"We're all born with the innate capacity to learn any human language, but we don't learn a random language, right?
If you grow up surrounded by people who speak only English, there is no way you'll get to kindergarten speaking French. You learn the language you are surrounded by." — Emily Nagoski
In just the same way, you speak the sexual language you grew up with.
This is a pretty powerful point. Because it's the first step to understanding who you really are sexually. Which language were you actually taught?
This is some of the most impactful work I do with my clients, and I want to share it with you. Follow along…
We tend to talk about sexuality as if it's something innate. As if we should just know what we like, how to ask for it, how to feel confident inside it, how intimacy is "supposed" to work. But nobody actually sat us down and taught us any of that. We absorbed it. Slowly, repeatedly, and often without realising. From school, films, magazines, porn, religion, parents, peers, early sexual experiences, the bedroom scenes we watched as teenagers, the way the women in those scenes were positioned, the way the men were.
So let's unpick your inherited sexual beliefs.
You grew up receiving a ton of different sexual messages throughout your life, but you probably never actually sat down and thought about them. Some are overt. I have worked with many clients who grew up religious and still carry real shame and guilt around sex. Others are less obvious. They just seeped through the cultural cracks, and we absorbed them without ever questioning where they came from.
Here’s an insight into my inherited sexual beliefs: I was born in 1992. Which means I grew up inside a very particular sexual dialect.
Don't be a slut.
Don't sleep with him on the first date.
What's your body count?
Make sure he finishes. Don't be a tease.
She’s so frigid.
Be desirable, but not too available. Be experienced, but not too experienced. Be wanted, but be careful what you want.
None of that was taught to me directly. I just kept hearing it. In the playground, in song lyrics, in the way older girls talked about boys, in the way films framed a woman's worth as how much a man pursued her. And the language I absorbed from all of it was this:
I exist in the context of how I relate to men.
Sex is something I give away.
My job is to be desired. His job is to enjoy.
That's part of my story… What's yours?
How did your family talk about sex growing up, if at all?
What did you grow up watching, and what do you think that media was telling you about what intimacy really was?
Was there a partner early on who shaped you sexually, for better or for worse?
👉👉 Try this tonight. Write down five sexual beliefs you think you inherited. Then share them with your partner as a conversation starter. It's a moment of bonding for the two of you, sharing something personal, and a really lovely way to learn something new about someone you may have been with for a long time. Then step two: read them again and take a second. Do you actually still believe any of these?
It took me years to even notice that was the language I was speaking. Because that's the thing about inherited language, it doesn't feel inherited! It feels like your personality. It feels like preference. It feels like just who you are.
Which means part of the work, the real work, is learning to listen to yourself underneath all of that. What do I actually like…? Not what I learned I should like. Not what I performed liking because someone else seemed to want it. What do I genuinely want, and what have I been told is weird, or wrong, or too much, or not enough?
This is where sexual confidence actually comes from. It’s not from techniques. It’s not from looking a certain way. From getting fluent in your own desire so you can communicate it. From knowing the difference between "I don't want this" and "I was told not to want this." From being able to say, out loud, this is what I like, this is what I'm curious about, this is what doesn't work for me anymore.
The women I work with often arrive thinking something is broken in them. Usually nothing is broken. They've just been speaking a language that was handed to them, and they've never been given permission to learn a different one.
I have a guide to understanding and unpicking your inherited sexual beliefs. Do you want me to send it to you?
Your real erotic self lives in understanding who you uniquely are as a sexual person, not just who you were brought up to be.
Warmly, Lexy 🧡
The Ferly Method
I'm Lexy, resident sexologist at Ferly. I help women in long-term relationships rebuild desire and intimacy using evidence-based methods developed with the world's leading researchers in female sexuality.
The Ferly Method is built on years of clinical research, real-world coaching, and insights from over a million women. It's not about endless talking or vague advice. It's about understanding why desire fades (spoiler: it's not because something is wrong with you) and learning how to create the conditions for it to come back. I bring this framework to life through personalised one-to-one support, helping women go from "I want to want sex again" to actually feeling connected, intimate, and excited about their relationship.
How did you find this week's read?
p.s. Want daily tips on sex, desire, and feeling at home in your body? Come follow us on Instagram. 50,000 women already have. 👉 follow us
