Coitophobia is the irrational fear of sexual intercourse. People who suffer from this mental disorder may experience extreme anxiety at the mere thought of having sex. Their heightened feeling of anxiousness may even lead them to abstain from forming intimate relationships with others in fear that they will inevitably have to have sex with them.
Their coitophobia may be due to a plethora of different reasons. However, regardless of the true reasons for their fear, actually engaging in sexual intercourse or even foreplay may fill them with intense dread. Such intense fear may also make it difficult for them to relax and become aroused. This may lead to sexual dysfunction which can lower their self-esteem and confidence even more.
Someone suffering from coitophobia may believe that the best way to “protect” themselves is to avoid getting involved with someone they’re attracted to. This may make them more isolated and anti-social, which can lead to depression. Even seeing couples show affection in public such as kissing can leave the person with coitophobia feeling unsettled and anxious.
Depending on the individual’s personality, they may lie about their sex life to their peers to make it seem much more extravagant and exciting than what it really is. Someone with coitophobia may even be a virgin due to the intense fear they feel at the mere thought of having sex, yet tell their significant others that they are quite experienced.
Unlike cynophobia (fear of dogs), selachophobia (fear of sharks), and ligyrophobia (fear of loud noises), the causes of someone developing coitophobia are often much more complicated and less obvious.
Symptoms of Coitophobia
As is the case with virtually all phobias, someone suffering with coitophobia will often avoid that which they fear. So, avoidance of other people or avoidance of developing close, intimate relationships with others may be a common behavior for someone with an intense fear of having sex. They may also find it extremely difficult to watch romantic scenes on a TV show as it may muster up feelings of intense anxiety.
Someone with coitophobia may experience feelings of loneliness due to their conscious efforts to abstain from developing close relationships with others or even to merely be in the company of someone they’re attracted to. They may also have feelings of worthlessness as they may feel inadequate due to their inability or difficulty with becoming sexually aroused.
So, unlike many other phobias, coitophobia may have many other negative emotions associated with the condition such as shame, guilt, self-hatred, and sadness, as opposed to merely feeling anxious. Having such a diverse array of deep negative emotions may be enough for the individual to develop other mental disorders alongside their coitophobia, such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), among others.
Below, you will see some common symptoms of this phobia:
- Intense anxiety and dread during sex
- Anxiety when thinking of sex
- Anxiety when watching porn
- Avoiding getting too close with others
- Isolating oneself
- Feelings of loneliness and shame
- Self-critical and/or self-hating
- Low self-esteem and confidence
Causes of Coitophobia
There is no known cause of coitophobia. However, genetics and one’s environment may both play significant roles in someone developing this disorder. Someone with a family history of mental illness, especially with anxiety disorders, may have an increased chance of developing coitophobia.
Having a family history of mental illness may be intimation that you are genetically predisposed to develop mental illness yourself. If such an occurrence was the case, then it would likely only call for a traumatic experience of some sort for you to develop coitophobia.
Such a traumatic experience may be that they were raped or sexually abused at some point in their life. Such a damaging experience may make them extremely fearful of having sex or fearful of trusting anyone sexually again. Besides experiencing something to this degree, it is also plausible that someone could develop coitophobia due to them being conditioned to think that sex is something worthy of being feared.
Such is the case with may conservative religious views where sex is believed to be a sacred gift from god that should be honored between a man and a woman who are married together. A child growing up in such a household may develop coitophobia due to them being taught frequently by their parents and/or religious leaders that premarital sex is a sinful, evil act that will please the devil and displease god.
Regardless of the specific ways someone could develop coitophobia, there is a consensus among many mental healthcare professionals that genetics and/or environmental factors are pertinent causes for someone developing any sort of mental illness.
Coitophobia Treatments
Most phobias don’t have treatments that are specifically designed to treat particular phobias. However, coitophobia is quite different as sex therapy may be very effective at helping to treat the symptoms associated with this condition. A sex therapist may be able to help you gain better perspective which may reduce the intensity of your coitophobia. For example, your sex therapist may explain to you that there are many other ways to please your significant other than having sexual intercourse (e.g. oral sex, fingering, massaging, using toys, etc.)
Depending on your symptoms of coitophobia and if sex therapy alone is not enough, then your sex therapist may refer you to see a sex surrogate. While a sex therapist works with you by helping you to improve your cognition, a sex surrogate partner will help you with the physical aspect of treatment.
The surrogate may help you to explore your sexual concerns and help you to learn how to develop a healthy sexual relationship with someone. Depending on the sex surrogate, some will teach you how to touch and be touched, as well as practice performing some sexual acts, but this will vary from surrogate to surrogate.
