All Free. All Grounded In Research.
Know where you stand.
Before you decide
what to do next.
These tools were developed from over 15 years of clinical practice and peer-reviewed research to help you identify what’s actually going on, reflect honestly, and understand what might be worth addressing — on your own terms.
PDF resources are free to download with no email required. The interactive tools run entirely in your browser and don’t save or transmit anything.
These resources are for self-reflection only and do not constitute a clinical assessment or diagnosis. If you have concerns, speaking with a registered psychologist or your physician is always the right next step.
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Interactive Tools
All thirteen tools run in your browser. Nothing is saved or transmitted. Each one opens below. Use them alone, with a partner, or bring your responses to a therapist as a starting point. Written by Tami-Lee Duncan, M.Ed., Registered Psychologist (CPBC #2425 | CAP #3777).
There are two well-documented patterns of sexual desire. Spontaneous desire arises without any particular trigger. Responsive desire arises in response to stimulation or a sexual context — arousal comes first, desire follows (Basson, 2001). Neither is disordered. Research shows responsive desire becomes more common with age and relationship duration and is the predominant pattern for many adults over 50 (Brotto & Basson, 2014). Understanding your pattern changes what you reasonably expect from yourself.
This is a reflection tool, not a clinical diagnosis. If low desire is causing significant distress, speak with a physician about hormonal factors and a psychologist about psychological and relational contributors. Clinically significant HSDD requires formal assessment.
Bancroft and Janssen’s Dual Control Model proposes that sexual response is regulated by two simultaneous systems: a Sexual Excitation System (SES — the accelerator), which promotes arousal in response to sexually relevant stimuli, and a Sexual Inhibition System (SIS — the brakes), which suppresses arousal in response to perceived threats or distractions. Higher SIS sensitivity is consistently associated with low desire and arousal difficulties (Graham et al., 2006). Rate each item 1 (not like me) to 5 (very like me).
SES and SIS sensitivity are relatively stable traits but can be influenced by health, context, and relationship factors. Most useful as a starting point for conversation with a partner or therapist.
Sexual function is shaped by the intersection of biological, psychological, and social factors — rarely any single cause in isolation (Althof et al., 2005). A 2016 consensus statement in the Journal of Sexual Medicine affirmed the biopsychosocial model as the standard framework for understanding sexual dysfunction (McCabe et al., 2016). Check any items currently relevant to your experience.
A biopsychosocial assessment — ideally involving both a physician and a psychologist — gives you the most complete picture. Bring this inventory to your next appointment as a starting point.
Sexual communication quality is one of the strongest predictors of sexual satisfaction in long-term relationships (MacNeil & Byers, 2009). Research by Rehman et al. (2011) demonstrated that disclosure of sexual concerns significantly increased satisfaction for both partners over time. Gottman’s research identifies four patterns that predict relationship deterioration: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling (Gottman & Silver, 1999). This tool helps you prepare in a way that addresses the content without triggering those patterns.
Your Conversation Preparation Summary
Read this once before the conversation as a reminder of what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to avoid. If conversations about sex consistently escalate or end in conflict, couples therapy with a sex-positive therapist is a reasonable next step.
Sexual satisfaction is not equivalent to frequency, function, or the absence of difficulty. Lawrance and Byers’ (1995) Interpersonal Exchange Model proposes that satisfaction is determined by the perceived ratio of rewards to costs in the sexual relationship. Stulhofer et al. (2010) found that sexual curiosity, openness, and positive affect during sex predicted satisfaction more reliably than frequency or performance outcomes.
Your Sexual Satisfaction Reflection
Sexual satisfaction is not fixed. Research consistently supports that it can be meaningfully improved through communication, medical intervention, psychoeducation, and therapeutic support — even after significant physical change.
Most people arrive at a clinical appointment unable to describe their pain in the terms most useful to a provider. This tool helps you get specific — and specificity leads to faster, more accurate assessment and treatment.
