“Happiness or sex” - What would you choose?
Let us travel back in time, back to 2017, when my doctor asked me this very question. This week's musings may help to explain the origins of where my passion for pleasure & mental health all began.
In 2017, at one of my lowest points mentally, my doctor posed this question: What would you like to choose, happiness or sex? This question has since shaped my journey towards understanding the deep connection between mental health and sexual wellbeing.
I’m writing this week’s Substack off the back of a week recovering from having my four wisdom teeth out, and have been sorely reminded of how being alone with my thoughts and feelings can be incredibly trying.
It has also forced me to reflect on how far I’ve come.
Since 2017, I’ve learned so much about my body, my pleasure, my happiness, and about sex. And how my happiness and my sex life are inseparable. My sexual wellbeing is a fundamental component of my happiness, and my happiness has a direct impact on my sexual wellbeing. They are one in the same.
This doesn't mean I need sex to be happy or happiness to enjoy sex. But there is a direct correlation I’m keen to explore with you.
The diagnosis
In 2017, I was diagnosed with GAD (General Anxiety Disorder). Symptoms became unbearable after coming out of a toxic relationship, and failing to form a new relationship with someone else. My self-esteem was at a new low, and my baseline energy was consistently on edge.
Within a ten minute chat, the doctor prescribed me an antidepressant, more specifically, the most commonly prescribed SSRI, Sertraline, and I was sent to Group CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy).
Within a few weeks, what I quickly realised was how disconnected I felt. Sure, the emotional highs and lows were mellowing out, but physically, I was also becoming numb.
[Sing-along time]
Sexual side effects
Previously super sensitive to the touch, I now struggled to feel pleasure, let alone pain. I struggled to cry, feel joy, and my body (in comparison to before) was practically non-responsive. Arousal started to feel like a distant memory, and orgasms were nowhere to be found.
At the same time, coincidentally, I was getting my first proper job as a sex researcher for a vibrator company, and my first assignment was to report on all of the sex toy stores in Germany (as I was travelling for a month to Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, and Munich).
Before my trip, I went to my doctor, and explained the whole situation - hoping for some answers. He looked at me with zero empathy, and asked me as if it was the most obvious question… to weigh it up. “What would you like to choose: Happiness or sex?”
Can anyone else relate to this experience?
I was left frustrated and helpless. Of course I didn’t want to be mentally unwell anymore. Of course I want to be happy. But what kind of happiness is this? Where I couldn’t even connect to my own body?
I honestly felt like a failed human. A broken woman. How was I supposed to do my job of becoming an esteemed sex writer if I couldn’t even come?! My identity as a sexpert was flawed, I was a fraud, and should just give up my dreams of becoming the next Carrie Bradshaw (lol).
But I was determined. I would be happy. And I would be a sexually fulfilled being.
Scientific discoveries
Looking back now, I feel so lucky that I had my job as a writer and researcher, I spent my time learning all I could about how our bodies work, how pleasure and arousal works, and science of the medications. (Bearing in mind, I studied the history of science and sexuality at uni, so this was a dream to be able to do it for a job).
For example, I learnt that the SSRI I was on works to balance out symptoms of anxiety and depression by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin - which simply means it allows for more serotonin (happiness) to be absorbed in the brain. However, in doing so, it has a negative affect on the production of other hormones such as dopamine (pleasure) and testosterone (desire).
Happiness or sex? It really is quite literally a chemical balancing act.
What I also uncovered in my research is that with more serotonin in the system, the body produces less nitric oxide, “which normally has a role in relaxing the smooth muscle of the vasculature (including the vasculature of the reproductive structures), thus enabling vasodilation and allowing sufficient blood supply to the sexual organs during the sexual response cycle.”
In layman's terms, taking the medication meant less fresh blood and oxygen were being sent to my vulva, clitoris, and nipples, making it harder to get hard (physically aroused).
Which, as a side note is interestingly not a problem for people who struggle with sexual dysfunction such as premature ejaculation; whereby people are often recommended SSRIs to delay their experience of ejaculation.
So, “what to do with all this information?” you may be asking. Well, as Sir Francis Bacon said “knowledge is power”… or even better, “knowledge is pleasure”. Because what came next was a sensual journey of infinite discoveries.
Finding the balance
Fast forward 7 years of deepening my relationship with my mental health and sexual wellbeing, and teaching all I know to others, I now truly believe that pleasure is my birthright. Just as it is for you, and anyone who wants to claim it.
We are all deserving of sexual happiness (whatever that means to you), and I’m grateful for my many teachers and guides along the way, who reminded me (and continue to remind me) that this is the case, in spite of the world telling us otherwise.
In sum, than accepting the bare minimum, I chose to come off my medications after about a year of being on them (it also took about a year to gradually taper off them, with the close guidance of my doctor, thanks to the really fun withdrawal symptoms they also don’t tell you about) and have since been working with my mental health and sexual wellbeing in, let’s say, some alternative ways.
To be super clear, I’m not here to give you a one size fits all answer to this issue. Nor am I advocating for or against the use of medications (I’m well aware of how life saving they can be - plus there are many types out there that don’t have the same side effects!).
I merely want to share elements of my story, with the hope that it might inspire some new ways of thinking about your relationship to yourself, your body, and your internal emotional world. One that goes beyond merely having to choose between happiness or sex…
…One where we all get to choose sexual happiness, that embraces the messiness, the highs, and the lows.
Now, I’m sure you’re now wondering what some of those “alternative ways” are, and I’m excited to share some of my approaches in upcoming Substacks.
Keep an eye out for my next piece, which will explore me going down the rabbit hole of the sexual underworld to reclaiming my sexual happiness and discovering my sensual self while on (and coming off) medication!