Essentially, sex therapy is the “talk therapy” portion of treatment, while a sex surrogate partner can be thought of as the “exposure therapy” portion of treatment. Both talk therapy and exposure therapy are very common forms of treatment for those suffering from phobias. If you think you may suffer from coitophobia, then you should talk to your doctor as soon as you can so that you can be referred to an appropriate specialist to be treated.
Reducing Caffeine for Coitophobia
It is no secret that consuming large amounts of caffeine throughout the day can aid in making you more anxious. This makes sense when we look closely at how caffeine affects our body’s physiology. When we consume a high dose of caffeine, our heart will start to beat faster and we become more tense. Essentially, our body will begin to go into a “fight or flight” state of mind. Such a frame of mind is often a precursor for someone with coitophobia to experience panic attacks.
So, consuming little to no caffeine throughout the day may be able to significantly help reduce your day to day anxiety. Although doing so will likely not make all of your anxiety go away, it will indeed help you to reduce any unnecessary suffering that you would have otherwise experienced if you were to consume a large amount of caffeine.
Beverages like coffee and tea are often high in caffeine, as well as some energy drinks. In fact, even some foods have caffeine in them as well, such as dark chocolate. Being more conscious of your daily caffeine consumption may help you to reduce some of the symptoms associated with coitophobia.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for Coitophobia
DBT is a very effective form of treatment for people struggling with emotion regulation. It is often used to treat people suffering from borderline personality disorder. Nevertheless, it can also be very advantageous for someone suffering from anxiety disorders like coitophobia too. This is due to the numerous amount of coping skills you can expect to learn in a DBT group. These groups typically last about 6 months long and can have anywhere from two people to several people depending on how many join the group.
One very effective DBT skill for helping someone with coitophobia is half-smiling. This technique works by having you think about that which you fear or upsets you all while slightly raising the corners of your mouth by lightly smiling, thus the term “half-smiling.” Although, it isn’t enough to just think about your fear while half-smiling, you also have to try and refrain from entertaining those painful emotions that your specific fear may evoke.
Mindfulness meditation is also heavily used in DBT and can greatly benefit someone with coitophobia as it is done in a group setting, which helps to put the patient out of their comfort zone. These group mindfulness practices may include drinking warm tea to hone in on the sense of taste and tactile senses or simply focusing on the breath.
Coping ahead is another very useful DBT skill that can help someone with coitophobia. With coping ahead, you will want to find a place where you can sit down quietly without distraction. Close your eyes and then think about the many different possible scenarios where you would face your specific fear and overcome it or cope with it. Doing so will help you to be much better adept at coping with your coitophobia when you are actually exposed to the specific fear associated with it in real life.
Meditation for Coitophobia
There are many different forms of meditation that exists which can be very advantageous for someone suffering from coitophobia. Specifically, mindfulness meditation has been shown to be quite beneficial for helping people to enter into a more equanimous state. There are many different ways with which you can implement mindfulness meditation and there are also many different meditation apps which are designed to make things as easy as possible for you.
Mindfulness has the potential to significantly help those suffering from coitophobia due to how it will help one to distract themselves from their fear by refocusing their attention onto something else that does not have any sort of emotional baggage attached to it, such as by focusing on the breath for example. This is one of the most basic ways that one can meditate and be present.
For someone with coitophobia in the midst of a panic attack, redirecting one’s attention to the various sensations felt when breathing can actually help to reduce the amount of mental anguish experienced during such an influx of anxiety.
To implement mindfulness meditation to help relieve one’s symptoms of coitophobia, you can do so by paying close attention to the way the muscles in your abdomen and chest contract and relax with every inhale and exhale. You can spend time dwelling on how it feels as your chest expands during each inhale and how it sinks in with every exhale.
Besides focusing on your breathing, you can also focus on the sounds around you, the way your skin feels as you touch certain objects, the way foods taste, as well as the way certain aromas smell. Essentially, honing into your 5 senses can significantly help you to reduce some of the anxiety that is associated with coitophobia. Also, remember that it will take a lot of practice to become an adept meditator. So, practice is key.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Coitophobia
CBT is a psycho-social intervention that aims to improve one’s mental health. It is a modality that is often used to treat people suffering from anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder and OCD. Someone with coitophobia may also be able to benefit from CBT as well seeing as how it would allow them to have a much better understanding as to why they think and behave the way they do in relation to their irrational fears.
CBT can be immensely helpful for someone with coitophobia given the sheer automaticity of their symptoms. For example, when someone with coitophobia is exposed to their fear, they will almost always have an instantaneous subconscious reaction to their fear. Such a lack of introspection is likely a large part of why someone with this condition will suffer to the extent that they will. CBT can help you to take a step back and analyze your fears more deeply than you typically would.
