Princess Complex
— how women can increase sexual confidence

 

“Why isn’t he sweeping me off my feet onto Frette sheets and into rapturous orgasm?

 

He is my husband, after all. Isn’t that the message I was taught in my first book? My prince is supposed to know exactly what to do once he single-handedly lifts me onto his white horse, and we ride away …

 

Of course, this fairy tale story was cut short when it came to the ‘bed’ part, but the implication was that he would know exactly what to do when we got there. He would have the right key to open up my sexuality. He would tell me who I was sexually. He would know.

 

This perspective was confirmed by the stories of chastity in church and emphasized on the TV shows that I was allowed to watch. My parents never talked about what I should expect to know once he carried me over that threshold. In fact the complete opposite was the case, I was actively kept in the dark about how to arouse myself or how to have an orgasm. It would just magically happen. Like in a fairytale, I would be the “princess”.

 

When I grew up and became somewhat attractive I learned that I got special attention (especially from men), when I looked good. So, I learned how to apply makeup, do my hair and wear just the right level of sexy clothes. Nothing too obvious. Just enough to attract the “right” type of prince.

 

I met him at college. He was of average attractiveness, but charming and his parents were well-to-do. He had success written all over him. Sex was just like a fairy tale. I was so in love with him that I couldn’t help but burst with desire and respond to his slightest touch with rapturous pleasure. We didn’t leave the bedroom for weeks. But it didn’t last. We were both starting careers and life ended up taking over.

 

I quit my job when the kids came and haven’t felt the need to go back. He turned to his work and was rarely home and when he was, it seemed like he just didn’t want to be there. Sex started to become ‘less fun’. Fifteen years of marriage and two children later we have little desire for each other anymore. Where did my prince go?”

 

This is the story of Sara, a 38-year old woman who came to me with arousal issues. She loves her husband and desires his cuddles and attention, but was having difficulty feeling anything sexual for him. Sex became about pleasing him. She found that she was “getting it over with” so she could get the real intimacy and cuddles she craved. And to make matters worse, she was starting to see the signs of age and feeling less and less attractive every day.

 

Sex and the City talked about “getting off” and being in charge sexually but she didn’t feel it. He, in turn, didn’t seem to be ‘fixing’ this problem. She worried that he didn’t want her anymore, that he was pulling away. She feared he was having an affair. She wanted to increase sexual confidence.

 

She tried to compensate for the lack of sexual intimacy by baking him his favorite cookies and became the world’s most perfect mother, all the while looking “amazing” for her age (so said everyone!). But sex had taken a back seat.

 

Sara had always centered her sexuality around her prince. She had never really known what turned her on, herself. She felt that just being there, young and beautiful, was her role in pleasing him. Princesses didn’t have to know or do anything around sex, except to look beautiful. Pleasure would then happen magically.

 

Sara is not considered to be unusual by sex therapists. We see women who have never developed a sense of their own sexual self outside of their prince. I call this the ‘princess complex’. Often this relationship works, and can work well, until she starts to see the changes that come with age. Those first wrinkles or sags can be fixed with a tuck here or a nip there, especially if your prince has a decent income. But after a few years of nipping and tucking reality sets in. And if you have attached your sexuality to being someone’s object of passion, once you are no longer that, sex disappears for you.

 

Sara had never been taught, or even been encouraged to delve into her own dynamic sexual feelings. She didn’t know what triggers her arousal, or what things get in the way of her having orgasms.

 

It took several sessions, but Sara learned that pleasing herself was the first step to making her marriage work. She would have to start at the beginning — the sexual exploration she had missed as a young person. While her husband was learning about what turned him on (in early adolescence), she was learning to ignore her arousal and pay attention to fairy tales.

 

How to increase sexual confidence:

 

Women are not given the same obvious signs of their arousal that boys have — erections!

 

Men see and handle their genitalia every day. In contrast, women do not see their genitals often enough. Some never look at them in their whole lives! Women do not see the engorgement of arousal — the darkening color or swelling of the labia, the dripping lubrication, or the hood climbing over the clitoris.

 

Without that positive feedback of “oh, look at my genitals reacting, I must be aroused” — the signs that men get every day — women are often disconnected from when they are actually aroused.

 

For men arousal is very real — tangible, pushing-through-their-pants, and perhaps even embarrassing to them — by being there for the world to see. For women arousal can’t be physically seen or felt nearly as much. Arousal becomes a theoretical concept, often disconnected from a body.

 

Through therapy Sara started to look at the signs of arousal, learning what worked for her and what didn’t. She didn’t rely on her prince to get her going. Her physical appearance started to become less important than seeing how aroused she could, or couldn’t get. The sexual feelings were coming from deep inside her, instead of what her prince thought of her.

 

When she started bringing this newfound interest and confidence into the bedroom with her prince, he responded well. He confided afterward that it was just too much pressure to be responsible for her pleasure in the bedroom. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but that it was unrealistic to expect him to ‘fix her’. He told her that he felt she was a partner again.

 

Be a princess for the rest of your life, but give it up in the bedroom!

 

Women need some time for their own sexual exploration and the Princess Complex is only holding women back from amazing sex.

Conquer your internal princess.  Wondering where to start? Here are some tips to get you going:

1. Find time to be alone.

2. Don’t rush it.

3. Indulge in fantasy.

4. Watch some adult movies (by yourself!)

5. Make note of the little things that make your pussy tingle.

6. Look at your pussy more often – without judgment. It is amazing how beautiful and amazing it is.