Your Pain Profile Summary
Print or screenshot this summary and bring it to your appointment. For a more detailed written version, download WS1: My Pain Profile from the Sexual Pain section below. Sexual pain is treatable — this summary is a starting point, not a diagnosis.
The fear-pain cycle is the primary maintaining mechanism in conditions like vaginismus and provoked vestibulodynia. Pain leads to anticipatory fear, which causes pelvic floor guarding (involuntary tightening), which increases friction and pressure, which causes more pain — deepening the fear. The cycle can persist even after physical causes are resolved, because the nervous system has learned to associate sex with threat. Identifying where you are in the cycle is the first step toward interrupting it.
Your Fear-Pain Cycle Profile
Breaking the fear-pain cycle typically requires simultaneous attention to physical treatment (pelvic floor physiotherapy, dilator therapy) and psychological work (CBT, acceptance-based approaches). This tool is a reflection starting point — not a substitute for assessment by a pelvic floor physiotherapist or sex therapist.
This check-in is adapted for self-reflection from validated clinical instruments used in sexual health research. It is not a clinical diagnosis — but patterns in your responses can help you understand what’s worth raising with a physician or psychologist. Rate each item based on the past four weeks.
Your Desire & Arousal Pattern
This check-in is adapted from validated research tools and is intended for self-reflection only. It is not a clinical diagnosis. Patterns suggesting frequent difficulty with desire, arousal, or orgasm — particularly when causing distress — are worth discussing with a physician or sex therapist.
ACT distinguishes between rules — rigid prescriptions installed through fear, shame, or culture — and values, which are freely chosen directions that express what genuinely matters to you. Many people discover, on reflection, that some of what they think they believe about sex is a rule they absorbed rather than a value they chose. This exercise invites that examination.
Your Sexual Values Profile
Values clarification is most powerful when paired with action. Identifying where your current sexual life diverges from what you genuinely value is a useful starting point for individual or couples work with a psychologist.
Sexual shame is one of the most clinically significant barriers to sexual wellbeing — and one of the least directly addressed. It differs from guilt (which is about actions) in that it is about identity: the sense of being fundamentally wrong or defective as a sexual person. It is installed by external sources before most of us have the capacity to evaluate it. These four stages represent the evidence-based sequence for working with shame (Neff, 2003; Gilbert, 2009).
Your Shame Reflection
Working through sexual shame is a process, not a single exercise. If shame has had a significant impact on your sexual life, individual psychotherapy with a clinician trained in sexuality is the appropriate next step. What you have written here can serve as a starting point for that work.
Pleasure is not a reward for having the right body or the perfect relationship. It is a practice — one that can be developed, deepened, and rediscovered at any stage of life. This inventory helps you get specific about what you value, what blocks it, and where to focus your attention.
Your Pleasure Inventory
This inventory is a starting point. The Pleasure & Practice articles on this site offer evidence-based guidance on each of the focus areas above.
Your erotic themes — the narratives, feelings, and dynamics that generate arousal — are a legitimate and clinically meaningful dimension of your sexuality. Understanding them is not indulgence; it is self-knowledge. Erotic interests are fluid and can shift over time. There are no wrong answers here.
Your Erotic Profile
These themes are starting points for reflection and conversation — not boxes to stay inside. Erotic interests are fluid and shift over time. Sharing this profile with a partner or therapist can open conversations that are difficult to start from scratch.
This is a shortened version of the 68-item Relationship and Sexual Satisfaction Questionnaire available in the Identity & Self section. It provides a quick snapshot across three domains: emotional relationship quality, sexual experience, and overall wellbeing in the partnership. For the complete assessment, download Q3 from the Identity & Self section.
Your Relationship & Sexual Satisfaction Summary
For the full 68-item questionnaire, download Q3 from the Identity & Self section. If this check-in raised concerns about emotional safety, respect, or pressure in your relationship, speaking with a psychologist is the right next step.
