Authors: Emily Nagoski
So the box arrived and they opened it together.
Their first impression was . . . well, disappointment.
“That was a lot of money for some arts-and-crafts supplies,” was how Laurie put it.
“We already have a vibrator,” was how Johnny put it.
But they thought, What the hell. We paid for these arts-and-crafts supplies. We got your mother to babysit. We made a hotel reservation. Let’s just go, and whatever happens (or not), happens (or not).
The box included instruction, laying out their evening and some rules, but they didn’t follow the rules. They talked about it all in the car on the way to the hotel, laughing the whole time.
They had a pizza delivered and they kept talking about it, and talking about other things, too—work, kid, family. They just talked about stuff and remembered how much they like each other. Then Laurie had a bubble bath, taking a book of erotic stories with her into the tub.
I’ll fast-forward through the rest of the evening by suggesting you hum “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” to yourself for a few minutes.
At what point in the evening did Laurie start experiencing something she would describe as actual “desire”? About halfway through the massage Johnny gave her when she got out of the tub and strolled to the bed wearing nothing but a lacy bra and perfumed body lotion.
At what point did Johnny start experiencing desire? In the car on the way there.
But it worked out just fine.
It was an expensive night, and it required a significant amount of planning ahead, but it got Laurie
all the way
out of the parenting-bosslady-student-omg-life state of mind and into a Johnny-and-me-sexytime state of mind that allowed her stressors to slip into the shadows of her attention for a while, while hey-sexy-lady stood in the spotlight.
And all they changed was the context.
“isn’t it just culture?”
I get asked this a lot. “Wouldn’t women experience more spontaneous desire if our culture weren’t so sex negative?”
Desire is context sensitive, and culture is a part of context, so yes, it influences desire. We learned in chapter 5 just how much women have to overcome when they’re raised in a cultural context that punishes them for celebrating their own bodies, teaches them to fear or be disgusted by sex, and leaves them chronically insecure and anxious about themselves and their partners. It’s a recipe for keeping on the brakes.
So it could easily be true that in a more sex-positive culture, more women would experience spontaneous desire. In fact, I would bet on it, since in a more sex-positive culture there would be fewer things to hit the brakes. And I’d love to see it tested empirically: Let’s raise one hundred girls in a sex-positive culture that teaches them to celebrate and trust their own bodies, that prevents all adverse childhood experience, and that values pleasure, joy, and self-confidence in women. Let’s see what happens to their sexual wellbeing, compared to one hundred random girls raised
in our regular, body-shaming, pleasure-shaming, insecure, and coercive sexual culture.
But it’s never “just” culture or “just” biology or “just” anything. It’s always the
interaction
of all the variables. Even in a sex-positive culture, women with more sensitive brakes and less sensitive accelerators would need extra-sexy stimulation before arousal sparked into desire. And even in the most intensely sex-negative culture, women with low-sensitivity brakes and high-sensitivity accelerators would experience desire before they were even aware of being aroused.
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So yes. Culture is a part of the context, and I think changing the culture to be more welcoming of sexual variety and autonomy would allow more women to experience more spontaneous desire.
Alas, culture is not a part of the context that you have a lot of control over—and I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to wait until I live in a sex-positive culture to have the sex life I want. This book is about activating the science to help you, as an individual, improve your sex life, and I hope you’ve learned by now that you can have an amazing sex life right now, without waiting for the culture around you to change.
One little warning here, though: I’ve heard lots of people say, “If we had a more sex-positive culture, women’s desire would be more like men’s!” which is the same men-as-default myth that causes women to feel broken. I think that in a more sex-positive culture, men would be more like women, too—more responsive, less concordant, more context sensitive. And whether or not that’s right, let’s make sure we’re not falling into the trap of assuming that the way men’s sexuality works is the way women’s is “supposed to.”
Remember the tomatoes and the aloes. Our expectation that people are supposed to be all one way will only make some people “right” and other people “wrong,” when there’s nothing wrong that a different context wouldn’t fix—and nothing right that the wrong context couldn’t break.
it might be the chasing dynamic
“Low desire” is, by definition, a relationship issue. The partner with low desire is the one who wants sex too infrequently for the other partner’s satisfaction. It’s not that one person’s desire for sex is somehow inherently “too low” or the other’s is “too high.” They’re just different—at least in the current context.
This differential in desire is the single most common sexual dysfunction—but it’s not the differential itself that causes the issue; it’s how the couple manages it. Problematic dynamics emerge when the partners have different levels of desire
and
they believe that one person’s level of desire is “better” than the other person’s. For example, let’s say Person A has a spontaneous desire style and Person B has a responsive style. In this scenario, Person A may feel rejected and undesirable because they almost always do the initiating, and then Person B may start to feel pushed and will resist more. Person A asks and asks and asks and feels rejected and hurt and resentful because Person B keeps saying no, no, no; and Person B feels defensive but also guilty and hurt because just being asked makes Person B feel like there must be something
wrong.
Meanwhile Person A may even start to wonder, “Am I broken? Do I want sex too much? Am I sexually obsessed or compulsive?” It’s a mess.
So how do you “fix” it?
We know the answer by now: The problem isn’t the desire itself, it’s the context. You need more sexually relevant stimuli activating the accelerator and fewer things hitting the brake.
Here are three ideas that the research suggests will make that happen.
maximizing desire . . . with science! part 1: arousing the one ring
In season 2 of the Canadian TV series
Slings & Arrows
, theater director Geoffrey Tennant coaches a pair of young actors struggling to play Romeo and Juliet. He tells them to run as fast as they can around the
block, chasing each other, then intermittently do push-ups while breathlessly panting their way through the text of the balcony scene.
