01 What Turns You On?
This is the ask a sex therapist podcast helping you change the way you look at sex. I’m Heather Shannon. And in a world full of sexual censorship, I’ll give you the raw truth about pleasure, intimacy in your relationships and enjoying your body. Because it’s time for you to ask a sex therapist, I am so excited to talk to you guys today about what turns you on.
I can’t really think of many more fun topics than this. So really thinking about what feels good for you, we’re gonna think about this question in a few different ways. And on a few different layers, really. And first, I want to talk about why it’s important, though. So one of the things I’ve run into with clients is, you know, people usually see me when they’re not fully satisfied with their sex life, right? So, I will make that disclaimer. But a lot of times, I start to wonder and ask people questions about, you know, well, what, you know, are you enjoying the sex that you are having? Or if you haven’t had sex in a while? Is there? You know, reason why was it lacking pleasure? Was it not the type of sex that you wanted to have? And a lot of times people are like, oh, you know, it was it was fine, or this or that. But what I am actually hearing in their answers is that they’re missing some of the layers that we’re going to talk about today. So there’s actually four layers I’m going to talk to you guys about. But when we can’t articulate for ourselves, what really turns us on, we can’t really thoroughly and articulately answer that question, how is our partners supposed to know right? So it becomes important not only for ourselves, but also for a relationship. So it also is important because it gets us into more of a conscious sexuality. And I want to explain what I mean by that. So there’s a lot of social scripts around sexuality, there’s a lot of sort of pre written this is how it should go according to society, according to religion, according to our culture, according to our politicians, you know, that this is what sex is supposed to be like, whether that’s messages about you know, sex is for married people, or sex is for people who are in love or sex is for people of a certain age or sex is fine. As long as you limit yourself to a couple of basic sex positions, and oral sex and kissing, okay, then you’re fine. Anything outside of that, we’re going to have to start seriously questioning it. But that’s actually what I’m here to encourage you to do, is to seriously question how you’ve been approaching sex. And so that’s how we start waking up and realizing, Wait a second, I’ve been treating these things that I’ve learned from school, and religion and culture and other people. And the media, for sure, is facts. But they’re really just ideas that people have offered to me. And I actually don’t have to fully accept those. If they’re not working for me, I don’t have to accept those. So that’s the kind of waking up process. That’s the kind of consciousness process that I want to help you guys with. So it can start by asking yourself some questions, and learning to become more sexually self aware. Because probably, if you’re listening to this, you’re dedicated to personal growth on some level. But have you applied that to sex yet? I don’t know. I think that a lot of us are into emotional or spiritual personal growth, working on our healing. But I think that sex is an untapped area. And an area that still you know, we get mixed messages about it for sure. Like, let’s feature all the sexy people and magazines and movies and in order to sell products, but then also let’s you know, shame people if they’re too sexual in their daily lives, or if they’re wearing a certain outfit, or if they have too many partners. So it’s a confusing mixed message. And what I really want for you guys is to find whatever your authentic sexuality is, so whether it’s, you know, waiting till you get married, whether it’s never having sex, whether it’s, you know, having 20 partners in a weekend, I’m not really concerned with that I’m concerned with what feels right for you. And how can you start discovering that for yourself? So that’s what this episode is all about? What turns you on? What turns you on, not just you know, what should turn you on? So we’re gonna start with kind of a day to day definition of, you know, feeling sexy, feeling yourself, kind of expanding the definition of foreplay. So instead of foreplay, just being the stuff you do before penetration. What is foreplay is like, all day A every day, just kind of bringing the sexy back, if you will. So what you can do to think about this question is, just ask yourself what makes you feel vibrant, and alive? And that might not be the foreplay question you’re expecting. But really the way I think about it, having, you know, done a lot of my own work on this topic, my own, you know, personal growth, and also helping clients, is it sexual energy is lifeforce energy, and we feel our most sexy, our most turned on, when we are really in alignment with ourselves when we are