“Is This Normal?”
Exploring Women’s Sexual Functioning
Written by Ana Bradley, LCSW
“Is this normal?” is a question that often comes up in therapy. “Is it normal that my partner gets turned on straight away but I take longer to get in the mood?” “Is it normal that worrying about work means I don’t want to have sex?” “Is it normal that I want to have sex more than my partner?” Unless you’re currently experiencing pain when having sex, the answer to “is this normal?” is most likely a resounding “YES.”
Much of what we think we know about women’s sexuality is driven by the media and popular culture and is misconceived or even incorrect. The benchmark for women's sexuality and what is considered normal is often based on typical male responses to sexual stimuli. This article explores factors that contribute negatively and positively to women’s sex lives and also ideas to improve your sex life.
The Dual Control Model - Sexual Accelerators and Brakes
In the 1990s, The Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, developed the Dual Control Model which gives insight into how and when we respond to sexual stimuli including sexual sights, ideas and sensations. The two systems of the Dual Control Model are the sexual excitation system (SES), which scans the environment for sexually relevant stimuli, and the sexual inhibition system (SIS), which scans the environment for potential threats. SES can be likened to an accelerator and SIS to a brake. So being able to be aroused means being able to activate the accelerator and deactivate the brake.
Men tend to have a more sensitive accelerator and women tend to have a more sensitive brake. Regardless of gender, however, the sensitivity of the accelerator and brake varies widely from person to person. Some people have high SES and low SIS, some people have high SIS and low SES, some people have medium SES and SIS and all the other combinations. Whatever your accelerator and brake are like, this is completely normal.
Examples of accelerators for a woman might include being in a trusting relationship where emotions can be openly expressed, feeling attractive to her partner, being relaxed, watching porn, or going out for a romantic dinner. Examples of brakes could be worrying about how her body looks, worrying about how long it takes to get aroused, stress from work, worrying about reputation and worrying that children will interrupt. Whether any of these situations will increase the accelerator and reduce the brake is unique to each individual.
So is it possible to change the sensitivity of our accelerators and brakes, for example making your accelerator more responsive or your brakes less sensitive? The current research shows that the sensitivity of our accelerators and brakes is fairly static. HOWEVER, we can make changes to our environment which increase or lessen the sensitivity of our accelerators or brakes!
There are lots of ways to do this, which again, will be unique to every individual. Some examples of ways to increase the accelerator may be novel or exciting situations, such as a new place to have sex, feeling pursued, and romantic settings. Some examples of ways to lessen the brakes might be reducing stress, such as by arranging childcare, improving our body image, and reframing how we think about sex.
References
The Kinsey Institute, https://kinseyinstitute.org/
Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, Emily Nagoski, PHD