Desire & Libido
Desire Inventory
Low desire is one of the most common sexual concerns after 50 — and one of the most misunderstood. Before you can address it, you need to know where it’s actually coming from. This inventory maps your specific barriers across biological, psychological, relational, and contextual factors.
Download Free PDFBarriers to Desire
Self-Assessment
A rated self-assessment based on Janssen and Bancroft’s dual control model. Identifies where your accelerators and brakes are across four domains — body, mind, relationship, and context — so you know which one deserves attention first.
Download Free PDF“Context isn’t just a factor in desire — for many people, it’s the whole story.”
Sexual Pain
Doctor’s Appointment
Prep Checklist
Most sexual health conversations never happen at medical appointments — not because your doctor doesn’t care, but because they’re short, it’s easy to forget what you meant to say, and it can feel hard to know where to start. Fill it in beforehand. Bring it with you.
Download Free PDF“If your provider doesn’t raise sexual health and it’s relevant to you — raise it yourself. It’s a legitimate clinical question.”
Sexual Pain
Self-Assessment
Pain during sex is common, treatable, and not something you have to accept. This assessment helps you identify the type, location, and pattern of pain — and whether it points toward pelvic floor, hormonal, psychological, or combined contributing factors.
Download Free PDF“In no other area of medicine is pain named after the activity it interrupts rather than the condition causing it.”
Relationships
Couples Check-In
Worksheet
“We need to talk about our sex life” is one of the harder sentences to say. This worksheet gives you a structure so you’re not just staring at each other hoping someone says the right thing. Each partner fills out Part A separately, then you come together for Part B. Print two copies.
Download Free PDF“The willingness to come back to the conversation matters more than getting through all of it in one sitting.”
Relationship Health
Self-Assessment
A healthy relationship requires more than love. This tool looks honestly at emotional safety, communication, and intimacy — with reflection prompts to help you identify what’s working and what’s worth addressing. Useful on your own or as preparation for couples therapy.
Download Free PDF“Sex can be a sensitive subject and egos are easily bruised — which is why how you open this conversation matters so much.”
Body & Biology
Menopause & Sexual Health
Information Sheet
A plain-language overview of what changes during perimenopause and menopause — and what those changes mean for sexual function, comfort, and desire. Covers GSM, hormonal shifts, the difference between local and systemic treatment options, and what to bring to your provider.
Download Free PDF“GSM affects up to 70% of postmenopausal women. Most of them have never heard the term. That’s the problem.”
Medications & Sexual Function
Review Checklist
Many commonly prescribed medications affect sexual function — antidepressants, antihypertensives, and others. Most people are never told. This checklist covers the most common culprits, what effects to watch for, and the questions worth raising with your prescriber.
Download Free PDF“If your sexual function changed within weeks of starting a new medication, that is almost certainly not a coincidence.”
Identity & Self
Sexual Self-Concept
Worksheet
A structured reflection on how you see yourself as a sexual person — not as a performance metric, but as an identity. Covers what shapes your self-concept, where it’s been affected by physical changes or relationship history, and what a more accurate and compassionate narrative might look like.
Download Free PDF“Worth doesn’t live in function. It never did — aging just makes that clearer.”
Sexual Health
Sexual Health Screening
Tracker
STI rates in adults over 50 have risen steadily over the past decade. Many people in this age group last had an STI conversation with a provider decades ago. This tracker covers recommended screening by age, key tests by population, and prompts for conversations with providers and new partners.
Download Free PDF“The assumption that older adults aren’t sexually active leads to real gaps in screening. It’s worth closing that gap yourself.”
Pleasure & Practice
PDF worksheets and guides to accompany the interactive pleasure tools above.
My Pleasure Profile
A structured self-reflection worksheet for mapping your pleasure preferences, comfort zones, and desires — useful for solo exploration and as a starting point for conversations with a partner.
