From Avoiding Sex to Loving It: Real Client Data

If you've been wondering whether your sex life can actually be different, this is the evidence.

This episode is like the before and after photos you've been needing that real people get real change. 

We're going into details about specific goals and what actually changes when people do real, structured work on desire, intimacy, and connection. Not inspiration. Not theory. Real people, real goals, real numbers — tracked from start to finish. 

In this episode:

• What people who come to somatic intimacy coaching actually say they want — and how many have already tried therapy, books, and everything else
• Why going from a 1 to an 8 in fulfillment on "fun, enjoyable sex" in six months is possible even when you've never been there before
• How desire discrepancy works when both partners get support — and why it's never just one person's problem
• What shifts for higher-desire partners who struggle with self-worth
• Why coaching moves the needle when other approaches haven't — and what the Pleasure Path Method actually looks like step by step

Get my free guide: Get Out of Your Head: A Starter Guide to Releasing the Pressure, Shame, and "Shoulds" Around Intimacy at https://laurajurgens.com/guide

Find out about the Pleasure Path Diagnostic here: https://laurajurgens.com/diagnostic/

Find out more about my offerings and read the blog: https://laurajurgens.com/

Copyright notice: All content in this podcast is copyrighted and copying, scraping, data mining, or using the content to train AI is prohibited. 

Transcript

From Avoiding Sex to Loving It: Real Client Data

Pleasure Uprising Podcast Transcript

Welcome to Pleasure Uprising. I'm Dr. Laura Jurgens — intimacy coach, somatic practitioner, and your guide to getting out of your head and into your body, your desire, and your real capacity for connection. This show is for people who are done performing and ready to actually feel it. Let's go.

Hey everyone, welcome. Today we are going to talk about some real client data and real client stories. I am excited to share this with you.

I've been thinking this past week about what it's like to be stuck somewhere for a while. I remember what that felt like for me. One of the really hard things about being stuck in a particular way of being — especially when it doesn't feel great — is that it can start feeling like your identity. Like who you are.

When you're having a struggle with something, when something is hard — including sex, intimacy, connection in your relationship, emotional connection, physical connection, or even just connection to yourself — it can start feeling like that's just normal. If you've been around here a while, you know that connection to yourself is, to me, absolutely the foundation of connection with anybody else. Connection with your own sexuality is the most important part of having a really fulfilling sex life — not your performance for somebody else, but what lights you up.

When you haven't been there for a while, or when you feel like you have a sense of what you want but you're having a really hard time connecting to your partner, or something just isn't working in your sex life, it can start feeling like that's just how it is. People say things like this to me all the time: "It's been like this for so long." "I've never really felt differently, so I don't even know what that would be like." "I can't even imagine it being different." "It's been this way so long it feels impossible to change."

A lot of times this gets reinforced when you've tried the wrong tools. You've tried something, it hasn't worked, and that can cement the idea that nothing works. Of course that's not true — it was just the wrong tool — but it can really feel that way.

I've been there. And I wanted to bring you this episode because when I was in a place where I wasn't even in the "I need to figure this out" mode about my own sexuality — I was just kind of wondering, is this who I am? Is this it? Is this all I get? — it started to feel like normal. Partly because when we're there, we tend to wait it out as if it's going to magically get better on its own. It doesn't. And then we start identifying with being in the problem, almost as if we are the problem, or our partner is the problem.

I think it's so important to look outside of ourselves and outside of our relationship for evidence that other people who have been in the same place can change it. We get that in a lot of areas of life — you can look around and see people who have built muscle, changed careers, shifted their health. It's a lot harder to do that with your sex life and your closest romantic partnership, because there aren't a lot of people showing you real data and real transformation. It feels private. People aren't sharing that.

So I wanted to bring some anonymized client stories — with permission — so you get to see those behind-the-scenes things you don't normally get access to. That's what we're doing today. I want to help wiggle that belief — that erroneous, not-true belief — that wherever you're stuck is just who you are now. And I want to do that by giving you real data, real people, real numbers. I'll walk you through what their goals were so you can see if any of them resonate with you, and get some examples of the kinds of places people are feeling stuck.

These are not all of my clients — that would be a very long podcast. These are just a few people who I think span some common issues.

