Journaling allows us to practice self-care and express ourselves freely. Many of us journal about our emotions, life goals, and memories. However, you may find yourself wondering, well, how can I use journaling for my sexuality concerns? Even though journaling seems broad, your writing experience can be tailored to your sexual practices and concerns. Intentional therapeutic journaling improves your sexual self-esteem and fosters a healthier mindset on sexuality. If journaling is a coping skill or self-care modality you wish to pursue in sexuality exploration, then allow this page to guide your journaling process and assist you with creative expression. These structured, sexuality journaling prompts allow you to write out your emotions and thoughts in a safe space.
Sexuality prompts:
“Think of a time when you were younger that you felt insecure or nervous about sex or sexuality, in general. Write a letter to your younger self to reassure those insecurities and teach your younger self about sex. What would you tell yourself?”
Sometimes, sex and sexual identity is not heavily discussed or appropriately taught when we are younger. This can lead to faulty perceptions or unhealthy beliefs on sex. If you are someone who received the wrong ideas of sex as a child, then this unsent letter may be helpful to give your younger self what you needed back then.
“How do you define your sexuality? Is there anything you would like to learn more about?”
This is a useful prompt if you are exploring or newly identifying your sexuality. This question may seem simple, but it allows us to think about our desires and interests for sexual relationships. It also allows us to grow our awareness for what we still need to learn about or explore within ourselves. This would be a valuable prompt to bring to a therapy session and discuss more with your therapist.
“Write about your experiences with pelvic/sexual pain and your goals with your pain. How did you feel in the beginning of your pelvic/sexual pain journey? How do you feel now?”
Pelvic/sexual pain is typically a journey of increasing your awareness of your body, receiving different treatments, fostering a new relationship with your vagina, and exploring sexual actions with your partner. With your increased body-awareness, it is especially important to increase your awareness of your thought processes and emotions. Journaling can be tool to organize your thoughts and tune in with your emotions. Use this prompt to explore where you are with meeting your goals, to reflect on your journey and the steps you’ve taken, and to understand your emotions surrounding your pelvic/sexual pain. This prompt can be re-used to continue your self-reflection as you progress in your journey to relief and healing.
“Write about your relationship with your vagina. What does your vagina do for you?”
Connecting with pelvic/sexual pain and trauma, you may find yourself having a negative relationship with your vagina. Maybe you associate your vagina with discomfort, displeasure, or anxiety? Maybe you think about painful periods when you think about your vagina? Of course, these topics can be discussed and treated through individual therapy. They can also be explored through independent writing. This prompt allows you to write about your current relationship with your vagina and then reflect on what your vagina does for you, regardless of any negativity you feel with your vagina. Does your vagina allow you to have children? Does your vagina allow you to intimately connect with your partner? Writing out what your vagina does for you allows you to redefine your relationship with your vagina.
“Has your sexuality or sexual preferences changed over the years? Reflect on this change and write about where you are now.”
You can consider this a sexuality timeline. To begin, you can start at any previous point of your life that is relevant to your sexual journey. For some, this may be hearing the “sex talk” in elementary school. For others, this may be when they had their first “crush” or first interest in romance and dating. From your beginning point, continue to write about your sexuality and sexual experiences throughout your life. Has your sexual preference changed or stayed constant? Write about your feelings associated with your timeline. This can also be useful for pelvic/sexual pain, where you can start at when you first noticed pain, the messages you felt or thought of surrounding your pain, and your personal timeline for recognizing and treating the pain.
“What are your goals for your sex life? What do you want your sex life to look like?”
Maybe you have low sexual desire or have low sexual self-esteem? If you feel this way, this journaling prompt is a concise way to connect with your sex goals and motivate you to get your sex life where you want it to be. This prompt would be useful to bring into an initial session with sex therapy, so you know what you want to work on in your therapy sessions.
-Benefits:
- Structured journaling—you do not have to come up with the prompt.
- If you are seeing a therapist for sex therapy, you can bring your answers to session and further process your thoughts.
- Increases self-awareness.
- No rules—write as little or as much as you want for each question.
- Guides this exploratory time and promotes sexual self-esteem.
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