Sex after kids (with Danielle Savory)

Follow the show:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Everywhere else

If there’s one thing that gets completely de-prioritized by every mom I know, it’s SEX. Look, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to just be roommates with my partner. I want a fun, exciting and consistent sex life. But as ambitious working moms this can be hard! It becomes one more thing you “have” to do and it feels more like a chore rather than an intimate experience. So to help us figure out what it takes to prioritize sex after kids, I interviewed sex and pleasure coach, Danielle Savory. In the episode Danielle and I talk about why sex after kids is so hard and why it's important to put effort into a better sex life (the impact goes far beyond the bedroom). Danielle also shares her #1 tool for making sex a priority and how to “warm yourself up” so that you’re ready to go when sex happens. This is a juicy one, so let’s get to it!

Topics in this episode:

  • Why is sex after kids so hard?

  • Normalizing the physical and emotional changes that happen after having kids that make sex more difficult.

  • The importance of pleasure (not necessarily just the kind that happens in the bedroom)

  • How to avoid your partner always thinking a snuggle means you “want it”.

  • Scheduling sex and why you should do it

  • Tips for how to speed up the desire for intimacy

Show Notes & References:

Enjoying the podcast?

Transcript

Intro

Look, if there's one thing that gets completely deprioritized by absolutely every mom that I know, whether they're my friend, a colleague, a client, it's this: S. E. X.

I know many of you listen to this podcast with your kiddos around, so I'm going to give you just a moment to turn off the episode because this podcast will be a very honest and practical conversation around what it takes to prioritize intimacy after kids. Okay?

Okay. Now that there's no longer young ones in the room, let me share a little more directly about what this episode is going to entail.

Today, I'm interviewing sex and pleasure coach, Danielle Savory. Now, she's been on the podcast before, and I'll be sure to link to her episode, but I wanted to pick her brain one more time around sex after kids and what it takes to make it a priority.

If you're anything like me, it's really hard to transition your mind into sex. It's really hard to shut down all of your to-dos and all of those needs at both work and at home in order to have a fun and playful sex life.

But look, I'm not interested in being roommates with my husband. I'm looking for an intimate partner, someone to share in my most vulnerable and pleasurable experiences. And my guess is you want that, too.

In this episode, Danielle and I will talk about why sex after kids is so hard. We'll talk about why it's important to make a decision to put effort into a better sex life. And she's going to share with us the number one tool she suggests for making sex more of a priority in 2024. As well as, how do I say this? What it takes to warm yourself up so that you're ready to go when sex happens.

This is going to be juicy, my friends. You ready? Let's get to it.

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it. 

Thank you, Danielle, for being here. I'm excited to have you on the podcast today. Let me just do a quick introduction for the audience out there.

So I'm chatting with Danielle Savory. She is a sex and pleasure coach and was also my coach at one time in this same arena many years ago. At this point, a friend, a colleague, and a mom of some amazing young ladies I know. And so she's been on the podcast before, but I wanted to bring her back onto this podcast to talk really specifically about sex after kids.

Before, we talked a lot about pleasure and kind of unleashing pleasure and the importance of that as a woman. And that's such an important topic. And I'm going to definitely put that in the show notes so that everybody can go back and listen to that podcast episode in specific as well.

But I want to get a little bit into the nitty gritty of this, because sex after kids is difficult for so many working moms out there, particularly women that would call themselves ambitious, that have their hands in a lot of different things, that are in control of lots of things, that are perfectionists, that are going after a lot of things in their career.

This seems to just fall by the wayside, and it's so easy to do, and I know how important it is. That's why you're here. Thank you for being here. Let's just jump right in.

Sex after kids can be hard and it’s okay to acknowledge that.

Tell me. When you hear that sex after kids is so hard, what are the first things that come to mind since you have these conversations day after day after day?

Danielle: Of course, being a mindset coach, it's like, “Do we really want to think of it as being hard?” But I'm not really that kind of coach. I'm like, “Listen, it just is. It just is hard. And some things can be hard.”

And that in and of itself, I think, makes a difference, because when we just say to ourselves, or… I hate it when especially I hear other sex and intimacy coaches out there who have never had children trying to be like, “It's fine. It's just the same. Just prioritize it.”

It's like you don't understand what it's like.

Rebecca: There's, like, literally something different in my head since I've become a mom, that makes it literally different than it was before.

Danielle: Yeah, chemically different. Like, your day-to-day is different. You have competing priorities. It is different.

And so I think even just the acknowledgment of that doesn't have to make it a bad thing. I actually think that's the first step when we can just acknowledge, “You know what? Keeping this part of my relationship, keeping intimacy and the spark and the passion and the play and the fun alive in my marriage, or in my partnership, is going to look different after kids.”

