Female Sexual Desire: Accelerators, Brakes, Responsive and Spontaneous Desire
A question I get asked a lot about as a sex therapist is is it normal to not feel aroused by my partner? Usually this conversation stems from my client experiencing her boyfriend be more turned on than she is. She is comparing herself and thinks that she should also be equally aroused, but doesn’t, feels guilty, then has a bad taste about sex.
So where does it come from?
Dr Emily Nagowski, author of Come As You Are, illustrates female sexuality and libido like a car. To get the car in motion, the car requires the gas pedal to be pressed and the more acceleration, the faster the car goes. To stop, using the brake pedal will slowly bring the car to a stop. Pressed abruptly, you might get whiplash. She also concluded that for women, we have two kinds of desire: spontaneous desire and responsive desire. Spontaneous desire requires seemingly no trigger to want sex and responsive desire requires external stimulus like foreplay, sensual touch, and being aroused to get in the mood.
Let’s dive in.
Accelerators and Brakes
If you press the “gas pedal” too much, you will become “hypersexual” and be speeding down the highway. With the brakes, having too many brakes makes the car stop at a green light and therefore no libido. So, for cruising altitude, we need to find the balance between the two to have your car driving real smoothly.
Factors that come into play for both accelerators and brakes are elements such as the environment, your senses, your trauma history, your relational self, your sexual orientation, and your sexual preferences.
Common accelerators: Showering, clean sheets, low or no lights, being on vacation, being kissed in the right spot, hearing words of affirmation, kink play.
Common brakes: Painful intercourse, having “the ick”, performance anxiety, bloating, having guests stay the night, partner being unkind, uncleanliness.
An example of brakes
Your partner is smelling good, showered, you two are on holiday with your in-laws and you are sharing a wall at the air bnb. The fact you are on vacation with in-laws and they are sleeping one room over can be enough of a brake for her not to want to have sex. No matter how sexy the partner looks, you just cannot get into the mood because their parents are sleeping next wall over.
While it can feel like a rejection from the partner, this is where we need to learn how to have more safe dialogue about when the accelerator is on. Here you might say, “You know sweetie, I just can’t get in the mood knowing your parents are sleeping about 10 feet away from us, even in another room.” In an ideal circumstance, your partner is understanding and will not take it personally because it is literally about an environmental circumstance and not about them.
Desires: Spontaneous and Responsive
In my experience working with women, both spontaneous and responsive desire exist within her. Additional contexts come into play such as ovulation and the type of relationship they are in. Neither one is better than the other, rather it is good to know that responsive desire is the more common one for women in particular.
Spontaneous desire example
Your partner comes home and you just want to have sex on the counter, so you do.
Responsive desire example
Your partner comes home and is extra kind to you. You are not in the mood but they are making you smile. They kiss you intimately throughout the evening and compliment you. They ask you what you want, turn on music and ask without pressure to make out. You are now open to having foreplay and they take lots of time to arouse you and end up being turned on and having sex.
Desire and The Orgasm Gap
Many women I work with feel like they should “just want to have sex with my partner” and feel terrible for not having the feeling. They are in fact comparing their sexual response to a man’s response, which is generally- though not always the case- more spontaneous. I attribute this to women being more attuned with their brakes and having unfortunately terrible sexual experiences.
There is a cultural sexual script for heterosexual women that after the man reaches orgasm that sex is finished, generally the woman has not reached orgasm. Statistically speaking, this orgasm gap with heterosexual women have the least amount of orgasms. In part of this script, in part of not feeling like they can ask for what they like, not knowing what they like, feeling like they “should like penetrative sex”, buying into sexual myths, or that it will “take too long anyway”. This is not to say that having an orgasm is what “good sex is”, rather if women are not getting pleasure from the sex they are having I consider this a big problem. As does my feminist part!
Please please please do NOT be having the sex you do not want to have! I hear this too often in my office from women and I am grateful they are looking for help. What you like IS NORMAL! You have your OWN sexual response cycle that is unique to only you. Screw what these cultural myths have you caught in it and embrace what you like and how you like it. IT IS NORMAL! All you gotta do is turn off the brakes and rev-up the accelerator by using and exploring your sexual interests. This can be a fun process where there is no wrong turn, just exploration.
The most amazing thing is that we CAN get in touch with our gas and what turns us on unapologetically.
Here are a couple of exercises that can get you connected:
Describe the best sexual experience you had with any sexual partner
Describe and name some turn ons
Exercises to get to know your brakes
Describe two moments where you did not want to be intimate and why. Think environment, person, feeling, mood, time of life, stress.
Resources for and about female sexuality and libido:
