EPISODE 19: Trusting Your Own Journey with Sex

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THE LOWDOWN

In this episode, we dive deep into the concept of time and how it affects our lives. Time seems to speed up as we get older and it feels like there's never enough time to accomplish everything we want.

Societal pressures and expectations around sex can make us feel like we're running out of time or that we're somehow "late to the game." I share about my own journey with sex, from feeling pressured to have it at a young age to realizing that it's okay to wait until you're ready and comfortable.

Let's challenge the idea that there's a right or wrong time to have sex, everyone's journey is unique and valid. There are societal constructs around virginity and the pressure to conform to certain timelines, but it is so important to embrace our individual experiences and desires.It's never too late to explore your desires and connect with your partner. We have the power to shape our own experiences, it's never too late to prioritize our well-being and happiness.

MENTIONED IN SHOW:

Website: www.lovealwaysjess.com/getstarted

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/love.always.jess

SHOW NOTES:

Episode begins at [00:00:54]

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Hello, hello, hello! When you are sitting down to listen to this episode, [00:01:00] it is already going to be May, and I am just mind blown at how we are already in the fifth month of the year. With so much that has happened, in what I feel, is a short window. I don't know about you, but as I get older, I feel like time just passes by faster, and that there's all these things that I want to get accomplished, all these things that I want to get done.

But I feel as if time goes faster, and there's not enough time in the day to get it done. And I sit here and I go, what the hell am I going to do? And maybe it means I need better time management skills. Maybe, honestly, it really means that I just need to stop scrolling on the phone. Um, it's definitely something I've been thinking about a lot lately, [00:02:00] about Giving up social media, figuring out what it is that really is my priority and how I want to structure my day.

One of the things I switched recently was I am waking up at 4am and going to the gym. And then going to the sauna after, and then I get back home around like 8, 830 and I go right into work, which is honestly been so nice because previously I was going to the gym at 8 o'clock at night, which meant that I'd get off work and then I'd maybe, if I was lucky, have 30 minutes to To myself before having to get in the car and go to the gym and I get done at the gym and I'd want to eat and I'd be eating at like 10 o'clock at night [00:03:00] and then I wouldn't want to go to bed right away because I'd still have to shower.

I want to let food digest and

That would put me to bed like midnight, one o'clock in the morning. And I'd sleep until eight, eight 30 and get up and go straight to work. And then my day really was just consumed with work and working out, which not the end of the world, but there are things that I want to do outside of work and the gym.

And so I decided to work on switching up my habits, changing things into a pattern that makes sense for me. Prior to the pandemic, I was really a morning person and I'd get up at 4 go to the gym, start my morning, go into work, and then I'd have all evening to myself. And then I'd be to bed around nine [00:04:00] o'clock.

And so getting back into that routine feels natural to me, but there are still other things that I need to figure out with my daily routine in order to feel like I'm using my time wisely.

Now you might be asking yourself, Jessica, what does this have to do with sex?

It does and it doesn't. The whole point of it is There is a certain amount of time within a day, that doesn't change, and then there is a certain amount of time within a week, within a month, within a year, and time just continues to tick away, and we can't do anything about it, we don't get that time back.

And I think what happens is,

we might feel at times like we, Waste our time. Sure, I sit on social media and scroll. I shouldn't do it. I can feel a headache forming sometimes when I spend way too much time on my [00:05:00] phone. I feel as if I was lazy, wasted my day, whatever. Are there benefits to social media? Yes, but I grew up in the generation that had a life before technology and then a life after technology.

And so I've experienced both. And I think there's this mindset that, life before technology was better? Like people actually did stuff. You know, you hear the boomers say, oh, these kids, they, you know, can't take their face out of a phone or anything like that. And I think there's pros and cons to both.

But again, not the point. The point is, is that when we start to think and look back at our lives and we think about the things that we've wanted to accomplish and also want to accomplish in the future, and we don't see those things having happened, we get stuck in our mind [00:06:00] of it's too late. I'm already in my 30s.

I'm in my 40s. For some people in your 20s. I mean, I remember thinking when I was in my late 20s, like, Oh my gosh, time has just gone by, what am I doing with my life? And really at the end of the day, time is just a measurement, age is just a measurement, the years that tick by, the minutes, the hours, it's just a measurement of the earth spinning, the universe, the sun, etc.

It doesn't get to define Where we're at and what we've accomplished because time is just that, a thing, and there are no rules. On , what you need to accomplish, what you need to have succeeded at by a certain age. The world around us is [00:07:00] constantly changing and it's changing at an even faster pace.

