Ep. 128: The Art of Arousal

[00:03] Episode Preview: How to Increase Arousal

Ep. 128: The Art of Arousal

Host: Dr. Kanwal Bawa | Guest: Rachel Smith | Runtime: 19:48 | Published: May 21, 2024

Dr. Bawa: I know that we’ve been discussing this, kind of sort of skirting the issue. Please give our listeners and viewers some tips to increase arousal.

Rachel Smith: Absolutely. Well, first we have to understand our arousal style. So we talked about the two different styles of desire, but there are actually four different styles of arousal emerging from the research right now.

[00:34] Welcome: The Art of Arousal

Dr. Bawa: Welcome to America's number one sexuality podcast, Dr. Sex Fairy. I am Dr. Kanwal Bawa, America's favorite sex doctor, and I am here to transform your life. The Dr. Sex Fairy Podcast is both audio and video, so don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, Dr. Sex Fairy, as well as subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dr. Bawa: Today we have a very special guest joining us. Rachel Smith is a marriage and family therapist with a certification in sex therapy and is the founder of Infinite Intimacy. Through her compassionate therapy services, comprehensive workshops, and transformative retreats, Rachel empowers her clients to explore the intricate art of arousal and intimate connection. So get ready for an enlightening discussion as we dive deep into the world of arousal with Rachel Smith on this great episode of the Dr. Sex Fairy Podcast.

Dr. Bawa: Welcome, Rachel. Thank you for being on the Dr. Sex Fairy Podcast.

Rachel Smith: Thank you for having me back. I'm so excited to be here.

Dr. Bawa: This is a great topic. It's one that a lot of people don't take into consideration. Arousal is where it's at, my friend, isn't it?

Rachel Smith: Yes, yes, yes.

[01:56] Arousal vs. Desire

Dr. Bawa: But without understanding desire, then we can get lost in the process. So why don’t you describe to us the difference between arousal and desire?

Rachel Smith: Absolutely. In our society, we tend to link both of them together, but they are very much two distinct processes within our mind and our body. So oftentimes when we are talking about desire, we are talking about the mental-emotional wanting of sex. And then when we are talking about arousal, we are talking about the physical, physiological response to a sexual stimulus.

Rachel Smith: So what a lot of people don’t know is that sometimes we can have one without the other, and we can have one before the other. One without the other indicates a little bit of a disconnect between our mind and our body. We can have the desire, but then our body just isn’t responding. And that could be very much a medical reason, or maybe a response to trauma, or maybe as our bodies are aging—all of those types of things.

Rachel Smith: And then one before the other indicates our desire style. The research has shown that there are two distinctly different styles of desire. However, our society only shows us one. In our society, we are typically shown what we consider spontaneous desire. Spontaneous desire is when we have the mental-emotional wanting of sex first, and then our bodies respond very quickly thereafter. It can kind of seem simultaneous. These are the people who tend to have sex more on the forefront of their minds, so they tend to initiate sex more often.

Rachel Smith: But that is only about half of people. The other half experience the exact opposite. We call it responsive desire, meaning we are responding to a moment. These people have the physical, physiological arousal first, and then the mental-emotional wanting of sex comes after. These are the people who don’t have sex on the forefront of their minds, so they are not initiating sex, but either during sex or after sex they say, “Oh wow, I don’t know why I don’t want this more often.” And they don’t know why, because they don’t know that their bodies need that stimulation first. So it is a different approach. The couples who come to me, typically I have one of each, and they feel like they are sexually incompatible, but it is not about incompatibility. It is just about knowing how to navigate between the two.

[04:22] When Arousal Problems Are Medical

Dr. Bawa: You know, I wonder often how many therapists actually send their clients to medical doctors because so much of this is actual intimate sexual dysfunction that is caused by things that can be fixed. For instance, you talked about how there may be desire but not the physical arousal, where a woman may want to have sex, she may be turned on by her partner, but she is not getting wet. Or a man wants to have sex, but there isn’t enough of an erection.

Dr. Bawa: This is often fixable, whether it is hormones, whether it is shockwave therapy the way I do it for plaque buildup in blood vessels that can be fixed. People often do Viagra and Cialis. Why do that when you can actually fix a problem at its very foundation?

Rachel Smith: At least for sex therapists, in our training we are encouraged to ask our clients if they have seen a medical professional, especially in terms of hormones, especially when they are talking about erectile dysfunction and/or not being able to gain or maintain an erection. In that consultation call, I ask them, “Have you talked to your primary care physician? Have you seen a urologist? Have you gotten your testosterone tested?” and all of those types of things.

Rachel Smith: Because we recognize that there is a very significant medical component. In terms of therapists in general, I am not sure if they receive the same direction, but in terms of sex therapy, there is a direct correlation between our mind and our body, and we need to make sure that physiologically everything is where it is supposed to be before we really tap into the mental-emotional component.

[06:17] The Relationship Between Sexual Medicine and Sex Therapy

Dr. Bawa: Your specialty and mine really need to work very closely together because, you know, there is a saying in India: you can’t clap with one hand. So you need a penis and a vagina on their A-game. That is where I come in. And then you need the relationship itself on its A-game, or close to its A-game. Tell me, how often do you think relationship problems are the reason why people have an issue with desire or arousal?

Rachel Smith: What a lot of people don’t know is that we have what we call a dual control model of sexual response. So there is a combination of brakes and accelerators. Brakes are the turn-offs and accelerators are the turn-ons. Essentially anything that we can see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or imagine can interact with both of these mechanisms.

Rachel Smith: The difficulty is that they are working simultaneously. So if we have too many things that are flooding our brake line, then it doesn’t matter how hard we are pushing the accelerator, we are still not going to get anywhere. And so often, for the couples that I see, the challenge is in the relationship dynamics. Maybe we don’t feel seen or we don’t feel heard. Emotional intimacy is often the foundation. Emotional intimacy is when we feel seen, we feel heard, we feel supported, we feel cared for, we feel understood and validated by our partners. And when we can get to that level of vulnerability and authenticity, that is when we often feel that intimate connection that helps us access the arousal in our body.

[07:59] Porn, the Senses, and Arousal

Dr. Bawa: What do you think about porn vis-à-vis arousal? Because a lot of people tell me, “I don’t really have an addiction to porn. I just find it very arousing.” There is that guilt associated with it, so they don’t often do it, especially because they are embarrassed to do it in front of a partner. But it is a form of arousal for some people.

Rachel Smith: Yes. In a previous conversation, we talked about sensuality and tapping into our senses. What a lot of people don’t know is that we all experience arousal in different ways. For some people, different senses can be more arousing than others. For some people, it is the sounds. So hearing the deep pants and deep breaths and the moans and groans of our partners can be highly arousing. For other people, it is the visual, where we see our partners maybe in a certain outfit or in some lingerie. That can be very arousing.

Rachel Smith: So when it comes to porn, it is that visual component. The people who gravitate toward porn, that might be a part of it. And it might be the auditory component. I have some couples where they just have it on in the background. They are not even watching it because those sounds can really add and accentuate their own experience. So that is where we have to be mindful of what it is that we actually need to feel that sense of arousal. Do we need it from porn, or can we communicate with our partner and maybe get a little bit more of that from them?

[09:31] Oral Sex, Foreplay, and Blood Flow

Dr. Bawa: And oral sex, I think that is a very good way to get to that point of arousal, especially for women who find it sometimes somewhat difficult to climax or even get aroused from penetrative sex.

Rachel Smith: Yes, absolutely. Women typically need about 20 minutes of that physical arousal before penetration can feel as pleasurable as it can. Because if all that blood flow is not there, if we are not really plumped and ready, then we are not going to be able to experience the full range of pleasure that is available.

Dr. Bawa: And then again, coming back to what we discussed, if that vaginal tissue is not where it is supposed to be, you are not going to have that blood flow to the vulvar area. Now, we talked about shockwave therapy. I do BawaWave®, and that is a protocol that I have come up with after patient after patient after patient. Initially, when I started doing it, I bought into that concept that it is a male treatment. And that tells you how pervasive this concept is. So I started doing it on men.

Rachel Smith: Okay.

Dr. Bawa: I had excellent results. And then one fine day I had an epiphany, and I said, “That is insane. Why am I not doing it for women?” And I got a lot of pushback from the medical community, but then I get a lot of pushback on many things.

Dr. Bawa: But you know what? I couldn’t be happier with the results. I have patients in their 70s having sex often. I have a couple that has made news around the world, Jim and Cindy. What did she do? She did vaginal rejuvenation, and I have permission to say it. She has talked about anything in the press. And she did shockwave. These are the things that really rebuilt that vagina, gave her that plumpness that she was missing. So now arousal follows.

Rachel Smith: Absolutely. And again, the intricate connection between our minds and our bodies, right? It is so wonderful that you are able to help both men and women experience the full sense of arousal. But as you were saying, if we don’t feel connected to our partners, then oftentimes that coming together can get a little difficult at times.

[11:54] Supplements, Circulation, and Feeling Good in Your Body

Dr. Bawa: There are all these pills that are available over the counter. Some of my patients would bring these bottles to me because I would say, “Bring the bottle in,” because they could never remember the name of the pill they were taking. I was shocked to see that there was never a phone number. And if I found a website, there was never a phone number on the website. And if I tried to email them to understand what was in their supplements, I never could. I never could tell where they were made. So they were getting them from seedy sex shops, from gas stations, from Amazon. I mean, there is plenty of good stuff on Amazon. I don’t know that libido pills should be the go-to there.