When sex after kids is different, it's going to require intentional effort.

That is our first clue of “Oh, this is actually a place I need to make effort.” Because that's where I think one of our hang ups is, especially in our society. And when we are presented with romantic relationships that don't really highlight the change or the difference is we think they're just going to keep being romantic.

You think about rom-coms or romantic comedies or anything, it ends. It ends when they first fall in love. We're like, “Wait a minute. What happens later? What happens 20 years down the line when they've been having the same sex forever and now there's children, and now there's all these competing priorities?”

There isn't representation around that, except in that it's nonexistent. Except in this comical way of like, “Oh, of course, you guys aren't getting it on, because of all these things going on in your house.”

And so it makes sense that we wouldn't have that conscious thought that this is something that we need to actually put effort in. But the reality is that after kids, this is something that needs to be intentional if you want it to not just be good, but continue to be good and to get better and to not just settle and not to get into this rut where you're like, “What happened to us?”

This is something that has to be part of your communication, have intention behind it, and have effort. And after kids being told there's one more thing that you need to have intention and effort behind, I also understand, can be very challenging.

Anybody listening, like, “Great. It's hard. Now I have to put effort into it?” Yes, but there's easy ways we can do it.

Rebecca: You have two girls, right? What are their ages?

Danielle: Yeah. Twelve and ten.

Rebecca: Yeah. Okay. And for me, like, nine and six, you're just slightly ahead of the curve on some of these things that as a parent, I'm struggling with that comes into play in all of this.

But there's a couple of things that you said that I think were really important. You brought up this rom-com example and how when sex after kids - even a few years, but certainly 5, 10, 20 years - it tends to be this comical thing. It also tends to be a negative thing. Right?

We look at that and there's kind of a shame or a negativeness to the idea that there isn't sex happening after kids. And yes, it seems to just be the status quo, but it's framed to us as if something's kind of wrong in all of it. That's something that I think is also really important to note, because we just don't have a culture that supports this in some way in imagery that would be helpful for us as working moms. And so that was one thing that really stood out to me.

The second thing that stood out to me is the idea that if something's going to be different, it's going to require effort. Because for sure, you assume that one day you'll just get back into the swing of things on all sorts of levels. Right?

We think that we have our first kid and we're like, “Well, I'm just going to get back to work in the same way and the same productivity that I had before, and then I'm going to want the same things. And all these things are going to be the same then.”

Similarly, we think the same thing when it comes to sex. We're going to have it at the same frequency, in the same way, at the same time, all these kinds of things. And it's going to be different. And different requires effort in order to make it something that you want.

Your body is going to have different needs. You're going to have different needs.

Danielle: Yeah. And one of the analogies that I love to think about is just like health or like physical fitness. There's no place that you would just be like, “Oh, I reached this place of peak physical fitness.” Let's say you're training for a marathon or something like that, and then assume that you're just going to stay at that same level of physical fitness without doing anything extra.

The other thing that's different, or that I love about thinking of it in this way, is that you also are going to be changing because of hormones, because you get older. What worked for you when you're in your get physically fit is not going to work for you when you're 50.

And so understanding that your body is going to have different needs. You're going to have different needs. And the same thing comes with our intimacy, with our sexual life, with our partner.

What worked and the effort that we needed to put in when you're first courting and dating and falling in love, and then the honeymoon phase and then maybe making the children and then afterwards, is going to look different. There are different seasons.

So there is, number one, just this idea just like with physical health, that there is a level of maintenance and also that this level of maintenance may need to shift and change depending on what season of life we're in. Especially what season of life our children are in, what is compatible with our lifestyle right now.

It's not that we ignore it, it's not that we pretend it's not there, but we have to be flexible with the way that we're approaching it, being very realist with the experience of having our seasons of our lives and just our bodies changing and our circumstances and children in the house.

The story we tell ourselves matters.

Rebecca: To me, all that you just said around that, I think where there's an element of where we want to take that is reminding ourselves that there's nothing that's gone wrong. It's not bad. There's no shame. There should be no guilt, there's no judgment. This is just the reality of getting older and prioritizing and life being different and your body being different. All these things being different.

I think for me, and I think a lot of women, for sure, certainly a lot of the women that I work with, have that little inner critic that's constantly saying we're not doing enough and we should be doing more. And when it comes to intimacy, that voice is very aligned with kind of shameful voice, which, as we all know, kills the vibe when it comes to sex.

Danielle: Totally. Yeah, well, I love what you said there, and I just want to pause there for a second because I think that it is really important that we pay attention to the story we attach, because that is going to have a huge impact on your desire, on your libido, on any effort you're going to take.

