Episode 04: Creating a Sexual Menu

Imagine going to a restaurant where you like EVERYTHING on the menu – how exciting is that? In today's episode, Dr. Alexis Anderson introduces the concept of a sexual menu, a tool for individuals and those in interpersonal sexual relationships to explore their sexuality in a safe and pleasurable way. She explains how to create a sexual menu, the importance of communication in relationships, and shares real-life examples of how clients have successfully used this concept to enhance their intimacy and connection. The episode emphasizes the significance of adapting sexual practices as bodies change over time and encourages listeners to embrace creativity and exploration in their sexual lives. 
 

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SHOW NOTES  

0:57 – A welcome and introduction to what we are talking about today! 

1:55 – What is a “sexual menu”? 

2:24 – Alexis leads us through an exercise to create/co-create our own sexual menu! 

5:50 – Alexis describes how to further explore some of the “NOs” that come out of this exercise (along with examples and communication scenarios) 

9:57 – Alexis shares a variety of reasons why folks might use a sexual menu, including some client examples 

16:20 – Alexis brings the episode to a close with a review of what we talked about 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, and welcome to the Alexis Anderson Podcast. I'm your host, Alexis Anderson, pelvic health physiotherapist and guide for anyone navigating the messy, confusing, and often isolating world of pelvic and sexual health. This season, we're breaking down the myths, sharing real stories, and giving you evidence-informed tools to understand your body. Whether you're a patient, a clinician, or someone quietly struggling, you're in the right place. Let's take the shame out of the conversation, bring clarity where there's confusion, and make pelvic health feel human, hopeful, and actually talked about. Before we get into it, let's talk the legal stuff. While I am a physical therapist, I am not your personal physical therapist. So please remember, this content is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for personalized medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Now let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the Alexis Anderson Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Alexis Anderson, Doctor of Physical Therapy. I am so happy you are here today, and I am so excited for today's episode. We will be talking about a sexual menu. Most people have never heard of a sexual menu, so I am super excited to be talking about it. I did not come up with the sexual menu myself. I learned about the sexual menu from my pals, from my professional colleagues who are sexual therapists, who are sexual health counselors, who are psychologists. So cannot take credit, but I am so, so, so excited to share it with you today. We'll talk about what the sexual menu is, how you can use it, and I'll go over some examples of its application at the end of the episode today. So please tell me what you think in the comments. I'm so excited to share this with you, but I'm more excited to see what you think about it and how maybe you applied it yourself. So let's get into it. What is a sexual menu? Basically, a sexual menu is a menu that you can create for yourself. You can create with a partner or partners. It's a way to explore your sexuality, and it is a way to create a safe space for you to play in by yourself and/or with your partner or partners that feels safe and that feels extremely pleasurable. So let's get into the details. To start, you can take out a piece of paper and something to write with. Free write, nothing is off limits. This is your menu that you are going to look at by yourself. This is your menu that you can share with your partner or your partners. And feel free to use all of your senses. Write down all of the things that give you joy. Write down all of the things that give you pleasure. Write down things that you want to explore that you're curious about. What are some things that you would like to see? What are some things that you have seen that give you pleasure, that give you joy? What are some things that you would like to smell? What are some things that you haven't smelt before but are curious about? What are some things that you would like to feel? How would you like to feel and where on your body? What are some things that you would like to touch? Different fabrics, different textures. Incorporate different tools or environments. What are some things that you would like to hear? Sounds, music. What are some things that you would like to taste? Things that you know that you like to taste, or things that you are curious about tasting. This could be textures, this could be different flavors, right? So just really allow your imagination to go wild. Think about environments that you know you like to be in or that you're curious about. Incorporate all of your senses, or maybe take a sense away, maybe take away your vision, maybe take away your sense of touch or your sense of smell. These are just some ideas to get you thinking and to get those creative juices flowing. Any and everything goes. This is your menu. Write it all down, make a list, get wild, get creative, have fun. You can do this by yourself andor you can do it with a partner or partners. If you're doing this by yourself, now you have this piece of paper that lists all of these fun, exciting new things that you can try sexually. It's really gonna expand your sexual horizon. It's gonna expand the use of your senses. And it's so fun because sometimes we get into a rut. We get into a rut with our masturbation practices, we get into a rut with our partners. And so this is a fun way that you can shake things up and keep it