Why what's happening in your head is happening in your body too
When you think about sex (before anything erotic or arousing has even happened), what's the first word that comes to mind? Because, for a lot of the women I work with, the honest answer I hear is… Obligation. Pressure. Stress. I should. Boring.
This is not desire, curiosity, excitement, or pleasure, but rather a low-level and pervasive sense of duty. To be clear with you right now, that's not a relationship or libido problem. This is your mind and your body in direct conversation with each other using high-speed 5G Wi-Fi, and your body is responding exactly as it should. Our bodies are so so wise!
In many online spaces now, people often talk about the mind-body connection as if it were a wellness concept, something soft and abstract. However, in my work, I know this to be physiologically literal, and understanding it changed how I work with every single woman who comes to my practice.
Dr Anita Elias from Monash University, Australia, provides us with an amazing framework called the Mind/Body Model. Her model explores that enjoyable and pleasurable sex needs to be FREE. It needs to be free of duty, chore, should, and anything you're doing for someone else. Because if the sex you’re having isn’t free, then your mind is not free, and this creates an inevitable (and often chronic) anxious mental state. This can feel like being worried, feeling stressed, pushing through or overriding your body's internal no to “get it over with.” When this happens, the body responds to that mental state immediately and directly by bracing and tensing muscles as part of your body’s evolutionary and finely tuned threat-detection system.
From that contracted and tense place, authentic and pleasurable arousal becomes inaccessible. The nervous system has prioritised protection over pleasure.
So what does alternative look like…?
Free → Safe → Relaxed → Aroused → Enjoyable.
Free is a mental state. It means that all the types of sex you’re having are released from obligation, chore, a should, a performance, and mental monitoring. This includes how you're coming across, whether you're taking too long or whether your body looks okay. Freedom is a precondition, not a bonus!
Safe is a nervous system state. It means the body has enough information (from the environment, from your partner, from its internal cues) to lower its guard. Safe means being able to say no, stop, and slow down at any point and this is respected and heard.
Relaxed is not passive. It is an active physiological shift in which the nervous system downregulates, the pelvic floor relaxes, and the muscles soften. This is the body following the mind into a different state.
And ONLY from these states does authentic and pleasurable arousal become available to the body. I am referring to actual physiological arousal (not just the mind being turned on), which includes engorgement of your vulva, lubrication, increased blood flow and increased sensation.
Then, and only then, does enjoyment become possible.
Women come to my practice with a huge range of presentations, including pelvic pain, vaginismus, vulvodynia, low or absent desire, difficulty with arousal or orgasm, disconnection from their bodies, and sex that has become something they endure rather than experience.
The work I do is about understanding and interrupting this pattern because we don’t (and literally can’t) bypass the mind to have “enjoyable” sex when the body isn’t open and receptive. Instead, I help women explore their mind/body erotic landscape: understanding ingrained sexual scripts. embodied consent (beyond a default mental yes) and pleasure anatomy as a way to discover what conditions they actually need to feel free, building a genuine felt sense of safety in the body, and giving the nervous system evidence that something different is possible.
Dear reader, if you’ve read this blog and felt a quiet or loud knowing that duty, obligation, anxiety, and tension are familiar territory for you, I want you to know that there is another way. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be about trying harder or wanting it more – I know you’ve probably already tried that. The work is in exploring and understanding what your mind and body are saying together, listening and responding in ways that respect and honour your body's truth.
Lauren Cummings is a Mental Health Occupational Therapist and Somatic Sexologist on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, providing telehealth support for women across Australia. Her practice, Back in My Body Therapies, specialises in sexual health, pelvic pain, and nervous system regulation. Referrals accepted via Medicare Mental Health Care Plans, NDIS and private.