And so when you are like, “Maybe there's something wrong with us,” or “We have to do all these grand things or I've dropped the ball on this,” or “I'm not picking up on what my partner is putting down.” When we start to make meaning of it, just be like, “Oh, I just noticed that I've kind of put this on the back burner. No worries. I wonder how I can start incorporating this.”

That's such a different tone, because we want to pay attention to the tone that you're speaking to yourself. Like you said, if you're beating yourself up, if you're getting down on yourself, if you're making it mean, “My partner doesn't care about me,” or “My partner is just trying to get in my pants,” or “They're not even appreciating me and seeing all these things I'm doing,” or “I'm touched out,” or “How could I give one more person something they want? That's literally all I'm doing.” If all of those meanings are being attached to the fact that this just isn't as big of a part of your relationship as it once was, that's where we get stuck in the loop, the looping of this narrative.

And that triggers your nervous system to make everything around intimacy that much more stressful, which is just a libido zapper.

Rebecca: Because the moment then they try to make any kind of effort, which is actually what we say we want on some level, all this story comes up and then it's all downhill from there. And there's no way that you're going to engage.

Danielle: It's all downhill. And it's just like, “Oh, yeah, of course this looks different than when we were younger and no children and not all of these career ambitions or whatever else. Of course it looks different. That makes sense.” And “We're learning how to navigate it now,” or “I'm learning how to approach this now,” or “We are learning how to create more pleasure and intimacy now.” Then your brain is actually at a place where it can come up with some creative solutions, where before it's just going to be reactive and blamey and shutting down. And that never ends in anything good.

Rebecca: Never ends well for both the intimacy and the relationship, generally speaking.

You have to WANT to have a good sex life.

We should also back up and say, inherent in this. You sort of said one line that kind of indicated this, but I just want to highlight it again too, which is, you have to want to have a good sex life.

Kind of. We're operating out of the assumption that that's actually, yes, you're an ambitious person. Yes, you have kids and you're going after career, and you're prioritizing all these things. And you would like to either increase sex, make it more pleasurable, tap into that in whatever way. There's an inherent desire there.

I've percolated on this before. Do people actually not want that? Is that an actual thing or they are just saying that and they really do, but the effort in isn't worth it to them? I'm curious if you think that.

Danielle: I think it's a great question. And I think probably a lot of people listening, especially depending on where you're at, with what age children and where you're at in your career, and all of that, are like, “I actually don't care. I don't really want it.”

And the thing is, we get to this place, especially as women, in the way that we're socialized, where it just feels like one more thing. And I really want to honor that, because that was me.

That was me in a lot of ways. “I don't know if I want more of this. I don't know why. Cool. Maybe later, but right now that seems like a lot.”

But the thing is that what we do want is we do usually want a relationship. We do want to be seen. We do want like a partnership that lasts till the kids get out of the house. I think that most people listening to this are under at least the desire to have a good partnership. Where we miss is that we don't incorporate sex into that partnership.

And I'm not saying that in a “You’re wrong,” way or a shameful way, but the way that it has been presented to us as women is it's something we're giving, especially if you're in a heterosexual relationship. “This is something I'm giving to my husband. This is something that is for him, this thing that he needs to feel connected to me. This is something he needs to feel less stressed.”

And so there's all these ideas that it's like, “Oh, yeah, I just didn't give it to him again,” or “I finally had to give in because I said no so many times and I'm feeling guilty.” When we're looking at it like that, which most of us do because of the way that we're socialized, then it is hard to want it.

And so it's like, we can start with, “I want a really well-rounded relationship. I want to feel really close. I want to feel really connected. Intimacy is part of that. I'm learning how to see that this is for me.” Or you can start with, “I know this is good for us, and I know eventually I'll see how it's also good for me.” But we want to baby steps of getting there if it isn't something that you want right away.

Rebecca: It made me think of the idea of wanting an intimate relationship with your partner that doesn't just feel like roommates. That's almost like a bridge between the wanting the bedroom version of that and where you're at now, potentially, with kind of a logistical partner in life.

Learning how to receive, to give intimacy that kind of connects down deeper into our body is the first step always. And, yeah, I think you're right. I think most of us would probably say we don't want a platonic relationship with our partner. We want an intimate relationship. And then from there, you get to decide what that means ultimately for you and at what level of intimacy.

Yeah, interesting. I'm glad we went there, actually. That's been something I've been thinking a little bit about “Do people just lie to themselves when they say this?’”

Pleasure is powerful.

