Hi my loves 🧡

Here’s your next dose of Turned On - your 5-minute read on how to have a healthy, confident and pleasurable life.

I'm a recovering people pleaser. I know exactly what it feels like to say yes when your whole body is saying not right now. To prioritise someone else's experience over your own because their disappointment feels worse than your discomfort. I did it in friendships, I did it at work, and yes, I did it in bed. And it took me a long time to realise that what I thought was being generous was actually me disappearing.

If any of that resonates, this one's for you. Because I think people pleasing is one of the biggest, quietest desire killers out there. And nobody's talking about it.

This Week's Read...

Stop being so generous in bed (seriously)

The good girl in the bedroom

Let's start with a question. When you have sex, whose pleasure are you paying attention to? If the honest answer is mostly theirs, welcome to the club. Most of us were never taught that our pleasure matters equally. We were taught to be accommodating, agreeable, easy. Don't make a fuss. Don't ask for too much. Be grateful. And we carried all of that straight into the bedroom without even realising it. It shows up as faking orgasms to protect their ego. As saying yes to things we're not in the mood for because saying no feels like rejection. As performing enjoyment instead of actually feeling it. And the worst part? We've been doing it for so long that we've convinced ourselves this is just what sex is.

Your body is not broken, it's exhausted

Here's something I need you to hear: if your desire has been low lately, it might not be a libido problem. It might be a boundaries problem. When you spend your days saying yes to everything and everyone, your body doesn't suddenly switch gears at bedtime and go "great, now let's do something for me." It's tired. It's resentful. It's been performing all day and now you're asking it to perform again in a completely different way. No wonder it's not interested. That's not broken. That's intelligent. Your body is telling you something. The question is whether you're willing to listen.

The fawn response (or: why you can't stop saying yes)

There's a trauma response most people haven't heard of called fawning. You know fight, flight, freeze? Fawn is the fourth one. It's when your nervous system learns that the safest thing to do in any situation is to please the other person. To make yourself easy, agreeable, low maintenance. It usually starts in childhood. If love felt conditional growing up, if you learned that being good meant being loved, your brain built a whole operating system around keeping other people happy. And that system doesn't switch off when you get into a relationship. It just gets louder. In bed, fawning looks like: going along with something because saying no feels dangerous. Prioritising their orgasm over yours every single time. Not speaking up about what you actually want because what if it's too much? Faking it because their disappointment feels worse than your dissatisfaction.

Every fake orgasm is a lie your body pays for

I know that sounds harsh but stay with me. Every time you fake an orgasm, you're sending a message that says "this works." So guess what happens next time? The exact same thing that didn't work. And the time after that. And the time after that. You've accidentally trained your partner to do the thing that doesn't get you off, and now you're stuck in a loop that gets harder and harder to break. Faking it isn't generous. It's a trap. And the only person it hurts in the long run is you.

Start small, start outside the bedroom

Here's the thing I wish someone had told me years ago: you don't have to fix this in bed. You fix it everywhere else first. Because boundaries are a muscle, and if you're not using it during the day, it's not going to magically appear at night. Start with the small stuff. Say no to the extra thing at work. Tell your friend you'd rather stay in than go out. Choose the restaurant instead of saying "I don't mind, you pick." Let someone do something for you without immediately trying to return the favour. Every tiny act of choosing yourself builds the muscle you need to choose yourself in bed too. It sounds unrelated but it's all the same pattern. And the more you practise it in low-stakes situations, the easier it gets when the stakes feel higher.

Receiving is not selfish

This is the bit that people pleasers really struggle with. Letting someone give to you. Not rushing to reciprocate. Not performing gratitude. Just... receiving. Lying there and actually taking in what's being offered without your brain immediately going "OK but what do they need now?" If that thought makes you uncomfortable, that's exactly why you need to practise it. Receiving pleasure without guilt is one of the most radical things a people pleaser can do. And it will change your sex life more than any technique or toy ever could.

Your Weekly Framework to Turn Yourself On

💡 One thing to try: This week, practise receiving one thing a day without deflecting, reciprocating, or apologising. A compliment. A cup of tea someone made you. Five minutes of your partner's full attention. Just take it in. Notice what your body does.

❓ Questions to ponder: When was the last time you had sex purely because you wanted to, not because it had been a while or you could feel the expectation building? If you stopped performing in bed tomorrow, what would actually be left? And does that answer excite you or terrify you?

🎧 One piece of content to consume: Search for "fawning and intimacy". It connects the dots between your people pleasing patterns and what's happening (or not happening) in your sex life.

Love, Lexy 🧡