At a workshop last year, a woman told me something really profound that continues to reverberate within me:
“My experience is that sex can feel performative and sort of automatic—it feels like a response to an unspoken expectation rather than an intentional choice.”
And since then I’ve heard so many other women say something similar about their sexual experiences with partners.
Performative.
Automatic.
An unspoken expectation, a duty, an obligation.
Just getting through it, just letting them do their thing.
Which of these resonates with you? For me, sex had mostly felt performative. I wanted to look sexy, do the sexy thing. Be the playful, desired darling of my mostly male partners. It was fun, and I was easily orgasmic, so I believed I was having pretty good sex throughout my 20s and 30s.
But then, I found a really different approach to sexuality, one drawn from decades of yoga practice and mindfulness in life and in the bedroom. And this changed everything about my sex life.
Does sex actually feel good to you?
If the answer is “not really” or “only sometimes,” you’re not alone. For so many people, sex can feel like a performance, a duty, or something we SHOULD do—rather than something rooted in authentic, embodied pleasure. Let’s talk about why this happens and how to break free.
And invite you to consider here that this absolutely cuts across gender lines. I have seen that most of my male clients feel performative in some way, too, even if your type of performance pressure looks different than your partner’s pressure.
Why are so many of us moving through sex in this way that is disconnected, disembodied… and more importantly, what’s possible on the other side of performance?
Sex becomes performative when it’s shaped by:
Unconscious (and unexamined) shame and stigma: From family, religion, media, or past partners. We’re running unconscious scripts about sex, bodies, pleasure, and relationships that might be holding us back.
Unspoken expectations: You might have said things like, “I owe them;” “I should want this;” “This is what good sex looks like.” When we feel things like this (and don’t talk about it), the habit creates negative feedback loops. For example, if you don’t like the sex you’re having, but keep doing it because this is what you think your partner wants, or it’s supposed to hurt this way, you’ll subconsciously train your body to feel sex in this negative way, and you’ll stop wanting it naturally, and only be able to access it via performance.
Gendered conditioning:
Those of us raised as girls and women: We are both over-sexualized and deeply shamed for our sexuality. We’re taught that our pleasure is secondary, our body exists for pleasure or service of others, and that we should say yes to sex we don’t want in order to keep a partner satisfied.
Those raised as boys and men: Men are expected to always initiate, perform, stay hard, and never show emotion. They’re often expected to be ‘dominant’ or be a leader in the dance of flirtation and within the sexual experience, rather than feeling into what’s alive in any given moment.
These beliefs disconnect us from our innate pleasure potential, disconnect us from our bodies, and keep our intrinsic desires tapped down (and unavailable). All of this limits our ability to experience the deepest pleasure in any given moment. And it keeps us disconnected from our partners and lovers, focused on the external appearance or performance instead of what’s genuinely alive in the moment.
Common “Sex-pectations” That Get in the Way
Saying yes without tuning in. You’re not broken if desire isn’t instant. Learn to work with responsive desire, your organic arousal, and slower sex.
Judging arousal by erection or lubrication: Softness can be part of arousal. Pleasure doesn’t require “readiness on command.”
Comparing desire, tastes, and/or frequency: There’s no “normal” type of sex, no ‘average’ number that’s better or worse. You (and your lovers) decide what, when, how, and in how deep you explore. Quality > quantity, always.
Avoiding conversations about sex: We know that talking openly leads to better, more connected sex. Yes, it’s awkward at first. Do it anyway. Learn how to have the hard conversations.
How We Can Reclaim Pleasure
Unlearn the shame: Identify the roots of your discomfort—cultural, religious, or relational—and get curious about them. Explore my Sexual Wholeness workbook.
Explore your organic arousal,. A very slow masturbation practice, a new collection of erotica, a new lover. Discover what feels actually good to you. Follow sensation, not performance.
Get curious about your erotic identity. You are a multifaceted erotic being—kinky, tender, spiritual, playful, primal... all of it belongs. Explore Erotic Blueprints, your attachment style, your brakes/accelerators, and your orgasmic capacity. I call this the Erotic Mosaic… all the parts, together perfectly as you.
You deserve a joyful, shame-free sex life. No matter what you were taught, what you’ve endured, or what stage you’re in—sexual wholeness is possible.
When you move from performance to presence, sex becomes not just an act—but a healing practice.
This is my work here on Substack, and in the world: to guide folks into their deepest expressions of innate sensuality, and to help women find their organic arousal. I’ll be offering a workshop about this in September focusd on multi-orgasmic journeys… learn more and register here for this deep-dive, transformative experience. You’ll be an entirely new erotic being afterwards, I promise.
Pleasure is medicine. And midlife is your reclamation era.
I’m Andrea Devon Bertoli, a Pleasure Coach and Sex Educator devoted to the erotic lives of women in midlife. My work lives at the intersection of science, sacred sexuality, and the slow, gorgeous practice of coming home to your body.
Here on Substack you’ll find thoughtful essays, embodied practices, and the kind of honest, warm conversation about sex and intimacy you didn’t know you needed.
On my website and online learning platform, I offer deep-dive resources, coaching sessions for those ready to go further, and alongside my husband, I host wildly popular workshops online + in-person in the Bay Area. Ready to journey inward? Send me a note to find out what is possible.
Welcome to Love in Adulthood… where you’ll tap into perimenopausal pleasures, sexual sophistication, and midlife intimacies for all.
Andrea, the workshop participant’s description of sex shaped by an “unspoken expectation” gives this conversation a serious relational center. When intimacy becomes performance, curiosity about sensation, desire, consent, and communication can gradually disappear from the experience itself. Your invitation to notice what is genuinely alive in the moment creates room for partners to become more honest about what they feel, what they want, and what needs to be spoken aloud. Grateful for the candor with which you bring agency and communication back into a part of relationship life that can easily become governed by assumptions.
This is post is so true. Why is it this way when there is so much there to share and experience. Stuck in the rut probably staying there forever saddle with so much yearning and little hope