To feel fully empowered, you must acknowledge what you like. You can’t hide it from yourself or your sex partners, because that means you’re still acting from a place of shame. Owning your turn-ons and turn-offs can revolutionize your sex life and help you feel emboldened in new and healthy ways. If you don’t know what your turn-ons are, here’s how to change that.
Getting Specific About What Gets You Hot
Exploring your sexuality is a healthy way to increase your self-awareness and learn more ways to take care of yourself. Sexuality isn’t a secondary part of who you are—it’s a significant factor in your life, health, and happiness. It’s important to regard your sexuality with kindness and inquisitiveness rather than judgment. Our culture has a rigid view of the “right” way for sex to look and feel. This rigidity doesn’t leave room for the beautiful diversity of turn-ons, turn-offs, sizes of bodies, and all the different things that flavor our sexualities and differentiate them. Because of this stigma, many people don’t know all the things that turn them on.
Sometimes, turn-ons are detailed—and this is a good thing. The more nuances and complexities to what you like, the better. If you only like one thing, you’re bound to be stuck in a rut, so it might be time to open your mind and try some new things to find out what you might be interested in.
When people talk about what turns them on, they often will describe visual things, like great abs or dark hair. But turn-ons are so much more multifaceted than that, and focusing merely on visual stimuli oversimplifies sexuality—and shortchanges yourself sexually. Some people use the term “map” or “blueprint” because there are so many routes to being aroused, and the more you identify, the more you can enjoy them.
So go beyond the physical. Try to come up with a list of non-physical, non-visual things that turn you on, including behaviors, ambiance, sounds, smells, emotions (negative or positive), phrases, positions, chemistry, and clothing materials. Think of times that you’ve been surprised to find you were turned on, and try to isolate what aroused you. Be as thorough as possible.
Start With Your Fantasies
If you’re having trouble coming up with a list, recall your favorite sexual fantasies or experiences. Try to identify underlying themes they have in common. Start with a few of the most memorable and erotic and pinpoint what made those situations so incredible for you. Don’t forget to think about factors like whether the sex was in a long-term relationship or casual. Make a list of all the environmental factors and the emotions you felt. It could be something as obvious as having sex in public or something as enigmatic as the feeling of shame or emotional safety.
It’s essential to remember that just because you know what turns you on doesn’t mean you have to act it out in real life. You can keep some of your turn-ons as only fantasies. Fantasies are a safe space to explore the boundaries of your sexuality and go to the edge of excitement and novelty.
If you do want to explore your fantasies in the bedroom, a safe alternative is using roleplay to enact them. This process gives you a level of distance between your identity and the sex you’re having. This can be especially helpful for people raised in a sex-negative religion since it can reduce the guilt while still giving you a chance to dip your toes into something new.
Accepting Your Sexual Identity
Once you know what turns you on, your job is to accept it. What turns you on is difficult to change, and if it doesn’t hurt you or your partner, it’s important not to judge yourself. Everyone is unique, and most people have some things that turn them on that may strike them as strange or outside the norm. Once you learn to accept your turn-ons, you can begin to express them.
For more advice on how to learn about how your sexuality makes you unique, contact me for a free consultation.
Bio: Dr. Nazanin Moali is a clinical psychologist and sex therapist in the Los Angeles area. She works with various individuals to understand and improve their sexuality. Dr. Moali conducts personal consultation sessions in her Torrance and Hermosa Beach offices, or via a secure, online video-counseling platform. Click here to take the sex quiz for women.