Pleasure Doesn't Start in Bed. It Starts at 2 PM at a Red Light.

It's surprisingly easy to forget she exists. Not your body. Not your sexuality.

The center between your legs that spends most of the day waiting for your attention. I forgot her for years. Or perhaps I was never taught to notice her in the first place.

I was sipping an oat cappuccino by a fountain one afternoon when I heard a woman at the next table exclaim to her friend:

"I can't even remember the last time I had an orgasm!" followed by a dry laugh and a sip of water. I don't think she realized how loudly she'd said it, with the fountain making so much noise.

I subtly turned my head to look at her, and I couldn't help but notice how restless she seemed. One minute she'd pick up her phone and answer a text, the next she was taking a bite of her sandwich, her foot anxiously tapping against her chair the whole time.

I know that restlessness. I know what it feels like to move through an entire day without a single moment of true stillness. There is always someone, something, ready to take whatever little attention you have left by noon.

What if we haven't lost our desire? What if we've simply stopped visiting the place where it lives?

Women spend most of their days with their attention flowing outward.

The inbox.

The group chat.

The meeting.

The client email.

The grocery list.

The dinner that still needs making.

The text that needs answering.

By the time evening arrives, we've spent hours responding, remembering, anticipating, managing, caring.

And yet we're often surprised when pleasure feels distant. As though desire could emerge effortlessly after a day spent everywhere except inside ourselves.

So I started doing this thing. I think of her — the center between my legs — a couple of times a day. In line at the grocery store. While picking up fruit at the market. Waiting for the kettle. At 2 p.m., at a red light.

The first few dozen times, I felt nothing. It was like one more item on my to-do list.

Then one afternoon, waiting at a red light on a walk, something stirred.

It felt like a full exhale finally leaving my body. My shoulders dropped. The tension in my neck softened — the muscles behind my eyes, too. My lower belly let go and started breathing deeper. The light turned green and the pedestrian sign lit up. I began walking and could feel my hips sway ever so slightly beneath me.

There wasn’t even any pleasure to chase.

No orgasm. No release.

I simply liked being there.

Feeling the warmth gather, the delicate tingling, the slippery juiciness, the subtle swelling sensation and opening like a flower in spring.

I remember getting home and wanting to peel off all the tight, uncomfortable, not-so-pretty clothes I'd been wearing that day. To throw on a nice dress, put on some music, and have my lover hold me. I felt joyful, amorous, tender, sensual, deeply alive.

I was suddenly, utterly, fully aware of the whole area I'd spent my entire teenage and adult life ignoring.

Why? Fear? Shame? I don't know.

What I did know was that it felt delicious to keep my attention there. That it was the first time I truly felt connected to me. And that I wanted to feel like this again — if possible, every day for the rest of my life.

And I didn't need anything fancy to wake her up. Just a few seconds of my attention. That was all she ever asked for.

I still forget her most days. But now I know the way back takes three seconds and costs nothing.

I think about that woman by the fountain sometimes. I never saw her again.

But if I could sit at her table now, I wouldn't tell her anything. I'd just say: I know. I couldn't remember mine either.

And then I'd tell her about red lights.