Pilates, But Make It Foreplay

Twice a week, I walk out of Pilates feeling like a different woman. My legs are still shaking, and I’m weirdly into myself in a way that never happens on a random Tuesday between the bus stop and my 11 a.m. call. For a long time, I chalked it up to endorphins and moved on.

Then we published a piece on Rescripted asking whether working out actually boosts your sex drive, and the answer is kind of great. In psychologist Cindy Meston’s lab, women who rode a stationary bike hard for 20 minutes had more blood flow to their genitals afterward (a later study found the boost peaks about 15 minutes post-workout). They just didn’t feel any more turned on — their bodies were ready, but their heads hadn’t caught up.

Emily Nagoski explains why in her book Come As You Are. Everyone has a sexual accelerator and a set of brakes, and for most women with low desire, the accelerator works fine. The brakes are just pressed down hard by stress, exhaustion, resentment, and a to-do list that regenerates overnight.

By 9 p.m., after three kids, two sports schedules, a company, and a dinner nobody ate, my brakes are pretty much welded to the floor. It’s not that I don’t want to have sex; I’d probably have it a lot more if I weren’t so burnt out. Exercise helps with that because it lets your body finish the stress cycle, working out the tension still sitting in your shoulders hours after you’ve answered the email. It won’t make you want sex out of nowhere, but it can clear the road.

Maybe the afterglow is just what happens when, for one hour, nobody asks me for a snack.