CHAPTER SIX
From
‘Your Blueprint for Pleasure’
Excerpted from Your Blueprint for Pleasure: Discover THE 5 EROTIC TYPES to Awaken—and Fulfill—Your Desires by Jaiya. Published by Union Square & Co. All rights reserved.
The Five Erotic Blueprint Types™
By Jaiya
I have a feeling you’ve had enough foreplay—now it’s time for the main event. In this chapter, I’ll share the basic essence of each Erotic Blueprint Type™.
As of this writing, over two million people have been empowered by this sex-life-changing framework. They’ve discovered a new language that helps them articulate their needs and desires, their turn-ons and turn-offs, so they now live a sexually fulfilling life. They’ve discovered a new approach to sex and pleasure that allows them to own and enjoy who they are erotically. And they’ve gained confidence in their abilities to meet their lover’s needs and fulfill their lover’s deepest desires.
Would you like to experience this kind of transformation in your sex life? Get excited for the next big step on your erotic journey.
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Let’s Take a Moment for
Pleasure First:
Noticing Your Pelvic Floor
The pelvic floor muscles surround your erectile network and support the vital organs. Having a healthy pelvic floor helps you have stronger orgasms and more pleasure in your genital area. Tune into your pelvic floor and notice the sensations there. Do you feel the pressure of the seat beneath you or the texture of your clothing? Are you aware of sexual arousal or pulsating sensations?
There’s no right or wrong thing to notice.
If you are a person with a penis, focus on the area between your scrotum and your anus. If you are a person with a vulva, focus high in the vagina near your cervix. Begin to squeeze and release this area of your body. Notice what arises with focused attention.
Ask yourself, What would make this even more pleasurable?
Could you add some breath? Move slowly in circles or thrusts?
Simply allow yourself to explore.
What would happen if you increased the speed of the contractions and relaxations while visualizing penetrating a partner or being penetrated? Does that increase or decrease pleasure? What would happen if you went even slower and more sensually? What would happen if you just imagined squeezing and releasing but didn’t actually do it?
After several minutes of exploration, stop and notice your pelvic floor again. What has changed as a result of this practice?
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You Are Not Broken
We talked about this in chapter four, and I want to keep reminding you: you—yes, you—are whole and complete.
As you read this book, doubts or fears might arise. Or you might have thoughts that it’s really for someone else.
It’s not. It’s for you.
And if you haven’t had those thoughts somewhere along this journey, you are one of a rare few who feels sexually confident, like anything is possible — and that’s amazing! You know you aren’t broken, you know that you can experience a whole world of erotic possibilities, and you know you are extraordinary and ordinary and “normal,” all wrapped in one package.
And guess what? If you’re reading this book because you think your lover is broken—they aren’t broken, either! You can stop blaming them or thinking something must be wrong with them.
There isn’t.
They might just be wired differently than you.
You’ve most likely heard the common refrain that we fear what we do not understand. Well, what I see around sexuality is that we judge what is different from what we know about our own selves. I invite you to stop judging your partner and start doing the work to understand them. Believe me, when you choose this path, it’s a much more loving choice that creates a lot less suffering.
The five Erotic Blueprint Types help people understand that they are not broken or abnormal in any way. They give each of us permission to be our amazing erotic selves.
So far in this book, you’ve taken your first peek into who you are and what stage of sexuality you may be in. The Erotic Blueprint Types will help you see how you are erotically wired for your unique brand of turn-on, and that there is no shame in how you’re wired. I think all the Erotic Blueprint Types deal with shame about their sexuality, but remember: this work is all about knowing yourself and accepting yourself.
“I don’t know, I just feel like I’m broken, and this is impossible. I’m never going to feel turned on or okay about my sexuality.” This wasn’t the first time Nellie had said these words to me. She was stuck in the belief that she was beyond repair in the sexual realm and that she had no interest in sex. And she felt shame about all of it. Part of Nellie’s challenge was that she hadn’t discovered what worked for her and what allowed her to feel good.
Of course, she didn’t want sex! Why would she, when nothing she had tried so far had turned her on?
“Are you willing to find out what turns you on, and to be surprised by it?” I asked her.
“Yes, but I’m a little afraid of being disappointed again. I mean, nothing—and I really mean that—nothing has worked,” she replied.
At this point in a session, when a client and I are just starting to work together, it’s important that I know what they’ve tried and what hasn’t worked. I posed the question to Nellie.
“Well, I have mostly tried vibrators, intercourse, rubbing around naked, and I had a G-spot massage once,” she replied, squirming a bit in her seat. “I’ve tried a few different sex toys, oral sex, and fingering. I’ve watched
porn. It did nothing for me.”
