The Elephant in the Room: Sex, Intimacy, and Why I Can't Stay Quiet Anymore

What if you are not uninterested in sex - you are afraid of what might happen if you let yourself feel that alive?

That is the question I could not ask myself for years.

Instead, I told myself something else was wrong with me.

What I Actually Believed

I got married, had children, built a life. And like so many women, somewhere in my early to mid-30s, I quietly gave up on sex. Not publicly, not explicitly - it just receded into the background.

The sex I was having was infrequent and unsatisfying. More of a task than a meeting. More of an obligation than nourishment.

But here is the truth I need to name clearly:

I did not believe I did not need sex: what I believed was far more painful.

I thought the kind of sex I longed for - the tenderness, the depth, the presence, the connection, the heat - was imaginary. A fantasy. Something other people perhaps had, but not something that could exist in my real life.

I thought wanting that kind of sex was like wanting a fairy tale: beautiful, but unrealistic.

So I lowered my expectations. I convinced myself that what I had was normal, that my longing was naïve, and that rich, connected intimacy was simply not available to me.

Over time, the gap between what I secretly dreamed of and what I actually experienced became too painful to hold. So I let the dream go. Not because I did not desire it - but because it did not feel safe to hope for more.

And deep down, I was terrified of what would happen to my life if I let myself truly want.

That is when desire began to shut down. Not because I was frigid. But because I was disconnected.

And if I am completely honest, it was not only a lack of intimacy with my partner - it was a lack of intimacy with everyone. My children. My friends. My own creative spark. My body. Life itself.

I was living, but not fully inhabiting myself.

I know now that I am far from alone. I speak to so many people - men and women - who share this quiet ache, this slow erosion of desire, this feeling of numbness or resignation. People who have turned off parts of themselves because they no longer believe those parts have a place in their life.

I very nearly became one of those people.

Fast Forward to Now

My life looks nothing like it did then.

I live in a web of beautiful, nourishing connections that bring me joy, intimacy, and pleasure. My body feels like home again - a place I want to return to rather than escape from. My relationships have transformed. So has the way I experience myself.

I did not suddenly 'discover' sex. I learned how to cultivate intimacy, presence, and being in my body. I learned how to feel again. How to listen inward. How to open, slowly and sustainably, to the possibility that pleasure could be real for me.

And to my relief and amusement, it turns out I am absolutely not frigid. I was simply not living in a way that allowed desire to breathe.

As Esther Perel says:

"Sex is not something we do. Sex is a place we go."

A place inside ourselves.

A place between us and another.

A place shaped by imagination, presence, attunement, trust, and our relationship with our own interior world.

A place we can return to - and cultivate - as a practice.

As I gradually learned how to go there, with myself first, the rest of my life changed too.

Arousal as Aliveness

One of the most radical shifts for me was rediscovering arousal - not just as 'getting turned on', but as a whole-body sense of aliveness, curiosity, power and pulse.

Arousal is not about being sexual, it is about being switched on to life.

When we lose access to arousal, we do not just lose desire - we lose direction, creativity, connection, and joy.

Teachers like Nicole Daedone speak about orgasm and arousal as an erotic current - something we can learn to feel, ride, and expand. Not a moment, but a state of receptivity that fuels creativity, connection, and even reduces suffering.

I know this intimately: when I reconnected with my arousal, I reconnected with my voice, my clarity, my no, my yes, my sense of humour, my creativity, my courage.

And I began to recognise something familiar in that state - the same quality of aliveness I knew from performing.

As a violinist on stage, I know flow: that state of deep absorption where time dissolves, where I am fully present and somehow connected to something larger than myself. What I started to learn was how to cultivate that same presence in the rest of my life - in my relationships, in my body, and in intimacy.

Recent research on flow during intimacy confirms what I have witnessed in my own life and in my clients' transformations: people who experience flow during sex report higher satisfaction and describe it in exactly those terms - losing track of time, feeling immersed, feeling connected to something bigger.

Our erotic life, it turns out, can be one of the most accessible portals into flow. And flow is strongly linked with happiness, meaning, creativity, and resilience.

I also began to learn that everything - truly everything - can be an opportunity for flow.

Walking down the street, feeling the temperature on my skin. The awareness of people around me, bodies like mine, all united in our experience of life, feeling connected to them through our common need and desire for love, happiness, food, warmth.

Letting myself experience the world through my aliveness - through sensation, breath, and the sheer pleasure of being alive.

Not sexual, but sensual. Not a story in my head, but a felt experience.

For me, and for many of the people I work with, learning to cultivate arousal is learning to live in flow more often - not just during sex, but in relationship, parenting, creativity, work, friendship, and in the way we move through the world.

Why I Am Sharing This Now

Because staying quiet helps no one.

Because I know how it feels to give up on sex not out of disinterest, but out of hopelessness.

Because I know the ways we convince ourselves that our desires are unrealistic or too much.

Because I know what it is like to feel numb and to assume it is just 'who we are now'.

And because I speak to so many people who are suffering in silence - longing, aching, wondering, doubting, giving up.

If even one person reads this and thinks:

"Maybe I am not broken. Maybe I am just disconnected."

If that thought landed for you, stay with this.

We need more real conversations about intimacy.

About pleasure.

About reconnection.

About the possibility - the reality - of a sexual and intimate life that is deeply alive, deeply soulful, and deeply human.

This is mine.

And you are not alone if you feel echoes of yourself in it.

How This Ties Into My Work - And an Invitation

In my coaching work, this is the territory I walk with my clients.

We do not begin by 'fixing your sex life'.

We begin by re-establishing intimacy with yourself - with your body, your sensations, your boundaries, your desires, your fatigue, your truth.

The work is about noticing all the places you abandon yourself - and it happens far more often than most people realise.

The moment you say 'I am fine' when you are not.

The way you hold your breath during sex instead of letting sound out.

The automatic 'yes' when your body is whispering 'no'.

The habit of overriding your needs to stay comfortable, keep the peace, or avoid being 'too much'.

From there, we reconnect with Desire - not just sexual desire, but the desire for life, for aliveness, for truth.

Together, we explore where disconnection began.

We work with intimacy in the widest sense: with yourself, with others, with life.

And we translate that inner reconnection into how you relate, love, communicate and create.

If you recognised yourself in any part of this story and want support in finding your way back to your aliveness, your body, and your desire, I would be honoured to walk with you.

You are not frigid.

You are not broken.

You are, and always have been, exquisitely capable of feeling.

Sometimes you just need a hand finding your way home.