interesting. Now, if you're doing this with a partner, your partner's gonna be doing the same thing. You're going to write out your sexual menu, your sexual list, your ideas, and they're gonna do the same. Then you're gonna switch papers and you're gonna look at their menu and they're gonna look at your menu. Take a pen or pencil, you're gonna circle the things that don't make you feel safe. Maybe there's just a hard no. You would never try it, or you don't have any interest in trying it, you're afraid to try it. It causes you pain. Maybe it's uncomfortable, maybe you are unable to do it for some reason. Doesn't matter. You're gonna circle all your nos. Your partner is gonna circle all of their nos. Then you're gonna take all of the yeses and you can combine your menu with your partner's menu. So if you're doing this with a partner, now you have a fun, sexy, safe space to play in. You can stop here and have this co-created sexual menu that you have developed with you and your partner. Or you can explore the no's. I have a lot of patients who would like to explore the nos with their partners because those nos or do-not-do's are the things that are really important to them. Now let's explore the nos together. Let's take an obvious one. Maybe your partner has penetration on their sexual menu and you do not feel safe with penetration at this time. Maybe you have pain, maybe you have experienced trauma, maybe you have never experienced penetration before, and you're reluctant to try. Whatever the case may be, this is an opportunity to explore why penetration is on your partner's list and not on yours. So, for example, let's say my partner has penetration on their list and it's not on mine. I would ask my partner, okay, what do you want to penetrate and why? What is the sensation that you are looking to feel? Or what is it about penetration that you want to experience? I'll give you an example of my fictitious partner. Maybe my partner is a penis owner and they say, Well, I really like the sensation of something compressing and rubbing and stroking around my penis. I love that sensation. I would say, okay, great. I'm not personally ready for penetration, but I appreciate the fact that you want those sensations and you want that experience. Is there a different way that we can maybe create that experience for you without you penetrating me? And there is. So there are masturbation sleeves for penis owners. So now you can incorporate a tool, a toy, into your sexual experience. So if my partner would like to penetrate something, now I have a masturbation sleeve that is made for penises that we can incorporate into our sexual practice. What's great about this is let's say I'm somebody who has experienced trauma and I'm not ready to have my partner's penis around my genitalia just yet. We're working on that. Maybe my partner and I are working on that with a physical therapist, a pelvic floor physical therapist. Maybe we are working on that with a sexual health provider, like a sexual counselor, a sexual therapist, whatever the case may be. I'm going to give you an example of how you can use that penetrative sleeve. Maybe I don't feel comfortable holding it just yet. Maybe my partner feels comfortable holding it. So now my partner can hold the penetrative sleeve and they can penetrate the sleeve while my partner and I engage in our shared sexual menu, sexual acts. And maybe we play in that sexy, safe space for a while. And then once I feel really comfortable with that, we may revisit our sexual menu. And now maybe I'm ready to have that penetration sleeve a little bit closer to my body. Then we can progress to that. Maybe after some time when I feel safety and I feel pleasure around our experience with my partner using the penetration sleeve themselves, maybe I feel comfortable holding it for them. So now I can hold that masturbation sleeve and then my partner can penetrate it. Just to give you more examples, maybe I don't feel comfortable with my partner's penis around my vaginal area yet. So I can hold the sleeve and I can put it in different places around my body until I feel comfortable enough to maybe put it down towards my waist. So these are examples how you can start in one place and you can progress to another. This is an example of how I took a no from a sexual menu and I explored it with my partner. I asked them what they liked about it, what they wanted to feel, what that experience gave them. And then we came up with a creative way so that my partner's needs could be met as well as mine. So now that you and your partner are partners, have your sexual menus, now you have this incredibly fun, sexy, safe space to play in. You can play in this space until you and your partner are partners are satisfied and until you're ready to revise it again. Oftentimes, restaurants have a summer, a spring, a fall, a winter menu, and you're no different. Our bodies are going to change over time. And so should our sexual practices. There may be some things that worked in the past, maybe that one move that you used to do by yourself, or maybe that one move or two moves or flow that you used to do with your partner that really got you off is just not working anymore. That's okay, and that is normal. I have patients who have different injuries. Maybe they've hurt their back. Maybe they've had surgery on a certain part of their body. I have lots of patients who have different types of cancers: prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, bladder cancer, colon cancer. And a lot of these clients have had chemotherapy and or they've had radiation to different parts of their body that has now changed it, maybe momentarily or permanently. I have patients with amputations, spinal cord injuries, you name it. So your sexual menu can really serve as a fun tool to implement when you're going through these changes