7 Personality Types that Predict Sexual Problems in Women

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS

Have you ever wondered what your personality might say about your sexual style or risk for sexual dysfunction?

After spending the last few years speaking with women around the world about their sexual challenges I’ve uncovered 7 common personality traits that may predict sexual hang-ups you could see in the bedroom. These aren’t fixed personality types, you’re not born with them. Instead, they are acquired over time. Each personality type has assumed certain beliefs, taken on particular behaviors and believed a variety of myths about pleasure and orgasm.

As I shared in Stylist Magazine, “The fact that only one out of every four women can achieve orgasm through penetrative sex alone eludes many women. Instead, some women blame their lover and lament the fact that their partner is either not interested, not focused or not skilled enough to get her off. Others will mistakenly blame themselves, compare their ‘O’ experience to their girlfriends’ and feel ashamed. All of which is just not necessary. It’s time to put an end to the myths surrounding the female orgasm and knock down the barriers to pleasure, setting you on the path to body-rocking orgasms.”

Your level of self-acceptance, your religious background and moral influences, your beliefs about your worthiness to receive and enjoy pleasure and your willingness to surrender to pleasure, will all impact your ability to achieve orgasm. These tendencies show up in particular character traits or personality types described here.

See what your personality predicts about sexual hangups

Which personality traits do you have?

From the ‘Ice Queen’ to the ‘Mommy Martyr’ sometimes life forcibly moves us in the direction of practicality or self-sacrifice that leads to inevitable sexual decline. Whether you’ve taken on a bit too much masculine energy to get s–t done as the beloved ‘Alpha B**%’/’Alpha Boss’ or your religious fervour has led you to down the path of the ‘Blessed but Repressed’ the good news is that you can still break free and rise to a higher level of sexual expression and freedom.

The most common personality trait sex and relationship therapists deal with is the ‘Self-Conscious Spectator’ and in fact, this trait can be spread throughout all of the personality types, whether seen in the ‘Pedestal Princess’ or the ‘Multitasking Superwoman’ it is not uncommon for us to get in our heads evaluating our body, behavior or sense of deservedness.
If you’re curious to see which elements may apply to you and how you can boost your orgasmic pleasure potential read on. I have several tips for you to implement straight away for more sexual bliss. What follows are excerpts from my book, The Orgasm Prescription for Women: 21-days to Heightened Pleasure, Deeper Intimacy and Orgasmic Bliss.

Your personality may predict sexual problems.

Which Sexual Character Are You?

1. The ‘Self-Conscious Spectator’
Character traits: Excessive worry and anxiety about her personal appearance and performance

Women who have a hard time enjoying sexual activity and problems experiencing orgasm frequently report “too much going on in their head.” Rather than being fully present to the sensations in their body, they are nervously attending to a mental dialogue about how they look, wondering whether their partner is pleased or is judging them or they’re worried about whether they’re “doing it right.”

Masters and Johnson refer to this as spectatoring. When we play the role of a spectator, we are busily self-inspecting and monitoring our own activity so that we become distracted and don’t notice or appreciate the good feelings we are experiencing. Sadly when we are concerned with what is sexually acceptable or we are immersed in anxious thoughts about our performance we can’t fully enjoy the gift of our own sensual beauty and bodily pleasure. In addition, when we get caught up comparing ourselves to unrealistic, unchallenged social ideas about what is beautiful, when we compare our body to models in magazines, actors in porn or even our peers, we won’t be as confident as we desire during sexual encounters.

Also, becoming preoccupied with whether or not we will achieve orgasm or worries about how we sound can create a negative feedback loop. This shifts our brain circuit away from pleasure mode into stress mode which is not ideal for continued sexual arousal and orgasm.

As I shared in Stylist Magazine, Our own mental chatter can block our appreciation of our lover’s most potent moves.The likelihood of reaching orgasm is slim to none if we’re overwhelmed with anxiety about how we look, sound, or taste. Whether we’re concerned with our growing to-do list or embarrassed at the messy state of our flat, our brains will not create the flood of chemicals and stimulation to the vagina needed for the erotic explosion we desire.

