, after your breasts are being fondled, then the desire comes. [00:03:00] And if this is your form of desire, You're going to want to nurture that so you're going to want to spend more time talking to your partner if you have one or Nurturing your body in such a way that you're doing things that turn on the desire as opposed for waiting for your desire to naturally erupt other type of desire is what's called spontaneous sexual desire.
What this means is that you could literally just be sitting at your desk at work and you get horny. You're just like, I want to have sex. I want to do something or You wake up in the morning and you're in your and you're horny. Maybe you're literally just reading a book and your partner's beside you and you want to have sex.
There is nothing sexual that has to be done in order for you to feel a desire. And you can have a little bit of both. So it doesn't mean that if you have a responsive sexual desire that you also can't experience spontaneous and vice [00:04:00] versa. So that is number one. Figure out what your sexual desire style is.
That alone can help you to feel it more because you know what helps it to be turned on. All right, that is a huge first step. All right, so let's take that step. The second thing that you can do. Number two is understand and appreciate the relationship between your regular energy and your sexual energy.
Okay, this is what I mean. If you are regularly tired, if you're always feeling sleep deprived, if you are feeling stressed on a regular basis, if you're feeling a lot of anxiety, then sexual energy is still a form of energy. So if you don't feel like having sex, But you also just don't feel like being up and going around and doing all this and you just want to lay down That's your body telling you that you need to actually build up your your energy [00:05:00] stores so that Sexual hormones can actually be felt your sex hormones are there your sex hormones are there, right?
So we have sexual organs. We have the clitoris, we have the vagina, we have the uterus if you haven't had a hysterectomy or, you know, so we, we have these sexual organs. But that doesn't mean that they, those actual organs don't require energy. So how's your rest? How's your sleep? How's your stress levels?
You know, when's the last time you just took a walk? No cell phone. You just took a 10 minute walk. When's the last time you decided to take a bath? When's the last time you decided to actually tell that person no, when you knew your body was tired, but you sort of forced yourself to do it because they wanted you to go or it's
So sexual energy is a regular form of energy. Of course it requires attraction. And if you're partnered, it requires sex [00:06:00] hormones. There's, there's a, there's complexity to it. But my point is that as you start to nurture your body and do less, literally, Do less, get unbusy to get busy more. If you wanna get busy in the sheet, you gotta get Unbusy.
Create more space in your schedule. You going from one meeting to the next. You barely got a lunch break. You're typing your work. You're you're on your phone checking your emails, in the car in the elevator You you don't have any time or space to actually preserve any energy for sex Baby, there is no energy left for sex Right.
So if I'm talking to you, that's where you can start as well. That's number two is preserve and protect your energy, regular energy so that you have sexual energy available when necessary. And this is the last thing that I want to say. The last thing that I want to say is you want to start releasing tension [00:07:00] and pain from your body.
Pleasure and pain typically are sort of. Opponents right and this doesn't mean that you can't be sort of turned on if it hurts a little I know some people have like those different fetishes where they actually can enjoy some pain I'm, not really talking about that. I'm talking about how pleasure Is usually an opponent to pain.
So if you're experiencing a lot of headaches, if you're experiencing a lot of low back pain, hip pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, for sure pelvic floor pain or vaginal pain that is going to directly create an experience where Your brain is associating pain with sex. And so by actually doing things that help to relax your pelvic floor muscles, to mobilize your body, to relax your shoulders, right?
To relax your belly. So you're not constantly clenching and holding in your belly and trying to look smaller. We're releasing tension [00:08:00] from the body and by releasing tension, we now have a greater capacity to receive pleasure. Tension is like holding tension is closing. Tension is creating a barrier. When we.
When we promote the release, the let go, the relaxation, the mobilization, then we now create a capacity to receive and feel more pleasure in less pain. All right. This is especially true for my clients who struggle with chronic sexual pain, chronic pelvic pain, and chronic vaginismus or vulvodynia. And so what I usually tell them because they say, Hey, Dr.
Howell, I am struggling with low libido. I do not have a desire to do any form of sex, not all of them, but some of them are like, I don't even want to do oral sex. I don't want to be touched down there. And, and especially for vaginism. So we talk about vaginismus, there's a lot of shame attached to it, a lot of failure attached to it, right?
A lot of, uh, [00:09:00] typically feeling a sense of brokenness or a loss of femininity. And so, and you don't have to, uh, identify as a woman, right? Anyone can struggle with vaginismus. Anyone who has a vagina, you do not have to identify as a woman. So all people with vaginismus, what I hear a lot from them is that they are losing the desire to be sexual at all because sex for them is attached to a sense of failure.