A note on how I track this: When every client starts with me, they identify their most important intentions or goals and rate their current level of fulfillment — zero being completely unfulfilled, ten being completely fulfilled. We do that at the start, check in around three months, and again at six. Most people work with me for about six to nine months. Some do three, some longer, depending on where they're starting and what comes up along the way. Today we're focused on people who worked with me for three to six months, so you can see what changed in that window.

I've changed everyone's names. All of this is shared with permission.

Jamie

Jamie is a woman in her 30s who worked with me for six months. When she started, she had been in an avoidance pattern — avoiding sex with her partner. She felt quite criticized, and the word she used to describe how she showed up was wooden. She was trying to do it right. She was hyper-competent in her life but not present in her body, completely up in her head, and had never experienced really joyful, pleasurable sex.

Side note: she had already done a lot of other work before coming to me. That's really common with my clients. They've done therapy, sometimes other coaching, they've read all the books. They've made a lot of progress in other areas of their lives. But this one remains stuck.

Her three goals when she came to me:

1. Comfort with my own sexuality — fulfillment rating: 3 out of 10
2. Getting out of my head and overcoming fear — she described a lot of anxiety around sexuality, fear of doing it wrong, which is why she put those two together. Fulfillment rating: 3
3. Fun — sex that's actually comfortable and enjoyable — fulfillment rating: 1

A side note on the numbers: almost nobody ever gives themselves a zero or a ten. People almost always land between one and nine, and I think that's actually wise. We rarely feel completely and utterly unfulfilled with something, or completely done with our growth.

Six months later:

• Comfort with her own sexuality: 7
• Out of her head: 9
• Fun, enjoyable sex: 8

She told me she left herself a little wiggle room because she knew she could keep growing — and I love that for her, because she absolutely will.

In her words: "I'm having better sex than I ever thought possible. I can actually ask for what I want with no shame. I'm out of my head finally, and really in my body — and it's just totally fun."

She and her partner were having the time of their life. He had stopped criticizing her. And she discovered she was pretty amazing at sex when she wasn't in her head, wasn't being criticized, and wasn't anxious about it.

She had the tools, and she was able to fly free without my scaffolding to build the rest of her joy and satisfaction. Seven to nine on every single goal — in six months — from a person who had never had fun or enjoyable sex before in her life. She went from a one to an eight.

I say this because I really want that to land. She was not starting from an easy place. She came in exhausted and really not sure anything could change. And that can change — even when you start there.

I'm not sharing any of these stories to tell you that you have to work with me. My purpose in this podcast is never to hard sell anyone, especially about working with me. We should only work together if we're the right fit. But I want you to believe that you can have what you want. I want you to believe things can be different for you, and not to give up on yourself. That's what I want you to take from that story.

Gregory and Amy

Gregory and Amy are a married couple — together for ten years. I coached them both, sometimes individually and sometimes together, which is how I always work with couples.

When they came to me, Amy described herself as the lower-desire partner. She said she felt really shut down. She was a working professional, really smart and competent, had a newer ADHD diagnosis she wasn't sure how to factor in, and some relational trauma from her family history — which comes up a lot in my practice, and which I have myself, so I understand the role it plays. It really does play a big role; we can't discount it.

Gregory was actually somewhat similar in his history, but his way of coping was to put a lot of emphasis on sex as personal validation. So when Amy didn't want to have sex, he took rejection really hard. He felt undesirable. He was dealing with body image issues, feeling frustrated, and didn't know how to ask for what he needed until he'd already hit his limit. Then they'd be fighting — which was not helping them get back to sexy times.

When they started, I'm going to give you both Amy's goals and Gregory's goals, because everybody sets individual goals even as couples. You are individual humans starting in different places, and your individual needs deserve their own space and intention.

