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You know what nobody really talks about? The fact that for a lot of women, sex just… isn’t that great. And I’m not talking about painful sex or sex that’s actively uncomfortable, though that’s a whole other conversation. I’m talking about sex that’s just kind of meh. It’s not terrible, it’s not amazing, it’s just… fine. Maybe even boring.

And when you’re a woman who’s been told your entire life that sex is supposed to be this incredible, mind-blowing experience, and then you get married and discover that it’s actually just sort of underwhelming, you start to wonder what’s wrong with you. You start asking yourself: Am I broken? Is my body defective? Is there something wrong with my marriage?

The short answer is: probably not. But let’s dig into this, because this is one of those topics that I think causes so much silent suffering in marriages.

When Sex Doesn’t Live Up to the Hype

I had a couple recently—Kelsey and Derek—who took my engaged couples course before they got married. About six months into their marriage, they used one of their coaching sessions to talk about sex. They were having sex regularly, there was no fighting about it, no major conflicts. But Kelsey said something to me that I hear all the time: “I just don’t get it. Everyone acts like sex is this amazing thing, but honestly? I’d rather just watch Netflix.”

And Kelsey isn’t alone. I can’t tell you how many women have sat on Zoom calls with me and said some version of this. They’re confused because their bodies work fine—nothing hurts, everything functions—but there’s just no… magic. No fireworks. No overwhelming desire to rip their husband’s clothes off.

So where does this disconnect come from? Part of it is the buildup. If you grew up in purity culture, like many of my clients did, you’ve been told for years that sex is this sacred, special thing that you have to wait for. It’s put on this pedestal. And then you get married and discover that the reality is a lot more complicated and a lot less automatic than you expected.

You’ve been told that sex is like this amazing dessert you can’t have until your wedding night. And then you finally get to try it and you realize… wait, this tastes like plain oatmeal. Not terrible, but definitely not chocolate cake.

When Mediocre Sex Gets Deprioritized

And when sex is just mediocre, women aren’t going to choose it. Why would you? If something doesn’t feel good, if it’s just okay, you’re going to choose other things instead. You’re going to choose sleep. You’re going to choose finishing that book, scrolling on your phone, catching up on laundry, literally anything else that feels more rewarding than going through the motions of something that leaves you feeling nothing.

This isn’t about being selfish or not caring about your marriage. It’s a completely logical response to mediocre sex. You have limited time and energy, and you’re going to spend it on things that actually feel good or accomplish something or give you rest. Sex that’s just “meh” doesn’t make that list.

And I need to be clear here: we’re not talking about situations where the husband isn’t trying. We’re not talking about selfish lovers who only care about their own pleasure. We’re talking about couples where both people are genuinely trying to make sex good, where the husband wants his wife to enjoy it, where they’re both putting in effort, and it’s still just… not working. It’s still underwhelming. It’s still something she’d rather skip.

That’s what makes this so confusing and frustrating for both partners. Because when you’re both trying and it’s still not good, you start wondering if something is fundamentally broken. The husband feels rejected and confused—”I’m doing everything I can think of, why doesn’t she want this?” The wife feels defective—”He’s trying so hard, why can’t I just enjoy this?”

But most of the time, nothing is broken. You just haven’t figured out what actually works yet.

Why Sex Feels “Meh”

Let’s talk about why this happens, because understanding the “why” is the first step toward actually changing things.

The Physical Component

First, the physical piece. A lot of women don’t realize that female sexual pleasure is actually pretty complicated from a physical standpoint. Unlike men, where arousal and pleasure tend to be more straightforward, women’s bodies require specific types of stimulation to feel good. And here’s the kicker: most of what we think of as “traditional sex” isn’t set up to provide that stimulation.

I had another client, Autumn, who told me she’d been having sex with her husband Pierce for ten years and had never really enjoyed it. She kept waiting for it to start feeling good, assuming something would eventually click. When we dug into the details, it turned out they were basically following what they’d seen in movies: some kissing, maybe a little touching, then straight to intercourse, then done.

