Bell, food, salivation. Do you remember the lesson you learned in every basic psychology class about Pavlov’s dog? Here is a quick refresher! A dog hears a bell, the dog gets food, the dog salivates. After enough times, the dog hears the bell and even if the dog does not get food, the dog still salivates. This is a simple example of how dogs (and people!) become conditioned to have a response to a stimulus. Classical conditioning shows up in all areas of our life whether it is walking into the family Christmas party already angry and defensive in preparedness for your mother to bring up why you don’t have a partner with you for 6th year in a row, a trauma response of turtle shelling in your adult life because you were taught not to speak about your emotions as a child, OR … drum roll please…in our sex lives!
Let’s talk about arousal non concordance. Arousal non concordance is the lack of [a] predictive relationship between your physiological response and your subjective experience of pleasure and desire. To translate, by physiological response I am referring to genital blood flow, which has been depicted by society as women getting wet and men getting a boner. Due to classical conditioning, our bodies can respond to sexual stimuli by increasing in genital blood flow even if we do not associate that stimuli with our subjective experience of pleasure and desire. The success of our bodies accurately reacting is actually between 10-50% (WOAH! That is not a lot!) Men statistically have a 50 percent overlap between their genital response and subjective arousal; whereas, women have a 10% overlap between their genital response and subjective arousal. So what does this mean? This means that we cannot predict someone’s desire for sex just based on our genital blood flow or a partner’s genital blood flow.
For example, if you are a female and have a hard time getting wet with your partner, that does not mean that you are not attracted to them or want to engage in sex! Getting wet is not the main and only sign that you emotionally and physically want to have sex. The opposite is true as well. If you are getting wet when you know you emotionally and physically do not want to have sex, your feelings are accurate! Our bodies are not always in sync with our subjective experience of pleasure or desire because of classical conditioning. You may have been told your whole life that certain things should arouse you sexually (it is not a hot take that society has made a living telling women they know more about their bodies then they do), and maybe your body is telling you you are turned on because of your genital blood flow. But I am here to scream from the rooftops that that is arousal non concordance, and you do know more about your body than society. Here are some other signs that your body is ready for sex that you can pay attention to:
Muscle tension. Your thighs, butt, abdomen, wrists, calves and feet are all areas that your muscles can contract to show that your body is engaged and in an aroused state.
Your breath. Your pulse may increase and your respiratory rate may increase.
The MOST important: your words. Your feelings are more accurate than your body’s genital blood flow. Communication is so important. And having a partner you feel safe to communicate with while feeling vulnerable around sex is equally as important.
Because society has told us that the main sign of desire is getting wet or getting hard, this can become damaging in relationships. People can get offended that their partner is not getting what they think is physiologically aroused and then feel like their partner is lying to them if their words are not matching their body’s reactions. I would like to again scream from the rooftops, your partner’s words are more accurate than their genital blood flow. They know how aroused they are, they know their emotions and their desire, and if there is trust in the relationship then they are communicating what they know to be true in their body. So let’s stop being suspicious of our partners when they are communicating the way they feel and start getting suspicious of the false information society has fed us our whole lives.
For more information or arousal non concordance here are some beautiful resources:
Book: Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-q-tSHo9Ho
This is a 15 minute Ted Talk by Emily Nagoski talking about Arousal Non Concordance. She elaborates on examples to make it feel more applicable. The examples she elaborates on are found in between minute 4:45 - to the end of the Ted Talk.
A special thank you to Emily Nagoski for her motivation and effort towards research around demystifying sex myths and normalizing what is actually happening in our bodies.