Acupressure for Sexual Healing
Inhibited Sexual Desire

In this article, you will learn about various causes for this condition and the seven key steps you can take for sexual healing and to cultivate a healthy sexuality. You’ll also find many Acupressure resources for healing your sexuality.

An Updated Definition

Until recently, inhibited sexual desire was popularly known as “frigidity,” which is now recognized as an inappropriate term.

As the American Medical Association notes in its Encyclopedia of Medicine, “The term has been used almost exclusively with reference to women, and is now being discouraged because of its negative connotations – blaming a woman for something that may exist only in the mind of her partner.”

Now more neutral terms are used, such as inhibited sexual desire, sexual repression, or hypoactive sexuality. They can refer to both men and women.

The Encyclopedia also distinguishes between inhibited sexual desire and anorgasmia, or failure to achieve orgasm, which can be a completely separate issue.

Legacy of Sexual Wounds

Inhibited sexual desire is often the result of sexual wounds. Once any part of your body is wounded, it becomes vulnerable and hyper-sensitive, needing extreme protection.

During the initial state of shock, the muscles, tendons, and ligaments surrounding the area tense up as a protective response. Often this constriction remains long after the physical wound heals. The scars can hamper the body for years.

A person’s body can become sexually unresponsive due to past wounds from childhood or from adulthood. Examples are sexual abuse, incest, rape, forceful fingering and entry, premature intercourse, saying yes when no is meant, guilty masturbation, abortion, cesarean section, or hysterectomy.

Even these serious issues can be gradually healed and resolved to a large extent with enough support. Complex problems take time to address.

Sexual Healing is Possible

Therapeutic massage and bodywork, along with counseling or therapy, can release the chronic tension. The steps below, for creating healthy sexuality, are also helpful for healing.

Go at your own pace and get the support you need. Be gentle with yourself as you take steps to resolve any past emotional pain.

Walk into your terror to learn its nature. It will be less painful if you do not turn away. Stay with the feeling itself, with no attempt to give it structure. It is structure that causes terror, not experience. You will see.

— Emmanuel (Pat Rodegast)

Your Body, Emotions & Meridians
When a person is sexually wounded, the trauma has both physical and emotional effects. That is why someone would need practices such as massage and bodywork to directly address the physical aspects. That person would also need emotional support from counseling.

Since Acupressure is a holistic practice, it promotes balance in all aspects of ourselves – the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. Acupressure thus offers a comprehensive approach to health and healing of complex sexual issues.

In addition, there is a strong connection between the genitals and emotions, a link acknowledged in Traditional Chinese Medicine for thousands of years.

Practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine note that the Kidney, Pericardium, and Triple Warmer meridian pathways connect the emotions to sexuality. The Pericardium, for instance, is often referred to as the protector of the heart, linking emotions to the genitals.

Cultural Influences

Social pressures can hit women especially hard. A woman may feel driven to fake an orgasm to please her mate’s ego.

Fearing that her partner will feel responsible for her nonorgasmic condition, she may settle for an inauthentic sexual relationship rather than upset him or risk losing him. She may also not want to appear aggressive or selfish in asking for what feels good.

Socio-cultural influences more often than not place a woman in a position in which she must adapt, sublimate, inhibit, or even distort her natural capacity to function sexually in order to fulfill her genetically assigned role. Herein lies the source of women’s sexual dysfunction.

— William Masters and Virginia Johnson
Human Sexual Inadequacy

Physical Causes

Inhibited sexual desire may also result from physical problems. Painful intercourse may have a medical cause, such as pelvic endometriosis or ligamental tears that occurred during childbirth. It’s important for a woman who experiences this to be examined by a doctor.

To determine whether their inhibited sexual desire has an organic cause, men and women should begin by asking themselves the following questions:

• Are you able to bring yourself to orgasm?
• Are you more likely to have an orgasm on vacation?
• Are there certain partners, environments, or circumstances that cause you to experience orgasm without effort?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you probably do not have a physical problem. Your sexual discomfort may be due to stress or an emotional cause.

This can be healed over time through a combination of supportive, somatic psychotherapy and regular private Acupressure sessions.

How to Cultivate
Healthy Sexuality

Sexual unresponsiveness may be the body’s wisdom speaking. When a person feels deeply supported, safe, and able to trust another human being, the body often rediscovers its sexual responsiveness.

Even if you have a loving partner, self-healing is the most important element in overcoming inhibited sexual desire. Here are seven aspects for you to focus on.

Take Responsibility for Your Body
Learn the basics about your sexual responses and the techniques for deriving sexual satisfaction.

Explore the Acupressure Points
It’s helpful to use Acupressure on the points that benefit the sexual-reproductive system. To learn them, you can begin on this website with the Sexuality & Intimacy section of Self-Acupressure A to Z. Many more of these points are presented in both the book and the video, Acupressure for Lovers. The book and video also give daily stretches for you to practice, increasing your self-awareness and sexual healing.

Celebrate Your Body
Let go of your “nonsexual” image of yourself. We are all sexual — it’s part of being alive. Spend time bathing, touching, being touched, and enjoying your sexuality.

Give Pleasure to Your Body
“When you can do kindly things to yourself then you know what it is to be able to love yourself,” notes Gary Zukav in Seat of the Soul. Sex therapists recommend that people with inhibited sexual desire achieve sexual pleasure through self-stimulation before engaging with a partner.

However, if the person has tremendous guilt about masturbation, this can be especially difficult. Resolving this issue with therapy can be important for experiencing a fuller sexuality.

Feel Good About Your Body
Self-consciousness can lead to obsessive criticism of your own sexual performance. You may be self-conscious about sounds, intimate expressions, and even body movements.

It is crucial to let go of such self-consciousness and negativity. Examples are irrational obsessions and harsh judgments about your body, such as feeling you’re not thin enough.

The points, exercises, and stretches in the Acupressure for Lovers video and book will enable you to feel better about your body and thus decrease your self-consciousness.

Discover Your Sexual Preferences
Pleasure yourself in order to learn what is sexually arousing to you. Get to know your genitals. Experiment with a variety of touches (light stroking, teasing, gentle rubbing, firm rubbing) until you know what pleases your body most.

Cultivate an Appreciation for Your Partner
Acknowledge the value of your relationship. Take a moment to express gratitude for the qualities, actions, and attitudes that you appreciate about your partner.

Pay attention to the aspects and habits of your partner that attract you to them.