We are not having enough sex.

When we get caught up in the noise, that is when the disconnect happens.

We are facing a quiet crisis as a society: We are not having enough good sex.

Now before you roll your eyes and decide that this is not the most pressing problem we have, please hear me out. In the past decades, we have learned a lot about showing up consciously in the world we build for ourselves. We live differently, we love differently, we parent differently. What we are often forgetting, is to desire differently too. The alarmingly high number of reported sexless relationships lets us assume that we are facing a problem that may be bigger than we’d like to admit.

Surely, sex cannot fix all our problems, yet it is important to state that research has found a clear link between sexual satisfaction and our overall mental & emotional well-being. Simply put: having good sex helps us show up as the best versions of ourselves.

Now I am not sure about you, but I feel there were a couple of things left out of mainstream stories around love, marriage, longterm relationships, parenthood and how to actually find satisfaction in all of it. Here we are, trying to be a good person, partner and/or parent in a world constantly demanding too much, leaving us feeling overwhelmed, depleted and, most probably, full of blame for all the things we can’t get right. Sex? Ask me again next week.

I get it. The idea of having loads of good sex is nice, but more often than not, it feels like a final chore on top of a never-ending mountain of to-dos. Another thing we’d like to tackle. One day …

Not having satisfying sex is a form of starving ourselves.

Orchestrating sex is generally easiest at the beginning of a new relationship, when hormones are conducting the experience. Chances are that you have had pretty decent sexual experiences in the past. Ones that felt good, even if they weren’t always the most satisfying. That, right there, is the brain beating the drums faster than your feet can move, with dopamine and other hormones rushing through your body, slightly blurring your vision. What follows the hot, can’t-get-enough-of-one-another energy of new and exciting love for many couples, is sexual intimacy that is obvious. Nice, but perhaps slightly boring and not that satisfying after all. A chore that might eventually just wear out. Not because we can’t get it right, but because that is what happens to things that stop exciting us.

The problem is: We need connection. We are wired for connection. And for so many of us, physical, intimate touch does not just feel nice, it helps us stay regulated and present. To me, there is more to intimacy than sex, but there is also more to sex than just physical intimacy. It is about exploring, about leaving to-dos and roles behind, and about activating parts of ourselves that don’t find satisfaction in a regular day.

Over the past decade, an entire industry was built to help us find ourselves. To connect deeper, to breathe deeper, to feel deeper, to nourish deeper, to move deeper … and while many of those things are great, they can all not fill the desire living deep inside many of us. The desire for pleasure, the desire to be seen, the desire to step out of our responsibilities and let go of all inhibitions, the desire to be fulfilled.

Good sex does not just happen. If you want to have good sex in your life, you need to chose it. And while that might feel like yet another exhausting thing requiring our attention, there is also so much opportunity here. Besides for a deeper connection to a partner, you may also find a completely new, exciting, fully alive version of yourself – inside your relationship and out. Because like with anything else in life, the magic happens once you put attention and effort into it.

Now the question is: do you know what good sex looks and feels like for you?

Dig a little deeper with your free starter kit.

Remember when intimacy was exciting?

Be fully present, they say. Damn, this shit is hard, is what they could say instead.

When was the last time you thought to yourself ‘oooh, some sex would be really nice now’ and you actually ended up having hot sex right then and there?

For most of us – especially, but not exclusively in long-term relationships – things don’t often go that way. The reasons for that are myriad, but I dare to assume that you, like me, have grown up with this idea of sex being something we all want. Ideally at the same times as our partner, when the kids are out of the house or sleeping, spontaneously and several times a week. I am probably not bursting your bubble if I tell you that that is not how things work in real life.

Social media is full of channels explaining the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire with many professionals finally acknowledging that the majority of people do not go through life feeling spontaneous desire for sex as a norm. That information is super nice to have to feel less broken in our sex-less relationships, but it mostly does not change things for us too much. So, why is that?

Firstly, we need to stop waiting for the mood to hit. Secondly, we need to put in an effort. And before you now throw your hands up in the air and tell yourself that you do not have time or energy to put any more effort into anything, bare with me for just a moment … because maybe, sex does not have to feel like a chore.

Remember the times when things felt tingly? Exciting!? Hot!? I argue that it is possible to have all of that in all sorts of relationships, including the monogamous, committed, long term ones. Let’s explore that for a moment …

The difference between pleasure and chore is the joy of getting a hickey and the pain of trying to cover it up the next day.

Have you ever caught yourself watching a movie and wishing that you could feel like that character on screen? The longing, the passion, the synchronicity, the climax!? More often than not, we are not entirely sure what it is that turns on our switch, but deep inside, we still ask ourselves if there is something we are missing. The reason for that is fairly simple: many of us long to be wanted, pleased and satisfied. So, if we know the desired outcome, then why do we struggle to get there? Because the solution does not live in the desire, it lives in the journey to sexy, thrilling pleasure, which – between us – does not always happen quite organically with that same person you share all your not-so-exciting parts of life with. But just because good sex doesn’t just happen for a lot of people, does not mean you cannot have it.

As a first step, ask yourself what it could feel like to want more. Allow yourself to actually explore the difference between feeling fully alive and just okay …!? Remember those moments when your heart skipped a beat. When you found yourself holding your breath in anticipation of what was coming next. The longing, the tingling, the desire … all that is not lost. It is waiting to be activated again, to bring you back to how it all started – hot, horny, exciting. Except, it will be so much better this time around, because of who you have become in the meantime.

Ready for it? I would be delighted to support your journey.

Let’s explore a little.

It is not always the most obvious that is the most appealing.

Life has a lot to give. It’s just that sometimes, we need to stop waiting for the big moments and tap into the pleasures all around us instead.

What I have learned as a mother in a long-term relationship is that life has the capacity to numb us in the mundane, while being completely unpredictable at the same time. In short: a mess. Feeling excited in a messy life is hard enough, getting ourselves to feel hot, irresistible and in the mood for sex may be too far a stretch.

Getting stuck in the routine is easy and not necessarily always a bad thing. Structure builds security and can help us find purpose. What it does not do is sit with us in the quiet moments of longing. In the moments when we ask ourselves what it would take. If what we have will forever be enough. Turning our switch from okay to incredibly, fully alive does not have to start with sex. In fact, I believe that there are many other things that will help us regulate our nervous system, many of them so much closer than one would think …

Life has a lot to give. Take a bite.

Sex Drive started out as a podcast. Short recordings talking about all things sex, while being stuck in the most boring thing Cape Town has to offer: traffic. It will continue to do just that – bring a little hot talk into your day –, while at the same time focusing on exploration. With each episode, I want to take you on a journey of exploring this glorious city I get to live in and share all the wonderful pleasures I find all around me.

Because if there is one thing I have learned on my path of not only finding, but actually having good sex in my life, it is this: If I don’t take time looking after myself and tapping into the things that fill my cup, there is fokkol (also known as: none at all) sex happening in my house. We need to be a lot more intentional with how we structure our lives and relationships. Perhaps you too will have to retrain your nervous system out of overwhelm first and that is okay. Just remember that excitement and joy does not find itself, it is waiting to be discovered and unlocked.

Let me show you what turns on my pleasure switch, besides for sharing some of the exciting topics that come with the work I do.

Sex Drive – the podcast

All the other (sometimes more, sometimes less) exciting day-to-day parts of life outside the podcast are shared on my Instagram channel @iamjessica.r