We don’t know about you, but nothing turns us on like waking up at 6:30am to put the garbage out on the curb. Or a steamy session of scrubbing bath tile grout. It’s almost as hot as filing taxes, amiright?
Listen. Between chores, work, kids, and general life stuff, eroticism isn’t always easy to come by. But maintaining a sexy marriage – or a sexy sense of self – is key to your self-confidence. So how do you find your inner sex kitten, when the rest of you feels like an all-purpose workhorse?
Easy: pick an action item from the list below. Here are six methods to keep you feeling sexy day-to-day, all designed to meld into your actual life – not a fantasy one.
1. Find Role Models
For a lot of women, “me time” consists of…peeing. And with exactly 90 seconds of solitude, what’s a girl to do, but scroll Instagram?
We’ll tell you. Find sex positive content creators who remind you of…you. Folks who share your age, your gender, your body type – and, simultaneously, post sensual content of themselves. It’s a psychological trick many sex educators use, to help clients broaden their beliefs about who “gets” to be sexual. “Oh, but I have to lose 20 pounds to feel sexy…” – no, you don’t. Eroticism is a state of mind, not a state of body.
When you see people who aren’t so different from you expressing themselves in a sexual light, it gives you permission to do the same. Not that you have to run out and get on OnlyFans, or post sexy selfies on Insta – this is simply an exercise in challenging your assumptions about who gets to feel attractive and playful. Look for hashtags #agepositive, #sexysenior, #sexyover40 and #sexyover50.
2. Move Your Body
Sometimes, the only way to turn off your mental ticker tape is to engross yourself in movement. And that’s helpful, because it’s hard to feel like a sex kitten if you’re inner monologue falls somewhere between “do I need to go to the bank today?” and “CALL PODIATRIST FOR PRESCRIPTION REFILL.”
If movement isn’t currently part of your routine, you can start any way you like. Walking the dog, strolling with a friend. But we challenge you to seek out movement that gets you in your body, in a way that shuts your brain off… and turns your senses on. Hatha yoga for example, where you’ll feel your muscles elongate, you’ll hear the vibey music, and you’ll probably smell some incense. Even something sensual, like beginner pole dancing (you heard us) – because when you move around a pole, you quickly learn that the simple act of walking can be seductive indeed.
The goal here is to help you become more embodied. To start living more from the neck down, rather than the neck up…as so many of us have been trained to do.
3. Dress to Impress (Yourself)
Forget male gaze, female gaze – hell, anyone’s gaze. When it comes to feeling like a sex kitten, what matters most is your gaze. Do you like what you see, when you look in the mirror?
The patron saint of style, Queer Eye’s Tan France, has some choice words here. "Style is dressing the way that makes you feel confident, with clothing appropriate for you, your age, your body type. I'm never massively concerned about what somebody is wearing, as long as it makes them feel really good about themselves." And that’s the jams: do the clothes you wear make you feel good? If not, book a one-time session with a style consultant, who can talk to you about how you’d like to self-present – then point you in the right direction.
We’re talking about feeling hot here, but when it comes to clothes, hackneyed advice abounds. “How to feel sexy? Buy lingerie!” In our opinion, that’s thinking too small. Invest your money in the clothes that most people are going to see, most of the time. That’s going to have a much bigger impact on the way you move through the world, than a teddy that stays on for approximately 35 seconds prior to removal.
4. Schedule in Transition Time
For every woman we know, it’s impossible to transition immediately from life mode to sex goddess mode. Think about it: how realistic is it to clean up the kitchen after dinner, sponge-in-hand, then immediately to your partner like – “take me now, I’m nothing but a wanton, erotic sex nymph.” –?
Um, no. You need time after dinner is done, the kids are down and life generally in order, before you can let your mind unfurl like that. And while it would be ideal to have date night every night, that’s probably not going to happen. So try the next best thing: take a bath. Lay down. Light a candle. Touch yourself with something that smells nice. However you like to rest, take a moment for yourself before sexy times – even just 20 minutes. Because whether you’ve been with a partner for 15 years or 15 minutes, feeling erotic has so much more to do with you than them: namely, how at-peace you feel. When your mind is easy, it becomes a much more open channel for sensuality to flow.
5. Masturbate (A Lot)
Speaking of touching yourself, are you masturbating regularly? Because if not… now is definitively the time.
There are a ton of documented health benefits to masturbation. Each time you do it, your body releases serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine and endorphins – all the hormones that make us feel happy and energized. Orgasm itself helps you sleep better, improves mood and body image, and (surprise!) boosts your immunity. Remember that, next cold and flu season.
So many of us carry old shame around self-pleasure, but fortunately, the cultural tides are turning. We now know that solo sex is a critical part of your overall wellness, and the more you mindfully engage, the more you begin to understand that past negative messaging was just…fear. Old baggage that you yourself didn’t create. It may have been thrust upon you, but now, you have the ability to shake it off. The most brazen sex kitten would certainly approve.
6. Take Nudes
Remember when we were talking about gaze earlier? Specifically, yours?
You wouldn’t believe how healing it is to take naked (or, scantily clad) photos of yourself, for your eyes only. When we see ourselves the way a lover does – beautiful, sexy, appealing in every way – it lifts our self-image. Besides, when was the last time you dusted off the Hidden photo folder on your phone?
So go ahead. Don your favorite underwear. Pretty yourself up, the exact same way you’d do for a partner. Turn your camera to selfie mode, experiment with angles, and shoot away. Remember: no one has to see these but you! And when you give yourself permission to witness your pleasure – anticipatory facial expression, hands on skin, body positioned just so – it helps you remember that your inner sex kitten was never that far off. You just needed a lo-fi photo shoot to find her.
Feeling like your sexiest self doesn’t always come naturally, but it does come more easily, when we take intentional steps to keep her close at-hand. So try one of these tips…and don’t be surprised if, very soon, you crave a few more.