You obviously talk day in, day out around sex and pleasure and how it relates to women performance, all sorts of things, right? And at the core of this, is this point of pleasure and the power that a woman that is in control of their pleasure - Maybe that's… I don't know if that's the right way to say it. You can totally correct me. - is kind of in control of that, like the power that, that has in a woman's life.

But I'd love to hear from kind of your words, why is this such an important topic for us to even be talking about? And for women to actually put some of their brain cells to, if you will, some mental thought space, because we have so little of it. Why should we be putting thought into this at all, knowing that it's going to take effort and time and all sorts of things, internal resources, for us to get there?

Danielle: Well, I mean, there's so many different ways of how pleasure can benefit us, not just from a physiological standpoint, but also from brain optimization, like you said, performance, to how we show up for our children, to how we show up in work, to how we show up in our relationship.

But the thing that I really like to come down to, and one of the questions that have always helped for me, right? - because we can get into all this, like, “Oh, yeah, I should be eating different or eating more protein because it's good for my aging muscles,” or whatever it might be - is getting a why that resonates with you or for you.

Because if it becomes just one more should, then it's going to be really hard to actually experience pleasure. And so much of what we've been taught, not just as women and ambitious women, but as mothers, is we're kind of taught all of these mechanisms that get us to survival, right? That get us to this place where we're making it through, we're making it by.

And the thing that I love about pleasure is, like, “Woman, you deserve to feel better than just surviving! We are not doing all of this just so that you can feel like you're not falling apart and losing your shit every day or losing it with your children or whatever, but it is really about finding that deservedness to like, ‘Hey, this is my life and I deserve to enjoy it. I deserve to feel good.’” And so that, I think, has to start the basis.

Why should we prioritize sex?

And then coming back to your question of why we should prioritize it. I mean, for me, we could go into a whole bunch of things. We could be like, fill up your cup, and so your cup is overflowthh, and then you'll have more to give. You could go there.

You could go to this place of why it matters, so that you do have a partnership that lasts beyond your children's high school graduation.

Rebecca: That's a big one.

Danielle: So if you're having a hard time at first making it about you, then look at these things that matter to you. Like, if it's really about you doing really well at your job, understanding that pleasure actually is going to help you access the creative part of your brain. You're going to have more access to your prefrontal cortex. You're going to have more problem solving abilities. You're going to be able to focus more. All of this comes from prioritizing pleasure in your relationship.

Like we just said, it helps with intimate connection. You're keeping physical touch, you're keeping tabs on one another. You have that vulnerability, which is going to increase deeper connection. There's all of those benefits.

If you want to prioritize it for your children. You're demonstrating to your children that it's not just about achievement, that we actually can rest, we can play, we can feel good. Like, look at mom isn't always doing all the things all the time, but she also feels like it's okay to sit on the couch and read a book. Like, heaven forbid.

And so we're showing- and regardless of what gender your children are, there's been such a suppression for us, and it is all about what you achieve and what you're doing and what your behavior is - And you, as a woman, being fueled by pleasure allows you to show up grounded and present and more playful and more fun. But you're also demonstrating for your children how you hope they would live: enjoying life, not just grinding through life.

Rebecca: You're touching on a lot of what we talked about in the last interview that we did when we were talking really specifically about pleasure, because we're not just talking about sexual pleasure. We're talking about pleasure as an experience. Just generally a body experience that comes with a sense of, oftentimes, to use some of your words, like playfulness and fun and rest.

And it taps into all these other things that are very pleasurable experiences for us that have nothing to do with the bedroom. So again, I'm going to put a little plug to go back and listen to that, if that's an intriguing idea for you. Just unleashing pleasure. Just generally, not necessarily just what that means as a concept. Right? Because I think we talked a lot about that.

I do want to come back to sex, in specific, because that's where this topic is going. Let's get into a little bit of how we start to make some of these things happen. We've had to establish on some level you want to change here. You've decided to put some effort in. But where do people start as they start to explore kind of increasing sex, in whatever way that looks like for them, now that they've decided.

Danielle: Well, I'll loop it a little bit back to what you just said about pleasure, because I do know we got a little off topic with just pleasure, in specific.

Rebecca: No, it's all intertwined. You taught me it's all intertwined, Danielle, so I feel so more convinced of that. Yeah.

Danielle: But I also want to highlight here that when we also look at sexual pleasure, whether it's a solo self sexual pleasure or partnered sexual pleasure, sexuality does allow for peak pleasure experiences. So even though that I'm talking about all the pleasure, if you're just like, “Great, I'm on board with more pleasure, but I'm still not on board with sex,” I really want you to think about how it's, this is like, peak. This is like peak experiences of pleasure.