really standing in our own integrity, and not just whatever was handed to us by our family, or our culture or religion. Right. So, for me, you know, what makes me feel vibrant and alive. I didn’t have much of a libido a couple of years ago, I was, you know, getting over a breakup, I was having some health issues, and it just kind of wasn’t very important at the time. And also, by the way, that’s okay. As much as I think sex is important, and it’s my job, and I’m doing this podcast, because I think it’s important. It’s also cool and okay to just take a break for a while. But it got to the point for me where I was like, you know, this isn’t enough of a break. I miss that sense of vitality and energy and vibrancy, and how do I start getting that back. So this can be basic things. So for me, it was doing some emotional healing work on getting past my breakup and doing some work with energy healers, and it was also addressing my health. You know, I had some kind of mysterious food intolerance and autoimmune type symptoms. And so it was kind of going on a journey to figure out like, what do I need to do to take care of myself? And interestingly enough, I would say the process has also involved some long distance moves, right? So I’m from Chicago, for those of you guys who don’t know yet, and yeah, I lived there, the first 40 years of my life, and I had always really wanted to go somewhere warm by the ocean. And you know, there was always just a reason why not to go. And so, for me, that was something that was not feeling in alignment for me to stay in Chicago for a number of years, it was kind of like, oh, well, you know, it’s not the right time with my business, that was actually a big one, you know, I have this five year commercial lease, I have these employees, I have to kind of be there, right, I have to manage everything in person. And then COVID happen and my business kind of automatically moved entirely online, which was something that I had been hoping to do, anyways, and I was lucky enough that one of the people who had been renting space from me and my office, we took over the whole lease, so I was able to get out of the lease earlier. And then I became a free agent, and was really able to make that dream of living somewhere warm by the ocean or reality. So I want to move into Puerto Rico. So just that change of pace, that change of location, the different energy of Puerto Rico, the different people and connections that I was making, added to that feeling of feeling alive of feeling in alignment with myself. And finally going for that thing that I really wanted a feeling more vibrant, you know, I was exposed to different aspects of life like cryptocurrency, there’s tons of crypto people there, that, you know, I was learning about for the first time, and I was living on the ocean looking at, you know, a pool and the ocean and palm trees and, you know, really getting to have a unique experience that way. So the moral of the story is that even though we’re talking about sex, it’s also just about being in alignment with yourself, right? The other thing I will say is, is being patient, you know, this is not necessarily an overnight thing. So if you’re kind of like not really feeling yourself, if you are not really feeling in alignment, not feeling energetic or vibrant, to give yourself some time, right? And to tune in and figure out for yourself, what is it that you need to go for? What is it that you’re kind of holding back on? Where are you stuck? What do you need to go for, but it can also just be as simple as like getting a bikini wax or buying cute new outfit, or going to the gym and lifting some weights or joining a bowling league and having more guy friends, you know, so it’s whatever helps you feel like your best self that maybe feels a little missing from your life. So that’s the first layer. Now the second layer. So now we’ve kind of like started creating the conditions for like sexiness to be happening in your life. So what gets you in the mood? So now you’re like walking around feeling yourself but what actually gets you in the mood? And one of the things that I want people to understand is that we all I have a sexual accelerator and a sexual break. And this is something you can read about more in Emily Nagasaki’s book calm as you are amazing book. And so it’s kind of like what hits the accelerator, what hits the brake. And just like a car, you might have a really strong accelerator, but if the brake is on cars not going anywhere, right, so what we want to kind of figure out is what do we need to do to take your foot off the brakes? In terms of sex, okay. So that could be stress is a huge one, right? So you can think of it like your nervous system. So you might be in fight or flight. You know, you’re working or hustling, you’re busy, you’re over scheduled, there’s too much to do in the day, there’s overwhelm you feel like you’re dropping the ball on things, then yeah, you might be in fight or flight a lot. Well, it’s important to know, sexiness tends to not