Often we talk about wanting to want sex, but miss an important precursor for women’s desire.

Arousal. It’s taken as a given. But it’s not.

The reality is that the majority of women haven’t felt arousal. From my experience working with women over the last 5 years, I can share that most modern women have no idea what their arousal feels like. I can confidently say, most have never experienced sex at more than 30% arousal. This is the #1 reason why women lose interest in sex.

For a woman, having sex with a fraction of arousal they could have is like eating cake that is 30% baked. It doesn’t taste good, upsets your stomach, and you learn to avoid it.

What does this 30% mean for women? It means that sex is not as pleasurable as it could be. It also means that women are not having sex from genuine desire.

Here’s the truth; we have not paid enough attention to understanding women’s arousal and teaching women (and our men) about it. Modern women don’t know what to look for and how to access the kind of arousal that makes sex pleasurable. Men have even less information, from learning about sex with a woman from p**n or from masturbating as a teenager with a death grip, all of which creates a false image of what arousal is that hurts women’s success of having it.

So let’s look at why it’s so important for her to look forward to intimacy.

What is Sexual Arousal?

Arousal is the process of the body being turned on. When you’re turned on, your body experiences physical and emotional changes.

Imagine this for a woman:

You’re in the embrace of your partner as he holds you close. You begin to relax and you can feel your muscles softening. You notice your mind chatter is quieter and your thoughts have faded away. You feel an upwelling of energy and you reach out to stroke your partner’s face, then his shoulder. He starts to caress you in a more sultry way, moving along your arm, then back. Your eyes lock and linger for a few moments, you then lean into a kiss. You start slowly and build more passionately. You feel a tingle in your genitals and it vibrates all over your pelvis. It widens all over your body, you begin to feel alive. Your lover moves his further down your back. You kiss again, now you feel more heat in your genitals. You can feel your skin getting more sensitive to touch, every cell waking up. The tingles in the genitals persist and  now you sense moisture. Now, all thought has fallen away, and focused on the touch, your connection, and pleasure. There’s no plan or wonder what comes next, or what you need to do; the mind falls back for the body to lead. As you play with each other, your body’s sensitivity builds, with more tingles and more aliveness. You sense your erogenous zones start to crave touch, so you guide your partner to move to your inner thighs, belly, breasts … to explore, touch, kiss, tease. You feel the swelling increase as more blood is pumping into your labia and the internal legs of the clitoris. You have now lost sense of time and space; the touch and pleasure inside the space between your body and your partner’s is all that matters. You explore and play with each other, and at some point, in no uncertain terms, your body — your pussy — throbs with pleasure for penetration. Now you know you want sex.

This is the process of sexual arousal for a woman. As I mentioned, it has both psychological, physiological and behavioral components that happen in a slow progression:

• The muscles soften as the body begins to relax and de-armor, dropping away layers of protection. You feel safe and more open to engage with your partner.
• The skin becomes more sensitive and welcomes sensual touch.
• The mind quiets down and your attention turns to the body, the pleasure and each other.
• The genitals are flooded with lubrication, which allows for sensual exploration and play with the body. Lubrication is NOT a sign that the body is ready for intercourse; it IS a sign that the body is welcoming more touch and play in consensual play.
• The pain threshold lowers in the genitals and breasts due to engorgement, as the chemicals of arousal act as an anesthetic, preventing pain and making things more pleasurable, such as nipple play.
• As the body awakens and self-consciousness drops away, you become more active and initiate more touch or positions.
• The swelling acts to protect the internal vital organs from bacteria, blocking the urinary canal so that bacteria does not enter into the body to cause an infection. It also prevents tearing of the vaginal opening.
• You lose yourself in the touch, pleasure, connection, the mix of it all and it feels like you’re in an alternate state of consciousness.
• The throbbing in the genitals signals to you an openness to sex in a way that makes it pleasurable, not just friction.

There are two circumstances that create this that are worth noting:

• It takes time. For a woman who has sex once a week, this process takes at least 45 minutes to 1 hour at a bare minimum. For someone who has sex more rarely, this process will take longer, mainly because your body and psyche are not practiced enough to let go and drop into the experience. You need more time to ground and connect to yourself and your partner. Women who are under more stress will need more time and in some cases should consider distressing before connecting. Studies have shown that it can take up to 2 hours to calm the nervous system completely to reach a relaxed state and thus be open for turn on.
• This is a sober journey, without any alcohol. While alcohol might help with the inhibitions and self-consciousness, alcohol works against arousal. As a depressant, it lowers sensation, dulls sensitivity, and depresses the nervous system that is responsible for  arousal.

Why is sexual arousal important for women’s sexual desire?

After reading the arousal process; notice that the clear signal of wanting sex arrives at the end of her natural opening and getting turned on. A Woman knows deep down in her pussy that she wants sex when her arousal is high, her mind is relaxed, and her body is open.

Also known as responsive sexual desire, where the desire for sex arises out of arousal. Arousal comes first, sexual desire follows.

Before her boiling point, when her body is pulsating with desire, wanting sex is a mental decision disconnected from her body. In early stages of relating, this comes from lust. This tension compels us to override the readiness of the body to get to sex quickly. In long-term relating, the decision to have sex before the body is ready is often from guilt and self consciousness from taking too long, pressure to please our lover moving at their tempo, lack of self-knowledge about what we need and want, and the lack of self permission to ask for it.

Ultimately most women make the decision to have sex before they’re truly ready so that the body is equipped and open to have sex in a pleasurable and enjoyable way.

