How to Turn Yourself On

Do women really have a lower sex drive—or is that the wrong question? Esther perel explores.

- Esther Perel

EVERY WOMAN KNOWS she can be with a partner who does all the right things—runs a bath, starts a great conversation—but if she’s disconnected from herself or her body, nothing can happen. Reports estimate more than 40 percent of American women have sexual dysfunction, most commonly low desire. Yet most research doesn’t consider that female sexuality is often contextual. Women can lose desire quickly when they don’t feel the right motivation, but because our desire is highly responsive to environment, it can also be ignited easily.

Rethinking Your Desire

A woman has to give herself permission to feel sexual. In my practice, I often hear men say that giving pleasure to a woman is the greatest turn-on. They’ll say, “Nothing turns me on more than to turn her on,” but the woman says, “Nothing turns me on more than to be the turn-on.” She needs to be the main character in her erotic plot. Why? Because women are socialized to think about the needs of others before their own. So in order to be able to let go sexually, to be focused on her own pleasure, a woman needs to be free from the burden of caretaking, from worrying about others.

The popular thinking is that men want the new, the illicit, the raw, while women want tender, intimate, emotionally connected. As a result, many believe that women think about and want sex less frequently than men do in all phases of relationships. But we know that in committed relationships, men’s desire goes down gradually and women’s goes down in a sprint. So, according to sex researcher Marta Meana, women need more escape, more imagination, and more novelty to be turned on.