Understanding the narratives of your sexual formation helps you fill the gaps of your sex education. You can tackle this by writing down the messages that you were told about the definition of sex, the pleasure anatomy of your body, and the way in which consent is given and received.

More specifically, deconstructing early sex messages and narratives we were told can look like:

- Identifying who told you about sex and what was the overall message you received.

- Exploring what our current partners or previous partners may have told us — and how we may have internalized that.

- Or looking at current sex narratives from family or society that impact our sex lives in adulthood — and what to do about them.

One experience that I hear quite often is when young women are told that they must dress or act a certain way so that they don’t tempt a man or make a man “stumble.” This imprints the suggestion that we are responsible for men’s pleasure. As we become adults, this results in a host of problematic experiences like thinking your male partner has sexual "needs" and it is your duty to meet them. Or thinking that your partner’s libido is the standard to which you must live up to...and if you don’t you label yourself with low libido. It can lead to having sex when you don’t really want to because you think you should, creating sex that feels like a chore. Making girls and young women feel responsible for the arousal of men creates a truckload of problems in adulthood.

We cannot discount the impact of purity culture and other belief systems in our lives as well as other social and cultural influences like media and porn. These messages are carried into adulthood and will surely disrupt your sex life unless you actively work to dismantle them