Now that we have technology. Right now, the biggest thing is influencer and the reach that they have to their audiences. When a decade ago. It was television and magazines telling us what we needed to do, models, celebrities, etc. And now these celebrities are these influencers who are on social media, TikTok, Instagram, but that doesn't mean that they're The epitome of success.

That doesn't mean that their life is 100 percent accomplished because things are going to change in five years. Things are going to change in 10 years. And so when we base success off of, well, they hit a million dollars at age 26, they've made it. Cool. [00:08:00] That doesn't mean that that's where they're going to be.

10, 20 years down the road. I mean, we always hear about celebrities who had fame when they were younger, or athletes who come out of college and stuff who get thrust into the limelight and make tons of money squander it because they aren't taught what to do and they aren't taught the longevity of things.

And I think it's important to realize that When it comes to our sexual lives, when it comes to our body and our intimacy and the relationship with ourselves and with our partners, there is longevity to that. There isn't a quote unquote like timeline. We feel the pressure, maybe as women we do, we have a biological time clock that tells us we can't have children after a certain age, and the medical field has [00:09:00] an age where you automatically go from a regular pregnancy to a geriatric pregnancy.

But there is also so much advancement in the medical field that women in their 40s are having babies.

So when it comes to sex, and when it comes to relationship and intimacy with our bodies and our partners and ourselves, it isn't too late.

I think back to my 20s.

I graduated from college in 2010, and

I had my first relationship that same year.

And in that relationship, I didn't trust my partner and really myself. So we never had sex. There was like a boundary and something that I wasn't willing to cross.

And I was certainly made fun of [00:10:00] because here I am, 21 years old, about to turn 22, and hadn't had sex yet. Had just had my first kiss. And in a way, I felt like I was late to the game.

Fast forward a couple of years, I was single, still hadn't had sex. Here I am, 24, 25, hanging out with these younger kids. And when I say younger kids, I was 24, 25. I was hanging out with 18, 19, 20 year olds who were still in college and talking with them about sex. Many of them had lost their virginity. If we go based on that, I know it's a weird construct to talk about.

Virginity is a made up thing, but that's what society kind of recognizes as ads. So talking to these, you know, 18, 19, 20 year olds, [00:11:00] and a lot of them had sex for the first time when they were 13, 14. And a lot of them sat there and told me that they actually admired the fact that I hadn't had sex because they wished that they would have waited.

They wished that They wouldn't have had sex, A, with the partner that they were with when they did it, and B, at such a young age, because they didn't know what they were doing, and so it wasn't very pleasurable. It was definitely a very eye opening moment for me, because I definitely did get made fun of for not wanting to have sex right away, not trusting the partner that I had been with.

You know, my family members joked about how I would be a 40 year old virgin and that I'd have cobwebs up there and that they'd have to hire a prostitute to have sex with me because [00:12:00] I wasn't going to have sex with just anybody and You know, I saw my siblings having sex before I had sex. And at some point I did feel like I was late to the game.

But then having these conversations with these women made me realize that I wasn't late to the game. I just wasn't in the game. the right state of mind to have sex. And when I say right state of mind, I don't mean that there is a right or wrong. But for me personally, I didn't trust anybody. Yeah, I had sexual desires and I wanted to have sex with people.

But at the same time, I was like, I don't want just a one night stand. I don't want to fling. I don't want To just randomly have sex with somebody and it not mean something. And I think for a couple of years there, since I went to a Christian college, there was a part of me that was thinking I'd be a virgin until I was [00:13:00] married.

But then as I got older, That idea and that concept changed in my head because I was like, It's not that I don't want to wait till marriage, I just want to wait until I feel comfortable with the person. And hanging out with a guy for a couple of weeks at a bar isn't going to make me comfortable. Like I want to get to know them, I want to have more depth to our relationship.

Then I turned 26 and I met a man and a year later we ended up having sex. So I was two weeks shy of my 27th birthday, um, and it felt right.

It took a little bit of time. For him to feel comfortable with the idea because he was like, I'm going to be your first. This is a lot of pressure. And I was like, Hey, like, look, I'm not a high schooler who's like, you're the love of my life. I'm going to marry you. but at one [00:14:00] point we both felt comfortable with the idea and we had sex.

And

to me, it felt like the right moment.

It didn't feel comfortable. It didn't feel too early, it didn't feel too late, and the idea of society putting this pressure on people at you should have had sex by the time you go to college. I mean, we hear about it. We hear about the stories of guy and girlfriends who Are like, well I'm still a virgin and we're going to college next year or in a couple months.