The problem? For most women, intercourse alone isn’t enough to produce the kind of stimulation that creates pleasure. The clitoris—which is the primary source of female sexual pleasure—isn’t even inside the vagina. It’s external. And if you’re just having intercourse without any direct clitoral stimulation, it’s like trying to enjoy a meal without using your taste buds. Everything might be technically working, but you’re missing the main event.

This isn’t about you being broken. This is about not understanding your own anatomy and what actually creates pleasure for your specific body.

The Expectations Problem

But understanding anatomy is only part of it. There’s also this massive gap between what women expect sex to feel like and what it actually feels like, especially at first. If you’ve grown up consuming media—books, movies, TV shows—you’ve probably absorbed this message that sex is supposed to be instantly amazing, that your body will just know what to do, that you’ll be swept away by overwhelming sensation the first time, or the tenth time, or whenever.

But that’s not how it works for most women. Sexual pleasure is learned. Your body has to learn what feels good. You have to learn how to communicate what you want. You have to learn how to stay present in your body instead of getting stuck in your head. And that takes time and practice and a lot of awkward trial and error.

The Mental Component

So we’ve talked about the physical side and expectations. Now let’s get into what’s happening in your brain during sex itself.

Your brain is actually your most important sex organ. If your head isn’t in the game, if you’re distracted, anxious, worried, or just completely disconnected from what’s happening, your body isn’t going to respond the way it could.

Let me give you an example. I worked with a woman named Brooke who described sex with her husband Julian as “going through the motions.” She said she felt like she was watching herself from outside her body, mentally making a grocery list while he was touching her. There was nothing wrong with her body. There was nothing wrong with what Julian was doing. But Brooke was so stuck in her head—worrying about whether she was taking too long, whether her body looked okay, whether Julian was getting frustrated—that she couldn’t actually be present enough to experience pleasure.

This is what researchers call “spectatoring”—when you’re so busy watching and judging your own performance that you can’t actually participate in what’s happening. And it absolutely kills sexual pleasure.

Another thought pattern I see all the time: women who approach sex like it’s a chore on their to-do list. “Okay, we should probably have sex tonight, let me just get it over with.” When that’s your mindset going in, your body isn’t going to respond with pleasure. You’re essentially telling your nervous system that this is a task to complete, not an experience to enjoy.

When Your First Time Sets the Pattern

And speaking of the stories you tell yourself, we need to talk about your wedding night or honeymoon. Because for a lot of women, that first sexual experience continues to shape every sexual experience that comes after it.

The first time usually isn’t great. That’s normal. You’re figuring out bodies and mechanics, you might be nervous or uncomfortable, there’s all this pressure and expectation built up. But what happens next—how you think about that first experience—that matters enormously.

If your first time was awkward or disappointing or painful, and you walk away thinking “well, that’s what sex is,” then you’ve just created a belief that’s going to follow you into every sexual encounter. You’re expecting it to be like that first time. And when you expect something, you usually find evidence to confirm that expectation.

I worked with a woman named Clarissa who had been married to her husband Owen for fourteen years. Sex had never been great for her, and when we dug into it, she realized she was still operating from conclusions she’d drawn on her wedding night. It had been uncomfortable and awkward and nothing like what she’d imagined. And she’d decided in that moment: “I guess I’m just not someone who enjoys sex.”

Fourteen years later, she was still living inside that story. Every time she and Owen had sex, she was unconsciously looking for evidence that confirmed her belief. She noticed every moment that felt uncomfortable or boring. She dismissed anything that might have felt good as a fluke. She’d built an entire narrative around that first disappointing experience, and it was now a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When we started unpacking this, I asked her: “What if your wedding night wasn’t a definitive statement about your sexuality? What if it was just two inexperienced people fumbling through something new?” That reframe—that her first experience was data about being inexperienced, not data about her capacity for pleasure—changed everything.

If your first time wasn’t great, you get to decide what story you tell yourself about it. You can tell yourself “sex just isn’t for me” or you can tell yourself “we didn’t know what we were doing yet, and we’re still learning.” One of those stories keeps you stuck. The other one opens up possibilities.