Find on Pleasure & Practice pageProduct Guides
Lubricant
Comparison Guide
The lubricant aisle has never been better stocked, and the marketing has never been more confusing. This guide gives you a three-step process: eliminate incompatible types, screen for ingredients to avoid, and choose from a vetted shortlist. Based on WHO osmolality guidelines and peer-reviewed formulation evidence.
Download Free PDF“That list eliminates most of what’s on the shelf — which is exactly the point.”
Supplement Evidence
Review
A plain-language evidence table covering 12 supplements commonly marketed for libido, menopausal symptoms, and sexual function. Each entry includes what the research actually shows, the strength of that evidence, and practical cautions — cross-referenced with peer-reviewed literature.
Download Free PDF“No supplement has been shown to be equivalent to MHT for moderate-to-severe vasomotor symptoms. Worth knowing before you spend a hundred dollars on a bottle.”
Go further
Ready to go
deeper on a topic?
The resources above are starting points. Every topic here is covered in full in the article library — with peer-reviewed citations, clinical context, and practical guidance that goes well beyond what fits in a PDF or an interactive tool.
Research Basis for All Tools
- Althof, S. E., Leiblum, S. R., Chevret-Measson, M., Hartmann, U., Levine, S. B., McCabe, M., Plaut, M., Rodrigues, O., & Wylie, K. (2005). Psychological and interpersonal dimensions of sexual function and dysfunction. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2(6), 793–800.
- Bancroft, J., & Janssen, E. (2000). The dual control model of male sexual response. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 24(5), 571–579.
- Basson, R. (2000). The female sexual response: A different model. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 26(1), 51–65.
- Basson, R. (2001). Human sex-response cycles. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 27(1), 33–43.
- Brotto, L. A., & Basson, R. (2014). Group mindfulness-based therapy significantly improves sexual desire in women. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 57, 43–54.
- Engel, G. L. (1977). The need for a new medical model. Science, 196(4286), 129–136.
- Gilbert, P. (2009). The compassionate mind. Constable & Robinson.
- Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. Crown.
- Graham, C. A., Sanders, S. A., & Milhausen, R. R. (2006). The Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for Women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 35(4), 397–409.
- Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and commitment therapy: The process and practice of mindful change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Janssen, E., & Bancroft, J. (2007). The dual-control model. In E. Janssen (Ed.), The psychophysiology of sex (pp. 197–222). Indiana University Press.
- Lawrance, K., & Byers, E. S. (1995). Sexual satisfaction in long-term heterosexual relationships. Personal Relationships, 2(4), 267–285.
- MacNeil, S., & Byers, E. S. (2009). Role of sexual self-disclosure in the sexual satisfaction of long-term heterosexual couples. Journal of Sex Research, 46(1), 3–14.
- McCabe, M. P., et al. (2016). Incidence and prevalence of sexual dysfunction in women and men. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 13(2), 144–152.
- Meana, M. (2010). Elucidating women’s (hetero)sexual desire. Journal of Sex Research, 47(2–3), 104–122.
- Morin, J. (1995). The erotic mind. HarperCollins.
- Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101.
- Rehman, U. S., Rosen, N. O., Fallis, E. E., & Shapiro, L. (2011). Understanding the relationship between sexual satisfaction and breadth of sexual communication. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 37(5), 329–337.
- Rosen, R. C., et al. (1997). The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI). Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 26(2), 191–208.
- Sprecher, S., & Cate, R. M. (2004). Sexual satisfaction and sexual expression as predictors of relationship satisfaction. In J. H. Harvey et al. (Eds.), The handbook of sexuality in close relationships (pp. 235–256). Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Stulhofer, A., Busko, V., & Brouillard, P. (2010). Development and bicultural validation of the new sexual satisfaction scale. Journal of Sex Research, 47(4), 257–268.
- Thomtén, J., & Karlsson, A. (2014). A psychological perspective on genital pain. Scandinavian Journal of Pain, 5(2), 108–114.
- Vlaeyen, J. W. S., & Linton, S. J. (2000). Fear-avoidance and its consequences in chronic musculoskeletal pain. Pain, 85(3), 317–332.