Better Sex Through Mindfulness How Women Can Cultivate Desire

What it’s about

Drawing on more than a decade of peer-reviewed research and clinical practice, Lori Brotto reveals that female sexual difficulties—especially low desire, the most common complaint—are extraordinarily prevalent yet rarely helped by pills or purely physical fixes. The real culprits are distraction, multitasking, stress, negative self-judgment, depression, and a brain-body disconnect that keeps women from noticing their own arousal. Better Sex Through Mindfulness debunks cultural myths (that desire should be spontaneous and automatic), normalizes the wide variety of reasons women have sex, and offers a science-based, practical program of mindfulness exercises—from the raisin meditation and Body Scan to sensate focus and sexual sensations awareness—that women can practice on their own and with partners. Warm, evidence-driven, and full of real women's stories, the book argues that satisfying sex is simply not possible without being fully present, and that this presence is available to anyone, right now, simply by paying attention.

The through-line

Who it’s for

A woman experiencing low sexual desire, unsatisfying or painful sex, who wants to feel desire, pleasure, and connection again.

The problem

Persistent low desire, muted arousal, difficulty with orgasm, or painful sex that medications and prior therapies haven't fixed. She feels broken, ashamed, distressed, and fears she is abnormal or that her relationship is doomed.

The plan

1. Learn to eat and observe mindfully (the raisin exercise) to experience present-moment attention.
2. Practice the Body Scan daily, including genital awareness, to reconnect mind and body.
3. Observe thoughts as passing mental events rather than truths, and notice when attention wanders.
4. Pair sexual tools (fantasy, erotica, vibrator) with sexual sensations awareness meditation.
5. Bring mindful attention into partnered sex through sensate focus, back-to-back sensing, and mindful listening.

The payoff

Feeling alive, present, and connected during sex, with cultivated desire and increased arousal and pleasure. · Reduced sex-related distress, less catastrophizing, and greater self-acceptance and confidence. · Improved mood, less stress and rumination, and richer, more satisfying relationships.

See our guide

• The Bicycle Guide to Understand Sex And Intimacy Honestly →

Additional reading

• Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life · Emily Nagoski, PhD

  Written by the foreword's author, it details the 'dual control model' of sexual response (gas and brake pedals), which complements this book's focus on mindfulness as a way to ease off the 'brakes' (inhibitors like stress and anxiety).

• Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness · Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD

  This is the foundational text for secular mindfulness (MBSR). The principles and practices for stress and chronic pain described in it are the direct precursors to the methods adapted for sexuality in this book.

• The Miracle of Mindfulness · Thich Nhat Hanh

  Mentioned by the author as her own introduction to the origins of mindfulness meditation, providing the philosophical and spiritual roots of the practice.

• Sensate Focus in Sex Therapy: The Illustrated Manual · Linda Weiner and Constance Avery-Clark

  The book explicitly recommends this text as a modern, practical guide to sensate focus, a core technique for couples that is framed within the book as a mindfulness practice.

Featured in these guides

• The Bicycle Guide to Understand Sex And Intimacy Honestly →Cited source