Hi, I’m Allison and I’m a Marriage and Family Therapist. Every week I talk to all different dynamics of relationships. It’s a pretty cool job! Welcome to Ask Allison, a series where I am answering your relationship questions. People on their own are complex – and then we combine all of those complexities into relationships. Tricky moments are going to happen, so let’s talk about it! To submit questions, please use the Ask Allison submission form.  Identifying information has been changed to ensure confidentiality.‍

‍

Theo: “My partner and I are never on the same page about being ‘in the mood’. What are we missing?”

Though sex is so natural, it can also feel very complicated. For a lot of the couples I see, one partner feels like they’re having plenty of sex while the other feels like they wish they had more sex. There are many contributing factors to this, but the one most often talked about in my office is because they feel that their sex drives are completely different. They experience different levels of desire, or a desire discrepancy. 

Desire is a strong want to have something or want for something to happen. In this case, we’re talking about touch, connection, intimacy, orgasm, etc. Even though our brains want to want sex, our bodies are not on the same page. It's common for people to experience what's called arousal non-concordance where our bodies might feel the heightened sensations of arousal but our minds are completely disconnected and shut that process down (Nagoski, 2015). It's these two scenarios where a lot of couples describe differences in their desire. One partner is totally in the mood but the other just can’t get there.

‍

Types of Desires

It might help to understand that there are actually multiple kinds of desire. We have spontaneous desire AND responsive desire (Nagoski, 2015). Because men typically (but not always!) experience spontaneous desire, society has come to accept this as the truth and the expectation of how desire should work. But the truth is, we’ve been miseducated to believe that there is a ‘normal’ or ‘right’ way to experience desire. In reality, we aren’t even locked into one - an individual can experience their desire differently during various times in their life (Nagoski, 2015).

Spontaneous - One of the normal ways to experience desire - the ‘spark’. The want to have sex comes first and the body follows. Desire sets in with the anticipation of pleasure (Nagoski, 2024).

Responsive - One of the normal ways to experience desire where the actual desire or want to have sex follows pleasure. The body and/or mind need their interest peaked before desire, or the want to have sex, sets in (Nagoski, 2024). 

When sex educator and author Dr. Emily Nagoski (whom I will never stop raving about) talks about sex, she really centers pleasure. Around 30% of women and 5% of men experience responsive desire yet it is very rarely talked about or understood (Nagoski, 2015). Nagoski believes that we should step away from the concept of desire as the end all be all and move towards centering pleasure first (Nagoski, 2024). 

Focus on the Feeling

It’s not about how you should be performing or what you should like, but what actually feels good for you! Centering desire creates pressure and expectation on how our bodies should be working - it's a goal to move towards. Putting pleasure first brings us into the moment and into our bodies where we are enjoying our experience (Nagoski, 2024). When exploring pleasure, it's essential we talk about Nagoski’s concept of breaks and accelerators as well (Nagoski, 2015).

Accelerators (gas pedal) - the part of our sexual response that recognizes everything about our experience (what you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, think, feel, believe, and imagine as well as internal body cues) that signals, ‘yes! I could be turned on right now’ (Nagoski, 2024).

• Examples: your partner’s smell, the right song, looking in a mirror at yourself and feeling good, the caress of a breeze - anything !

Breaks - the part of our sexual response that tells those good things above, ‘not right now!’ or ‘potential threat ahead!’ (Nagoski, 2024).

• Examples: stress and conflict, an endless to-do list, feeling uncomfortable in our bodies, feeling touch-saturated - anything !

Every person has a different level of sensitivity to the two. It might take a lot to put the breaks on or they might activate/lock up with the smallest thought or awareness. While just understanding them doesn’t fix everything, it is an amazing start to begin to understand your personal sexual response.

 If you are eager to learn more about pleasure and what it means to you, I recommend seeking out a therapist who works in a sex positive framework like those here at Sage Therapy. I also highly recommend Come As You Are and Come Together by Emily Nagoski, PhD. They are primarily written with women and their partners in mind but I think they contain amazing tools for everyone. 

‍

References

• Nagoski, E. (2015). Come as you are. Simon & Schuster.
• Nagoski, E. (2024). Come together. Ballentine Books.