Like, let's just have sex and get it over with so that we're not virgins when we go to college. And you hear about people in college having sex for the first time. And there's just so many different Paths and directions and stories and ideas and pressures and

constructs and rules about what it is that you should be doing by a certain age, what it is that [00:15:00] you shouldn't be doing. You need to wait till you're married. You shouldn't be having sex at 13 and all this kind of stuff. And like, while I agree that kids sometimes can have sex at too young of an age, there's this idea of,

Sex is a forbidden thing within our country. We don't talk about it. And so when we hide it, people seek it. It's just like saying, don't push this red button. And what is everybody, everybody going to want to do? Push the red button.

So when we have all these arbitrary rules of what you can and can't do, it's going to make people want to do it and it's going to make people feel weird and odd and like they're wrong for not having done it yet. You know, we see it in all different parts of society. We see the older generations who are saying to the younger generations, because you buy [00:16:00] avocado toast, you're not going to be able to own a house.

You know, like, they have put the idea of success and the idea of making it on purchasing a house. But what they don't see is that the state of the economy prevents people from buying a house. And so when we put these ideas on sex and we're like, hey, like, you have to wait until marriage or You're gonna go to college, and you're gonna have sex, and you're gonna be tempted, and all this kind of stuff.

But then we don't tell people that, hey, it's okay if you do have sex, and it's okay if you don't have sex. We put this, like, pressure and this boiling point inside people's heads, where they're like, I don't know what is right, and I feel weird, and I feel odd, and I feel guilty, and I feel like I'm wrong, and that I'm lame, and I'm a loser, and I haven't, you know, like, I don't know what is right.

My family shouldn't have told me that they had to hire a prostitute in order to have sex with me because I [00:17:00] was way too, I would get too old where nobody else would want to have sex with me. Like, that's just wrong. And like, it puts pressure on you because you're like, but I don't fucking want to go and have sex with a random person.

But also, like, I need to have sex in order to be valuable. Like, what? This is weird. I don't understand. And, like, I know my family was just joking, but also, like, Really? Like, just because I'm a late bloomer doesn't mean that I'm wrong and that I'm never going to have sex because I'm 25 and haven't had sex.

So, like, there's this concept of

It's too late or it's never going to happen. And I don't just mean in having sex for the first time. I mean in having good sex, or if you were married and you're recently divorced and you're finding yourself in the dating pool and then you're like, my body, I'm older, my body has [00:18:00] changed and I'm not as desirable as before.

And I was like, that's not true at all. Okay. You're just as beautiful, if not more beautiful, because you've aged, and aging is beauty. Our bodies are naturally meant to go through these processes of

 growing up and life experiences. And one of the biggest things is women tend to reach their of sexual desire in their later years, in their 40s.

Because honestly, part of it I think has to do with the fact that we don't give a fuck anymore what society thinks. Because when we're younger, we're so focused on having to be prim and proper, like dressed to the nines, makeup done, hair done, nails done, waxed and shaved and all these [00:19:00] beauty standards that prevent us from actually looking at our body and seeing how beautiful it is.

So when we get to our 40s, if we've had children or just had life experience, then we're just like, fuck it. I don't care. He can take me the way that I am, or he doesn't get me. He doesn't deserve me.

We just learn to look at our bodies differently. We learn to say, Hey, You're beautiful. I don't need to pluck you. I don't need to cover you up.

You birthed two, three, four beautiful babies. You have stretch marks from gaining weight and losing weight.

You went through a difficult time in life and put on a few extra pounds. That's okay. You're still worthy of desire. And so, if your partner wants to be with you, They get to love you for who you are 100%, and if they [00:20:00] don't want to, that's their loss. But it doesn't mean that it's too late for you. It doesn't mean that you're a lost cause just because you're older and your body has changed.

Or maybe you and your partner have gone some really difficult moments lately, and you're like, hey, we haven't connected. Physically, or mentally, or emotionally, in any area of our relationship lately, and I want that back. And maybe, deep down inside you're feeling like it's too late, like, what's the point?

We've already gone a year without having sex, or longer, or maybe shorter.

We haven't had a date night in a few months, or we haven't sat down and checked in with each other to see how we're doing. And so you might be feeling like, it's too late to make this happen, to correct [00:21:00] this. I might as well just put myself out of my misery.

That doesn't mean that it's too late. At the end of the day, time is going to continue going. And we get to decide, do we let things go on this way? Or do we find a way to change this?

I was going to the gym at 8 o'clock at night. I loved the instructors. I loved the classes. I didn't want to give that up, but I also knew that it wasn't sustaining my life. I didn't have the free time that I wanted. I was sleeping in because I was going to bed later and I didn't like that. I didn't have my evenings free.

