Senses and Arousal
Discovering what helps your body gets the most aroused can be helpful. We have five senses and some of them are more linked to arousal than others. Everyone is a bit different and that is why exploration might be necessary.
1. Sight: Some people know that their strongest arousal sense is sight. People who might do well with sight might enjoy visual stimulation. This could be video, this could be seeing their partner right in front of them, this could be using a mirror to see everything that is happening.
2. Sound: This can be a certain type of music. It could also be the sound of everything happening in that intimate moment. It could also be hearing the sound of breath or words spoken in the ear. It could be something crazy like hearing someone talk in a British accent or hearing statements that are usually out of place, like “dirty talk”.
3. Smell: Smells can link to memories. Some of those memories can be pleasurable memories. If you don’t have one of those smell connections, you can explore and see if smell does anything for your arousal. It doesn’t have to be an odor that everyone likes. It could be an odor that you secretly like or that you didn’t even know you liked…until now.
4. Touch: This might seem the most obvious, but sometimes it is not. You would think that touching parts of the body that seem the most intimately related to sex would create the most arousal. However, sometimes these classically considered reproductive parts of the body have painful memories associated with them. This could start the anticipation of pain process to begin. Or, it could start the process of remembering negative experiences.
This is really a partner project. The reproductive parts of the body are not the only parts that can activate arousal with touch. It is worth your time to experiment with touch at all parts of the body. Experimenting with touch involves touching the skin in different areas, but also with different items. You can use a finger, a feather, a satin sheet, you can get creative. Places to touch are the face, the neck, ears, back of neck, shoulders, different parts of the arms and hands, fingers, back, belly, hips, all parts of the legs and even the feet. No skin left behind. Even massaging the scalp is a good idea.
The key to doing this right is to agree that no penetration will take place during this exploration. You are like a pioneer on new lands you don’t quite know what those lands will bring. So, no expectations here. You will get a most accurate picture of what brings on arousal if penetration is taken off the table. If penetrative sex can cause discomfort at times, then there should be no anticipation of this possible discomfort while trying to figure out how to improve arousal.
5. Taste: Tastes can bring on memories, much like smells can. If this doesn’t ring true for you, it could be that you haven’t paid enough attention to taste or that yeah, it’s just not an arousal sense for you. But at a minimum, it should be tested. Edible sex products sell because they can make sex more fun and exciting and silly, but also because some flavors can arouse people. Or, the flavors can be linked to positive memories. Play with the taste of your partner’s skin. The taste of your partner’s sweat. The taste of your partner. If this doesn’t work for you, then play with enjoyable tasting foods during intimate moments. This can be an intimate conversation, an intimate dinner or a cuddle session on the couch.
6. The Sixth Sense: If you see dead people…No. I can’t go there.
There is a sixth component to arousal and I do not know if it’s considered a sense. It’s your imagination. You can wield this with reading. You can read something erotic or something romantic. You can daydream. You can daydream. There is, I have to say it, no end to your imagination. Getting out of the expected, the traditional, the predictable can be rewarding and refreshing.