And even if you don’t consciously think “I’m not someone who enjoys sex,” just thinking “well, that didn’t live up to expectations” is enough to color every sexual experience that comes after. Because now you’re going into sex with that thought in the background. You’re comparing every experience to what you thought it was going to be, and finding it lacking. You’re focusing on the disappointment instead of being curious about what could be different.

That disappointment becomes a filter. You notice everything that confirms it—every moment that feels boring or uncomfortable or just okay. And you miss or dismiss anything that might actually feel good, because it doesn’t fit with your established narrative that sex is disappointing.

Your Thoughts Create Your Experience

Because here’s what a lot of women don’t realize: those thoughts running through your head during sex? They’re not just passive observations. The simple thought “this isn’t that great” actually makes a massive difference in how you experience sex.

When you’re having sex and you’re thinking “meh, this is kind of boring” or “I wish this was over” or “I don’t really see what all the fuss is about,” those thoughts are literally shaping your physical experience. Your brain and body aren’t separate systems. What you think influences what you feel.

If you go into sex expecting it to be underwhelming, if you’re already telling yourself the story that sex just isn’t for you, that you’re not one of those women who enjoys it, then guess what? Your body is going to deliver exactly that experience. You’re priming your nervous system to have a mediocre time.

I had a client named Whitney who realized she was doing this constantly. Every single time she and her husband Logan had sex, she was having this running commentary in her head: “Okay, we’re doing this. It’s fine. It’s not doing much for me. I wonder how much longer this will take. I should probably act more into this than I am.”

Those thoughts weren’t just neutral observations—they were actively preventing her from being present enough to experience pleasure. She was so busy narrating how unimpressed she was that she couldn’t actually pay attention to the sensations in her body that might have felt good.

Tell Yourself a Different Story

So if your thoughts create your experience, what happens when you intentionally change the story you’re telling yourself during sex?

This might sound overly simplistic, but it actually works: start telling yourself that sex feels amazing, that you love it, that this is incredible. Even if it doesn’t feel true in the moment. Even if you’re thinking “this is ridiculous, I’m lying to myself.”

Your brain responds to the story you feed it. If you’re constantly narrating how boring or disappointing sex is, that’s what you’ll experience. But if you start narrating a different story—”this feels so good,” “I love being close to him,” “my body is responding to this”—your brain starts looking for evidence to support that narrative instead.

I had a client named Vivian who decided to try this as an experiment. She’d been having mediocre sex with her husband Marcus for years, always with this mental commentary about how it was fine but nothing special. During our session, I challenged her to spend one month actively telling herself a different story during sex. Not performing for Marcus, not faking enthusiasm out loud, but changing her internal narrative.

She started simple: instead of thinking “okay, we’re doing this,” she’d think “I want to be here.” Instead of “I wonder how long this will take,” she’d think “I’m noticing how this actually feels.” Instead of “this isn’t doing much for me,” she’d think “I’m curious what might feel good.”

After a few weeks, she told me something shifted. By changing what she was telling herself, she became more present. And by being more present, she started actually noticing sensations that felt good. Which gave her real material to work with—”oh, that angle actually does feel better,” or “when he slows down like that, I can feel more.”

Your brain is looking for confirmation of whatever story you’re telling it. Feed it a better story, and watch what happens.

Your Relationship with Pleasure

But this goes even deeper than just what you’re thinking during sex. We need to zoom out and look at how you think about pleasure in your life overall.

A lot of women, especially women raised in religious or conservative environments, have a really complicated relationship with pleasure. You’ve been taught that self-denial is virtuous. That putting yourself last is godly. That your job is to serve and sacrifice and make everyone else happy, and your own pleasure—your own enjoyment—is somehow selfish or indulgent.

And then you wonder why you can’t relax enough to enjoy sex.

If you don’t allow yourself pleasure in the rest of your life, if you feel guilty taking time for things you enjoy, if you can’t receive anything without immediately thinking about what you need to give back, then sexual pleasure is going to be really hard for you. Because sex requires you to receive. It requires you to be present in your own body, focused on your own sensations, allowing yourself to feel good without immediately thinking about what you owe someone else.

I’ve worked with women who literally cannot accept a compliment without deflecting. Who feel uncomfortable if their husband does something nice for them. Who struggle to take time for hobbies they enjoy because it feels frivolous. And then they’re confused about why they can’t let go during sex.