And even though there's so much benefits just in when we look at the science of orgasm and what that does for your brain and for your connection and your body and all of the different neurochemicals that are released, also having that kind of as the thing you're working towards and as the goal allows for all that other stuff to happen, right?

When we just make it more about the things like the habits and all of that, but not like, what am I aiming for? Or what am I going for? Like, “I'm going for more orgasmic sex,” or “I'm going for more frequent sex,” or “I'm trying to increase my desire.” Really allowing yourself to kind of have this goal of “I want to have a better sex life.” And that by having the pursuit of a better sex life, that allows you to develop the habits along the way that bring all of those other things in.

Priorities are scheduled.

But to start with, what I recommend for any mom, especially if you're a busy mom, is schedule it. And I know it sounds so boring and it sounds so silly and so mundane and are we getting to this place where everything is scheduled? Like, yeah, you actually are.

Rebecca: Priorities are scheduled. Kind of always, yes.

Danielle: It can be so much fun. I think one of the biggest myths out there is that spontaneous sex is the king of all sexual desire, and it's what we should all be working towards.

And I'm here to tell you, spontaneous sex can be fun. But when you are with children, when you have a career, when you have busy lives, spontaneous isn't that fun, usually.

Rebecca: Yeah. The time of spontaneity is so small that it kind of creates a terrible. You're kind of setting yourself up to lose, basically, in that sense, because so little time is there.

Danielle: You want to schedule it. That's the first thing I would say to everybody. But also understanding that by you scheduling it, this is going to allow you to make it better, to make your pleasure higher, to do all of the things. Because if we're going in, as busy moms do, with a huge mental load, like our brain being pulled literally in 1000 different directions, and you're like, “Okay, scheduled sex, time to get it on.” Uh? No. No.

Rebecca: Totally.

Danielle: If you're feeling your partner, grab your ass and be like, “Can't wait for tonight.” And you notice the claws come out and you're like, “Get off of me.” That is because we actually need - as highly stimulated, highly successful women that also have this input of children all of the time and their needs and what we need to be thinking about and taking care of - there has to be space for us to turn that part off, to allow all the to-dos and all of the other competing priorities to quiet down in our mind, so we can land in our bodies. So we can actually be present and experience pleasure.

Because if there is nothing, no transition, if there is no work up to it, then guess what? That's why the sex sucks. It's because you're literally trying to have sex when you're thinking about what you're making for the kids lunches tomorrow.

Rebecca: That sounds like an awful experience. I remember when you introduced the idea of scheduling sex to me, and I had a lot of thoughts I remember at the time about it. Because I think you're right. I didn't realize that I had a kind of a view of spontaneous sex as being better in some way, until it was presented to me. And then I was like, “Oh, yeah, that is not how it happens in a rom-com. You never see a rom-com where they have scheduled. And if it is, it's comical, right?

Danielle: It's a negative thing.

Rebecca: It's meant to be comical. It's in a negative thing. So this idea was crazy to me. But I can say that so many wonderful things happened when this started for me and my husband. And it became something that, to your point, like you're talking about this transition time which started to happen sort of naturally.

If I knew that that was going to happen later, then without me doing anything - which there's lots of things I can do to help, that is also something that I've learned for sure - But even if I did none of those things during my day, just the idea that, “Okay, this is going to happen later,” begins a process in my mind that allows me to kind of ramp up to it, stay attuned to it, get ready for it in some capacity, right?

Just like if you were going to the PTA meeting at 7:00 tonight, same thing. It'd be in your mind. You'd start thinking about it. You'd make sure that you weren’t going to get in your pajamas before, right? It was a part of your whole experience of your day, and so you would plan for that differently. And so this was similar.

Scheduling sex can create space for other intimate experiences.

So that was one thing that it really added for us, but I think another really big one for me, and I know that this is the experience for so many women, is that it allowed for intimate experiences that were not happening in the bedroom to happen at other times, because we didn't schedule it during that day.

So, for example, my husband could come in for an intimate touch of some kind, and if we weren't planning to have sex that night, then I could experience that without all those thoughts of, “Oh, my gosh, is he going to want it? He just wants to get it on. Yeah, he just wants it. I'm not ready for that. I don't want to go through that effort tonight.” All the things that would literally shut down his intimate connection and our intimate connection in that moment, because I didn't want it to go that far.

All of a sudden, it just opened up these moments that were just beautiful. We both talked about that a lot in the beginning of how freeing that felt to be able to have that experience together. And it was such a connecting moment for us that then made actual time of sex better because it added the foreplay and added all these other things to it, right?

