The Weekend Sexperiment: Arousal Vs. Desire
Welcome to The Weekend Sexperiment! Each Friday, I alternate between The Weekend Sexperiment and Reader’s Request Fridays. In TWS posts, I offer a simple sex therapy homework assignment to try out over the weekend. Some experiments are geared towards couples, but others are suitable for single folks. As always, please feel free to contact me if you have a certain topic you’d like to see covered. If you’re interested in counseling, call (415) 658-5738 or visit my Appointments page to schedule a consultation.
Most people aren’t aware that arousal and desire are different processes. We tend to think of them merely as stepping stones to the ultimate goal – orgasm.
So what’s the difference? And why does it matter?
Arousal is:
The physiological processes that happen when your body is ready for sex.
For men, this includes tightening and lifting of the scrotum, increased blood flow to the genitals, and erection.
For women, arousal involves vaginal lubrication, engorgement of the labia, and swelling of the clitoris.
In both sexes, there can be increased heart rate, sweating, skin flushing, and hardening of the nipples.
Desire is:
Our psychological wish to have sexual relations.
We feel desire when we make eye contact with a stranger across the room and feel that sizzle of chemical energy. We feel desire when we watch someone start to undress in front of us and we can’t wait to get our hands on them.
Desire can scream, “I need you, right now!” or it can purr, “hmmm, that sounds nice.”
While clearly related, the two processes are not the same. They operate independently of each other.
At times, the discrepancies between arousal and desire can be shocking. Men can get erections without actually wanting to be intimate (the old getting a boner at the blackboard conundrum), or be unable to get an erection despite a desperate desire to have sex.
Women can have difficulty becoming lubricated even if they want to be intimate with their partners, and their bodies can respond even when they have no desire. Many rape survivors report getting lubricated or even orgasming during their attacks, which is the prime example of the separation of physiological arousal and psychological desire.
This weekend, your experiment is to try to tune in to the differences between your desire and arousal.
Most of us – women especially – are socialized not to pay much attention to our genitals. When we’re moving through our day, we don’t tend to think of what’s going on between our legs.
A man’s dick can be a little more insistent in demanding attention – an erection, after all, is pretty hard to ignore.
But the anatomy of women’s genitalia is much more subtle, preventing the same sort of blatantly obvious signals.
So this weekend, try to direct more attention to your penis or vulva.
Think about it during different activities – while walking, while eating breakfast, while being intimate, while taking a shower, while talking to a friend, and so on.
See if you can notice signs of physiological arousal, like a slight throb, a tiny bit of lubrication, swelling, tightness, or even just an increased sense of energy down there.
As you check in with your body, also notice your level of desire. Do you want to be intimate right in that moment? Ask yourself what, if anything, you would want in that moment. Would you want to cuddle, kiss, roll around, be naked, give or get oral sex, give or get a hand job, have intercourse, have anal sex, act out a fantasy, have a threesome?
Try assigning 1-10 values to your level of desire and arousal. You can even try plotting the two sets of numbers throughout the weekend.
Perhaps when you woke up in the morning your erection indicated a 9 on the arousal spectrum, but your hangover and morning breath felt like a 3 on the desire spectrum. As you’re making out with your partner, you may find that your desire is at a 7, but your body hasn’t quite caught up yet, and is closer to a 4.
There’s no need to leap to any conclusions or interpretations yet. Just notice how you experience arousal and desire separately.
Happy Sexperimenting!!