It also follows that committing to sex before she knows she wants sex is not only inauthentic, it makes you have to perform and pretend and override your true natural process of arriving at wanting sex. It makes women lose their minds “trying to get in the mood” or “preparing myself mentally for sex” because they’re trying to do something their body is not yet ready for. This “fake it till you make it” approach might get you to sex, but it does nothing for feeling good inside your body, feeling in integrity with yourself, feeling connected with your partner, or getting the most out of sex.

If you think about it, arousal and sexual desire are like planting a garden and enjoying the fruits. Arousal is the nurturing process, planting seeds, watering them, and giving them sunlight. Sexual desire is the moment you get to enjoy the ripe, juicy fruit. If you skip the care and attention, you might end up with something bland or unripe, it’s not nearly as fulfilling or enjoyable.

In truth, women’s sexual desire is a process. The more we learn and honor it, the more everyone benefits.

Sex without arousal for women is a mere rubbing of the genitals at best, that any vibrator can achieve. At worst, it is a painful experience that feels like a violation of body and personhood that carries both physiological and psychological damage, even if it is with a safe partner that you really love.

Tips for Sexual Arousal and What to Avoid

1. Know yourself

Knowing your body. Learning your pace, your likes and limits. This is the most important thing about getting into a sexual connection with someone. It’s also almost never taught. Take time to understand yourself and gain a vocabulary for what your body is asking for. You do not need to know what you like in some objective way, like what positions or this activity. It is about being able to listen to your body in the moment, understand what it’s asking for, and translating that into a request that your partner can do right then and there.

Knowing our body is an on-going learning process. What our body needed when we were 20 is not going to be what it needs when we’re 47 or 67. Once you learn how to listen and understand, you’re better equipped to move with the body’s rhythms. Enroll in your own revival roadmap.

2. Give yourself permission to want what you want & ask for it

This is the biggest block to women’s arousal and we’re responsible for it. We as women have an inner voice that is continuously and unrelentingly censoring our desires. Whether they’re too much, not enough, take too long, not sexy enough, our desires are never good enough or worthy. We habitually dismiss our own desires, silence our voice, and dry up our own ability to get aroused.

Give yourself permission to honor what your body longs for. Want it slower? Give yourself permission to ask your partner to adjust the speed. If you want more touch on your back before he moves down to the genitals because you need to relax more, ask for that.

By asking for what you want, you’re also teaching your partner how to work with your body. It sets him up to succeed with you so that you both win.

Trust me, your man has no idea how a woman’s body functions, much less your unique one. And he has nowhere to learn this but from you. What I also know is that men want to provide pleasure and be the heroes for their women. Use your voice to talk about what you want and need and collaborate together.

Start the conversation outside the bedroom in a neutral place when things aren’t heated up. Then, when you’re between the sheets, offer him adjustments for what feels good to you moment to moment to help shape the experience to work for you.

3. Turn yourself on

I don’t mean masturbation. Turn on is a matter of finding and igniting aliveness in your body, which isn’t just sexual. It starts with you maintaining your pilot light and feeding it, no matter what your lover does, your lights are from within.

This could be dancing to your favorite song and letting your hips swirl. It could be asking your partner for a sensual foot rub you love because you know that it turns you on. Moving towards things that feel good contribute to your overall baseline arousal and make sexual arousal easier to ignite when the moment calls.

Learning what turns you on is an ongoing life-long process. We are not born knowing. We find out by learning, trying different things, and experimenting.

Use this guide of sensual pleasures to come up with ideas of what turning yourself on might look like.

4. Collaborate arousal

Ultimately, high levels of arousal can only be created with another person. There is a reason why — we cannot take ourselves out of control. Just like you cannot tickle yourself, you cannot put yourself out of control and be completely on the receiving side of pleasure when you’re yourself are creating it. That can only be created with another person.

For the kind of arousal I describe, you have to have a tremendous amount of safety and trust with each other. Not a tiny trace of pressure or guilt can be present or it will ruin the trust. Through vulnerability and genuine openness, you can create a setting where each of you can put down emotional barriers and walls and submit yourselves to each other and the moment.

Understand what you each bring into the relationship and your own barriers to creating safety and work together to break through to deeper intimacy and connection. If you’re stuck in patterns are preventing you from truly letting your guard down with each other, enroll into personalized coaching support.

5. Engage in non-sexual touch

Don’t wait for spontaneity. While it can happen once in a blue moon when the stars align, the best path to creating this kind of experience regularly is to commit to building the intimacy and sensual connection daily.

I call these Daily Sensate Practices. These help daily to build capacity for higher arousal and sexual connection together that literally build up to something bigger and more pleasurable.

I say forget foreplay because the pressure to have sex at the end short-circuits the entire arousal process for women. This forces her to accept to sex before she truly wants it. 

When sensual touch and connection become the main course, with no string attached, you create the kind of safety and space to truly explore your body’s and higher levels of arousal. You set yourselves up for success.

5 Key Takeaways

This framework with women’s responsive desire instead of against it.

1. Arousal Precedes Desire
   
   • For women, arousal is the foundation of sexual desire, often requiring time, relaxation, and connection to fully develop.
2. Understanding Arousal
   
   • Arousal involves psychological, physical, and emotional changes, progressing slowly to create readiness and pleasure during intimacy.
3. Barriers to Arousal
   
   • Stress, self-consciousness, societal pressures, and alcohol hinder arousal, while self-awareness and relaxation support it.
4. Communication is Key
   
   • Women must give themselves permission to express their needs and teach their partners how to nurture arousal through touch, pace, and presence.
5. Daily Practices Build Connection
   
   • Non-sexual, pressure-free touch and shared intimacy practices strengthen trust and create the foundation for deeper arousal and desire.