According to all of the messaging around us,

it's this simple, automatic thing

that you should just get,

especially when you're young.

But sexual desire is really anything but simple.

And yeah, we're talking about sex,

but before ya'll go getting frisky in the comments,

sexual desire is an aspect

of physical and mental health.

There's lots of very legitimate science around it,

but it's treated as taboo

or inappropriate, and that leaves a whole bunch

of really important issues lurking in the dark.

-Sexual desire is the want

for some sort of sexual interaction

with someone or yourself, because

desire in and of itself

is not fully understood.

It is often referred back to food.

So with food,

you can have a desire for something.

But there is no arousal

for it, meaning that,

yeah, I really want some cake, but your mouth didn't water.

Right?

So the arousal portion is more

of the physical response to the desire.

-So basically, someone can want to have sex,

but they may not be physically aroused.

And the reverse is also true.

Someone can be physically aroused but have no mental

or emotional desire to engage in sexual activity.

This mismatch is called

arousal non-concordance.

And studies show that women are more likely to experience it than men are.

And to understand more about issues like this, it's really important

that we untangle physical arousal

from sexual desire.

In fact, there are actually

two different kinds of desire.

-So desire is actually split into the two.

It's the spontaneous desire

as well as the response desire.

-Spontaneous desire is where the thought or feeling

'I'd like to have sex' just sort of pops into your head

out of the blue. And response of desire

is where you may not really be in the mood,

but after a little warm up

like kissing, touching, or flirting,

you do start to want to have sex.

-One of the biggest misconceptions about desire

is that it should be spontaneous only.

-This misconception feeds into common stereotypes

we see all around us, like men

having out of control sexual appetites or women

as having little innate desire.

-Stop it! I have a headache!

-But that's far from the truth.

And anyone, regardless of sex or gender,

can experience spontaneous

or responsive desire.

-Spontaneous desire actually doesn't happen

as often as people think it does.

Most people's desire tends to be responsive, though

you can certainly have both and people

have them in different measures.

-Responsive desire was only acknowledged

and defined around 20 years ago, and lots of the world's

messaging about sex doesn't really

talk about responsive desire.

And when they do, it's not really in a positive way.

Many people report experiencing

low desire, but could at least some of this be

because they're actually experiencing responsive desire

in a world that has only taught us

about spontaneous desire?

Really, it all comes down to brain stuff.

That's not me saying it's all in your head.

There is actual neuroscience.

Essentially, we've all got

brakes and accelerators.

The sexual excitation

system is your accelerator.

Your brain perceives something

as a positive sexual stimulus and ignites

this cascade of neurotransmitters and hormones

that can turn into physical arousal.

The sexual inhibition system is the brake.

This is stuff that stops

those positive responses in their tracks.

So stuff that gives you the ick.

This can be something your brain

consciously or subconsciously perceives

as a threat, like a fight with your partner

or the potential of a sexually transmitted infection.

And research has shown that these two systems work together

in what's called the dual control model.

-So when the S.E.S.

excitement is higher than the inhibitions,

you're probably more in the space to actually have sex.

When it is reversed,

you're less likely to have sex.

-Some people might have more

sensitive brakes or faster accelerators,

and you can really be any combination of the two.

That's totally normal. And our brains don't exist in a vacuum.

They're affected by everything around and in us.

Things like medications, past experiences,

physical and mental health,

body image, relationship status,

trauma, our personal history with sex,

and of course,

the ever-present societal messaging

about what sex, what kind you have,

who you have it with and when or how often you have it.

What that says about you as a person.

-Basically, everything impacts sexual desire,

and that is part of the reason why it has been difficult

for any professional,

like on the medical side

or on the mental health side

to be able to quickly pinpoint exactly

why Hypo Sexual Desire Disorder comes to fruition.

-People who feel, for whatever

reason that they have low sexual desire

might feel that they're broken or sick,

which obviously can impact quality of life

and make relationships and sex more difficult.

It also creates the opportunity

for wellness and pharmaceutical companies

to sell drugs and supplements that claim

to fix it.

But in some cases,

it might be that you are normal

and it's our perception of what's normal

that's the problem we should fix.

Because until the early 2000s,

most research into the dual control

model had only been done in men.

This data was then used to form

scientific and medical norms

of sexual desire and response

that were just applied to everyone else.

And that means that the norm is going to be off

base for at least some of us.

-I wish that people knew that

sexual desire is entirely changeable

as it changes throughout your entire lifespan.

But it also changes with context.

So sexual desire is not written in stone.

It's going to be about what you do in your daily life

to sort of feed back into it.

-Now I want to make it really clear here that we're not talking

about physiological sexual

dysfunction in this episode.

If you're experiencing pain with sex

or extreme emotional distress, if you're dealing with something

like vaginismus or hormone fluctuations

as a result of pregnancy or menopause,

these things can absolutely impact your desire.

And it's really important that you speak to your OB-GYN

or your primary care doctor about it.

But the bottom line

is that when it comes to pretty much anything in the health

field, you are unique

and this includes sex.

So what's normal is going to be unique to you

because there's no one normal

that can be applied to everyone.

So take the time to figure out

what revs your engine.

Get in touch with your own desire,

explore, talk about it

and find the contexts that work for you.

Thank you all so much for watching Seeker's Body Language.

If you have another topic like this, you want us to cover in this series,

let us know in the comments, and I'll see you next time.

Thanks so much

for watching Seeker's body language.

I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you next time.