Arousal doesn’t have to be spontaneous

I traveled for business the past few days. As always when I travel and stay in a hotel, I took a few sex toys along. It is rare that I get time to really indulge in a nice long masturbation session, so I take the business trips as an opportunity to do just that. This time around though, when I got to my hotel on Monday night, I didn’t really feel like it. I was tired, my ears were clogged from flying with a cold and all I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and watch some telly.

Nevertheless, I persisted. I took a nice shower, lathered myself all up and massages my tired body to life a bit. I read some erotica, fantasised a bit, relaxed and slowly started touching myself in a more sexual way. I used a nice amount of lube, as I find I get more aroused when I feel myself being wet (“artificially” or otherwise) and finally I got in the mood and had a few very satisfying orgasms.

This made me think. Often we think about arousal as something that comes spontaneous. We wait until we are aroused before we have sex. But why wait? I know sex is fun and often my mind tells me I want to have sex, even though my body isn’t exactly aroused. I may be tired from a long day of work and blogging, or I am slightly under the weather. Sex isn’t always first on my mind on those days. But I know that sex will relax me more than a bath or a facial mask can do. So I take some time to get in the mood (often with help of hubby) and I generally end up having great sex and a wonderful sleep after.

We are so conditioned to think that we must be dripping wet with arousal before we engage in sexual activity. Even in erotica or porn, you often hear or read people say (about a woman) “Oh, you’re so wet”, indicating that she is up for sex. Likewise for men: there is always this expectation that men should be hard or at least semi hard as an indication that they want sex. But arousal isn’t always spontaneous. Sometime it needs to be coaxed. You can make yourself get in the mood by grounding yourself in the moment, or by watching some porn or reading some erotica. There is nothing wrong with taking a bit of time to become aroused. Sometimes hubby and I just start out being naked, telling each other “we’ll see where it leads”. If we end up snuggling and going to sleep, that’s fine. But often the lack of pressure get us both aroused and we end up having amazing sex.

Arousal doesn’t have to be spontaneous. Of course it’s wonderful when it is, when you just can’t wait to get home and rip your partner’s clothes off and have wild, passionate sex. But let’s be real: we all have busy lives and more often than not, we just want some peace and quiet at the end of the day. I am often aroused in the morning, when I can’t do anything about it. In that case, I tell my husband we will have sex in the evening when the kids are in bed. If I am not a ball of raging horniness, I proceed anyhow. More often than not I become aroused eventually. But if I allow my body to dictate when I have sex, I would have sex a lot less than I do have.

This is definitely something that being a sex blogger has taught me. Testing sex toys can be a chore, so I have to work at becoming aroused. It doesn’t work all of the time, sometimes my body is just truly too tired. But for the majority of the time I become aroused and have great orgasms. And if I can do that for a masturbation session, I can certainly do that for partnered sex.

No one should force themselves to have sex or masturbate against their will. But if you want to have sex, and don’t feel aroused, you can still get yourself in the mood. You don’t have to wait for arousal, you can coax it to life yourself. Just use lube, take your time and have fun!