Partial profile · Book Profile — full narrative profile planned
Better Sex Through Mindfulness How Women Can Cultivate Desire
A clinical psychologist and sex researcher shows how mindfulness—paying attention nonjudgmentally in the present moment—can cultivate sexual desire, arousal, and satisfaction and reduce genital pain in women.
A profile of this book is on the way.
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
- Learn to eat and observe mindfully (the raisin exercise) to experience present-moment attention.
- Practice the Body Scan daily, including genital awareness, to reconnect mind and body.
- Observe thoughts as passing mental events rather than truths, and notice when attention wanders.
- Pair sexual tools (fantasy, erotica, vibrator) with sexual sensations awareness meditation.
- 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
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.