Dr. Bawa: So I started telling them not to take them. They said, “Well, then why don’t you come up with supplements?” So one day I looked at one of my patients and said, “Okay, maybe I will.” And then I decided to open the Dr. Sex Fairy line of supplements. Now I have U.S.-made supplements. There is the nitric oxide booster Enhance®. Nitric oxide increases circulation for men and women, but also to skin, hair, and nails. So you look good, you feel good. And then there is a testosterone booster, Renew®. And then there is a libido booster called Passion®. Why not get some help where you can?

Rachel Smith: And when you feel good in your body, then we tend to be more open and receptive. One of the brakes is not just how we are feeling about our partners. Oftentimes it is how we are feeling in our bodies. And if we are not feeling good in our bodies, then that can hit the brakes as well.

[13:32] Four Arousal Styles

Dr. Bawa: I know that we have been discussing this, kind of sort of skirting the issue. Please give our listeners and viewers some tips to increase arousal.

Rachel Smith: Absolutely. Well, first we have to understand our arousal style. So we talked about the two different styles of desire, but there are actually four different styles of arousal emerging from the research right now. What is difficult is that research around sex and sexuality is very limited. And it is only in more recent years, and especially as women are stepping into research, that we are learning more about ourselves and how we are responding sexually.

Rachel Smith: There is an incredible researcher out of Canada, Dr. Petra Zebroff. She has found that there are four distinct styles of initiation that people prefer. One of them is sentimental. When she talks about the sentimental style, it is the emotional connection that we feel with our partner. Some people find that most arousing. If I am able to sit with my partner and they are asking me about my day, or they are telling me about what is going on in their life and they are letting me in, and I feel super connected, that draws me into them and can aid in the arousal.

Rachel Smith: She talks about a seductive style, and that has to do more with the erotic. That is the more adventurous couple or person who wants that novelty and that new and different—give me the lingerie and give me the passion. That really draws me in.

Rachel Smith: Then we have the surrender style, and that deals with a little bit of power play. Maybe for high-powered women who have a lot of responsibilities in the day-to-day and have to make a lot of decisions, when it comes to the bedroom they just want to be taken and allow their partner to take over rather than them having to do more work.

Rachel Smith: Then we have the sensation style. These are the people who really need that sense of sensuality and tapping into their sensuality and the different sensations through the sense of touch and smell and taste and what they are hearing in the background. It helps them come into the moment. So, in order to increase arousal or learn how to increase arousal, we also have to know what style tends to turn us on more. And then we can cater to those styles.

[16:09] New Research, New Conversations

Dr. Bawa: All the things you teach me. I see. I teach you the medicine, and you teach me all these arousals. Oh my God, I have been living under a rock all this time.

Rachel Smith: It is brand-new research, really, in the last maybe five—not even 10 years. I want to say maybe the last five to 10 years. And this is why the more that we are able to have these conversations and the more that we normalize these conversations, the more that people can learn about these different parts of ourselves. Again, sex is not one specific thing, and we can explore our sexuality in so many different ways.

Dr. Bawa: Agreed, my friend. And like I said already, they need you, they need me, and we can make the world go around and light those fires and keep them lit.

Rachel Smith: Yes, absolutely. And the reality is, when we are able to experience vibrant sexuality and intimacy with our partners, it actually helps us not only feel much better and create that vibrancy within our own lives, but it also helps us in terms of our hormones. And orgasms are like the best antidepressants, right? And on our skin, we see it when we are feeling more connected intimately.

Rachel Smith: I think some of the leaders, if we talk about Dr. Ruth and Betty Dodson and those leaders in the sex education fields, they lived vibrantly into their 90s with the spunk and the energy. And that just goes to show what orgasms can do. So why not have more orgasms and more orgasms?

[17:48] How to Find Rachel Smith

Dr. Bawa: Or connection, you know, all-encompassing. So how can our viewers contact you?

Rachel Smith: You can find me on my website, infiniteintimacytherapy.com, and my social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook. The handle is Infinite Intimacy Therapy.

Dr. Bawa: Another great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Rachel Smith: It's a pleasure.

[18:17] Recorded Outro

Dr. Bawa: As we conclude today’s episode, it is important to acknowledge that the world of arousal is as diverse as the individuals who experience it. We have explored how arousal styles can vary widely from person to person, encompassing a variety of emotions, triggers, and preferences. Embracing and respecting these differences is a crucial aspect of nurturing satisfying and fulfilling intimate connections.

Dr. Bawa: So whether your arousal style is a slow burn, a sudden spark, or something entirely unique, remember that understanding and celebrating these variations can lead to deeper intimacy and richer relationships. Thank you for spending time with me on this episode of the Dr. Sex Fairy Podcast.

Dr. Bawa: If you're watching this on YouTube, don't forget to leave questions and comments. I will answer them personally. Make sure you like this video and subscribe to my channel, Dr. Sex Fairy, so that you never miss a video. If you are listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or elsewhere, do subscribe to this podcast as well. We have lots of great guests and content to come. Check out my super-hit TikTok account, Dr. Sex Fairy, and my Instagram, The Real Dr. Sex Fairy. Until next time.