If I wanted to go hang out with my friends, it meant that I had to give up the gym. And so I decided to make a decision. And I said, you know what? I love the morning instructor and I love the morning classes. They're different than the evening ones, but I still love them, so I'm going to [00:22:00] change.

And you get to decide that too. You get to decide, what do I want my life to look like? And I don't have to tell myself that it's too late to get there. In fact, I want you to stop telling yourself it's too late to get there. It's not too late to learn your body. It's not, it's not too late to ask yourself, how do I like to be touched?

What areas of my body love being kissed on or sucked on or touched or tickled? Or do I need a massage? Do I need my partner to give me a quick massage on my feet? What turns me on?

Do I enjoy playing with myself? Or do I prefer having sex with my partner? Do I like both? It's also not too late to ask yourself.

What about my partner's body do I love and how can I give them pleasure to the point to where they love Receiving pleasure. What do they enjoy about their [00:23:00] bodies? I get to learn them

and the other beautiful thing about having this mindset that it's not too late is that we get to realize that we get to change What we liked doing with our bodies 5, 10, 15 years ago is not going to be the same as what we like doing today. Our bodies are going to feel different.

We're going to have injuries. We're going to have different life experiences that teach us different things about us.

And you get to continue to explore and learn and understand and

create and accomplish different things. Thanks. And there's no like, end point. So like, maybe you're going through something. And sex really isn't something that you want to be doing right now, because you're just too emotionally focused on whatever it is you're going through. And that's okay. You get to say, hey, you know what?[00:24:00]

We're going to table sex. I'd love to connect with my partner on different levels, emotionally, intimately, in different ways, but right now I don't want to be having sex. But that doesn't mean that it's the end, it just means right now it's on hold. And that when you do return to having sex, if you return to having sex, it's not too late!

I think we get stuck in this rut of, well I'm here, I can't change it, so I'm just gonna keep doing it.

And then we get bored, or we get resentful, or we feel

out of our body in a not good way. And so we, we just continue these patterns of, well, I already feel this way, so it can't get worse. So let me just continue feeling this way. It's like, no, pause, hold on. You should never feel less than, you should never feel shitty. You should never [00:25:00] want

to remain where you are because it's okay. You deserve better than okay. Yeah, life is gonna have its okay moments, but you shouldn't sit in that just because, just because you're fearful or Uncom like, uncomfortable when you step outside of okay. You deserve great, you deserve excellent, you deserve to have what it is that you want to have.

And yeah, it's gonna take work sometimes. It's not going to always come easy,

but that's the thing that we have to remember is

in order to get where we want to go, we have to put in the work.

I have goals. I have dreams. I have things that I want to accomplish

and realizing that going to the gym at eight o'clock at night, isn't helping me accomplish that. So I need to get up at four in the morning. For some people, they might be laughing at that and being like, you're crazy. But for me, in order to go after what I want, that's what I [00:26:00] need.

And it's hard. I don't like being up at four in the morning sometimes, but I do it because at the end of the day, it does feel good in my body.

So if you're sitting here and you're thinking, it's too late for me, I can't do X, Y, and Z because of my age, the way I look, the time it's gonna take. I'm already at, like, my wit's end. My partner and I haven't connected in years. It's too late. I want you to stop, and I want you to think, what is one thing you can do today to change that?

And it, it can't be, I need to change my partner. I need to change the environment I'm in. Because sometimes, there are things that are out of our control. It needs to be something you can physically change yourself, right now.

It doesn't have to be as extreme as me getting up at 4 in the morning. But maybe you turn to your partner, and You give them a [00:27:00] goodnight kiss.

Maybe you hug them. Maybe you begin physical intimate touch or physical

 presence or maybe you start to use words of affirmation or doing things for them because you know that it'll make them feel better.

Or maybe you begin to explore your body on your own and you start to fall in love with your body all over again and you realize that your body is not how it was when you were 15, 19, 25 years old. And you say, that's okay, you are who you are right now, because our life experiences have brought us here, and I'm okay with that, and I love you for that, and it might take a little bit of time, and you're gonna have your good days and your bad days, when we start with what we want today.

It means that we actually get closer to accomplishing what it is that we want to [00:28:00] accomplish. And we no longer have the story in our head of, it's too late.

Because anything is possible. You're not too old. You're not too unnoticeable. Anything is possible.

So starting today, no longer allow yourself the narrative of, it's too late. It's not too late. As long as you have two feet on the ground. Air in your lungs, and a heart that's beating, you can continue forward,

however that looks like in your life. So remember,

it is not too late. Create and build the life that you desire.

I wish you a slow rest of the year, and all the good feelings when it comes to chasing after the dreams that you like. I love you. Talk to you later. [00:29:00]