Libido in Lockdown

5 mn read

Stella Anna Sonnenbaum is an intimacy teacher and founder of Stella With Love. She trained in Sexological Bodywork and Somatic Sex Education with the don, Joseph Kramer. Here she tells us why she’s decided to run a course – Liberate Your Libido – just for men.

The lockdown stopped all of us in our tracks – people are dying, others are fighting for survival… so why do I keep talking about sexuality and pleasure?

Just a week before everything closed down, I realised I wouldn’t be able to make it to Canada to see my Beloved. I lay in bed, feeling sorry for myself, and longing for sex and touch. In the midst of feeling quite miserable and tearful, I had a sudden flash of insight – my feelings are the result of how I see myself – I was making the situation worse by projecting a ‘poor abandoned me’ image onto it!

Instead, I imagined myself being held, being sexual – my body memory instantly recognised the situation, and made me feel warm and yummy and expansive – and much happier with the situation.

Our society is not exactly pleasure positive. It takes courage to take our pleasure seriously and to put our love for ourselves and our partners first. It also takes courage to continue to show ourselves as sexual beings when getting older.

An emergency situation does not mean that we ourselves need to adopt the pain around us. We can let it in, feel empathy, and breathe it through us.

Figuratively speaking, we need to put our own oxygen masks on, before helping others. ]

Loving touch and sexuality are great immunity and happiness boosters.

Pleasure is needed, in emergency times. Lovers continue to make love if they can, babies are born, birds are flying free and happy, flowers grow.

Last Saturday I had 100 people – mostly men – booked for our free webinar ‘Liberate Your Libido’. How can we liberate our libido in lockdown, and why would we even want to?

There is a life after Covid-19. I don’t know about you, but I want to imagine skipping into the sunset, feeling juicy!

Being stopped in our tracks could be exactly the reason we can reconsider what is truly important for us.

Many years ago, I was in a sexless relationship. I have a healthy libido, and I had just never come across a man who deals with his sexuality all by himself, and truly didn’t like partner sex. It was like a chore for him, and he tried to avoid it. At some point in his life, he had decided he was ‘no good’ at it, and had left it at that. ‘Surely we can fix that somehow’, I thought. (Never try to fix your partners, please!!). Meanwhile, I was hoping and suffering. By and by, the situation took its toll. I felt unseen, and something very important in me felt unacknowledged. It took a toll on my self-esteem. It was time to do something. I knew about Tantra and dragged him to a Couples Weekend Retreat. And then another one! He must have loved me very much to step out of his comfort zone to such a degree, and I really want to acknowledge that, too.

For me, Tantra was where it all started. I stepped into my femininity and started to own it, instead of hiding it away. I embarked on a beautiful spiritual journey of heart-opening. It also transformed my relationship, brought intimacy and communication, and owning up to vulnerability, even though it didn’t bring sex back to a degree that I could truly let go, and enjoy.

Fast forward, I met Joseph Kramer, the founder of Sexological Bodywork, started training with him, certified in Sexological Bodywork and Somatic Sex Education, and founded my company Stella With Love.

I know what a difference it can make to be in a happy sexual relationship and to have satisfying solo play, and my endeavour is to bring this to others, too.

This lockdown is an opportunity for many of us to step into new and better ways, involving more of ourselves, and is a chance of taking close look at how we see ourselves because that might determine our actions.

There is no imperative to be sexual, not with your partner, nor with yourself.

I would just invite you to consider if you have decided at some point in your life that there is only this much pleasure available to you, and then left it at that? There may be another way!

I know very happy and loving sexless marriages, with separate bedrooms, where the higher sexed partner engages in regular extensive and satisfying solo play. Did I mention he is in his seventies?

I also know about men well in their seventies who are VERY sexually active, with one, or multiple, partners.

Our sexual journey is ongoing, and I hope that we will continue engaging with it, and find new pleasure zones and preferences all the time, and particularly as we get older.

I think it makes for happier lives to include our sexuality, and to engage with our sexual pleasure, and age is not really an excuse to refrain from it. On the contrary!

Yes, our libido might vary, however, the rule ‘use it, or lose it’ is also true. Body memory fades over time, and it’s good to remind ourselves of the source of so many delicious pleasures.

A lot of men I see in my private practice would like to find a solution for performance issues, and I decided to compile 80% of my tools in an E-book, which is the handbook for my 7-week online course for men. The booking deadline, to include 3 online group coaching calls in May, is Wednesday, May 6th.

The course is aimed at making solo play more satisfying and whole-bodied, falling in love again with your own sexuality, taking pleasure to new dimensions, and transforming your lovemaking skills via pleasure, and staying in the moment, rather than working towards a goal. Particularly, it teaches tools to last longer, because 60% of my male in-person clients would like to learn that, and have more fun in the bedroom.

It’s never too late to reinvent ourselves, and find new bliss – whether solo or with our partners – and we can all do with more pleasure in this long lockdown period! Join us on the journey! A small group of men is taking shape, and I’m looking forward to working with you. More info, and booking, here: https://stellawithlove.com/liberateyourlibido/

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