It's attached to shame. Something they're embarrassed about. Something that they're disconnected from. And they want to just detach from those things altogether. And so one of the things you can do is start engaging in sexual things that have no pressure attached to it. There is no pressure to perform.
There is no pressure to be penetrated. You just want to say, hey, I want to make out. I want to make out naked. I want to make out with R& B music on. I want you to touch my butt. I want you to give me a butt massage I want you to rub me down. I want to self pleasure I want to take a bath and then I want to come back come [00:10:00] out and rub my skin down with my favorite oil and I want to touch my own body.
Whatever you're doing, it's important that you store some, some memories of pain free sexual activity in your brain so that your brain is not only associating sex with pain. That alone will start to help you support and nurture that desire. But then lastly, you know, I had to go here. We have to also eradicate the pelvic floor from significant tension, from the actual pain, right?
So we can do things that don't require penetration and don't require the things that cause pain, but we also want to tap into the things that actually release and resolve the pain and resolve the pelvic floor tightness. Okay. So pelvic floor physical therapy y'all is the number one intervention. for pelvic floor muscle dysfunction, sexual pain, incontinence, prolapse, all of that.
And so y'all know I'm a plug. The Vagina Rehab Doctor team, what we do is we work with people completely [00:11:00] remote. We don't require you to leave your home to get help, to get healing. And so y'all, my deadline is coming up for my Vaginismus to Vaginalicious group program. It was crazy amazing last year. Last year I took this big leap of faith and I said, I'm going to start a group program for Vaginismus.
After doing one on ones that were so successful with people online, I was like, wow, this is working for people. Virtually. People are going from no PIV, no penetration to pain free intercourse. People are going from can't get in a Q tip to insert a size eight dilator in two to three months.
So I had this crazy belief in the tools that I was giving my clients one on one. And I said, Hey, I'm teaching them all very similar things What would happen if I just put them in a group a small intimate group with each other? And we worked with each other for a longer period of time since it's a group and what would happen?
So I launched this program last year in [00:12:00] 2023. I did not announce it publicly I didn't mention it on Instagram. All I did was share it with my email community and eight people signed up for my level two vaginismus to vaginalicious group program for level two. The goal was pain free penetrative sex, and most of them were in relationships except for one person.
And can I tell you that all. of them currently are having the sex they are getting the D they're getting. They are having the sex, right? They are doing it pain free. Vaginismus is gone. And after that experience, I really, I really came to believe in the healing nature of community. Y'all were not meant to do this alone.
We're not meant to struggle alone. We're definitely not meant to try and fix medical conditions alone. And it's understandable. Like if we don't have the access, right. We absolutely cannot pay for a pellet for a physical therapist, or we absolutely can't do group programs. Listen, I got a ton of eGuys, ton of exercises on my page, a ton of resources for you that you [00:13:00] can tap into, but I would encourage anyone listening, if you have already tried a lot of those other things and you are on the verge of giving up, you're getting frustrated or you have something super important, something close to your heart, like a wedding or maybe an anniversary, or you're just going to be taking a trip with your partner, or maybe even, you just want to.
You just want to overcome vaginismus by your next birthday. I invite you to come work with me inside my Vaginismus to Vaginalicious group program. Y'all. It starts on April 4th, but the deadline is March 15th. Okay. The deadline is March 15th. So if you want to join me in this program, it's eight weeks long, 90 minutes a week, and you get one on one time with me, go ahead and just DM me.
Two words get laid. All right, listen, we're trying to get laid this summer, pain free. And if that's you, I want to work with you and I want to teach you how to overcome your vaginismus, overcome the pain and shame and tap into more pleasure and confidence. Y'all, these are the three ways to increase your libido and support it, not just increase it, [00:14:00] but support it and listen to it.
Okay. So the number one thing, that we talked about first, we talked about how the number one thing is to know your sexual desire style. Is it responsive or are spontaneous? The number two thing was to preserve and to reserve your overall energy so that you have more sexual energy preserved for pleasure. And then lastly, we talked about actually nurturing more pelvic floor muscle relaxation.
Through exercises, mobility, and even working with a pelvic floor, physical therapist, if you have that capacity. And if you're willing to take that leap of faith, y'all, thanks for listening. Remember to DM me, get laid. If you want to join my vaginismus group program, and I hope to see you again next week for part three of, as a woman, the, as a woman series, bye y'all.