A Sex Coach Explained How LDS Women Can Embrace Their Sex Lives

The Short Version: Years of chastity can make married life difficult for some LDS women to get used to. This is why Amanda Louder, a sex coach with a personal background in the LDS faith, has dedicated her career to helping Christian women overcome shame and sexual repression. 

My parents didn’t preach abstinence because of religion, though we did go to my hometown’s Roman Catholic church every Sunday. They just didn’t want my sisters and I to end up on MTV’s “16 and Pregnant,” a show I adored at the time.

Other women grew up differently. At a time when sexual exploration is a natural part of life, some LDS women follow a traditional set of commandments, one of which is the law of chastity.

There’s nothing wrong with living a chaste life from courtship to marriage. It can be a beautiful, fulfilling experience. But if you’re a married LDS woman, the transition from a chaste single woman to a sexually active wife may be confusing. Amanda Louder, a sex coach who follows the LDS (Latter-day Saints) faith, has experienced this firsthand.

As owner of Amanda Louder Coaching, Amanda uses her own experience in the LDS faith to inform her career as a sex coach for LDS and Christian women. She helps demystify sex, eliminate shame, and instill confidence in her clients. 

When you’re taught to be chaste, suddenly being sexually active can be jarring, and may even feel “wrong.” 

“The women I worked with were struggling in their marriages and contemplating divorce, and one of the biggest reasons they were struggling was sex,” Amanda told us. 

It’s something Amanda understands on a personal level. “I was really empathetic, because I had also struggled with sex so much in my first marriage,” she told us. “I worked hard to overcome the shame I felt about my sexuality and not understanding my body.”

After embarking on her own sexual journey as a religious woman, she decided to help other women in similar situations. 

“Some (LDS women) think sex is just for men, and that it’s (a woman’s) job to accommodate it,” Amanda told us. Some women may think that sex is simply a means to an end: a way to make your partner happy, or a way to have a child. Their own pleasure rarely factors into sex. This could be because sex is so often tied to sin. 

“(Women) often become the sexual gatekeepers in their marriage, and feel like they need to keep their husbands reigned in, or else he could go off the rails and drag them both to hell,” Amanda explained. 

Many of us see sex as a gateway to health, not to hell. LDS and other Christian religions haven’t always embraced this modern mindset. “They think that sex is not essential for their well being or for their marriage,” Amanda said. “I think a lot of us were missing a good sexual education that not only included reproduction, but also pleasure.”

It’s rare for the woman to think of herself as a sexual being, or as someone who can want and desire sexual intimacy simply because it’s fun. According to Amanda, this mindset can arise when you’re taught, time and again, that your needs are secondary to a man’s needs. 

“(Women) often don’t understand their own bodies and the pleasure they’re capable of,” Amanda said. “They don’t understand how much desire — not just sexual desire, but desire in general — is essential to their well being.” 

Sexuality is a human trait that’s impossible to squash. “I just think (sex) is such an important part of all of our identities. It’s integral to who we are and our souls. And so it’s really important that we address it,” she told us. 

On the journey to accepting your sexuality, Amanda recommends starting with self-reflection. 

“(Women) may not even realize that they have these underlying beliefs,” she told us. It’s true that some beliefs, especially religious ones, can be so ingrained in our psyches that they’re nearly impossible to identify. 

Step one, Amanda told us, is for women to become more self-aware of their beliefs and to figure out where these beliefs came from. “If we don’t know that (these beliefs) are there, we can’t change them,” Amanda said. “Many women aren’t even conscious of their beliefs. It’s just like a low-level operating system that they aren’t even aware of. They just know they’re never in the mood for sex. They don’t like sex, but they have no idea why.” 

If you also struggle with your sexual desire due to a religious upbringing, there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s more common than you’d think. Amanda is able to help women through these situations because she’s been there herself — and she knows how hard it can be to balance your religious beliefs with your sexual desires. 

“I walk (women) through the process of starting to change those belief systems in a way that is true and authentic to them,” she told us. 

She’s gentle with her clients while emphasizing honest communication. According to Amanda, communication skills could very well be the main roadblock keeping LDS women from enjoying more pleasurable sex lives.

“As humans, we’re always communicating with our actions, our behaviors, our attitudes… but I help women and couples learn how to communicate more productively.” 

Don’t be alarmed if your effort to communicate leads to disagreements or even conflict. Amanda made it clear that conflict isn’t always a bad thing, and can often be an opportunity for growth — the opposite of a roadblock, in other words. 

“Conflict is inevitable in any relationship,” she said. “Conflict is actually the avenue where (a couple) can create more intimacy in their marriage.” 

Of course, the conflict that comes with increased communication isn’t always pretty. Conflict can escalate to what Amanda calls “regressive behavior” — contention, screaming, yelling, and so on. This is why Amanda works with couples on their emotional regulation.

She described emotional regulation as one’s ability to “self-soothe and stay calm in the conversations, take breaks if necessary, set boundaries where necessary so they can have more collaborative experiences with their partner.” 

And isn’t that what every married couple is working toward — “collaborative experiences”? 

If you want to change your relationship to sex, how do you go about it? Amanda advised her clients to figure out what their values are outside of religion. 

“Really look at what your faith tells you, and what feels like integrity to you,” Amanda suggested. “Are you acting in alignment with what you want for yourself and your values deep down?” 

“A lot of people realize that the things they were fed from religion, from families, from the culture at large, do not actually align with their personal integrity,” she added. 

Religious teachings are supposed to lead to contentment and self-fulfillment. If this isn’t your experience, Amanda recommends coming to terms with your religious struggles. “Maybe these values are not actually in alignment with my integrity,” Amanda posited. 

A keyword for Amanda is “guilt.” It’s a word she hears her clients say far too often. “Guilt is supposed to be an indicator of when we are out of alignment with our values,” she said. But when it comes to sex, “The guilt I’m feeling is actually not true. It’s perceived, based on what other people have put on me.” 

According to Amanda, feeling guilty about sex actually has very little to do with the act of sex.

“Women come to me for help with sex, and we don’t even start talking about sex until well into the process,” she said. “(This is) because good sex is a combination of a healthy sense of self and a healthy relationship.” 

In other words, you have to know who you are as a person before you can have a fulfilling sex life. A healthy sense of self comes from “understanding your thought processes, your belief systems, and how you talk to yourself,” Amanda said. 

Self-awareness is an important part of unlearning beliefs that may no longer align with your values.

“That’s going to change the whole narrative of how you interact with your spouse and how you interact with your sexuality,” Amanda explained. 

“I have a variety of coaching programs to address people at all stages of life,” Amanda added. “I have an engaged couples course specifically designed for LDS couples who have probably not been sexually active before.” She demystifies sex for these couples as they embark on their new life together. She also offers coaching programs for married couples and married individuals. 

With Amanda’s guidance, women of faith can enjoy fulfilling sex lives. As Amanda might say, the secret to sexual wellness isn’t simply to have sex. It’s understanding that you deserve sex and all its pleasures without lingering guilt.