- Our bodies sometimes behave in mysterious ways
that we don't understand,
especially when it comes to arousal.
Why am I horny right now?
Why aren't I horny right now?
Genitals, what on earth are you doing?
You're not my genitals,
down there is my genitals.
This is exactly how I felt sometimes
just not understanding what my body was doing
or the patterns in my arousal
until I read "Come As You Are" by Emily, Nagoski.
Not spawn.
You can see how battered and bruised my copy is.
I recommend this book a lot
when people ask me questions
about mismatched desires in a relationship,
how to be more horny,
how to be less horny
and why their genitals might respond
in unexpected ways.
So much just clicked for me when I read this book
and I want you to benefit too.
So in this video,
we are going to talk about
the secret to sexual arousal,
AKA, how to get turned on
AKA it's official sexy name,
the dual control model.
Oh yeah, I can feel your heartbeat racing,
the blood rushing to your genitals
when you hear those words, the dual control model.
If you're new here.
Hello, my name is Hannah.
I make videos about sex and relationships,
and please subscribe if you want to.
No one is forced to do anything around here
because consent is vital in all aspects of life.
So the dual control method
was developed in the 1990s
by Erick Janssen and John Bancroft
at the Kinsey Institute.
It refers to two systems,
the sexual excitation system
and the sexual inhibition system,
which in her book Nagoski calls
the sexual accelerator and the sexual break
because sex drive, get it?
Although not actually sex drive
because in her book, Nagosaki also talks about
the myth of the sex drive
and how it's a completely useless and unhelpful concept
in understanding desire and arousal.
And we should just bin it entirely.
But that's for another video.
So before I give you the secret
on how to get turned on,
let's look at how our understanding
of sexual arousal has changed over time,
starting in the 1960s,
because we all know sex didn't exist
before the 1960s.
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- You may have heard of William Masters
and Virginia Johnson.
They're famous for their sexual studies in the 1960s,
which involved monitoring people having sex
and masturbating under lab conditions.
They came up with the four phase model
of sexual response,
excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution.
Then in the 1970s,
psychotherapist Helen Singer Kaplan realised
that this model didn't apply to her patients
who experienced little interest in sex.
The missing component was desire.
She created the try phasic model of arousal.
Desire, excitement, orgasm.
Desire coming here
before the excitement.
The dual control model
was developed in the late '90s
and it describes not just what happens
during arousal,
but the central mechanism
that governs and controls it.
Say hello to your biggest sex organ, the brain.
(upbeat music)
So you've got your central nervous system,
which I know very little about.
There's your sympathetic nervous system,
which acts like an accelerator
for bodily functions,
think fight or flight.
And then your parasympathetic nervous system
which is like a break
and slows or inhibits certain bodily functions.
So why not the same for sex?
You've got a sexual excitation system or SES.
This is your sexual accelerator.
And it is constantly scanning the world
for sexually relevant stimuli
even without us being consciously aware
that it's doing it.
When it notices something sexually relevant,
this sends a signal
from your brain to your genitals saying, turn on.
Now you might be thinking,
what is sexually relevant stimuli?
And that's a great question.
And we'll come to it later.
At the same time,
you've got your sexual inhibition system or SIS.
This is your sexual break.
This notices and responds
to perceived external threats,
which prevent or halt arousal.
And it also responds to internal stimuli,
such as fear, anxiety or stress.
You can still get aroused
and have a good sexy time
if this part of your brake is active,
but it'll just take longer.
Everyone has a sexual accelerator and brake,
but how sensitive they are
will vary from person to person.
So a high SES is a sensitive accelerator
and a low SIS is a not very sensitive break.
Most people are average in both,
but let's take a look at
the extreme ends of the spectrum,
which is still normal,
so that we can get a better idea
of how this applies to real life.
A small amount of people
have high SES and low SIS.
So a sensitive accelerator,
but a not very sensitive brake.
They tend to get easily aroused,
have difficulty preventing arousal
and are associated
with sexual risk taking and compulsiveness.
Another small amount of people
have high SIS and low SES.
So a sensitive brake,
but a not very sensitive accelerator.
They tend to have difficulty getting aroused,
lack desire,
maybe have difficulty getting to orgasm
and tend to be very aware
of all of the possible reasons
why not to be aroused.
They tend to need concentration
and deliberate attention to find pleasure in sex.
Again, all of this is normal.
People are just different.
But we will get on to how you might change
if you want to shortly.
