I once had a lovely person, a lovely mood, a lovely candle, and a paper due at nine the next morning. The paper won.
I will spare you the details. There were few. My body was perfectly willing, and the rest of me was composing a footnote.
Somewhere in my head, someone kept clearing her throat. “Excuse me,” she said, “but have we considered the thesis statement?”
For years I took this as proof of something wrong with me. Understanding the truth took a long time, a few books, and many honest conversations with women in the same boat. Nothing was wrong. A committee had met in secret, and it outvoted me.
This chapter is about that committee. It is the most useful thing I know about pleasure. At eighteen, I needed to hear this.
Meet The Committee
The textbooks leave out one secret. Your brain decides how things go. It works like a committee, with a lot of members, a few strong opinions, and a nonstop-talking chair.
Here are the regulars at my meetings. You may recognize a few.
- The Chair. Runs the meeting. Wants the agenda and asks who has seen her keys.
- The Worrier. Brings the to-do list, the unanswered emails, and your forgotten line to your sister in 2019.
- The Critic. Has opinions on your stomach from this angle.
- The Sleepy One. Woke at five and wants to go home.
- The Daydreamer. Has been somewhere lovely for the last four minutes, and will tell you about it later.
- The Romantic. Likes candles, music, and being looked at in a certain way.
- The Body. Rarely speaks up in meetings, but has very exact tastes.
On a good night, the committee votes yes with a loud, happy voice and the meeting adjourns in the best possible way. On an ordinary night, a few members cast a vote against, and pleasure shrinks a little. On a bad night, the Worrier takes the floor and does not give it back.
Take this from the chapter. The votes are information about the room. Your job is to learn the committee’s voting habits. Then you can set the stage for a good meeting.
The Five Acts
Here is the plain version of events in the body. It helps to know the order.
For a long time, researchers have described sexual response as a series of stages. Names vary, but the common five are these.
- Desire. A wish, a spark, an interest. Sometimes it arrives, and sometimes it stays away.
- Arousal. The body wakes up. You warm and swell and grow wet. Your heart picks up.
- Plateau. The long, building stretch, the high flat place of gathering pleasure.
- Orgasm. The peak and the waves after it, for those lucky enough to reach one.
- Resolution. The soft landing. The body settles and the warmth ebbs. You feel, with luck, rather like a cat on a windowsill.
The list looks like a straight line. For most women it wanders. Real life wanders. Many women skip stages, double back, or linger on the plateau.
Desire sometimes arrives in act three. Some women never feel a peak and love every other part. Other women feel a peak and none of the other acts. The five acts are a map of the territory.
Most of us never heard this one. Resolution is an act too. The part after is real, just like the part before, and it deserves a little attention.
Desire That Shows Up Late
This idea changed my life.
Movies put a picture in our heads of desire at work. A woman feels a rush of wanting. Then she moves toward her partner or her own pleasure. Then arousal begins.
Desire first, then everything else.
For some women, some of the time, that is exactly how it goes. For many women, much of the time, it runs the other way around. The wanting waits outside the front door. It arrives late to the party.
You feel open to the idea, or even just curious. You start with something pleasant. Your body begins to warm up.
Somewhere in the middle you notice, “Oh. I want this.”
Researchers call this responsive desire, and it is one of the most reassuring ideas in this whole field. Sometimes “I am not in the mood” is only the first line.
I want to be careful here. This matters. A no always stays a no.
Perhaps you say no from tiredness, from discomfort, or from plain lack of wanting. The answer is no, and it is respected.
Responsive desire works only in the right conditions. You are safe and unhurried and open to the possibility, with nobody pushing. It tells you one thing. You never need to wait for a thunderclap to give yourself permission to begin.
It also means rare lightning is no sign of a broken woman. Plenty of women live happily on a gentle, steady drizzle.
The Gas Pedal And The Brakes
This model organizes most of my knowledge of this subject. It comes from researchers of the brain’s sexual response. A writer explained it beautifully and brought it to a wide audience. I will give you my own version.
Your brain has two systems. One is a gas pedal, and one is a set of brakes.
The gas pedal picks up every turn-on. A look, a scent, a touch, a song, a memory, a story, a body moving, the feeling of being wanted. It sends the message: go.
The brakes pick up every turn-off and every threat. A worry, a deadline, a noise in the hall, a feeling of being watched, a fear of being judged, a thought about your thighs, a long day, a resentment, a feeling of being unsafe. It sends the message: wait.
This part changes everything. Both systems run all the time, together, and each of us has a different set. Some women have a very sensitive gas pedal and light brakes. Some have a modest gas pedal and very sensitive brakes.
No combination is the right one, and most of us land somewhere in the middle.
Most of us learned to blame the gas pedal for missing pleasure. Very often, the brakes are the real problem. They are on.
That is a very different thing to fix. A weak pedal needs a harder press. With the brakes on, pressing harder only wears out the engine and annoys the neighbors. Lift your foot off the brake instead.
Some common brakes:
- An endless to-do list.
- A messy room, or a room with no privacy.
- A feeling of being rushed.
- Thoughts about your looks.
- Worry about being heard.
