DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in a long-distance relationship, and while my (F) BF’s and my sex drives are well-matched in person, this is hilariously not the case when we’re apart. It’s not the amount of sex we want – we’re both pretty horny – but it seems like there are completely different sets of things that turn us on. For him, I can give him any sort of halfway suggestive image and it’s off to the races. Not even photos – just saying that oops, I can’t find my pants right now, or something. For me, I’m not even entirely sure, thanks to a wildly sex-negative upbringing, but it feels like I 100% cue off of Big Romance Feelings and 0% off of any descriptions of actual sex. So I can, and do, get very turned on by flirting, even any random sort of flirting, but that’s something that emerges spontaneously from our conversations, and if we have a sexytimes session planned, I just sort of…choke. Agh the pressure! And then what he comes up with to talk about are descriptions of the physical act, which does not turn me on.
Anyway, he’s not being a jerk, he’s doing his best, and this is all new to me, and I don’t really know how to steer him towards what I would enjoy more because I don’t have a very specific set of words or models for it, and it’s also not something that he has an intuitive understanding of. Which: fair. I personally don’t understand the appeal of watching random strangers have sex but very clearly there is a market for it!
Where do I start?
Thanks!
Yours,
Men Are From The Not Having Pants Planet
DEAR MEN ARE FROM THE NOT HAVING PANTS PLANET: It sounds to me like the issue isn’t so much as being out of synch so much as how to recreate the sorts of things that turn you on when you’re together. Now, for him, the idea of sex qua sex does the trick. For you, descriptions of sex, mental images of sex or even actual images doesn’t really do it… but feelings do.
This doesn’t strike me so much as a disconnect as just that you’re both vibing off different aspects of the same thing: your desire for each other. While that means things may not necessarily be as straightforward and simple as classic phone sex, trading steamy photos or spicy video chats, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways of blending your remote turn-ons together.
Here’s a question: are you more turned on by Big Romance Feelings for their own sake (such as, say, the restrained-by-convention slow-burn of Regency romances, movies like Scorsese’s Age of Innocence and the flirting/longing parts of Bridgerton), or is it more about you feeling desired? It sounds to me like it may be more the latter than the former. If that’s the case, then it seems like what we have here are two different arousal styles.
From what you’ve described, your boyfriend has what’s known as “spontaneous arousal” or “spontaneous desire” – that is, he gets turned on like a light switch and wants to have sex. This is the form of arousal and desire that is the most commonly portrayed in media: boners out of nowhere, getting turned on immediately by even a hint of sexuality and so on. You, on the other hand, sound as though you have more of what’s known as a “responsive desire” or “responsive arousal” pattern – that is, you get turned on based on the actions of your partner. You may not necessarily be in the mood at first, but his actions – whether it’s the way he flirts or behaves with you, even if he initiates a make out session when you’re not already hot and bothered – are what get you going. So in his case, desire precedes action, while in yours, action precedes desire.
This is actually a fairly common arousal pattern for women, and it would explain why it’s easy for the two of you when you’re together, but trickier when you’re apart. Some people with this arousal pattern will choke – as you do – if they’re asked to be the initiator in scenarios like the one you describe. If your desires are sparked by action, rather than coming screaming out of the clear blue sky, it’s a little hard to know how to prompt it in someone else when you aren’t necessarily feeling it yet.
But that doesn’t mean that the two of you are at an impasse. If anything this – if you’ll forgive the cliché – is less of a problem and more of an opportunity. It just means that you’ll need to think a little outside the box when it comes to some long-distance banging.
While “so immediately hot for each other you can’t keep your hands to yourselves” gets a lot of airplay in our culture, there’s a lot to be said for the slow burn and bringing things to a simmering boil. Making seduction a part of the game you’re playing together can help bridge the gap between how you get turned on and how he does – and that would also encourage both of you to stretch your creative muscles and come up with interesting and novel ways of building and maintaining your sexual connection while you’re apart.
Since you respond more to those Big Romance Feels and your desire goes berserk when you’re flirting, rather than leaping straight into describing sex to one another, why not make flirting the dominant part of how you two stay sexually engaged while long-distance? Instead of scheduling sex, think of it as scheduling seduction; he uses his words to get you turned on, which then leads to your doing the things that get him going.
There’re a lot of ways that you two could indulge in this. Consider, for example, Gomez and Morticia. One of the things that’s notable isn’t just that Gomez is wildly turned on by everything Morticia does, but that Morticia clearly teases him and turns him on deliberately. I mean, does anyone really think that she would drop French phrases by accident? She’s clearly doing so because she likes how it gets him revved up, a sort of prime-time appropriate form of edging. By having your boyfriend take the Morticia role – that is, deliberately getting juuust flirty enough to get a response out of you – he can start a sort of low-grade arousal response that builds over the course of your Skype chats until it becomes unbearable.
Alternately, this could incorporate elements of roleplay. Perhaps on some occasions his goal is to use his words to get you turned on enough so that he can entice some spicy photos. You two could play it as someone trying to seduce a “stranger” remotely, or as his trying to convince you to send a provocative picture or a steamy chat, but oh you’re too shy and reserved to do that, even for your partner… unless…
Yeah, it may be a little more work than just “I’m horny, you’re horny, let’s talk about what we’d like to do”, that level of effort and creativity also means that the two of you will be finding more forms of novelty and inventive ways of overcoming barriers and obstacles… things that help improve and strengthen relationships and increase not just the longevity of the relationship but your mutual satisfaction and affection for one another.
And who knows? Over the course of experimenting and playing together like this, you may find yourself being more turned on by sex for sex’s sake while he finds that he gets more of a charge from those romantic gestures and emotions than he would’ve expected.
Good luck.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com