Danielle: Yeah. I love that you brought this up, Rebecca, because I think so many women can relate. I myself personally know, especially after - and when the kids were really young and you're getting less sleep, you're kind of on the clock, and somebody's waking up because they wet the bed or a nightmare, whatever it might be. You're breastfeeding all the things, right? - And so I noticed I was pulling back just from kissing my husband or rubbing up against him or going and sitting on his lap, because I'm like, oh, I don't want him to get the wrong idea.

I don't want him to start thinking that maybe “Oh, I know what you want. Are we going to get it on tonight?” And then I'm going to be presented with this decision of, “Do I get sleep, because I'm so sleep deprived, or do I have to get it on?”

And I'm saying it in the have to. Of course, you never have to, but that's how it feels. And so what happens as women, especially after children, is we slowly start pulling back from these intimate touches. We slowly start pulling back from these connections that did keep that spark alive pre-kids, because in our mind, we don't know if we want to or not.

We don't know if we're going to have the energy or not. But when you plan it and schedule it, then it's something that allows for more space for these intimate moments. Not just as like a foreplay or working up to that night, but all of a sudden.

Let's say you plan it for Wednesday night and it's Sunday afternoon, you can go over on the couch and maybe it's like this nice nap time, and you can start kissing and cuddling, but knowing like, “Oh, hey, you know that we got a couple more days. You just keep that thought there, let that stove keep burning.” It can become this kind of like flirty teasy thing to build up to your scheduled time.

And you're continuously keeping that intimate connection between you two. And for women, you don't have the pressure that every time you open your mouth to give your partner a kiss, they're going to, quote unquote, get the wrong idea, or then you're going to feel like you're locked into something later.

Scheduling sex gives it a better opportunity to be a part of your life.

Rebecca: That was such a shift for me. In our experience, when we started to schedule it. You know, the other thing that happened - this seems fairly obvious, but maybe it's not, I don't know - which is that when you schedule it, it actually happens.

Danielle: I know!

Rebecca: At least it gives it a better opportunity of happening. I'm not going to say it's always, but 80-90% of the time it happens at the time that we say. There isn't a lot of time that my brain desires that over checking more things off of my list. I live in that zone 15 hours of my day. It's hard to shut that down.

So my brain is naturally not going to want it at other times. If I want to make this important part of my life an important part of our relationship, and my desire for that is strong, then putting it in my schedule actually ensures that I've given it the best opportunity of being a part of our life. And that is more important to me than it being spontaneous.

Danielle: Yes, that it happens. Like, I'm making motion towards it. We're making moves towards it. It's like you might always hope that one day you're just like one of those people that wants to wake up in the morning and go for a run, or you can just plan on the days that you go for a run, and who cares if you just spontaneously want to go running? Well, I don't run at all, so…

Rebecca: Right. I don't either.

Danielle: It's just like what I do with my meditation. It's not like I usually spontaneous. I'm like, “Oh, man, meditation sounds so great.” I show up for it, I end up loving it. And it's part of my routine because I want it to be a part of my life.

Rebecca: We don't need to make up the story - coming back to storytelling, being careful and conscious of the stories you're telling yourself - you don't need to make that story anything else.

Just the idea that it isn't going to, quote, naturally happen if you don't schedule it, doesn't mean anything. I hope if anyone takes away something from this, it's normalization that this is challenging after having kids, and it takes effort, and there's a lot of reasons that we've already talked about, but it's so important that we then don't make that story mean absolutely anything else.

We're just talking about really what it takes to make it a priority, if you want to make it a priority, and what the best ways possible to be able to do that.

Most women have responsive desire.

Danielle: Yeah, and I think it's important, too, just on that same point, is to understand for a lot of women, like I said, seasons of life, we have so much emphasis on libido and emphasis on desire. But our desire, when we want to talk about, quote, unquote, natural, as we go through different seasons of life. And as most women, especially later in life and especially after children, we have what's called responsive desire.

Responsive desire is basically like, action happens before the wanting. So you have to be in action before your body or your brain clicks on, is like, “You know what? This actually feels like a really good idea.” So we want to make sure that we're giving space for that to happen.

So it's like, if you're the kind of person that doesn't like to work out until you're working out, it's the same thing with sex. So it's like, I forget what the exact number is, but I think for most women in their 30s, it's like 97%. It's, like, really high. Maybe 87%. I think that's what it is. It's really high of people having this responsive desire.

Which means we need to create the space to be willing to start the actions that would lead us to the wanting instead of waiting around to want it. You're actually working against how your body and how your brain naturally work.

So knowing that, then this actually does need to be scheduled or you need to give yourself at least a chance and opportunity to get into action, then your brain later will kick on and be like, “Oh, you know what? This feels good. This is a great idea. Let's keep going.”