and or you're having these experiences. Maybe you've had bottom surgery, maybe you have had top surgery, maybe you've just had breast cancer and have had a breast reconstruction, a brain injury. The possibilities are truly endless. That's why I love the sexual menu. Anybody can use it, and it is really made for all bodies. Now I'm going to share some examples of how the sexual menu has been used with some of my clients and or with some of my colleagues' clients. For example, there is a couple. She is a vagina owner and he is a penis owner. She has had radiation therapy into her pelvis that no longer gives her the ability to accept vaginal penetration. So she and her partner have been practicing anal penetration. She had a relapse and had to have more radiation into her pelvis that has resulted in her no longer being able to accept erectile penetration. This couple now feels like their sexual health has died and they are really struggling to find practices to make that intimate connection once again. So they do the sexual menu. She puts on her sexual menu painting. She said, This is the only thing I can come up with. This is the only thing that makes me happy now. Her partner comes up with one thing as well. He says, I love rolling around in the covers with her. I love feeling her body. Fabulous. Can we combine the two? Is there a world where you can lay out a big sheet of paper with plastic underneath? Can you pull out some body paints? And can you roll around in these body paints together? You can caress each other, you can make out, you can do whatever feels good and safe for the both of you. And when you're done, now you have this beautiful piece of art that you can hang on your wall. This is a fabulous illustration of a couple who thought that their sex life was over, that they did not have any space to connect. And now not only are they connecting, but they're creating a beautiful piece of art. Let's talk about another example. I have a patient who's a chef, and unfortunately, she experienced sexual assault and was trying to get back into her sexual practice with her partner. These two people identify as female and they both have vaginas. So my patient who's a chef wrote on her sexual menu that she loves to cook and she likes to cook new, exciting recipes. Her partner wrote that she always loved the game hide and seek and she really liked the sensation of not being able to see, and she was reliant on all of her other senses. So we say, great, can you combine these two together into something simple? What they came up with is one partner was going to cook food, and the other partner was going to be blindfolded, and she was going to be fed all of these delicious little delicacies that her partner made for her. This was a really safe way for both of them to connect in a fun, safe, creative way where they were both getting their needs met. How fun is that to be blindfolded and be fed food that your partner made for you? Fun, exciting, flavorful, sign me up. I'll give you another example. I had a couple who had not participated in sexual activity in years. My client had been dealing with pelvic floor issues and just cut that part of his life out. And unfortunately, he and his partner just didn't talk about it. They just kind of erased it from their relationship. But when asking him about his sexual health and wanting to step back into that, he finally felt ready. So I had he and his partner do the sexual menu activity together. What they, because it had been so long since they had participated in any sexual activity, they really wanted to connect with touch. So for them, their combined sexual menu, what they came up with was just starting by sitting back to back. They took off their shirts, they set a timer, they got in a quiet room, lit candles, played relaxing music, and sat back to back. They did this for about five minutes. They came back and said that it was the most intimate experience that they had ever had. They were able to feel the warmth and the texture of each other's skin. They were able to feel their partner's heartbeat. And what was fascinating is that when they first started this practice, they could feel each other's hearts racing, they could feel each other breathing really quickly and shallow. But the more that they sat there and the more comfortable they felt, the more they relaxed. And they had this experience where they were able to soothe each other and they felt what it was like for them and their partner to experience this almost stress-like response. But then together they experienced how their heart rate slowed, their respiratory rate slowed, and then it was this beautiful moment of soothing connection. So during today's episode, we talked about the sexual menu, how you can do it, why you might do it, and I talked about some examples of its use. I hope you have so much fun with this. Try out this sexual menu by yourself, with your partner, or with your partners. Get fun, get wild, have a good time, and let me know how it goes for you. I'm so interested to hear how this works out. And I'm super excited that you joined me today. Thank you so much for spending this time with me, and I can't wait to connect with you in the next episode. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode of the Alexis Anderson Podcast. I hope you learned something that brings you more clarity, validation, and compassion for your body and your journey. If this episode supported you or you think you could help someone else, please share it, leave a review, or send it to someone who might need to hear it. And if you're a clinician or patient looking for more resources, tools, or support, you'll find everything linked in the show notes. Remember, you're not alone, you're not broken, and treatment exists that treats you as a whole person. I'll see you in the next episode.