Right away, I could tell that most of Nellie’s sexual explorations have been in one particular Erotic Blueprint Type. This is the case for many people: one Erotic Blueprint Type is being explored, leaving the other four completely out of the person’s erotic expression. When they think of sex, they think of the standard narrative of sexuality, and they miss out on so much of what is there to play with, either partnered or on their own.
Nellie and I created a very safe container for her, so she could explore slowly and not repeat what hadn’t worked for her in the past. I felt incredibly excited for Nellie because I’d seen this so many times before in my practice. I knew that within the next three hours, Nellie would have an entire list of turn-ons because there was so much she hadn’t explored. There are many, many layers to your sexual arousal, from who you are turned on by to what sensations turn you on and in which situations or contexts intimate encounters take place. I can assure you that none of this is the same for everyone.
Sure enough, after three hours of exploration with various touches in different Erotic Blueprints, Nellie sat there in tears of amazement. “I’m alive! I’m not sexually dead! How did I go so long not knowing this?”
I live for these moments of awakening.
“I’m so grateful right now to know that there are things that turn me on and that I can share this with someone,” she said. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, which now had the unmistakable sparkle of someone who just met their erotic self.
I’m going to share how you can discover this for yourself and/or with a partner in chapter twelve, but first, let’s look at the Erotic Blueprint Types so you can begin to understand this revolutionary framework.
As you read this introduction to the five Erotic Blueprint Types, you may find yourself resonating with one or more of them. Most of us aren’t strictly one type, but a combination of some or all five. Typically, though, you have a Primary Blueprint, where you find your easiest access to pleasure and turn-on.
As we explore the essence of each of the Blueprints, I’ll often refer to its Superpowers and Shadows. Each type has its own Superpowers and Shadows, and you can have the Superpowers of one Blueprint and the Shadows of another. The Superpowers are where each type is wired to find pleasure with the most ease, the special forms of arousal and turn-on that light desire aflame; they define the pleasure sandbox in which each type most loves to play. The Shadows are elements that put the brakes on pleasure for each type. These can be emotional, physical, biochemical, or energetic (more on this later).
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(This book is officially released Dec. 5th, 2023)
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The Five Erotic Blueprint Types
THE ENERGETIC
The Energetic is turned on by space, teasing, anticipation, and yearning. They have some extraordinary Superpowers, like being able to have orgasms without even being touched. On the Shadow side, they can get caught in oversensitivity, which can create numbness and short-circuit their turn-on.
It just so happened that Nellie had a lot of Energetic in her Pleasure Profile. Most of her arousal came from not touching. That may sound confusing. How can you not touch and still create arousal, turn-on, and even orgasms?
You’ll find out more about that in the next chapter.
THE SENSUAL
A Sensual is turned on by all their senses being ignited: a delicious taste, a favorite song playing in the background, the smells of sensuality, colors and flowers and setting—oh, and don’t forget the style of touches: all over their body! Contouring touch. Melting, flesh to flesh!
A Sensual brings beauty to the erotic experience. Like Energetics, Sensuals possess the Superpower of being able to orgasm without genital touch. On the Shadow side, Sensuals are notorious for getting caught in their heads and not being able to relax into a sexual encounter.
We found out that Nellie had a hard time staying present during sex, which would plummet her connection to pleasure. Given the right context and exercises to help her find and meet sensation in her body, she was able to stay in the sensuality of the experience, surrendering and opening herself to pleasure.
THE SEXUAL
The Sexual is turned on by what most people typically think of as “sex.” Give a Sexual nudity, genital touch, penetration, and orgasms, and all is right in their world.
A Sexual is most likely able to go from zero to sixty in no time. They are simple in their sexuality but do not lack a feeling of depth.
The challenge with most Sexuals is that they miss the journey of a fully realized sexuality that invites and includes the pleasures of all the Erotic Blueprint Types.
Nellie was trying very hard to find turn-on in the Sexual Blueprint. She was trying what she thought should turn her on because she didn’t know there were other forms of pleasure to try. It’s an easy mistake to make. After all, we’re told we should be turned on by genital touch and orgasms and sex toys and nudity—and for a Sexual, all these things work wonders! But most people need to explore other things before activities within the Sexual Blueprint will be a turn-on for them.
THE KINKY
The Kinky is turned on by taboo. And that can mean anything that is taboo for you: Love to be tied up or do lots of role-playing that feels naughty and edgy for you? You just might be a Kinky Type™! If you’ve never had anything but missionary-style sex and getting a blow job feels taboo to you—you just might be a Kinky Type.