Amy's three goals:

1. Move past shame to accept the sexual parts of myself — she had significant religious shame from growing up, and body shame from moving through the world as a woman. Starting fulfillment: 2
2. Regularly desire authentic intimacy with my partner — starting fulfillment: 3
3. Identify and enforce my own limits with confidence — she was having a really hard time with people-pleasing, crossing her own limits, and trying to soothe Gregory's sense of rejection by overriding her own desire and having sex when she didn't want to. This was actually compounding the problem for both of them, even though they didn't know it. That pattern had roots in her childhood — people-pleasing as a way of creating safety — and so it made complete sense that it showed up in her sex life. Starting fulfillment: 2

Amy's numbers at the ten-week check-in (we check in a little before three months so we have wiggle room to do extra work if needed):

• Moving past shame: 2 → 7
• Regularly desiring authentic intimacy: 3 → 7
• Identifying and enforcing her own limits: 2 → 9

At six months:

• Moving past shame: 9
• Regularly desiring authentic intimacy: 9
• Identifying and enforcing her own limits: 9

She had a big leap in the beginning, and then a little more room to solidify and grow in the last few months. And I think those final bumps are really about being able to do it on your own — to feel genuinely confident when you graduate, like: I've got this. I know how to do this for myself now. That's something the numbers don't totally capture, but it's really embedded in there.

For Amy, the boundaries work — going from a two to a nine — was a lot about not just white-knuckling it while feeling scared, but being able to really do it. And to have Gregory supporting her in doing it. That was really beautiful to see.

Gregory's four goals:

1. More regular sex that's playful and doesn't feel pressured — there was a lot of hidden pressure on both sides: performance pressure for him, and that undercurrent of "she's doing this for me but not really for herself," which doesn't feel great for anyone. Starting fulfillment: 1
2. Feeling okay in myself when we're not having sex — he said: "I'm doing better than I was before I went to therapy, but when we don't have sex, I still really feel bad." Starting fulfillment: 4
3. Advocating for myself before getting overly frustrated — learning to speak up for his emotional needs, his needs for affection and connection, before reaching his limit. Starting fulfillment: 2
4. Feeling comfortable and desirable in my body — starting fulfillment: 3

Gregory's numbers at ten weeks and six months:

• More regular, playful, unpressured sex: 1 → 6 → 8.5
• Feeling okay when they're not having sex: 4 → 7 → 9
• Advocating before hitting frustration: 2 → 6 → 9
• Comfortable and desirable in his body: 3 → 6 → 8.5

(I love it when people go to decimal points. That's very much my kind of person.)

Body image from a 3 to an 8.5 in six months. That's real.

I want to reflect on how significant it is to make these changes in six months when you've been sitting on this stuff for ten years. And the really important thing about this couple's story is that when there's a desire gap or libido discrepancy and that's the presenting issue, we tend to think that's the main thing. It usually isn't. There's a whole constellation of stuff going on — and you can see that when you just listen to people's individual goals. It's not just about having more sex and better sex, though that's part of it. There are all these other pieces, and it's not a story of one person's problem. It's two bodies, two nervous systems, two histories, two sets of patterns and coping mechanisms, two sets of attachment wounds. The work from one person feeds back in a positive way to support the other.

The more Gregory was feeling comfortable and desirable in his body, the easier it was for his partner to desire him. Because I can promise you: when somebody's having a lot of body image issues, it is not sexy. It's not sexy when you're constantly trying to prop up your partner's ego, or you're feeling like you're on the hook for having sex with them so that they feel better about themselves. That is not hot. So you can see how these things actually play into each other — and into the fulfillment of the couple together.

Kudos to them. I am super proud of them and so glad I got to work with them.

Bethany

Bethany is a higher-libido woman whose partner is not in coaching. She's still working with me, so I'm going to give you just her three-month numbers.

She came in as the higher-desire partner — this wasn't about low libido. Her self-worth had gotten completely tangled up in whether her partner wanted her. She was making a lot of meaning out of his avoidance, waiting and hoping and feeling bad, and doing a lot of people-pleasing — trying to get sex by making him feel good without talking about it directly. Really not feeling good about herself.

Her four goals:

1. Stopping people-pleasing — starting fulfillment: 1
2. I don't want my self-worth to be tied to whether my partner wants sex — starting fulfillment: 3
3. Getting out of my head and into my body — starting fulfillment: 2
4. Feeling good about myself and not worrying so much — starting fulfillment: 3

At ten weeks:

• Stopping people-pleasing: 1 → 7
• Self-worth no longer tied to whether her partner initiates: 3 → 8
• Getting out of her head and into her body: 2 → 6
• Feeling good about herself, stopping the constant worry: 3 → 8

Badass, right?

