The “effort paradox” in dead bedrooms.
The harder he tries, the more pressure she feels, the more her brakes engage, the less desire she experiences, the more rejected he feels, the harder he tries.
This is a devastating feedback loop that kills desire and often leads to a dead bedroom.
The paradox? More effort is making the situation worse.
The Dual Control Model (developed by John Bancroft and Erick Janssen of the Kinsey Institute)
Research done at the Kinsey Institute in the 1990s discovered that we are all unconsciously scanning the environment for threats and turn ons.
Turn ons trigger our “Sexual Excitation” system (desire), and threats trigger our “Sexual Inhibition” system (fear, flight, fight, fawn responses).
In her book ‘Come As You Are’ Emily Negoski turned this research into a brilliant metaphor called the accelerator / brakes model of sexual responsiveness.
Here’s the breakdown:
- Accelerator – (Sexual Excitation System): responds to sexually relevant and arousing stimuli. Stepping on the gas pedal and adding more
- Brakes (Sexual Inhibition System): responds to potential threats
Key insight for men: If her braking system is engaged, her turn on is off line.
Her brakes aren’t necessarily about you. Stress, unresolved conflict, feeling unseen, body image, exhaustion, hormonal shifts. These all have the potential to slam the foot on the brakes of her arousal independent of her attraction for you.
The counterintuitive lesson here is that “Turning her on” is less about adding stimulation (accelerator) and more about removing the negative stimuli that are putting her foot on the brakes.
In fact, the research shows that there is far more benefit to getting rid of the brakes, then there is to pushing the accelerator (adding new techniques, trying adventurous activities in bed, or using sex toys to try and turn her on).
Afterall, if you’ve got your foot on the brakes and slam your foot on the accelerator, what happens? You spin your wheels, burn rubber and go nowhere. The engine dies because you burn it out.
This is what’s happening when you keep pushing, grasping, coercing and trying to convince or seduce her to have sex.
If you haven’t addressed the inhibitors, you’ll spin your wheels trying to inspire your excitation system. And, out of an instinctive response, she will pull further and further away to protect herself.
For men who are problem-solvers: this problem IS solvable.
The solution is about creating safety, not creating intensity.
The solution is about bringing your full presence to the bedroom: Your energetic presence, the skillfulness and quality of your touch, increasing your emotional intelligence.
Responsive Desire vs. Spontaneous Desire:
Those of us who have Spontaneous Desire are walking around primed and ready for sex all the time. It doesn’t take anything to put us in the mood.
Those of use who have Responsive Desire are not thinking about sex at all. We need to be warmed up to have desire come online. The circumstances need to be cultivated to get turned on.
Men, your partner is probably a responsive type. Approximately 75% of men and only 15% of women experience primarily spontaneous desire.
It’s about creating the circumstances, environment and energy that has your partner want to have sex.
The Unvarnished Truth: In order to get the sex life you want, you may need to slow down and discover how to create the connection and safety your partner needs. They may not even be able to articulate what is inhibiting their desire, so this may require time to uncover their brakes.
There may be unresolved conflict in your relationship. The way you’ve been approaching sex may have caused your partner to develop emotional and energetic armour, because they think every approach is about having sex. They may feel unseen in the relationship. They may have trauma from past relationships that is unresolved.
Again, this challenge has solutions.
One powerful solution is to learn your lover’s pleasure map. That’s where our Erotic Blueprints® come in.
The Erotic Blueprints® Unlock
Different Blueprints have different brakes (we call them Blueprint Shadows) and different accelerators (We call these Blueprint Superpowers). Start noticing or ask your partner if any of the following inhibitors are the stimuli that are turning them off.
- An Energetic’s brakes: too much direct touch, too fast, not enough space to build anticipation
- A Sensual’s brakes: mess, distraction, ugly lighting, rushing, performance pressure
- A Sexual’s brakes (yes, men have them too): shame about “only wanting sex,” feeling judged for their sex drive, partner’s disinterest being interpreted as personal failure
- A Kinky’s brakes: shame about desires, hiding the real turn-ons, performing “normal” sexuality, unsafe kinky dynamics
- A Shapeshifter’s brakes: Feeling like they are too much or want to much, can be affected by the brakes of ALL the Blueprint Types
Discovering your lover’s accelerators (erotic superpowers) is a very powerful way to show them that you see them, understand them and are willing to develop the skills to arouse, delight and satisfy them exactly how they want to be satisfied.
The Successful Sex Life Strategy Shift:
- From “how do I get her to want sex?” to “what conditions does she need to want to have sex?”
- From pushing the accelerator to figuring out how to release her brakes
- From effort-based to conditions-based
Practical steps: reduce stress around sex and intercourse (perhaps consciously take intercourse off the table for a defined period to let her nervous system feel safe), get curious about her Erotic Blueprint Type*, use Body Reveals* to check in without pressure, play the A-B Game* as exploration without expectation.
* We teach these practices in our Pleasure Playbook Program and our Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough Signature Program.
The Biochemical Reality (for the data-driven man):
Additional factors that can affect desire:
- Hormonal shifts in both partners affect desire. This isn’t a weakness. It’s biology
- Low testosterone, estrogen shifts, cortisol from chronic stress.
Getting full panel hormonal testing is as tactical as getting an oil change.
Our Blueprint framework addresses all of these aspects of human sexuality. We give tools to address the communication layer, investigate the biochemical layer, and gain skills by understanding the Erotic Blueprint Types, what turns them on and what turns them off.
To become the ultimate lover, you need to gain mastery in all of these areas.
Understanding how to work with the accelerator/brakes, responsive vs. spontaneous, and Erotic Blueprint desire styles is the most important upgrade you can make to your relationship operating system.
But understanding it intellectually isn’t the same as having the tools to act on it.
That’s what The Pleasure Playbook is built for: the somatic practices, the communication framework, and the Blueprint map that turn insight into action, ideas into skills, and the bedroom from dead to sexually alive with frequency and fulfillment.
