Dr. Nicole McNichols

Oh, absolutely.

I think that really the key there is building habits of being able to touch your partner in non-sexual ways on a regular basis, right?

You,

Your phone should not be the last thing that you touch at night before you go to bed and put it down, right?

There should be some kind of cuddling.

It's just that physical touch and connection.

But I think what happens is that if you don't have that regularly in your life, then every time your partner goes to touch you,

you're going to kind of feel like, oh God, no way, I don't have the energy for this tonight, right?

You almost feel yourself recoil.

And that can be a horrible feeling because you know you love your partner, you know you're connected, you know you're attracted to them.

and they're touching you and suddenly you feel like, oh God, this feels like there's an obligation if I engage in this.

And so I think we need to normalize cuddling each other, right?

Even if it's just hugging, if you just simply hug your partner for 90 seconds a day, it's going to build relationship satisfaction and it's going to lead to you naturally experiencing more desire.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

But the other thing that I think is really important for people, and especially women to know, is normalize giving yourself the space and having patience for yourself to know...

I might not be wildly turned on right now, but why don't we try cuddling?

Or why don't we try even just being next to each other, having the sides of our bodies touch while we're reading our books or watch whatever it is that we're doing?

If you start doing that, and this is backed by years, decades of research, a lot of times you will find your body starting to turn on, right?

You get close to your partner.