What turns you on? Part One.

Sussing out what turns clients on is often important in sex therapy. I have clients who come in because they don’t know whether or not acting on their turn-ons is morally acceptable. Others see me because they can’t achieve or maintain an erection (commonly known as erectile dysfunction—I prefer the term, ‘erectile unpredictability.’) And lots of couple clients come in because one partner is dissatisfied with the amount of sex they’re having. In all of these cases—and in others—it’s valuable to talk about what turns clients on.

In a previous post, I mentioned the sexual menu, introduced by Suzanne Iasenza in her terrific book, Transforming Sexual Narratives. With the sexual menu, clients make a list of five or six items that come to mind when they think of the word ‘erotic.’ This is a great way to get people to start thinking about what turns them on.

For many of us, it takes time to open up about what really turns us on. Many of us keep our true desires hidden, even from ourselves.

Some good places to start in thinking about what turns you on is thinking about what pornography you watch, or which fantasies you indulge in, when you masturbate. You also might mentally travel back to your childhood and adolescence, to think about the nature of your earliest fantasies.

In my favorite sex therapy book, The Erotic Mind, the author, the late sex therapist, Jack Morin, encourages readers to think about their ‘peak sexual experiences’—the most powerful and pleasurable sexual experiences they’ve had. By examining these, we can begin to gauge what scenarios, situations, and dynamics really excite us.

Morin introduces another useful concept in The Erotic Mind. He poses that, “our most compelling turn-ons are shaped by one unifying scenario that I call the core erotic theme (CET). The CET is core because it occupies a place at the heart of each individual’s eroticism. And it’s thematic in the sense that an infinite array of storylines, characters, and plot twists can all be inspired by a simple, yet profoundly meaningful, dramatic concept.”

Let’s pause there—what does Morin mean by ‘dramatic concept’? I guess he means that most of the time, when we fantasize, there is a situation or relationship dynamic at the fantasy’s core. For some of us, it might mean that we want to dominate another person. Others may wish to be dominated. Some of us may get turned on by the thought of another person treating us kindly. In any case, at least, according to Morin, there is usually some kind of story at the center of our fantasies.

The concept of the CET becomes more fascinating, and more psychological, as Morin continues. “Hidden within your CET,” writes Morin, “is a formula for transforming unfinished emotional business from childhood and adolescence into excitation and pleasure.”

So, according to Morin, what excites us sexually is resolving ‘unfinished emotional business from our childhood and adolescence?’

This is the first part of a series of blogs I’m posting on erotic turn-ons. I’ll be posting another one—picking up right here—later this week.