If you want to shame a woman, just make a critical comment about her libido.
We’re not supposed to want it too much or too little.
If we aren’t sexual enough, we’re frigid. If we’re TOO sexual, we’re sluts.
If you’re in a relationship, then your libido has to match your partner’s EXACTLY. Want it more than him, and you’ll emasculate him. Want it less than him, and you won’t satisfy him.
Our sexuality, which should be a source of pleasure and self-expression, ends up becoming a source of insecurity.
It’s awful when people shame us for the shape and size of our bodies, but it’s even worse when we get shamed for what we do or don’t do in the bedroom.
And that shaming has become more and more pronounced.
Journalist Nancy Jo Sales reports in her book American Girls that some girls are being asked for nude pictures before they’ve even had their first kiss.
Many college students are navigating a hookup culture that shames them for “catching feelings.”
And adult women coming back into the dating scene after divorce find that things have changed since they were last single. Now the texting gets sexual before they’ve even met, and not sleeping with a guy on the first date may mean that you never see him again.
What’s a girl supposed to do??
Well, the very first thing she’s got to do is educate herself.
A lot of what we think of as “normal sexuality” is in fact deeply entrenched cultural norms masquerading as science.
Luckily, researchers and educators are fighting the good fight. They’re overturning hundreds of years of misinformation and empowering women to understand their bodies better than ever before.
Keep reading to learn one of the most important discoveries about female sexual desire that can not only bust shame but make things a lot hotter in the bedroom.
Men and Women Aren’t the Same
It shouldn’t have taken this long to figure out that women’s sexual desire doesn’t work like men’s.
We know this intuitively, right?? 😉
But until recently we didn’t have the language to tease out those differences.
Now we do.
And the first thing you need to know is the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire.
Spontaneous desire is desire that seemingly comes out of nowhere.
You’re sitting on the couch, your guy looks at you in that certain way, and suddenly you’re on fire.
Or you’re talking to your guy about something random, and suddenly he grabs you around your waist and pulls you into his arms and kisses you like he can’t get enough of you.
You know how guys can be up for sex at a moment’s notice?
That’s because 75% of men predominantly experience this kind of desire.
All it takes is seeing an attractive woman or even just thinking about sex, and their bodies respond.
You’ve probably experienced spontaneous desire in the early days of a relationship, where it felt like you couldn’t get enough of your beloved.
Or maybe that’s how you felt back when you were young and horny.
This kind of instantaneous desire is romantic. It’s cinematic. It feels like a great love story.
But it doesn’t describe the way a third of women experience desire.
Some Desire Must Be Turned On First
There’s another kind of desire called responsive desire.
This is desire that builds as a response to an arousing situation.
Maybe your partner starts giving you a back massage, and you notice your body start to respond, and then you think, “Maybe it would be nice to do something more.”
Or you and your guy go out for dinner, and you know he’ll probably put the moves on you when you get home. You’re not really in the mood, but you go with the flow. Sure enough, when he starts kissing you at the end of the night, you find that you actually do want sex after all.
Responsive desire is often miscategorized as low desire.
If you ask a woman with this kind of desire whether she’s up for sex, she’ll say no.
But if her partner starts cuddling her and whispering sweet nothings in her ear, then her desire will kick in.
Responsive desire needs help turning on the ignition.
His Spontaneous Desire Meets Her Responsive Desire
The problem is that men don’t realize this.
If a man who’s only experienced spontaneous desire puts the moves on his wife when she’s in the middle of, say, cleaning the house, he expects her to be able to respond instantly.
But in fact she’s tired, sweaty, dirty, and her mind is somewhere else entirely. He thinks she can rev up her desire up from 0 to 60 in 15 seconds flat. She can’t.
If he were to understand that her desire is responsive, then he’d understand that he has to create an arousing situation for her to want sex.
Maybe he’d sit back on the sofa and watch her with a saucy smile on his face and comment on how hot she looks when she bends over.
Maybe he’d get up and reach his arms around her and whisper in her ear, “I’ll help you finish the chores if I get the extra time to play with you.”
He’d accept that his responsibility is to warm her up, because that’s the way HER desire works.
He wouldn’t assume she’s not interested in sex because he walked in cold and propositioned her.
Start Communicating
If you’re listening to this and thinking, “But I feel both ways at different times,” then you’re in good company.
55% of women experience BOTH spontaneous and responsive desire.
The key is being able to communicate to your partner when you don’t feel sexual.
Do you not feel sexual because you don’t want sex?
Or do you not feel sexual because the groundwork hasn’t been laid for getting you in the mood?
Understanding spontaneous and responsive desire can be a huge relief for men.
Men often think that all sexual desire works like theirs. So if a woman isn’t ready for sex at a moment’s notice, they feel rejected.
Imagine how empowering it would feel to men to know that her desire is responsive.
Then they can turn their efforts to what will REALLY pay off…
Warming her up and turning her on in the way she likes best.
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