How To Tune In To What Turns You On
Before you even think about talking to your partner about ways to make sex better you need a good working knowledge of a person who is crucial to your sexual satisfaction: you.
Unless you know what turns you on and what doesn’t, any discussion about sex is rendered pointless before it even starts. If you’ve got a high sex drive and lots of good experiences with sex, you can probably rattle off a dozen things that do it for you.
People with a lower sex drive sometimes aren’t as well connected with their sexual selves. Others started out with a strong, lusty interest in sex but lost interest and enthusiasm along the way and simply forgotten what they like and don’t.
Whatever situation you’re in the following exercise is designed to help you be as specific as possible about what you need to be happy sexually. Give them a whirl even if you’re reasonably confident – you may well discover even more about yourself.
The Arousal Chart
Our desire levels are fairly predictable. When you’re single, absence makes any sex feel good because you’ve gone without for a while. When you’re at the beginning of a relationship, the thrill of new flesh translates to raw lust, which again makes even okay sex feel great.
Most of us sail through the initial stage, enthusiastically shagging away, without too many problems or too much thought to what we’re doing.
Just when the novelty starts to wear off, real life kicks back in and sex tends to take a backseat.
Early sex is fuelled by passion, a brilliant smokescreen for hiding what the two of you are actually doing to each other. Long-term sex is fueled by technique, imagination and effort.
In other words, the longer you stay together, the more you need to know exactly what turns you on, where, when, and how.
The more specific you are in the more you each know about your triggers (places or things which never fail to make you aroused) the easier it is to keep your sex life steamy.
Once the newness wears off you have to work at turning each other on because desire is no longer automatic.
This is easier than it sounds. It simply requires knowing yourself inside and out, literally. This exercise helps you do just that, when we discover things you’d forgotten about or discover new things you didn’t know you’d like.
How To Get Started
Get yourself some sort of pinboard. Pins. Some plain white cards. A private place in your bedroom to hang it but where you’ll also see it at least twice daily.
We’re going to make a list of sex favorites, write them on the white cards, stick them on the pinboard and update them twice a week for a month or once a day for 7 days if you’re particularly motivated / not terribly busy right now or on vacation.
I want you to look at the pinboard and really think about what you’ve written and what you’re going to write next. The idea is to focus on sex, to build desire and understand what makes you want to bang your partner senseless when it’s been a long, hard day and all you want to do in bed asleep.
Think about how appealing food is when you walk past the restaurant and you get a delicious waft of your favorite food. Even if you weren’t hungry, all of a sudden you’re ravenous!
Looking through a foodie magazine, watching seductive chocolate ads, all work to give us an appetite. This is exactly the same thing, except with sex. You’re actively stimulating desire rather than expecting it to tap you on the shoulder.
Sample Questions To Ask
What’s my favorite place to have sex?
What’s my favorite time of day to have sex?
What’s my favorite kissing technique?
Where do I like being kissed?
What position and place do I find best to give my partner oral sex?
What position, place, or technique do I like best when receiving oral sex?
What’s one thing I’d like more of sexually?
What’s one thing I couldn’t live without?
What’s my favorite part of foreplay?
What’s my favorite part of my body?
What’s my favorite part of their body?
What part of my body do I most like being kissed, touched or licked?
What part of their body do I most like kissing, touching or licking?
My favorite fantasy is…
It turns me on during sex if I’m wearing…
It turns me on during sex if they’re wearing…
My favorite position for intercourse is?
I like intercourse more when it’s fast, slow, or lasts for (how long)?
Update the cards regularly but keep the old ones pinned underneath. This exercise works if you do it solo, then share the results with your partner at the end or if you do it with them, sharing your thoughts as you go along.
Just one of you can do it or both of you can do it simultaneously or separately. One word of warning: if you’re shy and intend doing the exercise without ever telling your partner what it revealed, you better be one hell of a good non-verbal communicator. The point of figuring out what turns you on it so they can help you do it.
Next week in our series of posts on a how to communicate sexually with your partner: Another great exercise called “the bed picnic”.