Spontaneous vs Responsive Arousal

Ever noticed that men can get horny at the drop of a hat (not even panties!) at the most random times?

Ever wondered why it can sometimes take you a LOT to actually become aroused? 

Or maybe why sex or self pleasuring is so often the last thing on your mind?

Do you worry that something in you is broken or malfunctioning because you don’t get turned on when you think you should?

Well here’s the deal - you are soooo not broken and there’s nothing wrong with you or your body!

Spontaneous Arousal:

We see a version of arousal that is fiery, fast, seemingly unbidden or spontaneous a lot in our media and also in male bodies. (We all know about the spontaneous and sometimes inconvenient boners that men can get at random times, especially in puberty!)

So it makes sense that we would think that this quick and easily accessible form of turn-on is the best, most natural or most desirable form of arousal.

This super turned-on, super horny and ready-to-go-anytime-anywhere woman is glorified and pedestalised in movies and porn, which makes us feel like we are inadequate, lacking, or not working properly if we are not like this.

The truth is though, the vast majority of women do not operate this way because our arousal pattern is RESPONSIVE, and the arousal pattern described above is SPONTANEOUS.

Most men display a spontaneous arousal style which is the natural way their arousal works and means that they don’t need a reason to feel horny, they just do sometimes. It’s also quick to ignite and build in all manner of contexts.

Responsive Arousal:

Whereas the most common arousal pattern for women is responsive in nature.
This means that rather than popping up randomly over nothing, our arousal will only ignite and start to build in response to a sexually relevant (to us) stimuli.
This is different from woman to woman, and a sexually relevant stimuli might be the sight of a sexy bod, or passionate kissing, or a steamy sex scene in a movie.
Or it might not be until you’re actually being touched on your erogenous zones in the right way that you actually start to feel your arousal enter the picture.
And if the right sexually relevant stimuli for you doesn’t happen then your arousal might not feel inspired to show up at all! 

So figuring out what your things are that you process as being sexually relevant and that turn you on is a great way to have more mastery over your own body and turn-on. You can use this knowledge to turn yourself on or give to a partner for them to use to help you become aroused. 

Next time you feel particularly juiced up and sexy, take note of what is happening (the context, the acts or places/ways your being touched, etc) so you can collect info about what turns you on to recreate in future.

What this all means though, is that a woman’s arousal usually takes longer to present and also needs something psychological or touch-based to trigger it and encourage it into being.

Sometimes this means that women are less likely to initiate sex, not because they don’t love sex and want/enjoy it, but because they need a little more than men do to motivate their arousal, as it is responsive, not spontaneous.

This doesn’t mean you’re broken or that you have a low libido. It’s simply how you’re designed and means your body is working exactly how it’s meant to, so don’t get down on yourself for not being some super-horny-always-wet-DTF-nympho all the time because that sort of spontaneous arousal pattern only happens naturally in a pretty small percentage of women.

(If you want to understand some more things that make or break female arousal, read this blog post about lady-boner killers and what NOT to do to turn a woman on.)

Obviously there’s exceptions to this rule, and it varies from person to person, and can change for that person from day to day.
We can be mostly responsive and then on occasion display spontaneous arousal out of nowhere too.
We can fluctuate along that spectrum, as with most things, and there are many factors involved such as context.
(Read these posts about context-dependent arousal and arousal non-concordance!)

But generally the majority of male bodied arousal is spontaneous and the majority of female bodied arousal is responsive.

I’d love to hear if you found this helpful or if you can relate to this in your life and your experience! 

Don’t hesitate to drop me some love in the comments section or get in touch if you have any questions, m’dears!

Big love, 

Freya xx