Emily Jamea, Ph.D., is a sex therapist, author and podcast host. You can find her here each month to share her latest thoughts about sex.
“Do you want to come up for a drink?”
We all know what that means, right?
Alcohol and sex have long been connected in our culture from romanticized depictions in media to casual references in social settings. But, when it comes to women’s sexual health, alcohol’s role is more complicated than its allure suggests. While a glass of wine might seem to enhance intimacy or ease inhibitions, the effects of alcohol on sex, particularly for women, deserve a closer look.
The U.S. Surgeon General just issued an advisory highlighting the link between alcohol and cancer, which brought the conversation about alcohol to the front of everyone’s mind. It also got me thinking about the dialogue I have with my clients about the role alcohol plays in their relationships and sex lives.
Take Sarah and Bill, a couple who came to see me for help managing issues with sexual desire. They had noticed a gradual decline in how often they had sex through the years, particularly after having kids. They did their best to keep the fire alive. They had date night once a month at their favorite Italian spot, where the sommelier was quick to recommend the best bottle of wine to accompany the nightly special.
Bill looked forward to those nights because it was more or less the only night each month that he and Sarah had “good” sex, as he described it. The rest of the times they had sex, it was clear that it felt like a chore to her. Bill resented that Sarah seemed to be participating out of a sense of obligation versus a genuine interest in wanting to connect. Sarah didn’t understand why Bill was dissatisfied. She felt like their monthly date night sex was fantastic, citing it as the one night a month her “inner vixen” came out. She felt that Bill should be thankful because she knew she got kinkier than a lot of her friends on those nights.
It would have been easy to work with what Bill and Sarah said at face value. I could have highlighted that date night gave them the opportunity to be away from the kids and to connect emotionally, which is why Sarah felt more sexual. I could have cited the “good enough sex model,” which essentially reminds couples to set realistic expectations for the quality of their sex lives in long-term relationships. But upon further exploration, I also learned that Sarah, often feeling stressed after a long day at work, found a glass of wine helped her unwind at the end of the day and took the edge off when the kids got whiny. She and the other softball team moms loved how it felt to fill their Stanleys with mimosas at Saturday morning games. I became concerned that she’d developed an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and might be using it as a tool to release her sexual inhibitions once a month with Bill. I was curious who she’d be in bed without alcohol as a crutch and how her relationship with Bill might shift.
The more you drink, the more you rely on drinking
I began by explaining to Sarah that using alcohol to take the edge off a long day, she may actually be making herself more irritable. Alcohol has a complicated relationship with anxiety.
Initially, drinking can create a sense of relaxation and ease by depressing the central nervous system and increasing the effects of GABA, a neurotransmitter that promotes calmness. However, in the long run, alcohol can worsen anxiety in several ways. After drinking, the brain tries to restore balance by reducing GABA and increasing other important neurotransmitters. This can lead to increased anxiety and irritability the next day. Second, alcohol interferes with REM sleep and overall sleep quality, leading to fatigue and greater emotional instability, which can make anxiety worse. Finally, using alcohol to cope with anxiety can lead to reliance, making it harder for the brain to manage stress naturally. This can create a vicious cycle where more alcohol is needed to achieve the same calming effect.
The initial feelings of calm that a shared bottle of wine gave Sarah likely contributed to her feeling more sexually free on date nights, but I wasn’t surprised to learn that, even though she was more willing to explore new things in bed, Sarah rarely reached orgasm on those Saturday nights. Alcohol is a depressant, which means it slows down the central nervous system. This can have a significant impact on sexual response. For women, drinking alcohol can reduce arousal and sensitivity because it diminishes blood flow to erogenous zones. This may result in difficulty achieving orgasm or experiencing less pleasurable sensations.
Read: The Science Behind Orgasms: What’s Going on When You’re Getting It On >>
Normalization of drinking culture
Given what I knew about their relationship dynamic, I was less worried about consent as an issue between Sarah and Bill, but it is important for all women to remember that alcohol impairs decision-making, which can lead to risky sexual behaviors or situations where consent becomes ambiguous or impossible. My greater concern was that Sarah’s reliance on alcohol to lower her sexual inhibitions had led to emotional detachment from Bill and a diminished ability to connect authentically. This disconnect most likely contributed to sex falling flat outside of their monthly rendezvous.
I felt it important to remind Sarah that the gradual way she’d let alcohol slip into her life was likely (at least in part) a result of alcohol companies deliberately targeting women exactly like her. Alcohol marketing has evolved to appeal directly to women, tapping into themes of empowerment, relaxation and self-care. Campaigns often use slogans like “Mommy juice” or “Rosé all day,” glamorizing alcohol as a coping mechanism for life’s stresses. This targeted marketing increases the risk of dependence, because it creates a normalized culture of routine drinking.
I challenged Sarah to a 60-day sobriety challenge to explore how her life might change without alcohol in it. She didn’t meet the diagnostic criteria for alcoholism, but I felt that her first month off would reveal issues that were lurking below the surface and the next month would give us time to implement change. She could then decide if and how much she wanted to reintroduce alcohol into her life.
Backing off on the booze
Sarah found that sitting in her car for a few minutes and taking several deep breaths before picking up the kids went a long way in helping her calm her nervous system before transitioning to mommy mode. She was pleasantly surprised to find that the softball moms didn’t give her a hard time for skipping out on mimosa hour, and she even inspired a couple of them to switch to morning coffee instead. She and Bill had a nice dinner out without a visit from the sommelier, but she was shocked to discover how sexually inhibited she felt when they tried to make love later that evening. We spent several sessions in therapy exploring the root of her sexual hang-ups, and I gave her strategies to overcome them. It took a couple of months, but eventually she tapped into her inner sober vixen. She was overcome with joy to discover that uninhibited sober sex was infinitely more pleasurable than sex with the numbing effect of booze. And what’s more, she found she genuinely desired her husband more frequently in between date nights.
Sarah enjoys the occasional glass of wine or cocktail today, but she completely transformed her relationship with alcohol and, as a result, drastically improved the quality of her sex life.
The relationship between alcohol and women’s sexual health is a complex issue that goes beyond the occasional cocktail. Moderate drinking might feel harmless, but the physical, psychological and relational impacts can be profound. As alcoholism continues to rise among women, fueled by targeted marketing and cultural normalization, it’s more important than ever to foster conversations about empowerment, awareness and authentic connection — without alcohol as the centerpiece.
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