Make Him Feel Desired

You know how great it feels when you’re getting checked out by someone you’re attracted to?

His gaze flicks down and back up again. His lips quirk, his eyes soften, there’s this satisfied expression on his face.

Seeing his response to you turns YOU on…

And all of a sudden you can’t WAIT to get a lot closer.

Without desire, a date isn’t going to go anywhere.

It’s an ESSENTIAL ingredient in romance.

Unfortunately, as women, we’ve been led to believe that desiring is a man’s job.

His job is to desire, and her job is to be desirable.

A man’s desire turns him on, and being desired by him turns her on.

Therapist and sex research Sarah Hunter Murray disagrees.

Dr. Murray is the author of Not Always in the Mood: The New Science of Men, Sex, and Relationships. Her book was inspired in part by a 2018 study she conducted that threw into question our traditional assumption about men and desire.^[1]

She asked men a simple question:

Was feeling sexually desirable important to their sexual experiences?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dBBCJ8qZ2w?rel=0

Stop and think for a moment about that.

Think about the men you’ve been with. Do you think it was important to them to feel desired by you? How important?

In Dr. Murray’s study, it turns out that just over 5% of men did NOT think it mattered.

A whopping 94.5% said that it was very or extremely important to feel sexually desirable.

Sadly, only 12% said that “their partner made them feel as desired as they wanted.”

These guys were hoping for a compliment or two, a loving touch, some flirting or teasing, for her to make the first move once in a while, or even just to see her act enthusiastic.

Such SIMPLE stuff.

But we women don’t often realize how much it matters.

So turn on the desire in your next date with these 3 steps.

Step #1. Embody desire

The first step in making any man feel desired is to get in touch with your OWN desire.

And that’s not as easy as it sounds.

If you’re like most women, you put more effort into making yourself desirable than you do into expressing your own desire.

It’s safer to focus on your reflection in the mirror than the physical sensations of being close to someone you feel attracted to.

Although many women find an entry point into their desire through imagination and fantasy—books like Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden, or 50 Shades of Grey—I recommend a different approach.

Fantasy is wonderful, but desire is an embodied experience.

It requires an awareness of and connection to your body.

And that’s where many of us could use some work.

Do you enjoy your body? Do you enjoy what it does for you? Do you enjoy lavishing care and attention on it? (You can always do what writer Anne Lamott recommends: slowly rubbing moisturizer onto your skin!)

The more pleasure you take in your physicality, the more accessible you’ll find your desire.

There are some wonderful programs out there, like Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts, that can help you get in touch with your juiciness and appetite and power.

But if you find that kind of stuff a bit “out there,” and you’d prefer to find a way to tap into your physicality WITHOUT unleashing your inner goddess or pole dancing, then you can start the way I started:

With mindful movement.

Mindful movement is any physical practice—like yoga or tai chi or walking meditation—that connects you to your breath and your center and the experience of being present in your body.

Mindful movement helps you fully inhabit your body in the present moment.

The more you do this, the more you’ll notice the rich physical sensations of your body’s response to the man you’re with.

Step #2. Explore desire.

Next, you need to be able to keep yourself in that embodied state of awareness when you’re talking with men.

It’s so easy to go into your head and think about what he’s saying and what you want to say and wondering what he thinks of you…

But you end up being all mind and no body!

Don’t be afraid of bringing your physicality to a date.

Experience him not just through your mind but also through your senses.

Allow yourself to experience his energy… his scent… his physical presence.

Allow your gaze to linger on the parts of his body that please you… the quirk of his lips… the crinkles around his eyes… the curve of his shoulders.

Being with him should be a full-sensory experience.

Then it’s time for the third step:

Express your pleasure.

Step #3. Express desire.

If you enjoy looking at the way his eyes crinkle, let your gaze linger there.

If he smells really good, take a deep breath in.

Smile.

You don’t have to say anything! Just let yourself experience the pleasure of your body’s response to his body.

Now, if you’re on a second or third date, then you can go ahead and tease, touch him on the arm, give him a compliment, or let your gaze linger on his lips.

But on that first date you don’t have to play your hand.

You can just sit back, relax, and experience the physical enjoyment of being with this man.

What you’ll find is that men respond VERY positively to being desired.

They know when you’re checking them out. They love it!

Your desire gives them a green light to explore their connection with you.

If you find it hard to wrap your head around this idea that your pleasure runs the show, then I PROMISE it will be a game-changer for you.

I didn’t believe it myself until I did the research for my book THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE.

In fact, one study found that a woman’s pleasure turns men on BETTER than that famous little blue pill!

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/myths-desire/201812/5-ways-help-man-feel-desired