Rebecca: Long before I met you, long before I was a coach, I remember my husband and I putting some effort into our sex life, and we had this conversation just to get on the same page where we had a numbering system.

We'll call it foreplay starts. Whether that's kissing or whatever it is. He or I would give a number at where I was at on the desire scale of wanting to actually move in further into sex. And we kind of determined I needed to be at, like, a seven-ish in order to get into a much more active, leave-the-foreplay zone and move into something else.

It would be a long time. We'd have these conversations where we could be kissing or doing whatever, and he'd be like, “All right, where are you at?” I'm like, “I'm like a two.” He'd be like, “Okay....”

And it was not until later that when I started to work with you and have more of these conversations, I realized how normal that is and that there's actually, like, a thing called responsive desire, which is exactly what you're talking about. It's a long lead up to the moment where you kind of get out of your head and your body takes over into the experience.

That moment is very normal for it to take a long time to get to that place where desire kind of takes over in your body, and it's no longer just something you're doing to lead up to it.

Create space to connect with your own body before sex.

Danielle: And when you schedule it, there's so many things that you can do to shorten the time that you're with your partner that already helps your body be more, quote unquote ready or primed for pleasure. Then we can just kind of shorten that whole time with your partner so it doesn't feel like, “Oh, my gosh, this is taking forever,” because when you know what's going to happen, you can do activities to help bridge to that space.

Rebecca: Can you give us an example of one of those?

Danielle: Personally, it's just like, for me, just getting in my body and connecting with my vulva. And I know that sounds weird, but it's just like, noticing it and feeling sensations like, “Hey, what's going on with this part of our body?”

We typically do not pay attention to this part of our body ever, especially as sensation is going on. And so dropping into a meditation and what do I notice? What am I feeling down there? Or starting to allow yourself to think attractive thoughts about your partner, to start thinking about stuff that turns you on.

Rebecca: To dress in such a way that you feel sexy. Like, dress that way in the morning, right, is another way.

Danielle: Yeah. But bridging that, even putting oil or lotion on your body really slowly feeling your fingertips, noticing sensations, start imagining you're kind of seducing yourself. And again, I know these sounds strange, but once you try them, you're like, “These are actually great. These are really great ways for me to start getting more on board with the idea." So that when I connect with my partner - and that's why it's like, if I'm not immediately feeling like it, even if it's scheduled, I'm like, “Hey, why don't you come upstairs in a half an hour? I need some time to just kind of drop everything that's in my head, connect with my body.”

Maybe it's some stretching. Maybe it's putting on some sensual music and doing a little sensual dance kind of thing. Maybe it's putting the lotion on my body, but giving myself the permission and the space to be back in my body in a sensual way so that when my husband does come up and start kissing me, I'm like, “Oh, yeah, I'm already ready for this.”

Rebecca: I'm at a five. I'm at a six already. We've barely even started, and we've all had that experience. I would assume most people have that experience when we're dating, right? When we're at a new relationship, we're at a five, six, if we're using my scale really immediately, because we just kind of live in that space of anticipation and desire and connection in a way that has become too familiar to us, post kids and so forth.

Danielle: Exactly.

Rebecca: So we all know what that's like to enter into it ready, primed, and ready to jump right in. But most of us at this point in our life, having kids and all these things, it takes time and that's okay. And you can do some of that time before the intimacy, and you can do some of that time during the intimacy. It's all okay. So good.

In 2024, goal setting in the bedroom is just as important as in the boardroom.

So if you were to think about 2024, for our listeners out there who want to increase sex and pleasure this upcoming year. It's a political year. There's lots of stuff going on our world right now, currently, These kinds of seasons tend to add to the weight that we all hold as women, as humans, for sure. And I'm curious what kind of, I want to say advice, but tips or charge? Like, where would you send us in 2024 if we want to make this a year that we start tapping into this?

Danielle: The first thing is just making a decision that it matters and I'm going to do something about it. That's always the first step with any of it. But really committing to I am going to do something and then choosing a couple of things that you want to work on. I think when it comes to your partnership, set time aside to have conversations about it. And then that might feel kind of scary at first, but like, “Hey, I'm thinking about focusing a little bit more on this. What are your thoughts? How do you think?”

If you don't want to have that conversation, that's also fine, because if you tend to be maybe the low desire partner, and your partner tends to be higher desire, you can just make the decision in your head, like, “I'm going to make more of an effort,” and maybe then it's going to be a conversation about what days or scheduling. But I think starting with the idea that this matters, this is what ways that I can plan.

