Content note: I talk about sexual coercion / pressure in this essay but it’s not the main focus of the piece, and none of the sex I talk about in this essay was non-consensual, just sometimes a bit reluctant.
I’ve long thought that enthusiasm is one of the most important qualities in a sexual partner. As a person who has what the sexologist Emily Nagoski would call “responsive desire,” I often don’t feel much of a pull toward having sex until someone else has conveyed their own desire and gotten the ball rolling. In other words, whereas for some people, desire precedes the process of pursuing and achieving physical arousal, for me it works the opposite way: it’s often only once I’ve become physically aroused (by touching, or kissing, or porn, or erotica, or whatever) that I actually feel any mental or emotional desire to have sex.
It’s not that I never initiate sex – sometimes I initiate before I actually feel desire, just trusting that it will come afterward, because it usually does – but I do seem to function best as a sexual creature when partnered with people whose desire comes more readily and spontaneously than my own, and who can then express that desire in a way that reads to me as enthusiastic. My spouse, for instance, is very good at this.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the link between enthusiasm and desire. I’m at a weird place in my trauma therapy process where my body feels very guarded, so it’s been even harder for me to access sexual desire and arousal than it usually is. And what I’ve been noticing is that this creates a feedback loop between me and my partners, where my body and words convey a lack of enthusiasm, which causes my partners to back off and express less enthusiasm too, which in turn means that I don’t feel desire(d), which presumably makes it harder for my partners to feel desire(d). It becomes a stalemate, where neither of us wants to make a move for fear of making the other person uncomfortable by imposing on them something that they don’t want to do.
If this is a familiar situation to you as well, maybe you’ve come up with your own workarounds for it. For me, though, I think one of the most helpful things is to make a clear distinction between “I want x” and “I want x right now and will be upset if I don’t get it.”
Obviously, in a perfect world, we would all be able to express our desires without those expressions being taken as coercion or pressure. But I think all of us have probably experienced, from both sides, an admission of desire being taken almost as a demand. And that doesn’t feel great. Those of us who are trauma survivors, and who have deeply ingrained “fawn” responses, can find ourselves saying yes to things we only sorta want (or, in more extreme cases, things we don’t want at all) because a request can feel like a demand even if it explicitly isn’t.
In my marriage, though, things are different – because I understand that when my spouse tells me they want to do something to me, or want me to do something to them, all they’re saying is that they want that thing. They’re not saying they’ll be pissed off if they don’t get it. They’re not saying it’s the only thing that would make them happy, or the only thing they want to do. They’re just saying, “I want this, and I want you to know that. You can do with that information what you will.”
A clear expression of desire without expectation is a beautiful gift to give someone. There are times, for example, when I’m open to sex but feel guilty about asking my partner to go down on me or do other things that’ll turn me on. When they pre-emptively express that they want to do those things, though, it changes the whole game. I feel wanted, and like I deserve the pleasures I’m craving. But I also know that I can always say “no” if I want to.
Making a clear distinction between “I want” and “I demand” – and never making sexual demands – is important for me when I’m the one expressing desire more actively, too. It’s a nightmare to imagine that someone would feel like they had to say yes to my request just because I made the request at all. But it’s also a nightmare to imagine never being able to admit to what I want, never feeling safe enough to spell out my desires. If I can trust 100% that my request will not be taken as a demand, then I’m free to make whatever requests occur to me, and can accept whatever answer I receive.
I’m not saying it’s always easy to hear a “no” when you’ve expressed a desire. In fact it can be quite painful and can trigger feelings of shame, judgment (including self-judgment) and a reluctance to make such requests again. This is why it’s so vital to reject partners kindly when you can, and also to deeply internalize the idea that “not now” just means “not now” – it doesn’t mean “not ever,” or “not with you,” or “ew, gross.”
This is all stuff I’m better at in theory than in practice, by the way. I’m 30 years old and I still struggle sometimes with the scariness of asking for what I want, of potentially hearing “no,” and of saying “no.” But I’m grateful every day to be in a relationship where my fears about these things are outsized, given the actual risk. My partner still loves me when I make a request they’re not up for, or when I decline a request of theirs. We both know that we both find each other desirable all the time, but that that desire manifests differently depending on our moods and the circumstances of our lives. So it’s safer than ever for me to be clear in my sexual communication, scary though it might be.
I love wanting, and feeling wanted. I just also love knowing I can still be safe and loved even when sexual desire feels out of reach.