happen in fight or flight mode, there are people who have very little breaks when it comes to sex, and that might still happen for them. But for most of the rest of us, we want to be in that kind of like rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system to feel like sexy time can happen. So building some more relaxation into your life, getting out in nature, doing some workouts, journaling, managing that stress, doing some thought work, you know, getting into law of attraction stuff and noticing, like, what thoughts feel better, which for me, when I’m not feeling good, when I’m in that fight or flight mode, can I intentionally consciously reach for a better feeling thought, right, so that stuff is going to start taking the brakes off. And you’re also kind of just starting to create more of a context, more of the conditions for sex to happen. So this is layer two. So another thing you can do in this layer is flirting sexting with your partner, little touches throughout the day, telling them how hot they are. So this is not the actual sexual act. But it’s this idea that like, you can keep that sexual energy flowing. And I kind of think of it like, you know, a little bit like layer one where there’s certain people who just have flirty personalities, you know. So I think of those people. And I described them as like, this is someone who will flirt with babies and grandparents, right. Like, they’re, they don’t mean anything by it, but there’s just kind of a little flirtatious energy. So it’s kind of inviting that energy into the relationship with the person or person people that you actually want to have sex with. So bringing that flirtation and instead of it being like, work, work, work, house tasks, work out, gotta clean got to do this gotta run to the store, and then like, oh, it’s sexy time. Oh, yeah, like almost like it’s an afterthought. Or we should be able to just flip a switch really quickly. And, you know, I do feel like people who are more testosterone based, and if they’re dominant sex hormone, might be able to do that I kind of describe it as like, it’s like a microwave oven, where you just like, press on and they’re ready to go. Those of us who are more estrogen based, we often need a little preheating. So this step is one that I think often gets skipped is like you can be preheating all day long, you know, you can be pre heating so that you know, that person is ready to go and when you do get to see each other at the end of the day. All right. So third level third layer that we’re going to talk about, is foreplay. And again, I really consider all of this foreplay, I think like the whole thing is like taking good care of yourself being in alignment, doing the flirting, managing the stress. It’s all leading towards more sexual energy, more of that lifeforce energy. So what kind of foreplay turns you on? And how do you want sex to be initiated? This is another area where people struggle a lot, they’re not clear, and how they’re initiating sex or that it is being initiated. So sometimes, one partner feels like, yeah, I put on like my low cut top with cleavage. And I like bend forward and like, did you not realize I was trying to initiate and the other partner is like, no, definitely no, I just thought it was a cute job. So making sure that we are actually clear with what we are trying to do. So there’s an interesting study, I’m going to have this link in the show notes about America’s biggest turnoff. And so just to give you guys like a little bit of an idea, most people want sex to be initiated through touch and that’s also what my Instagram following his sad when I pulled them. Sometimes people do want it to be a verbal thing like, Hey, want to have sex tonight. Super crystal clear, right? Like there’s no question about consent or enthusiasm or any of that. But most people want it to be initiated through touch in the most common preference is kissing the neck. But this is something to notice. Like how and if you haven’t asked your partner, ask them and if you’re single ask your next partner. You know How do they want to initiate it? Do they like that kisses? Some people might be like, Oh no, my, that’s not the right place to start. That could be for later. Some people might even just want like a little shoulder rub or massage. And I love that one because it kind of accomplishes layer two of like taking your foot off the brakes and creating more relaxation and starting to create a sexy atmosphere. And it’s touch, and it can be sexy. And it can lead towards orgasms eventually, right? So that’s something to figure out is like when you start becoming more sexual with your partner. What kind of foreplay Do you like? Do you want to dance with each other? You know, it’s like, hey, let’s put on kind of a sexy playlist and start dancing. And so this layer definitely involves touch in my opinion. So what kind of touches Do you like? Do you like soft touches? Do you kind of want like a deep massage? Do you want little kisses? Some people love kissing? Some people