So for me personally, when it comes to pleasure and sex, I always like to have, “for me goals” and then “for us goals,” right? So "for me goals” might be like, increase desire or understand some more of my turn ons, or experience more self pleasure, or a different type of self pleasure. Or be able to orgasm with a vibrator. Be able to orgasm without a vibrator. Be able to have multiple orgasms. What are some of the things that you can think of that would be fun and playful for you to work towards?

And then you can think about for us type goals, right? Like to talk about sex regularly. Maybe have monthly check-ins where like, “Hey, how'd you think about the sex we've been having this month? How did you feel about it? What are some things that you've always wanted to try with me, but you've been too afraid to ask? What are some of your turn ons?”

You can have regular communication around sex, or maybe it's just increasing the frequency. Maybe it's increasing emotional connection prior to your sexy time. So you can have also, like “for us goals” and what that might look like.

Rebecca: There was so much in there that was actually less physical and more just like, communicate about it. I love that because that's still hard for me. And I would imagine for a lot of women, if this is an area that has been a struggle on some level, talking about it with your partner is really vulnerable, just as the act itself is vulnerable, right? Just the idea that you have desire or you want something has some vulnerability into it.

But we come back to, on some level, that's a big piece of why we usually want this to begin with is we want that level of intimacy and connection. And it's a piece of the why on why you want to make this change and put effort into it.

There's lots of options in that. So pick a couple is the point is like, decide this is important and pick a couple. They don't all have to be bedroom related. They could be just connection related or doing the lotion at all sorts of things that take very little time and don't take much effort, but they start the process going of leading to this bigger goal. So many good things.

When we make pleasure a priority, a lot of other priorities actually happen naturally.

Any other thoughts as we wrap up here for women in 2024? Anything you want to offer to us, and I want to make sure you also, with this, share how people can connect to you and where people can follow you and so forth, if they're interested in learning more about what you do and being connected.

Danielle: I mean, I think the last thing that I would just say with all of this is we've talked about a lot of stuff, but to really come back to pleasure. Like when we flip the script and we stop letting pleasure, and including sexual pleasure, be an afterthought, right? Or the last thing on our burner. But when we put it as a priority, and understanding that by making pleasure a priority, all of your other priorities actually happen.

So, I think that is like, the misconception is that we're adding to the priorities. And I forget, I think it was the guy that wrote on, I'm blanking on his name, but the book about the priorities and figuring out what's important or whatever. Anyway, he said, “If you can find something that you do or a behavior or an action that ends up taking care of all the other things, and that becomes your number one priority, then do that thing.”

Rebecca: Yeah.

Danielle: And so many things of what we struggle with, with moms is stress, is being overstimulated, is not being able to focus, is feeling like we're pulled in a lot of different directions. But when you realize how pleasure and the pursuit of pleasure really optimizes your brain and your relationship, and it helps your nervous system regulate and all these other things. If you just decide, “I'm just going to focus on having a good sex life,” all of the other stuff actually will happen as a result of that goal.

I think that is one of the things that we're like, “Wait. How?” But when you think about it, when you think about focusing on your time, learning how to be in your body, regulating your nervous system, thinking of yourself as worthy of feeling good, all of these other things that we really want, those happen when you're just like, “I'm going to have better sex this year, period.” And then the orgasms help with all of those things, too.

So I would say we just have to flip the script and realize by making pleasure a priority, it really does allow all the other things to get handled in so many different ways.

And then, on that note, you can find me on Instagram @thepracticeofpleasure. I've got a podcast called It's My Pleasure, and it was just listed as the number one sex and relationship podcast of 2023 on Mashable, which was pretty exciting.

Rebecca: So cool.

Danielle: It's so cool.

Rebecca: Such a great podcast.

Danielle: Thank you. And then, yeah, other than that, you can find me on my website, daniellesavory.com. I have group coaching programs and other courses that you can take, all relating to pleasure and sexuality.

Rebecca: Thank you, Danielle, for being here. It's just so honoring that you're here and you gave us our time and your expertise. I love it.

All right, working moms, what an amazing conversation. And until I talk to you next week, let's get to it.

Do you want to take your commitment to yourself a step further?

Schedule a free breakthrough call today!

Hey, before you go, I want to take a moment and tell you about an opportunity to speak with me directly. If you've been listening to this podcast and still feel like you need help balancing a fulfilling career with motherhood, then I encourage you to schedule a free breakthrough call.

On this call, we will get crystal clear on exactly what it is you want out of your career and how you want to balance that with motherhood. And then we'll craft next steps for you to start moving toward a more calm and fulfilling working mom life.

Head over to www.rebeccaolsencoaching.com/book to apply for this free call. ‘Til next week. Working moms, let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson