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Let’s talk about your sexual prime. I think it’s safe to say that most people would love a great sex life. They just don’t know how to get it, which creates a lot of obstacles and barriers to actually having one.

But when you’ve committed to not having sex before marriage, and then struggle to create that great sex life, I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people, men in particular, feel like they’ve lost the opportunity to have the best sex they could because they’re no longer in their sexual prime by the time they hopefully figure it out.

So research suggests that women reach their sexual prime in their thirties, whereas men peak in their late teens. So if you waited to have sex until you were married, according to this research, men totally miss their opportunity and women maybe have a chance if they figured it out how sex can be for them and learn to enjoy it before their thirties.

With this way of thinking, the chances of a great sex life aren’t very high. 

So what is a sexual peak? Many believe that the sexual peak is based on the frequency of sex. Others believe the answer is based on the quality of sex and how satisfying it is. And there’s a general consensus that your sexual prime is based on how your body responds.

If we’re looking strictly at hormones or orgasmic frequency, a woman’s sexual prime fluctuates throughout her life. And yes, we know that menstrual cycles, hormones, pregnancy, nursing, premenopause, menopause can all affect how a woman’s body responds. Those in addition to relationship issues, stress, anxiety, exhaustion, depression, health conditions, medications, body image and self-concept, but does that define her sexual prime?

I don’t think so. 

I want you to think about what you typically think of in sexual prime. Let’s take like a teenage boy, for example. Okay? A teenage boy may be able to respond sexually a lot faster than someone who’s older, but is that teenage boy really going to have the depth and the security when he is having sex? Is he truly making love or is he just having sex? Is he, you know, getting his gratification out of it? Is it really about the whole experience and about the two of them together? Or is it more about him? I would say for the majority it’s more about just the teenage boy and getting off.

In the book Passionate Marriage by Dr. David Schnarch, he says, “We’ve confused genital prime with sexual prime,” and I think he’s right on. 

Sure, our body may respond faster in the younger years, but that doesn’t mean it’s our sexual prime. He goes on to say, “Your sexual peak has a great deal to do with who you are as a person.” 

Now, a great sexual relationship, a great sexual experience, is really two people who are intimate and connected. They’re willing to be fully known and know their partner. Great intimacy has to do with disclosing yourself through sex. And only then can we have a truly amazing sexual experience. Great sex isn’t about positions, toys, variety or even how your body responds. It’s about the meaning we give it.

Now, this is one of the things that I work a lot with women on because when we have not developed ourself as a person, sex isn’t as meaningful. When we’re giving sex meanings, like, “He just wants to get off. He doesn’t really care about me, he just wants sex.” That doesn’t create very good meaning to have a great sexual experience from.

So when we can understand things differently and we give it different meanings, where it really becomes about the beauty, the connection, the intimacy, being fully known, loving yourself unconditionally, loving your partner unconditionally, the meanings change and it gets so much deeper and so much richer.

So of course when we’re younger, our bodies can probably perform better, genital prime, but we’re usually a lot more insecure and validation seeking in our sexual encounters, whereas most who are older are more secure in themselves. They can make love slowly and securely rather than seeking after gratification and chasing an orgasm.

Sex is less of a performance and more an act of love, more an act of choosing our partner. And we understand ourselves better when we’re older. We’re more emotionally available to our partner. We don’t apologize for our eroticism, and we’re able to bring more of ourselves to sex. 

We talked a little bit about this in my episode with Cami Hurst on menopause, which is episode 160. I think when we’re older, we’re also less threatened by a partner who is sexual and we work to become sexual equals. 

As we love and accept ourselves and our partner, the good and the bad, we are able to express our love more deeply for them and for ourselves, which always makes for a better sexual experience.

How many times have you heard from people that “sex is beautiful”, but you have yet to find that beauty? One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Schnarch is “there is no beauty in sex – the beauty is in people.” When you can find the beauty in your cells and in your spouse, sex becomes beautiful. From there, it becomes meaningful and purposeful.

So if sex has been a struggle for you and your partner and you’re feeling like you may have missed out, I want you to rethink things. The best is yet to come if you are willing to put the work in to get there, and if you need some help with that, please consider joining my membership. I’m going to be closing the doors to join the membership at the end of October and won’t reopen them again for a few months if you’ve been waiting to join, wait no longer. You do not want to miss out. 

All right my friends. That’s all I have for you today. We’ll see you next week.