don’t. Right? So understanding like, what is that way? Some people feel like, if there’s no kissing, I don’t quite know how to start. But even that, I think is great to question. Because we don’t want to be a one trick pony anyways, right? And I think it can force us to be creative, you know, if maybe we’re used to initiating and getting into foreplay with kissing, or maybe we’re used to doing it by just like, kind of rubbing our partner’s leg or like holding their hand or putting our arms around them or whatever it is, mix it up, try something different, right, you might kind of have a whole different experience if you start out differently at the beginning. So figure that out for yourself. And kind of as we’re going through this, I want you guys to be able to almost mentally create your own roadmap of a sexual experience. It’s like, what is that day to day? What does feeling yourself on a day to day basis look like? What does that feel like? What mood are you in? What happens next? How do you kind of create that sexual energy, a little bit of that tension and anticipation? And then what actually initiate sexual activities for you? What is the foreplay, that actually gets it going and kind of begins to touch. And then lastly, I call this layer the deed. And there’s a reason why I’m calling it the deed because I kind of purposely wanted to be a little broader here, I didn’t really want it to be like, this is just sex or this is intercourse, because this is another culturally embedded thing is, you know, we say sex and we mean intercourse in general in our society. And I would like us to start undoing that a little bit, because it is heteronormative. Meaning like, you know, it’s kind of a penis and vagina like, this is how this goes. But you know, what, if you have two women having sex, right, does it mean if they don’t have a penis involved or not having sex, or that, you know, two guys can only have sex if it’s anal, because that’s the only thing that’s like, penetrative and a certain way. So we’re broadening the definition here. So when I say the deed, I am describing any potentially orgasmic activities. And you know, there’s people out there that can have orgasms from nipple stimulation alone, so, so this can be very broad. But again, I’m kind of purposely challenging your definition of sex here. But what positions do like what helps you get off most easily? You know, if it’s harder to get off? What would help make it easier? Are you in your head? Do you feel a sense of time pressure? You know, maybe that’s part of those layers one and two is like making sure you have the time making sure your partner has the time so you don’t feel rushed? Do you love oral sex? Is that kind of the most fun way for you to ramp things up? So think about that, like in your ideal sexual scenario? What is happening? Like, how is all this playing out? And I would encourage you to write it down. Like if you haven’t really ever thought about this before, write some ideas down, right? Because you might want to kind of mentally try on a bunch of different ideas before you decide. But figuring out your turn ons is huge, right? And oftentimes, what turns you on is what turns your partner on, right? There’s so many clients I’ve worked with, where their biggest turn on is bringing their partner pleasure or seeing their partner experiencing pleasure. So figuring out your turn ons is not a selfish thing. It’s delightful, delightfully selfish on one level, but it’s also something that really benefits your relationship. So let yourself kind of be creative. Let yourself come up with multiple ideas. So I hope that helps everyone.
Thank you so much for tuning in. And if you want more of this, reach out to me. If you think this is great information and more people need to know share this podcast with your partner. This is actually a great one to share with your partner because then you could both write down your or less, you can go through the four layers with each other and compare notes or send it to a friend who you know, you know, can use a little help in the turn on department. And I’m going to just repeat so again, those four layers, we have layer one of feeling yourself all day, every day, we have layer two of getting in the mood and taking your foot off the brakes. We have layer three of foreplay and starting to you know, initiate sexual activity through touch. And then we have layer four, the deed some kind of orgasmic or potentially orgasmic activity. So thank you guys so much for tuning in and share this podcast with your partner friends. See you next time. Thank you for listening to the Ask a sex therapist podcast. Got a question about spicing things up in the bedroom? Find the answers you’re looking for in my dirty talk guide. A free resource for my podcast listeners. grab yours now. Heather shannon.co forward slash dirty talk. Again, that’s Heather shannon.co forward slash dirty talk. And be sure to tell your partner friends because everyone has something they would like to ask the sex therapist