If this sounds a bit like you, check out the 9 remedies that will help you get back into your body and put your head in the game. (Pun intended!)

2. The ‘Alpha B*%@ or Alpha Boss’
Character traits: Domineering, masculine, strong, edgy, bitchy, hard, still sexy but intimidating, aggressive

The Alpha B**ch or Alpha Boss has become masculine and aggressive to get ahead in the corporate or entrepreneurial world. To be seen as credible or competent she has taken on masculine traits, almost always trying to prove she is as good as a man, or that she doesn’t need a man, or just to get s–t done.

After years of this type of attitude and behavior, she ends up suffering the sexual backlash of having a hard time to ‘be the girl’ in the relationship. As the Alpha B, she often emasculates and intimidates men as she subconsciously competes with them, or is quick to take the lead to get things done faster.

When it comes to sexy time, the Alpha B doesn’t connect intimately and often doesn’t enjoy a satisfying sexual relationship. She still likes sex and values it highly, but like many things in her high-powered world, she has incredibly high standards for sex. In fact, she is often heard saying, “If it ain’t good, it ain’t worth my time!” It may be that stress, her hormones of physiology has to kick in strongly to cause her to take notice of the need for a sexual release. So rather than a blissful bonding experience, sex for the Alpha B can become a bit performance or outcome oriented.

If this sounds like you, then check out some simple solutions that will help you reclaim your feminine sensuality and orgasmic potential.

3. The ‘Ice Queen’
Character traits: Cold, distant, frigid, rigid, stale, old before her time, sexually shutdown,

The Ice Queen is typically a mature woman who considers sexual passion and horniness to be a thing of the past, left only to hormonal teenagers and new lovers. She has basically shut down her inherent luscious sexual energy in favor of more ‘appropriate’ or worthy pursuits such as family, charity or personal development.

Sadly, this type of thinking and behavior rob the Ice Queen of the deep intimate connection she could have at this stage in her life when most insecurities about her body wane. If she’s in a longterm relationship or marriage, her partner may think that she’s lost interest in him or he finds that he must work incredibly hard to break the ice and get her into even the slightest of receptive moods.

She may experience weak, short orgasms, if at all, but the experience of sexual union usually doesn’t offer much of an emotional boost.

If you can see how shifting your mindset toward mature, lofty or serious pursuits has drained the hot-blooded sexiness you once had, check out the 3 myths you must dispel to reclaim your sensual vitality.

You’ll also find recommendations to amp up pleasure and desire in The Orgasm Prescription for Women: 21-days to Heightened Pleasure, Deeper Intimacy and Orgasmic Bliss. Download the first chapter of the book here or listen to a sample of the audiobook.

4. ‘The Mommy Martyr’
Character traits: Overwhelmed, she sacrifices her own pleasure & wellbeing while taking care of everyone else. Often feels guilty for indulging in any pleasure.

The Mommy Martyr is known to sacrifice nearly everything for her family. Unfortunately, while taking care of everything and everyone on her to-do list, she comes up short (no pun intended.) She doesn’t easily allow herself to receive pleasure, in fact, she feels guilty when doing something strictly for herself or for her own pure pleasure.

She is generally rushed, harried and tired most of the time. The strain this puts on her marriage and eventually her physical and emotional wellbeing are what drive her to change. So if you don’t have an orgasmic sex life because you’re a martyr to motherhood and family, then something needs to change. Otherwise, you may suffer from emotional and physical burnout with unfortunate consequences for both yourself and your loved ones.

Check out some simple solutions to help you prioritize pleasure and discover how to find more balance that benefits you and those around you.

And if stress & overwhelm or hormonal imbalance are an issue, read this article.

5. The “Pedestal Princess”
Character traits: Spoiled, always doted on, high standards must be met before she opens up, she expects men to fall short or disappoint so she stays in her tower above the world like a pretty sexy girl who can’t be touched.

