If you’ve been following my story, this is the final part of this series where I dive into Bibi Brzozka’s Waves of Pleasure program on Mindvalley. Sometimes the deepest intimacy begins with telling the truth about what I like.
What pop culture teaches is how to make sex look good. Arch your back. Moan a little. Look longingly into the distance like you’re staring at the camera, willing the audience to have some kind of kundalini awakening through your nipples.
I don’t know about you, but no one taught me how to actually feel good. Especially when it comes down to sex after cancer.
It was like my hormones flatlined, my body was a stranger, and every touch hurt, tickled, or made me want to swat my husband’s hand away and say, “Try again next year.” (I didn’t, obviously.)
Pleasure, like Elvis, had left the building. And I really thought it was gone for good.
What the hell happened to sex (after cancer)?
Ask someone who’s gone through radiation, chemo, or surgery (besides me), and they’ll probably tell you the same thing: sex after cancer is the farthest thing from their mind.
And rightly so. They’re fighting to stay alive, after all. Pleasure doesn’t even register.
In fact, the stats paint a brutal picture:
- In one study, 80% of cancer patients reported struggling with sex after treatment. Yet, sexual health is still one of the most neglected areas of survivorship care.
- A UK study found that 18.2% of female cancer survivors were dissatisfied with their sex lives. That’s nearly double the rate of women without cancer.
- Nearly 78% of breast cancer survivors reported at least one sexual concern. We’re talking poor body image, sexual dysfunction, low enjoyment, or no sex at all, even four years post-diagnosis.
- Sexual dysfunction is one of the most common and least addressed side effects of cancer treatment.
- Among women in the years after diagnosis, over 55% struggled with arousal and 60% had trouble reaching orgasm.
And that’s just a handful of studies. Google (or whatever the search engines are these days) “sex after cancer,” and you’ll fall into a rabbit hole of pain, silence, unspoken grief, and nonexistent sexual confidence.
Reading all of this brings me back to the breast cancer survivor I mentioned in Part 4. Her cancer experience left such deep trauma that the thought of being intimate with her husband again made her physically shudder.
So here we are, being taught that sex is performative. Then cancer strips us of sensation, confidence, and sometimes even identity. What are we left with?
A body that survived. But a sex life that might not have.
Bibi Brzozka said pleasure was mine to claim
Before Bibi’s program, I thought a thriving sex life was something that either happened to you or didn’t. Like getting struck by lightning or winning a cosmic orgasm lottery.
You either had a partner who “got it,” or you didn’t. And if things fizzled, you quietly blamed your hormones, your stress, or your granny panties.
But then, there’s this one line she said that brought the culmination of eight days of learning together:
Your pleasure is your responsibility.
That sounds like a “duh” statement. But it never really dawned on me that I could take the reins without making it seem like some B-rated BDSM movie. And it seems that I’m not alone in this…
A survey by the American Sexual Health Association found that three out of four couples dealing with sexual issues aren’t honest with their partners about it.
That could very well be due to sexual shame, which plays a major role in holding us, women, back from having an open sex talk with our partner. Even when we want to, embarrassment and fear of judgment can shut the whole thing down before a single word leaves our mouths.
What’s more, what really stings is that, according to the American Sexual Health Association survey, so many women are already bracing for things to get worse. Over a third over 40 have already written off their future sex life, and that resignation often starts with silence.
Shows like Bridgerton and The Buccaneers don’t exactly help. They’re based on young women who know nothing about sex and expect their husbands to teach them everything.
But, as Bibi points out, my pleasure is my responsibility.
Duke of Hastings be damned.
My pleasure, my rules
I honestly don’t really remember sex before cancer. I mean, I remember having grand ol’ times. But nothing I’d ever describe as “mind-blowing.”
It’s funny, though, because when Bibi talked about how we’re each responsible for our own pleasure, I realized I’d kind of already been doing that. Unconsciously.
You see, I was diagnosed one month before my wedding. So I wasn’t about to take sex off the table. I wasn’t about to fall for the sex myth that pleasure dies as you age (or, in my case, as I crash-landed into menopause before I even turned 40).
With sex after cancer, I experimented with what felt…well, not hurt. But it also wasn’t like I knew different methods to feel “not hurt.”
Dr. Amy Killen, in her Mindvalley program The Science of Great Sex, said, “Sex gives us the opportunity to deeply connect with a partner. It gives us the opportunity to exercise our humanness in a world and a time where that’s becoming more and more of a rarity.”
And that’s exactly what I wanted. Whether I realized it or not, I deeply wanted to connect with my husband. More than that, I deeply wanted to connect with myself.
Maybe that’s why Bibi’s words, “Your pleasure is your responsibility,” made so much sense.
After all, how could I expect anyone to follow my lead if I hadn’t learned to take it?