What to Ask in Your Sex Assessment - plus some resources for clients
There are many different questions you can ask in any assessment, and whenever I hear another therapist describing what they ask I think, “Oh no, I haven’t been doing that!” The reality is that we can’t actually ask every question possible, so my advice is to take anything below you want to add into your assessments and don’t stress if you leave some out.
These question come from Martha Kauppi’s trainings. Martha is not EFT, but I saw some familiar EFT faces in this training so I feel like there is good overlap. I thought her training was excellent, and gave me a lot of good language and perspectives to make talking about sex more productive. The MOST important thing I got from the training was to normalize both partner’s desires, or lack of desires, whenever they are. It’s totally normal and ok to want sex, and totally normal and ok to not want sex. Also I really love that she is clear that she will never pressure or rush the lower libido partner into having sex. She says she’ll work with where each person is, and see if there is anything personally motivating about changing their sex life.
Her assessment questions are:
Willingness - When your partner wants to have sex, do you feel willing? (rule out coercion and consent violations)
Libido - Do you think about sex, dream about sex, or want to experience sex?
Pain - Does any kind of sexual touch feel painful or uncomfortable? (this is very important to not brush past or minimize, and resources for pelvic floor PT may be needed)
Arousal - Do you experience physical signs of arousal like hardness or wetness? (rule out sudden-onset loss of erection which might be a cardiac issue, and refer to their doctor)
Orgasm - Do you experience orgasm when you want to?
Satisfaction - Do you experience satisfaction at the end of a sexual interaction?
Then I like to explain the dual-control model of sex, which is better and more simply described as the “brakes and the gas.” Emily Nagoski’s wonderful book Come As You Are is great at explaining this, and in a shorter version she has a few podcast episodes I found helpful to share with clients like this one - How Desire Actually Works.
Basically I say something like, “Think of libido as coming with a brake and gas pedal. We’re meant to be able to put the brake on when we need to pivot to something important, like if you were about to have sex, or even in the middle of sex, and a child is sick all of a sudden. We want the body to put the brakes on desire and pivot towards the more important need. The gas are all the things that help you feel good and turned on. Often day-to-day things are the brakes in long-term relationships, like chores, arguing, being over-stimulated, being stressed at work, the thought your partner will be mad if you don’t have sex. Gas can be things like having some time alone first, taking a bath, having quality time with your partner, foreplay. Talking through this, do you all have a sense what might be some brakes and what might be some gas for each of you?”
Finally, I found this resource very helpful for helping people understand that their partner may have a different initiation style than they do. I wish I had this earlier for my more sentimental/emotional initiators!