Besides learning to be more fastidious with regards to understanding one’s specific fears, someone with coitophobia engaging in CBT can also expect to learn various other skills aimed at helping to relieve the anxiety caused by their condition.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for Coitophobia
MBSR is an 8-week evidence-based program that offers secular, intensive mindfulness training to help people who are suffering from anxiety, stress, depression, and other sorts of mental anguish. MBSR may be able to significantly help someone who is suffering from coitophobia as mindfulness meditation has been shown to be very beneficial for anxious people. In such a structured program, someone with coitophobia can expect to learn a plethora of different skills that can help them to relieve the intense anxiety that’s associated with their specific phobia.
Talk to your doctor or therapist to see if MBSR can help you to reduce the intensity of your symptoms of coitophobia, as well as where to find MBSR programs in your area.
Exposure Therapy for Coitophobia
As previously mentioned, exposure therapy is one of the most common ways to treat anxiety disorders such as coitophobia. It can be an efficient way to help desensitize the patient to their specific fears. Be that as it may, it is imperative that the therapist implementing it on their patient is very adept at doing so. For example, if the therapist were to slightly expose someone with coitophobia to their fear, then it may not be very effective as they may need a higher amount of exposure to truly trigger any sort of worthwhile change in the patient.
The same can be said for the antithesis of this scenario. If the therapist were to excessively expose someone with coitophobia to their fear, then doing so could be highly counterproductive to the point to where their coitophobia may become immensely worse due to the therapy alone. So, it is paramount that the therapist implementing exposure therapy for someone with coitophobia has a very strong sense of just how severe their symptoms are so that they can know the level of exposure that the patient will likely be able to handle.
Exercise for Coitophobia
Exercise has been shown to be extremely beneficial for people suffering from anxiety disorders, including coitophobia. Specifically, cardiovascular exercise can significantly help to relieve one’s stress. This is not to say that weight-resistance training would not benefit someone with anxiety, but rather that aerobic exercise is has been shown to be more effective at releasing those feel good chemicals in the brain, such as endorphins.
According to the American Psychology Association, exercise can help to condition the mind to better cope with stressful situations. This makes sense when we take into consideration the high amount of stress that the body is put under during strenuous exercise. So, if you yourself are sedentary, then engaging in some form of aerobic exercise may be able to significantly help reduce your symptoms of coitophobia by making it much easier for you to cope with the anxiety and stress that’s associated with this condition.
There are many different aerobic modalities that you can partake in to help reduce your symptoms of coitophobia, such as swimming, biking, skiing, walking, and jogging. You can also acquire the many benefits of exercise by playing sports such as tennis, soccer, basketball, and racquetball, among many other sports. Engaging in some form of exercise consistently may be able to help relieve some of the pain associated with coitophobia over time.
Medication Therapy for Coitophobia
Antidepressant drugs
These types of medications aren’t only for people who suffer from depression as they can also help people suffering from anxiety disorders as well, such as coitophobia. Some common antidepressants are Paxil, Zoloft, and Lexapro, among several others. These drugs may be able to help reduce some of the symptoms of coitophobia.
These types of drugs are typically taken on a daily basis. They can indeed help prevent panic attacks from occurring, but they are more so used to help reduce people’s daily anxiety. Talk to your doctor to see if taking antidepressants can help to reduce your symptoms of coitophobia, as well as whether or not it is safe to do so.
Anti-anxiety drugs
These types of medications are very useful to help prevent panic attacks. Such drugs can be extremely useful for people suffering from severe coitophobia due to the fact that people with phobias often experience panic attacks as well. Some common anti-anxiety medications include Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin, among many others.
These types of drugs are not typically taken on a daily basis, but they may be insofar as their coitophobia is severe enough. However, this is something that you should first discuss with your doctor before you decide to do so to ensure that it is safe and effective.
Yoga for Coitophobia
There are numerous different yoga poses that can substantially benefit someone who is suffering from coitophobia. In part, this is due to the meditative state of mind that yoga tends to emit in those who practice it on a consistent basis. Yoga can be thought of as meditation in motion. It can help to relieve some of the anxiety associated with coitophobia due to the mere fact that by engaging in yoga, your attention will be redirected to something more productive.
There are many different types of yoga that someone with coitophobia can benefit from, such as hatha yoga or hot yoga, among many others. Nevertheless, regardless of the many different forms of yoga that exist, virtually all of them can help to relieve some of the stress and anxiety that is associated with coitophobia.
If you have never practiced yoga before, then it may be in your best interest to take a class or watch some guided videos that can help you through each pose. Just like with meditation, the more you practice yoga, the more adept you will become at it. Besides helping you to reduce your symptoms of coitophobia, you can also expect to acquire increased strength and flexibility, among other benefits.
If you think you may be suffering from some of the symptoms of this condition, then you may benefit from therapy. Feel free to reach out to your doctor or local mental health clinic to see what your available options are and to see if there is any sort of discount or promo code available to help you with the costs of treatment, as well as if your health insurance will cover treatment costs.