Your capacity for sexual pleasure is directly connected to your capacity for pleasure in general. If you’ve spent your whole life minimizing your own desires, dismissing your own preferences, and feeling guilty when you enjoy something, you’ve trained yourself not to experience pleasure fully. Sex isn’t going to magically be the one area where that pattern doesn’t apply.

When Orgasm Doesn’t Equal Satisfaction

Now, this is where things get really confusing for some women. Because sometimes women are having orgasms and sex still isn’t great. They reach climax, everything works physically, but afterwards they feel… nothing. Or worse, they feel disconnected or even a little gross about the whole thing.

I worked with a client named Paige who was completely baffled by this. She told me, “I have an orgasm almost every time we have sex. My husband Trevor makes sure of it. But I still don’t want to have sex. I don’t look forward to it. And afterwards I just feel empty.”

Orgasm is a physiological response. It’s your body doing what bodies do when certain stimulation happens in a certain way. But it’s not the same thing as pleasure or desire or satisfaction. You can have an orgasm while you’re completely checked out mentally, while you’re going through the motions, while you’re thinking about your grocery list. Your body responds to the physical stimulation, but that doesn’t mean you’re actually present or connected or enjoying the experience.

It’s like if someone tickled you until you laughed—your body is having a physical response, but that doesn’t mean you’re having fun. You’re laughing, but you might actually be miserable and want them to stop.

So if you’re having orgasms but sex still feels empty or unsatisfying, that’s telling you something important. It means the physical mechanics are working, but something else is missing. Usually it’s connection, presence, genuine desire to be there. You’re letting your body be used to produce an orgasm, but you’re not actually participating in the experience as a whole person.

What You Can Actually Do About It

Okay, so we’ve talked about all the reasons sex might not be pleasurable—physical, mental, the stories you tell yourself, your relationship with pleasure overall. Now let’s talk about what you can actually do to change this.

Get Educated About Your Body

First, you need to understand your own anatomy. I know that sounds basic, but I cannot tell you how many women I work with who have never really explored their own bodies, who don’t know what kind of touch feels good to them, who’ve never had an orgasm and aren’t really sure how to get there.

You cannot expect your husband to figure out your body if you haven’t figured it out yourself. And this isn’t about him studying some manual—every woman’s body is different. What feels amazing to your best friend might do nothing for you. You need to know your own body well enough to communicate what works.

This might mean spending some time alone, experimenting with different types of touch, different pressure, different rhythms. It might feel awkward or weird at first, especially if you grew up being taught that touching yourself was wrong. But understanding what creates pleasure for your body is essential information, not something shameful.

When It Might Actually Be Medical

Everything I’ve talked about so far applies to the vast majority of women who aren’t experiencing sexual pleasure. But there are some cases—rare, but real—where there’s an actual medical issue at play.

If you’ve tried everything we’ve discussed, if you’ve worked on the mental barriers and the physical techniques and the communication, and nothing is changing, it might be worth talking to a healthcare provider. There are legitimate medical conditions that can interfere with sexual pleasure. Things like hormonal imbalances, nerve damage from childbirth or surgery, certain medications—especially SSRIs—vulvodynia, pelvic floor dysfunction, or the aftereffects of trauma that have created a physical response in your body.

I worked with a woman named Sierra who told me that sex was no longer pleasurable after having a baby. Turns out she had significant pelvic floor dysfunction from a difficult childbirth that no one had caught. Once she worked with a pelvic floor physical therapist, things changed dramatically.

So if you’ve genuinely given this time and effort and nothing is shifting, get evaluated. Don’t just assume you’re the exception. But also don’t jump straight to “I must have a medical problem” without first examining all the mental and relational patterns we’ve talked about.

And even if you do discover there’s a medical issue that makes certain types of sexual activity difficult or impossible, that doesn’t mean intimacy and connection are off the table. It means you get to be creative about what physical closeness looks like for you and your husband. Not every marriage is going to include the same sexual activities, and that’s okay. What matters is that you’re both satisfied with the connection you have and you’re not just settling for something that leaves one or both of you feeling empty.