- Being tired, or hungry, or too hot, or too cold.
- Old stories about being a nice woman.
- A buzzing phone.
Some common accelerators:
- Being warm, comfortable, and unhurried.
- Favorite music.
- A shower, a bath, a swim, a long walk.
- A story or an image with a charge in it.
- A slow, kind touch.
- Feeling wanted, or admired, or simply looked at with affection.
- A little anticipation, and all the time in the world.
Read the two lists again, slowly. You will probably find far more brakes than accelerators, like most women I know. That is normal.
It is also useful. Lifting a brake is often easier than pressing a pedal.
THE MYTH: A healthy woman wakes up wanting. Without that, something is off.
THE TRUTH: Many healthy women feel desire after the start. Sleep, stress, cycles, and the events of your day shape your moods. A warm-up is simply the committee’s preferred way to work.
Why Safety, Privacy, And Rest Beat Technique
Here is a surprise in a book of this kind. Technique matters less than you think.
The most skilled touch in the world does very little for a woman with her brakes on. The simplest, gentlest touch can astonish a safe, unhurried woman. The conditions do most of the work.
So check the conditions first. Then try anything else in this book.
- Safety. Your place feels secure, with nothing hanging over you.
- Privacy. The door is closed. The household is occupied. Nobody is going to walk in. Privacy is hard for many women, so think creatively. A bath. A parked car. A locked bathroom. An hour with everyone out.
- Rest. You have slept enough, and your tank is full.
- Time. You have all the time you need.
- Warmth. Your body is comfortable. Cold feet are a famous brake.
I have a rule, and I call it a quorum. The committee cannot vote without enough members present. Enough members will stay away from a cold, noisy, crowded room. Make a quiet room and watch the members turn up.
Here is a piece of seduction craft with no partner needed.
Imagine a guest coming to your home tonight. You adore her, and you want everything to be lovely. You tidy a little, light something, and put on something soft.
You do it for her sake. She is worth the trouble.
Now do exactly that, with one change. The guest is you.
Lowering the lights, putting your phone in another room, and choosing the music beat any technique. They tell your own committee about an important meeting, with every member welcome. You are flirting with yourself, and it beats nearly all flirting.
Marguerite was thirty-eight, busy, and convinced of a broken gas pedal. She had tried everything, or so it seemed.
One evening, almost as an afterthought, she put her phone in a kitchen drawer. She closed the bedroom door. She lay down with a blanket and a podcast about nothing in particular.
Nothing dramatic happened. But for the first time in months, she noticed her shoulders. They had come down from around her ears.
She noticed her warmth. She noticed, to her considerable surprise, her curiosity.
“I did not have to do anything,” she told me. “I just had to stop being on call.”
Try it with a trusted friend. Ask her to name her number one brake. You will hear the word “phone” more often than you expect.
No. I would like to say it twice. No.
Brakes are a protective system. A body that brakes under rush, danger, or doubt is working beautifully. The point is to learn their triggers. Then you can build a relaxing room.
You are a smart system, and the room was slightly off. Change the room.
This is a short practice, fully clothed, hands-free, and free of goals. It takes three minutes, and you can do it anywhere, including a parked car.
Sit comfortably with your clothes on. Close your eyes, or soften your gaze. Take a few easy breaths.
First, notice the committee. Which members are talking? Name the loudest two, perhaps the Worrier and the Critic.
Do not argue with them. Just nod and say hello.
Second, check the brakes like weather. Are they clear, cloudy, or stormy today? Just notice.
Third, check the gas pedal. Is it asleep, idling, or humming? Again, with kindness.
Finally, choose one tiny way to lift a brake this week.
An earlier bedtime. A locked door. A phone in the kitchen. A warm bath.
That is the entire Dare. You are checking the weather in your own head.
You may notice: relief, a laugh, the sense that you already knew the problem, or very little at all. All of those are right answers.
SKIP IF: Sitting quietly brings up anything uncomfortable. Open your eyes, stand up, have a glass of water. You can try again later, or not.
Log: today’s weather for brakes and gas pedal, and your one small change.
Garment: tiny cotton bootie shorts, the cheeky kind, and nothing else. Position: straddling the arm of a sofa, one knee up on the cushion, the rounded arm pressed against you.
The committee in your head is loud, so give it something delicious to do. Put on a slow song with a heavy beat. Politely escort the committee out.
Lock the door from the inside. Nobody is coming back for hours.
Settle onto the arm of the sofa. It presses against your button through the cotton. Hold the back of the sofa for balance, and rock in time with the beat. A tiny rocking, no more.
A worry floats in. Let it ride the next exhale out, and return to the warm spot against the cushion. The cotton grows wet. Let your hips join the song.
The music builds, so let your rocking build with it. Faster, firmer, the beat in your hips. The chorus hits. Press down, hold the rhythm, and let your whole body tighten and go.
Go ahead and moan. The committee cannot hear you.
Slide off the arm onto the cushions and breathe.
Out and about: in a long line, press your toes into the floor and release, press and release, in time with a song for your ears alone.
The Private Wing has a longer, spoken version of the check-in for evenings of being talked through it, and a printable weather card for beside your bed.