Regaining your libido and sex-drive after coming off the pill
Photo via BedBible.com
I’m not a sexual person. I’m not interested in sex.
I remember saying those words to my ex boyfriend and being completely convinced that they were true. Sure, sex felt nice, but did I ever ask for it? Did I ever get that urge to have some? Almost never. It was a theme that kept coming up, over and over again in arguments. And I would keep saying the same thing.
I am not a sexual person. I’m not interest in sex. Or am I?
One of the reasons I came off the pill in 2017 was curiosity about my libido. I was in a new relationship and it was (and still is) amazing. We connected in a way I never had with anyone else before and I didn’t want the same issues and arguments to rear their heads all over again. I felt dull inside. Not happy, but not sad. Not interesting, or interested. Just, meh. I’d started looking on forums and read post after post from women who’d lost their libido while on the pill. It had never occurred to me that the thing that was stopping me from getting pregnant might actually be stopping me from wanting sex in the first place! In particular, it was the posts from women who’d stopped taking the pill and got that resurgence of libido again that held my attention.
I expected my sex drive to bounce back once I stopped the pill. But it didn’t.
My period came back after 77 days, but it took much, much longer for my libido. I started to worry that I might be one of those unlucky ones who never got it back at all. Going onto hormones at a young age (I was sixteen) stunts the body from settling into a natural pattern. Our hormones govern our cycle. The amount and balance can dictate whether we want to have sex or not, whether we feel low or high, happy or sad. Hormonal contraception might keep things feeling easy, but its like taking oxygen away from a kindling fire, over and over again - at some point, the fire dies out and it’s not always easy to get it going again. I had never experienced my body in its natural state and so it never had the chance to try and figure it out. I had no idea what my actual libido level was, but I was striving to get it back, all the while dealing with conflicting conditioning from society.
We are told that women don’t want sex, and men always have to push us to get it. We’re told it’s the reason why so many marriages end and men cheat. It was touted as a bargaining chip a woman would use to buy them a few days peace (when have you ever seen a man portrayed as ‘not being in the mood’ in a film or TV show? Then, of course, the women who did want sex were sluts and whores, who weren’t to be trusted around the man you were denying sex to. The message was clear: women are either frigid and refuse sex, or slutty and a threat to your sex starved relationship. Months after my last pill, my body was starting to right itself again. It felt like old spark plugs being reignited, like colour being slowly poured into a glass of water. My creativity started to come back, and I began to feel a little less dull. A little more alive. But still, my libido was lagging far, far behind. Menstrual Cycle Awareness and the practice of Menstruality changed everything. Here’s how it can help:
1. Understanding the pattern of your cycle
The biggest game-changer about menstrual cycle awareness is the understanding that we are cyclical beings. The rise and fall of our hormones means that we simply will not have the same outlook, needs and feelings from one phase to the next. Knowing this means knowing that it is perfectly normal not to want sex every day. And I know we have the conditioning that men are sex-mad predators who can have it all day and night, but that’s not true either. We all have fluctuating moods, and it is okay!
2. Your capacity to rest is directly related to your capacity for pleasure
If you’re constantly stressed and exhausted, it’s highly unlikely you’ll have the energy for sex. Slowing down is something the whole world needs, but if you feel like your sex drive is a long lost friend, rest is something to start incorporating into your life. Again, it comes back to our hormones. There are many things that affect how they flow and balance, and stress is a massive disruptor. When our bodies are stressed, our nervous system prioritises guiding us back into a state of balance. It doesn’t know the difference between the ping of yet another email landing in your inbox, or a dinosaur chasing you down for its dinner - your body regards them as the same.
If you are stressed, your body will not want to procreate. It simply isn’t important enough.
Which is why doing all you can to slow down and get your internal landscape back into balance is key. The good news, is that your cycle is an inbuilt system that naturally allows for rest, if you listen to it. Understanding your unique natural energy peaks and valleys, resting when you need to (especially on your period) and following your rhythm as much as possible will help, as will giving your nervous system the security of a reliable routine. Routine means safety, which means we can switch from flight or fight mode, into rest and digest. The more you can rest, the more your body will be able to even entertain the idea of sexual activity.
3. Having different personalities to tap into
One of the frameworks in Menstruality is the concept of using archetypes to characterise certain traits and feelings. We use The Maiden, The Mother, The Wild Woman and The Crone to explain the different phases of the cycle. Archetypes work because they’re like characters that resonate deep in our psyche. We can all relate to the feeling of hope as The Maiden, the nurturing, loving feeling of The Mother, the misunderstood feeling of The Wild Woman or the all-knowing Crone who’s been through that very thing before. Society tends to favour the idea of the Wild Woman when it comes to sexuality. We should be seductive and tempting. But the truth is, all archetypes have a sexual component and you might identify with just one or all of them.
By working with your cycle, you can start to track when you tend to feel interested in sex or desire, or creativity (which is the same energy). If you finish your period and feel a sense of turn on, it might be that your natural ‘home’ when it comes to sexuality is in The Maiden energy, and so you can work with that. Likewise, you might find that the surge of oestrogen at ovulation makes you feel frisky in a way that doesn’t happen at other times in the cycle.
4. Getting to know your body
Finally, the practice of menstrual cycle awareness allows you to come into your body. By taking those few seconds, minutes or longer to ask yourself how you feel every day - in your body but also in your mind and emotions - means you start to connect to yourself in a way you might not have done before. Becoming aware of the fact that you actually even have a womb can make a big impact by itself. When you close your eyes and bring your awareness to a certain body part, imagining that you can move it in your mind or breathe into it, you actually create an internal pathway of energy (and if that sounds too esoteric then think of it as your nervous system). You can literally spark that body part back into life, which is why embodiment practices like visualisation mediations and yoga can be so powerful.
So, does all this actually work? HELL YES. It took me until just a few months ago after getting into and practicing menstruality on a deep level to get that feeling. To feel turned on in my mind and my body and my womb, and feel so activated by it that I actually went to my partner and initiated sex, just because. Of course, I’d done it before, but not like that. And it’s something that’s happened again and again. Because I allow for more rest, because I live in tune with my cycle, feeding it with love and healthy food and movement, because I’ve done the work around de-conditioning what I’d been told about sexuality.
Look. It’s a scary road to go down, I get that. We have so much fear and curiosity about sex and sexuality. But just know, that by virtue of having a womb, you are a sexual being, whatever that looks like to you.
If you’re curious about applying menstrual cycle awareness to your life, you can schedule a free 30min call with me or check out my coaching space.