Change the Script

Once you understand your own body, the next step is changing how you actually have sex. You have to throw out the playbook you think you’re supposed to follow. Sex doesn’t have to look like what you’ve seen in movies or what you think other couples are doing.

Remember Autumn and Pierce? Once we talked through what was actually happening, they completely changed their approach. Instead of rushing through to intercourse, they started spending more time on different kinds of touch. They added clitoral stimulation—both manual and with toys. They experimented with different positions that changed the angle and sensation.

And here’s what happened: sex got better. Not overnight, not all at once, but gradually Autumn started actually experiencing pleasure instead of just enduring something that felt neutral. She described it as finally understanding what all the fuss was about.

This takes communication, which I know can be incredibly awkward. But you have to be willing to say things like “Can we try this instead?” or “That’s not really working for me, but this other thing feels good.” Your husband cannot read your mind. And if you’ve been going along with sex that doesn’t feel good for months or years, he probably assumes everything is fine.

Address What’s Happening in Your Head

But changing the physical approach is only going to get you so far if you don’t also address the mental barriers. If you’re spectatoring, if you’re anxious, if you’re performing instead of participating, no amount of physical technique is going to make sex pleasurable.

For Brooke, we worked on techniques to help her stay present—things like focusing on specific sensations in her body, breathing deliberately, even keeping her eyes open and maintaining eye contact with Julian instead of retreating into her head. It felt vulnerable and uncomfortable at first, but it helped her actually be present during sex instead of mentally checked out.

If you’re approaching sex like a chore, you need to examine that mindset. Why are you having sex that you don’t want to have? Because you feel obligated? Because you think it’s your duty? Because you’re trying to keep your husband from being frustrated?

Those are terrible reasons to have sex, and they’re going to keep sex feeling terrible. Sex that comes from obligation doesn’t create desire—it creates resentment. And your husband can tell the difference between you wanting to be there and you just going through the motions.

Give Yourself Permission to Be Honest

And that brings me to something that might be the hardest part of all this. You need to be able to be honest with yourself and your husband about what’s actually true. If sex isn’t pleasurable, pretending that it is doesn’t help anyone. It just means you’re both operating on false information.

I know there’s often this fear that if you admit sex isn’t great, your husband will be hurt or defensive or feel like a failure. And yes, that conversation requires some finesse. But staying silent means nothing changes. You just keep having unsatisfying sex, possibly for years, and that doesn’t serve your marriage either.

You can have this conversation with compassion. You can say something like, “I want to enjoy sex more than I currently do, and I think we need to try some things differently. I don’t think we’ve figured out what really works for my body yet, and I want us to explore that together.”

That’s different than saying “Sex with you is terrible.” It’s framing this as something you’re working on together, as a team, rather than blaming or criticizing.

The Bigger Picture

So let me bring this all together. If sex isn’t pleasurable for you, that doesn’t mean you’re broken. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with your body or your marriage. For the vast majority of women in this situation, it means you haven’t yet discovered what actually creates pleasure for your specific body and your specific nervous system.

And that’s learnable. It takes curiosity instead of judgment. It takes communication instead of silence. It takes being willing to experiment and try things differently instead of just repeating the same pattern over and over and hoping for different results.

I worked with a couple—let’s call them Hayley and Garrett—where Hayley had basically given up on sex ever feeling good. She was 35, they’d been married for eight years, and she’d decided this was just how it was going to be. But once they started actually addressing the physical techniques that weren’t working, once Hayley started being honest about what she needed instead of just going along with whatever Garrett initiated, things started to shift.

It didn’t happen overnight. It took several months of trial and error, of awkward conversations, of Hayley learning to stay present in her body instead of disconnecting. But eventually she told me, “I finally get it. I finally understand why people want to have sex.” And that changed everything for their marriage—not just the physical piece, but the emotional connection that comes from actually wanting to be close to each other.

That’s available to you too. But it requires being willing to acknowledge that what you’ve been doing isn’t working and being brave enough to try something different.

Alright my friends, that’s all I have for you today. Remember, love is a journey, not a destination. Stay committed, stay passionate, and stay connected. I’ll see you next week…ba-bye.