There are infinite ways to explore this Blueprint. Some people who are Kinky are more sensation-based (they love ropes and spanking, for example), while others are more psychological-based (they love role-play and power games, for example). And some Kinkys are both.
The Kinky’s biggest Superpower is that they are endlessly creative and playful.
A common Shadow that Kinky Blueprints face is that they feel ashamed of their sexual desires because they’re typically seen as taboo. In Nellie’s exploration, she discovered that she was turned on by being objectified. This was very difficult for her to reconcile because she was a strong woman who didn’t want to be objectified outside of the bedroom.
THE SHAPESHIFTER
The Shapeshifter is turned on by it all! They love it all, they want it all, and often they want a lot of it. They have a huge appetite and a broad palate for many forms of pleasure. If, as you were reading about the other four Blueprints, you found your desires represented in all the Types, you might be a Shapeshifter. This Blueprint is like all the other Blueprints rolled into one—plus some of its own unique characteristics.
The Shapeshifter is highly erotically intelligent. This often gets mistaken for being too complex or needy. The Shapeshifter can have many Superpowers, but one unique one is that they can shapeshift to please any lover—it’s like being able to speak many languages fluently.
Nellie had the potential, as we all do, to become a Shapeshifter. However, she first needed to fully dive into the Blueprints in which she had easy access and connection to her own pleasure.
Trauma and the Erotic Blueprints
I define “trauma” as the way we adapt to adverse and intense situations. None of the Erotic Blueprints are immune to the effects of trauma, but after taking thousands of in-depth sexual histories, I have found that people who identify as Energetics and Sensuals tend to have the most unresolved trauma in their histories. And as a trauma-informed somatic sexologist, I find that many of them are still storing that trauma in their bodies.
Unresolved trauma or chronic stress can cause a person’s nervous system to remain activated in a protective response, like the freeze, float, fawn, or flee response. In this state, a person sees most situations—even a partner who wants to be close—as a threat. This may cause them to avoid intimacy entirely because it doesn’t feel safe. When someone’s nervous system gets stuck in this response, they may be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
I believe that we live in a culture that creates trauma around sexuality. Very few people escape moving through this world without being shamed for their desires.
The #MeToo movement has shed light on how prevalent sexual abuse is in our culture. I set out on a mission years ago to not only help people who have been survivors of sexual abuse and trafficking but also to prevent it.
Putting an end to rape culture requires a collective change in consciousness, which only happens when we all take a stand together.
No more.
It’s time.
It’s well past time.
Breath is one way we can regulate our nervous systems and ground ourselves. So let’s take a breath: Deep inhale. Exhale all the way out.
For some people, the mindfulness exercises in this book can be uncomfortable or cause anxiety. This may be due to a history of chronic stress, trauma, or other mental health challenges. Consider taking a titrated approach by doing a shorter version of the exercise or simply modifying it as needed (for example, keep your eyes open, or do the exercise in a location that feels safer to you than the location suggested). Over time, your body can build the capacity to experience pleasure!
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Fight, Freeze, Fawn, Float,
Flee, Fuck, or Feed
When the nervous system gets triggered, it can hijack us and cause us to move into certain responses. Notice if you have any of these responses when someone initiates sexual intimacy with you, or even during lovemaking.
FIGHT — Major bursts of adrenaline pour into your system, your heart rate increases, and you react by wanting to fight.
FREEZE — Your body freezes, tension comes in, and you react by playing dead.
FAWN — You do anything to appease the person you feel is a threat to you in that moment. You say yes when you really mean no.
FLOAT — This often accompanies a freeze response; you simply float out of your body and go numb so you don’t feel what’s happening.
FLEE — You run away as fast as you can. All the blood rushes to your arms and legs so you can get away from the danger and escape the scene.
FUCK — You get turned on when stressed or distressed and want to fuck aggressively to release that tension and find peace or relaxation.
FEED — When stressed, you react by turning to food for comfort and to calm your system; as a result, you overeat.
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In chapter fourteen, we will revisit trauma and how it can put the brakes on your sexual wellness and pleasure. Please note that I am not a trauma therapist, and this book is not a replacement for therapy. If you’ve experienced sexual trauma in your history, please see the resources at the end of this book for therapists who can support you on your journey.
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This is just the beginning of your journey, so let’s unpack each Erotic Blueprint Type in more depth and explore its Superpowers, its Shadows, and ways to really work with your own specific erotic wiring.
Prepare for your mind to be blown!
I look forward to the moment you get the entire book in your hands.
With love and pleasure,
Jaiya