The Pedestal Princess has been spoiled and doted on all of her life, whether by her mother and father or her first lovers. So much so, that she now feels and always expects to be held in high regard. Therefore, any suitor will have to rise up to her incredibly high standards in order to simply ask her out for a date. Beyond that, she is basically untouchable and continually raises the bar on her standards and expectations which prevents her from really getting emotionally close to anyone.

The Pedestal Princess is not conscious of how she basically expects or assumes that a man will fall short and never truly win her heart. So she feels frustrated because her needs aren’t met, especially since she has unconsciously given responsibility for her orgasm over to her partner.

When it comes to sex, she turns into a ‘Pillow Princess’, commonly relies on the missionary sexual position while expecting her partner to do all the work to bring her pleasure and orgasm. She is not particularly generous in reciprocating, though she will direct him or just put herself into position to receive pleasure.

If you’ve discovered that being in your high tower of untouchability is robbing you of the luscious pleasure of being fully engaged in your sexual relationships, check out the tips for breaking free from the limiting beliefs and 4 myths of the Pedestal Princess here.

6. “Blessed but Repressed”
Character traits: Spends so much time in church she feels sex is sinful, she’s buttoned up tight, seems too holy to be in relationship, or has a history of abuse

With her firm religious conviction, this woman believes that she has a great deal to be thankful for, she is quite blessed. But she is not willing to go after her desires, experience deep passion nor surrender to pleasure. She denies herself the ripe juiciness that a passionate love life could bring because in the eyes of her god excessive pleasure is hedonistic and sinful.

Like the Mommy Martyr, she may feel guilty for indulging in sexual pleasure and may consider sex appropriate only for baby making. And depending on her upbringing or religion, to her, sex may be seen as shameful and dirty outside of the context of marriage.

Because she suppresses sexual desire she may later find it difficult to surrender to pleasure. Her denial of pleasure leads to frigidity later, repression can often explode into lascivious behavior later, or marrying the wrong guy in order to justify having sex.

The woman who has some of the traits of the ‘Blessed but Repressed’ is invited to look at her sexuality as a natural, Divinely bestowed right. The exploration of sacred sexuality in marriage is also helpful. If this is of interest to you, check out these tips on reevaluating your beliefs and putting them into a healthy context for healthy sexual expression.

7. “Multitasking Superwoman/Mompreneur”
Character traits: always busy, juggling lots of tasks, she takes on too much, always multi-tasking and has a hard time shutting down her mental activity, she is not in tune with her body, stressed out & frantic

For the Multitasking Superwoman or modern day Mompreneur, she stays in hyperdrive most of the time and thus finds it difficult to shut down her brain at night. Unfortunately, this means that sex very seldom enters her mind spontaneously. Because she doesn’t see pleasure to be ‘productive’ she doesn’t give pleasure a high priority position on her to-do list. In fact, it sex can be seen as a deterrent to her getting the the really important things done and thus a threat to her wellbeing. Go figure!

Some Superwomen and Mompreneurs do secretly long for days gone by, nostalgic for simpler times when she could have fun, spontaneous sex and indulgent pleasure of passion. But instead, she gets tiny hits of pleasure while on the go mainly from food or treats, or finally binge watching tv at night to let her mind go.

What is sad is that her partner will often pick up on her opinion that sex is just ‘one more thing to do’ and more of a chore than a pleasure. Or they their partner may assume that he is just a second class citizen compared to the kids or coworkers.

If you’d like to take some simple measures to get out of this pattern and reclaim your right to sexual fulfillment and pleasure, check out some of my best advice here.

***

To add a few more sexy ideas to your sexual repertoire I invite you to explore your sexuality a bit more with the free mindfulness 21 Days of Bliss program. The short daily rituals, meditations & ‘sexploration activities’, you can open your mind and heart to a titillating new world of your vibrant, luscious sexuality.

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.

To your passion & vitality,