“Juliet’s” assessment of how this technique changes her appreciation for the text: “Wow it’s just . . . passionate, it’s . . . really poetic, but it’s really, um, sexual, too,” she gasps.
What could aerobic exercise have to do with a pair of teenagers falling in blazing love with each other?
Arousal.
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Generic heart-thumping, hard-breathing activation of the central nervous system, because (in part) of the hedonic One Ring of the brain.
The One Ring, you remember, is about moving toward or moving away—approach and avoidance, desire or dread. How strongly you desire or dread something depends on the intensity of the activation in the One Ring. Because there’s only One Ring to rule all of your emotional systems, activation of one motivational system can turn up the volume on activation of another motivation system. And what increases intensity of activation? The research suggests two kinds of strategies for building intensity.
Strategy 1: Stuff That Raises Your Heart Rate.
Early in a relationship, go for heart-pumping intensity, like Romeo and Juliet doing push-ups while they recite their lines. Ride roller coasters, go on long, fast hikes together through the wilderness, watch scary movies, go to giant concerts or political rallies. If you’re a nerd like me, talk about science for hours on end. Do whatever excites you, whatever literally gets your heart beating faster. You’ll experience general arousal, and your brain will notice your level of excitement, notice the person you’re with, and decide, “Hey, I guess this person is really exciting!”
Strategy 2: Meaningful Challenges.
To reinforce commitment and deepen connection, go for novelty and shared, meaningful challenge.
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Play out a lifelong sexual fantasy that you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t found the courage to explore. Turn on the lights—not to put on a show but to open your eyes and look at each other’s faces. Connect. Dive into trust in a big, risky way. Give yourselves, as a couple, something
important to work toward. This is a research-based way to “advance the plot” in a relationship that is already at the “happily ever after” phase.
Caveat: Neither of these strategies will work if the brakes are on! Arousal-oriented strategies are accelerator-activating strategies, but it doesn’t matter how much you push the accelerator if the brakes are on. You’ll rev the engine and go nowhere.
So if you’re looking to increase activation of the accelerator, try these two strategies. But if you need to find a way to stop hitting the brakes, read on.
maximizing desire . . . with science! part 2: turning off the offs
Take a look at your context worksheets from chapter 3 and then check out the worksheet at the end of this chapter.
You’ll notice that these worksheets require several things, all of which research has found help people to bridge the gap between where they are now and where they want to be.
1.
Make a Plan.
Be concrete and specific, not abstract and vague. What precisely will you do that will help turn off the brakes? What past experiences do you have that tells you your strategy could work? When exactly will you connect sexually with yourself or your partner? Where will you be? What will you have done immediately before, and what will you do immediately after? What will you wear (or not wear)? Put simply: What sex is worth having, and what will you do to create it in your life? Concrete. Specific. Detailed.
2.
Anticipate Barriers.
A lot of people skip this step, and that’s a mistake. It’s easy to feel that simply having a plan should be enough. I don’t know if it should be, but I know that it almost never is, because as soon as you bump into an unanticipated barrier, your whole plan could collapse in on itself. You might think, “Well, it’s important to me, so I’ll find a way. I’ll just wing it if I hit an obstacle.” Great! I’m glad it’s important. In fact, don’t try it if it’s not important! And, at the same time, if just “finding a way” were enough, then you wouldn’t need to create change in the first place, you’d already have found your way. Anticipate barriers and make contingency plans.
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3.
Connect It to Your Identity.
Don’t just run, be a runner. Don’t just have sex, be a deliciously erotic woman who is curious and playful about sex. If you run because you have to or you feel like you’re supposed to, rather than because it’s part of who you are, you won’t run very far or very often, and you probably won’t enjoy it much when you do. And if you have sex because you have to or you feel like you’re supposed to, you won’t have much sex and you probably won’t enjoy it when you do. Don’t just decide to have sex, try on the identity of a woman who
loves
sex.
All three are important for effectively creating change, but if I had to pick one as the most important, I’d say it’s identity. You can make a perfect plan—concrete, specific, detailed, with creative and realistic strategies for dealing with whatever barriers you may meet—but if it’s not important to you, you won’t do anything with it. And an efficient way to make the plan important is to make it central to your identity.
Many women find it empowering to try on the identity of “woman who loves sex.” It feels like finding the perfect wedding dress or house—it might need some alterations before it’s exactly right for your life, but you can feel the connection there. If that’s what it’s like for you, let the identity guide you as you think through your plan and your anticipated barriers. “If I were a woman who loved sex, how would I deal with feeling too busy for sex?” or “As a woman who loves sex, what’s my best strategy for overcoming self-criticism?”
For other women, the identity of “woman who loves sex” doesn’t feel right at all—at least, not at first. If you find it difficult to embody the identity of a woman who loves sex, that’s crucial information! Think about
what makes that identity feel like such an uncomfortable fit. Are the “offs” you’re attempting to turn off tied to your identity? The more they are, the more your brain and body will hold on to them, not want to let them go.
Feeling stressed, depressed, anxious, self-critical, untrusting in your relationship, or simply exhausted and overwhelmed are all real and meaningful barriers to sex. Remember how the monitor in your emotional brain prioritizes, based on survival needs. If your answer is simply, “I’m too damn tired and lonely to be a woman who loves sex,” that’s a fantastic answer! It means that your fatigue and loneliness are hitting your brakes—which is normal and makes perfect sense in terms of context-sensitive or responsive desire—and the way to turn off your brakes is to get more rest and find more connection with loved ones you trust. Those are not easy things to do—if they were easy, you’d be doing them already—but they are important, even without the incentive of having more and better sex.