How Does a Recovering People Pleaser Know What They Want in Bed?

The first time I saw an adult penis, a primal force urged me to put it in my mouth. No, it wasn’t the dude’s hand shoving my head to his crotch. In fact, he said “no.” I was 19 and it was the summer after my sophomore year in college. He and I had parked under a bridge in a run-down industrial area in Provo, Utah. That morning, a Mormon temple officiant had pronounced us husband and wife (with God as a third, silent partner). We had time between our wedding luncheon and the pre-reception photoshoot to fool around. After a year of no-no-no, we finally had the green light to yes-yes-yes.Abstinence-only education left me woefully ignorant about the mechanics of sex, let alone pleasure. Sunday school lessons instilled a deeply rooted terror. With that foundation, I surprised myself with my lack of shyness in the honeymoon suite. For a long time, I wondered how I managed to transform from pathologically modest to sexually enthusiastic overnight. Then, after several years of therapy, I figured out my honeymoon trick: dissociation. I went numb. For 20 years, my husband was The Man, the Initiator, and I was The Woman, the Receiver. And it felt easy to cater to his needs, to center sex around his desires. In other words, I became a people pleaser.Purity culture teaches that our worth is our “virginity” and then, after the wedding day, appeasing our husbands’ sexual urges becomes our wifely duty. Although I left religion in my twenties, the insidious effects of purity culture molded me—and far too many women—into a helpmeet, servant, appeaser, people pleaser. Sex was over when he came, regardless of what my body felt. Or, more likely, what it didn’t feel.I used to take pride in my ability to go with the flow. It’s how I navigated a volatile upbringing as a middle child of seven. But I also avoided healthy conflict, stayed in unfulfilling relationships, and lost sense of what I wanted and needed. I was a queer, trans man playing the roles of woman and wife. For years, not even I knew I was pretending.It turns out, people pleasing isn’t a personality flaw; it’s a trauma response. Psychotherapist Cassidy Dallas says that in the bedroom, people pleasing occurs “when we only think about the other person’s experience and if they enjoyed themselves, versus whether I enjoyed myself and how the experience was for me.” By taking care of others—but abandoning oneself—this behavior tries to minimize threats. That threat could be physical abuse or sexual coercion, but it can also be as subtle as the unconscious fear of abandonment. Anxiety that the relationship will fail or emotional intimacy will disappear.It’s not all bad. People pleasers are experts at reading a room, making people feel safe and taken care of, and deescalating conflict. Friends say it made them great, attentive lovers. But in my experience, that attentiveness often came at the expense of my own agency. I left all decisions—from what was for dinner to which sex positions we tried—to someone else. But by trying to be not-a-burden, I became a burden.After I left my Mormon upbringing, I launched myself into the study of sexual and reproductive health. I stocked my bookshelf with tween-friendly puberty books and taught sex ed at my son’s middle school. After I transitioned, divorced, and began dating in the queer world, I embarked on a whole new education and learned that in order to heal I had to reshape my nervous system. The real task was overcoming what I’d internalized and rewriting it into the emotional, visceral wisdom of my body, per the advice of Dr. Laura Anderson, author of When Religion Hurts You. You can’t think your way out of sexual shame.Thankfully, there are countless resources available for people like me to overcome shame—from podcasts to the Purity Culture Recovery Guide, to the Wheel of Consent. It also helps to develop a personal sexual ethic. Reconnecting with one’s body and building self-trust are essential stages to overcoming people pleasing. Both take patience, self-compassion, and a willingness to try new things.For me, it took reconnecting with my bodily sensations through mindfulness and body scan meditations. As I learned to trust myself, I started voicing my preferences in small ways, like when my new husband asks what I want for takeout. These days, I pause first to sense what I crave: curry or kebab, and actually say it out loud. This might sound ridiculously simple, but making a choice and saying it out loud used to make my heart race with fear.With that foundation outside the bedroom, I feel empowered in the bedroom to say everything from “I’m not really feeling it today” to “a little to the left.” “Centering our own pleasure is incredibly vulnerable and badass,” says Dallas. Exploring my body and focusing on my pleasure with trusted, compassionate partners (and my vibrator) have been game changers.