Transformational Pleasure

If you are like a lot of people, you want to know “What is the one thing people most want in a lover?”  So I will answer, based on the many hours I have spent as a sex therapist talking to people about their wishes and desires, and it may surprise you.

The most common thing I hear people wanting from a sex partner, of any gender variation, age, commitment history…, is for their partner to be enthusiastic and to want to be having sex with them. That’s right, enthusiasm, happy willingness, passion. Seems simple enough. We want to feel wanted. We want to share something with someone who is enjoying themselves. I hear many sexual details and accoutrements that people want as well, more anal, less anal, a spanking now and then, to keep the heels on …lots of variations of things that would be nice to try. But the foundational piece for most people is to feel that their partner is into it, into them, and happy to spend time being sexual together.

Sadly, there are lots of ways our individual enthusiasm for sex can wane. Dissatisfactions, arguments, frustrations, new body pains, exhaustion, shame, self doubt, and on and on. And lack of enthusiasm will kill passion in a relationship fast than anything else (unless you are with a bully and that is no good). These externals can decrease enthusiasm, sure. But truly, passion is an internal job.

You can find your passionate person inside at any point in life. It involves listening to yourself, feeling your body sensations, giving yourself time and space to relax and enjoy many aspects of life without rushing on to the next thing. It involves being curious and communicating your curiosity, ideas, fantasies, and discoveries, just to see where they might take you. It involves tending to what is inside of you, which is where you will find lots of important information, not least of which being - what excites you. Oh, and also important…clear out any old stuff telling you that you have to play it cool, that passion is disgraceful, that you should be ashamed to want. Clear it out! Make room to be passionate.

Then show it. This is key. Don t assume your partner knows you like that. Appreciate them by giving them some solid clues. You don’t have to perform porn style, just be genuinely enthusiastic. What might happen, is you turn yourself on even more. Enthusiasm feeds itself. Imagine with each touch and kiss and thrust, saying with your body (or your words, that’s fun too), “Yes”. That’s how your blow your lover’s mind. And your own.

Desire can be a mysterious thing. We can’t simply conjure it or focus it exactly where we want it. Such that, many people feel confused and frustrated by their own desire levels or patterns. Now sex researcher and psychologist, Meredith Chivers has added some important research to the picture and a name for something many people never even knew they had – responsive desire.

The traditional model of sexual desire told us that we would all naturally walk around thinking about sex and wanting to have it – spontaneous desire. This version of the desire story requires very little external stimulation, it feels internally motivated or bodily motivated (being horny) and inspires a person to initiate or seek out sex, or at least be excited about it. Many of us have experienced this type or desire. This model of desire is “I want to have sex irregardless of my environment or current situation.”

Responsive desire, which Chivers research ascribes to women – although what I know about sex at this point, is that it would be silly of us to think that anything will remain in its neat little box of gender or whatever – is desire that is stirred by first getting sexually aroused. This type of desire is dependent on the environment and what is currently going on. This notion of desire really changes perspectives on “normal” desire patterns.  

To be clear, this is not another sex expert saying, “Hey, women need more foreplay to enjoy sex.” Hopefully we have already covered that. That enlightened notion is addressing arousal and the fact that women’s bodies have a fairly complex arousal system and it can take more time to get fully cooking, but has always assumed desire to have sex was already present. The conversation around responsive desire is that some women may not feel like having sex at all until they get started and begin to be physically aroused. Desire that follows arousal. That is a new perspective.

This does not mean that women should be pressured into having sex they don’t want because they will warm up to it! Actively not wanting sex is different than feeling neutral or ambivalent. It does mean that some women may want to experiment with going ahead with otherwise appealing sex with an appealing partner, even if they are not feeling super turned on by the idea at the moment because the desire may build with the physical arousal. And for people who are wanting to increase their desire for sex, many of them will be best served by increasing their exposure to arousing stimulation, erotica, massages, dancing close, kisses, porn, all kinds of sensual pleasure. Build pleasure and desire may come (not to get too Field of Dreams on you).

Responsive Desire is a bit tricky and we certainly have more to learn. It will require that we listen to the subtleties of wanting and openness to sex. But for anyone who has ever leaned back into the pillows to let the sweat dry and thought, “Wow, I didn’t think I was that into it before we started but I am so glad we did that! Why do I keep forgetting that I enjoy sex so much!”, Responsive desire may help you understand yourself a bit better.

This story makes me smile: Children’s book author Maurice Sendak received a card from one of his young fans. It was special to him and so Sendak took time creating a little drawing to send back to the boy with a note that said how much he loved the boy’s card. Soon after, Sendak got a note from the boy’s mom, saying “Jim loved your card so much he ate it”. It should be no surprise that as an author who celebrates the wildness in children, and all of us, Sendak has said this was the best compliment he ever received.

It’s not a coincidence that many of our descriptions of passion include allusions or metaphors of eating. The instinct to take something inside of us, to make it a part of us, to feed ourselves from it, all reflect feelings of deep excitement and passion. To take an experience in and leave nothing behind, to fully ingest it – how many of us forget how to do this as we get older? Especially now that we are constantly encouraged to document and share each experience, however mundane, and more and more people believe “if I didn’t post it, it didn’t really happen”. How might Jim’s experience of devouring joy been changed if his mother had required time to pose for a picture followed by a post where she could monitor likes? Even the very adult instinct to respectfully save the picture (because it could possibly have paid for Jim’s first car) would change the flow of pure expression of irrational joy. How does our instinct to hold on to something, to keep it safe and sound, change moments of passion?

What do you love so much you want to gobble it up? What bring you such joy that you don’t feel any need to share it with others? When do you break open moments of such excitement that the future doesn’t even occur to you and there is no need to hold anything back for later? What kind of love has come your way which made you feel like you took it into yourself and it became a part of you? What holds you back from devouring passion?

Experiment : With a partner play with touching them in a way that allows you to feel like you are taking them in through your hands and skin. Imagine that you can feed on them and they will never be depleted. Breathe them in. Taste them; no biting, unless they ask! Imagine for right now it is ok to be a wild thing devouring what it wants.