And all of that happened without her partner coming to coaching, without him even being aware the coaching was happening. That's really common. A lot of clients don't tell their partners initially, for all kinds of legitimate reasons. It can feel fragile at first. They don't want their partner to have expectations. Sometimes they're still carrying sexual shame about their own desires and wants. That's all totally legitimate. This is private. You're allowed to work on yourself without explaining it to anyone. You're allowed to invest in yourself without explaining it to anyone.

When people are ready to start talking to their partner about it, I'll often help them practice how to have that conversation so it feels easy. And it usually goes really well. A lot of times the partner has actually noticed something shifting and asks about it — because things are feeling so much better in the relationship that they're like, "So what magic are you doing lately? Because this is so much nicer."

She's having real results without her partner needing to participate yet, and she's feeling really good about her own sexuality without needing him to change. And from that place, it actually puts so much less pressure on the partner to change that often they start changing anyway. She'd already seen some evidence of that. There's more to do once everything's out in the open — and she might add more goals around that — but right now she's feeling really solid in herself and really great about breaking her own patterns. I absolutely love that for her.

Because when one person in a dynamic changes, the whole dynamic changes. And you don't actually always need both people in the room — and certainly not at the same time.

Why This Works — And Why It's Okay to Need Help

I hope some of that resonated with you. Maybe the goals resonated. Maybe you can see yourself in one of those people.

In our culture there's this idea that we're supposed to just magically know how to do sex and intimacy — and that if you need help with desire, arousal, intimacy, or connection, something is fundamentally broken in you. Like it's the dark side of the happily-ever-after narrative, where we assume everything stays perfect forever, and if it doesn't, our brain tells us we were "not meant to be" and we need to either stick it out and suffer or find a new partner.

Pro tip: most people are going to repeat the same patterns with a new partner unless they learn some new ways of being. And that's not a bad thing to have to learn. Breaking up and starting over isn't a bad thing either — I have no judgment for any of it, and sometimes it's absolutely the right call. But just because something isn't working doesn't mean you're doomed, or that this is all you get, or that it can't change. And it doesn't take the same ten years it took to get here.

People with great sex lives didn't just naturally and magically figure it out. They either had fewer obstacles — which a few people are fortunate enough to be born into — or they had help. Or both. And most of the time, people who have genuinely wonderful sex lives have gotten there intentionally through a lot of real work.

A couple of notes about the method I use — not because it's the only method, but because I know it works, and that's why I track it. I want to make sure what I'm doing actually works for people. I also couldn't sell something that didn't; it wouldn't work for my business model since most of my clients come through referrals.

The Pleasure Path Method moves through four stages:

1. Understand — your nervous system, your personal history, your relational history, and the actual relationship dynamics going on. Getting genuinely curious about who you are and what your unique erotic makeup is.
2. Discover — what your body actually responds to, what lights you up, what hits the brakes. We figure out the shape of your puzzle piece.
3. Express — learning to communicate what you want, what you need, and what you don't want, without bracing for disconnection. How to hold a limit kindly. How to express what's true for you.
4. Connect — where everything integrates into the relationship, or into relational skills if you're single. How to repair, how to really listen, how to come to a conversation cleanly and ask for what you want.

We're not just learning about these things — we're building new patterns in the body through practice. Reading about swimming doesn't make you a better swimmer. You need the practice environment. That's what I do: we practice.

None of this is a magic wand. If I had one, I would absolutely sell it — that would be a hot ticket item. But I don't. It takes effort, time, and a financial investment, because I have bills to pay too. But there are real results and real movement.

Whatever you choose to do: please don't stay stuck in the belief that this is all you get, or that nothing works, or that it can't ever be different. That is just not true. And I hope these numbers have shown you that — even when you start from a rough place with not a lot of hope or evidence, it can really change.

Thanks for being here. I'll see you next week.

Hey, before you go — I want to invite you to check out one of my favorite things I've ever created. It's a free guide called Get Out of Your Head: A Starter Guide to Releasing the Pressure, Shame, and Shoulds Around Intimacy. It has four reflection exercises that go deeper than anything you'll find in a typical freebie, and most people feel a shift just after part one. Grab it at laurajurgens.com/guide — link is in the show notes.

And if you're ready to find out what your specific path looks like, I'd love to talk. Booking info is also in the show notes. I will see you here next week.