Sexual imposter syndrome is a specific feeling of fraudulence that shows up as a deeply rooted disbelief in our ability to have the sex we actually want to have. Like traditional imposter syndrome, sexual imposter syndrome is built on fear, self-comparison, systemic oppressions, and imagined perfection. Like the Good Sex Dilemma, it’s heightened by the lack of diversity in bodies, identities, and sexual scripts portrayed in mainstream porn and media. If the Good Sex Dilemma has us feeling torn between the sex life of our dreams and the contradictory, traditional model of good sex, sexual imposter syndrome keeps us stuck there as it whispers the lie that you have to be perfect at the thing or different than who you are before you can do the thing.
This mode of thinking is often automatic and unchecked, and hinders people’s sexual explorations of themselves. People suffering from sexual imposter syndrome avoid any chance of perceived sexual failure like the plague and either don’t give themselves the opportunities to prove their fears wrong at all or, if they do, take all mistakes and imperfect humanness as evidence of their sexual fraudulence. This can lead to mistakes feeling much more devastating than they are, unrealistic expectations that leave us disappointed, and low sexual self-esteem and confidence. Sexual imposter syndrome can also have negative relational effects such as keeping couples stuck in a sexual rut longer than they’d like or preventing many from speaking up, learning, and growing in their sexual experiences. Basically, sexual imposter syndrome can keep us from having the sex we really want.
In my work, I see sexual imposter syndrome show up in a lot of ways for a lot of different clients. Nick is in his early thirties and can no longer get or maintain an erection due to a vehicle accident. Though in his email to me he tells me that he knows full well that there’s an entire world of sex out there that doesn’t revolve around penis-in-vagina penetration, he’s still holding himself back from dating for fear that he’ll be perceived as inadequate and, in his own words, as “damaged goods.”
Evan fears that he won’t be fulfilling his successful sexual role as a cisgender man if he takes things slow and asks a lot of questions. He feels pressure to perform flawlessly and to know everything about his new sexual partner before he even walks in the door.
Sophie is a married mother of two, living in a small liberal arts town. Though she and her husband have agreed to shift into an open marriage so that she can explore her emerging bisexual desires, she tells me, “I hear about other women in my community who are my age who are exploring sex and intimacy with women for the first time but I could never pull that off.” When I ask her why they can but she can’t, and who made that rule, she can’t come up with a concrete answer.
Mark and Lisa haven’t had sex for four years. When I ask each of them what their biggest fear would be if they were to leave this session with plans to immediately go home and have sex today, Mark says, “That I wouldn’t be good.” Lisa says, “That I might want to stop in the middle if I’m not feeling it.” Neither says, “I don’t want to have sex with him/her” and both agree that they want to rekindle their sex life.
Emmett has consistent orgasms when they masturbate alone but experienced their first orgasm during partnered sex 13 years ago and has never again since. Though they describe to me over a decade’s worth of colorful sexual experiences that they’ve earnestly enjoyed, they always punctuate them with a faked orgasm because, they told me, “It feels much more comfortable for me to perform the orgasms than to let my partners experience the dis- appointment of a failed sexual encounter.”
These are just a handful of stories I’ve heard from clients. If you’re seeing yourself in any of them, it’s because they carry the most common structural narrative I hear: “Who I am, as I am, is not good enough, is not perfect, is not capable, and does not belong in my picture of sex. I am a sexual imposter and my human flaws and inevitable failures will expose me for the disposable fake I am. I’m scared. So I hide, avoid, turn off, and stay passively complacent about whatever form my sex life has presently taken.”
Many readers may find that they have fallen into the sneaky little trap of sexual imposter syndrome. You’ll know you’re there if, when you think about your vision of authentically good sex, you find yourself trading one black-or-white standard (good or bad sex as outwardly determined) for another black-or-white standard (good or bad at the sex I actually want to have). If you do this (and many of us will), then you are still internalizing a specific perfect sexual standard to measure yourself against. This sexually perfect standard might not look the same for all of us—some of us might see sexual perfection as mutual, simultaneous orgasm, others as being able to get our partners off every time, others as having sex four times a week, others as having a reliable and long-lasting erection, and others as being easy-breezy about sexual adventures like group sex, non-monogamy, or kink.
Whatever your particular sexually perfect standard looks like in your imagination, take a moment to write about it in the worksheet below so that you can see what you’re working with in terms of the bar you’ve set for yourself. Labeling and naming our hoped-for standards both lets us know what we’re reaching for and can help us more accurately identify sexual imposter syndrome if it creeps in as a result of not quite achieving it.
If we get too attached to our imagined gold standard vision of sexual perfection, sexual imposter syndrome can be quick to stop us in our tracks to authentic sexual pleasure as we measure our real selves against our flawless fantasies. Luckily, by applying the traditional concept of imposter syndrome to our sex lives, we can pull from the suggestions that imposter syndrome researchers and psychologists recommend to stop it from taking over:
- Speak it out
- Reframe your
- Bolster your
- Seek out
- Ask for help.
- Reimagine success.
From the book Hot and Unbothered by Yana Tallon-Hicks. Copyright © 2022 by Yana Tallon-Hicks. Published by Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
Hot and Unbothered is available from Amazon and Bookshop.
Hear Yana Tallon-Hicks speak on Saturday, February 11, 2023 at the Residence 11 Desire Summit on Sex and Relationships in Los Angeles and livestreaming worldwide. Get tickets here.