Self-Conscious About Sex? 9 Tips to Make Sex Much More Pleasurable

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“Does my butt look fat?”

“I didn’t shave my legs!”

“Is he really into me?”

These are common phrases rattling around the mind of the Self-conscious Spectator.

For the woman who is filled with self-doubt, lots of mental chatter and negative self-talk, whether she is criticizing evaluating her body or her behavior, worried about whether her partner likes her or how what being intimate might mean for her relationship she is likely to have low sexual arousal and she not likely to experience orgasm.

If this sounds like you, no need to worry: here are several remedies to help you get your head in the game and pleasure flowing through your veins.

9 Sexual Solutions for the Self-Conscious Spectator

1.Relax Your Expectations

Instead of worrying about the outcome of each sexual encounter, shift your attention to the mere pleasure of being close to your partner physically. Rather than becoming obsessed with wondering whether you will experience the expected feelings or orgasm, just focus on what you are actually feeling in the moment. Allow yourself to be curious and open, rather than goal-oriented.

The 21-Day Program for Orgasmic Bliss outlined in The Orgasm Prescription for Women: 21-days to Heightened Pleasure, Deeper Intimacy and Orgasmic Bliss will guide you to experiment and explore the various ways you can express yourself sexually and experience pleasure. Over time, by practicing these techniques, you will find it easier to climax when you want to.

2. Avoid The Comparison Trap

If you mistakenly expect to behave like an actress from a porno you will be focused on performance and acting and you aren’t likely to get off. Remember, the women in erotic films are performing a job; it is not real. Porn films are fantasy, not documentaries. Try not to use them as your role models or benchmarks. Until you’re ready for some role-play and acting out fantasies, just stick to discovering what you really like and stop comparing yourself to an unrealistic standard.

3. Trust The Process

As for concerns about your performance, well, obviously your partner chose you, they want to be there, so trust that your moves and actions are pleasing to them, too! Change your focus from yourself, to the smell, sight and sound of being close to your honey.

If you’re self-conscious during sex these 9 tips will help you get out of your head & into bliss.

4. Trust Your Own Sexiness

As for doubts about your attractiveness, this will take a bit of trust and practice on your part. We will deal with this extensively in Chapter 4, but for now, just know that when someone is attracted to you, their mind is not zeroed in on little flaws or supposed imperfections.

Research shows that when we are infatuated or in love, our brains develop a focus on our beloved’s positive traits and even exclude or overlook “negative” traits. This applies to annoying habits and also includes physical features. The little extra flesh around your middle, the particular way you giggle and even the smell of your skin can all be incredibly attractive to your partner!

5. Trust in Your Deliciousness

As I mentioned, oral sex can be the easiest and most reliable way for a woman to achieve orgasm. Some women don’t let themselves enjoy it because they fear that they “don’t taste good down there.” Others worry that they are too hairy, to musty or that their partner doesn’t really like “doing” it. Some are just afraid that they will have to reciprocate so they cut it short.

Oral sex is incredibly erotic and intimate for both the receiver and the giver. Having your lover’s face between your legs, their tongue lapping up your juices and breathing in your feminine essence is also intensely stimulating for your partner. As Dr. Ian Kerner writes in She Comes First, “cunnilingus is the most intimate, respectful and rewarding sexual act a man can engage in.” If your lover is going down on you, trust the experts who say that it is as much for his or her pleasure as it is for yours.

See also: Dr. Andrea’s 21 tips to better orgasms

6. Take Control

Rather than lying there worrying about your whether your physical actions are making your partner feel good, take control and put yourself into positions that will bring you the types of friction, motion and sensation that feel good to you. Women who are able to be more assertive in sexual situations report greater satisfaction and their partners do, too. Rather than thinking you are a “nasty freak,” many men, for example, feel relieved when their lady is willing to take control and show him what she likes. It let’s him know that she is happy to be there, fully participating and not expecting him to do everything to get her off.

You may even choose to bring a toy or vibrator into the act to add some fun, playfulness and novelty for you both. In short, by taking control you can shut down your mental chatter and negativity and shift the attention to actively bringing yourself and your partner more pleasure and less pressure.

7. Be Vocal

As you learn to suspend the distracting negative mental chatter, you can start to change your internal dialogue to a running commentary of how good each touch, kiss or stroke makes you feel. Then, say it out loud, too. “Ooh, I like that.” Or, “Mmm your kisses taste good!” This is a fun and stimulating way to shift from internal judgment to outward appreciation. Being vocal about what you like, trying new things and asking your partner which gestures they like best is usually seen as a positive, not a negative.

As for how you will handle seeing the neighbors who heard your headboard knocking and loud moaning, what is the worse that they can think? You are a blessed woman who just enjoyed the most exquisite pleasure. No. Shame. Here.

8. Try Mindfulness and Meditation

By far the most powerful method I’ve found for eliminating mental chatter, boosting self-confidence and self-acceptance has been through mindfulness meditation. In fact, mindfulness practices form the basis of the Sensual Vitality Inner Bliss course that I teach in retreats to enhance sexual responsiveness, body confidence and intimacy. And, as I explained in Stylist Magazine, “Before you can reach the heights of ecstasy you must shed the mental junk that weighs you down.”

The use of mindfulness in psychotherapy has received more research attention since numerous studies show reduced suffering from anxiety, depression and physical pain. However, the use of mindfulness is not new to the field of sex therapy. In fact, the Sensate Focus techniques created by sex researchers Masters and Johnson in the 1970s utilized several features of mindfulness practice to enhance sexual relationships, including paying attention to present moment sensations and reducing the tendency to critique or judge performance during sexual activity.

More recently, studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can enhance sexual arousal with research actually proving that the trait of mindfulness may reduce your tendency toward distraction, inhibition, anxiety, self-criticism and judgment during sexual activity.

Since orgasm is experienced in the brain, the more that you tune into your senses and create a relay of pleasure up your spinal cord, you can achieve orgasm more reliably and become more in tune with your partner.

As I wrote in an article for The Sun newspaper, tuning into your senses to make lovemaking a multi-sensory affair helps because we tend to stay in our heads, we often cut off or don’t recognise the body’s sensations. Plus our inner critic can totally derail ­orgasmic flow. So, trick your mind by diverting your mind from inner critique and judgment into focusing on pleasure.

You can listen to the various audios of meditation techniques such as the Body Scan, Erotic Fantasy, Forgiveness and Breath Awareness meditations, among others, by visiting www.OrgasmPrescription.com/Bonus.

9. Unload your mental to-do list and eliminate distractions

One of the tips I shared in Stylist Magazine reminds you to turn down the lights, be sure to turn down your internal dialogue first. Write a list of the things you need to do tomorrow, tidy up your bedroom, and remind yourself that keeping your head in the game so you can enjoy an orgasmic release will make you even more productive later.

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If you’d like an easy way to implement these make these practices into lasting habits you can join the free 21DaysOfBliss mindfulness program for sensuality and pleasure rituals, audio meditations and daily affirmations.

Curious to see what other personality traits may be impacting your experience of pleasure and sexual release? To watch a video about all 7 of the personality types which predict sexual hangups or orgasmic difficulty, visit http://www.sensualvitality.tv/7-personality-types-that-predict-sexual-problems-in-women/

This article includes excerpts from The Orgasm Prescription for Women: 21-days to Heightened Pleasure, Deeper Intimacy and Orgasmic Bliss by Andrea Pennington, MD, C.Ac.,  printed with permission from the author and publisher. You can listen to a sample of the audiobook here or download a sneak peek of the first chapter here.