It's also important to note
that the two systems are separate.
So if getting aroused more easily
is something that you want,
first, you need to figure out
if it's because your SES is low
or your SIS is high
and focus on the right one.
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So how do you find out
if you have a high, low, or average SES and SIS?
Well, our girl Emily has got us covered.
There's a little quiz in her book called
the sexual temperament questionnaire.
I love quizzes.
When I first read this book,
I did the quiz and I got my partner, Dan,
to do it too.
There's questions such as,
unless things are just right,
it is difficult for me to become sexually aroused
and often just how someone smells
can be a turn on.
And then you rank up your scores
and you get a separate score
for your SES and your SIS.
Also, it's been a few years
since Dan and I took the questionnaire.
And so we recorded a special podcast episode
for Patreons only
of us going through the questions again.
And you can listen to it
over on patreon.com/hannahwitton.
(upbeat music)
If you weren't finding this video sexually relevant so far,
you will now,
because that's what we're gonna talk about.
Your SES responds to things
that are sexually relevant.
That means sensations,
what you see, touch, hear,
smell and taste and ideas.
It can be internal feelings and sensations
such as wetness, an erection or sexual fantasy,
or it can be social stimuli.
A lot of what we think of as sexy
is a social construct.
It's not innate to our bodies and our sensations,
but it's something that we learn.
For example, that classic diet Coke advert.
A topless man isn't inherently sexual,
but because of the context of the advert
and everything that we've learned
from society and culture about what sexy means,
we read it as sexually relevant material.
This means, yes, correct,
almost anything can be sexually relevant.
It just depends
how much of a dirty mind you have.
I'm joking, no shame here.
But it's kind of true.
But no judgement .
If anything, I'm the one with the dirty mind
because I read almost everything
as sexually relevant.
And by the way, sexually relevant
doesn't mean something that turns you,
specifically you on.
It's just something that your brain registers
and goes, hm, I think this is about sex.
If you have high SES,
you might not need
much sexually relevant material to get going,
which is why it might sometimes feel like
you're literally getting turned on by anything.
But just because you got super aroused
after watching the final scene
in the film sausage party
doesn't mean you want to have sex with a hot dog.
Although that's a bad example
because that scene is basically porn
and yes, I'm talking about myself.
So here's some potentially sexually relevant things
I found around my house.
And these aren't necessarily going to turn you on,
but your SES will notice them.
(upbeat music)
So the secret to arousal,
what on earth is it?
How do I get turned on
when I want it to be turned on?
The bad news
is that we can't change the sensitivity
of our sexual accelerator and brake.
We tend to have a fixed range.
But the good news
is that we can control what they respond to.
This is the part we do have control over.
Nagoski calls this turning on the ons
and turning off the offs.
So our secret formula,
what hits your accelerator?
Do more of that.
What hits your breaks?
Less of that.
Easier said than done though.
We can change what our brain considers a threat
and we can also reduce potential threats,
like unwanted pregnancy, STIs and stress.
We can also change
what our brain considers sexually relevant
and expose ourselves
to more sexually relevant things.
Now, this is going to be very personal
and very individual.
So it's all about tuning into
your own context and environment.
If you've experienced sexual trauma
or you were raised in an environment
that shame sex,
you might have
a lot more stuff hitting your brakes.
You don't necessarily have more sensitive brakes,
just a lot more stuff hitting them.
This is going to be different for everyone.
It really depends
on what specific things are hitting your breaks
and what you can do about them.
But one thing that is true for most people
is that stress hits our brakes.
And I say most people because actually for some,
it does the opposite.
But again, it's all normal.
So investing your time and energy
into techniques that can help to reduce stress
might be a good place to start.
For example, exercise, breathing,
mindfulness practise, meditation and good sleep,
plus whatever else helps you wind down and relax.
For your sexual accelerator,
again, this is going to be different for everyone,
but a good place to start
is focusing on what sensations turn you on
and doing more of that.
So is there a specific scent
that gets you in the mood?
Is there a certain kind of touch
that makes you tingle.
Or is it a conversation with your partner
that really makes you feel connected?
Or maybe, just maybe all you need to do
is watch a clip of a cartoon taco going down
on a cartoon hot dog bun.
Thank you for watching.
This video was brought to you by the common room,
and amazing online community
who helped to support these videos.
If you'd like to check it out,
you can head over to my Patreon
and I will see you in my next video, bye.