Sex: tips on how to get her aroused and in the mood

Tips on How to Get Her in the Mood

When it comes to foreplay and sexual excitement, a woman can be a closed book. Unfortunately, this leaves many men puzzled and wondering where to go next. Since women tend to better understand the needs of other women, homosexual relationships pose less of a problem in this regard. But the poor men; they are frequently caught between a rock and a hard place. According to most women, it’s because they’ve done something wrong.

Getting a woman in the mood is not as hard as you may think. If you’re a man involved in a heterosexual relationship, you’ve no doubt encountered your share of struggles when it comes to your partner’s approachability. Fact is, many men can’t help but to overdo the physical aspect of romance, much to the dismay of his female partner. It’s not that women don’t enjoy the nitty-gritty of it all. In most cases, they are just in need of a different type of affection or attention.
If you want to open the doors to a woman’s heart (and bed), it never hurts to compliment her. 

Some women can be tough to work around – particularly those who are suffering from low self-esteem – but it will be well-worth the effort. If you comment on your partner’s amazing body and she shuts you down by pointing out the extra weight she’s gained, don’t stop trying. Many men give up too easily out of sheer frustration, but sometimes your partner just needs to be validated. To shake it up a bit, try giving her a few compliments that you haven’t uttered before. There’s no need to be vulgar at this stage, so focus on the less-noticed aspects of her face and body. You’d be surprised by how many women are turned on by the right compliment in the right moment.

If your girl is a romantic at heart, get romantic. While flowers and chocolates are nice, they’ve become so clichéd that your partner might actually consider it a cop-out. Put some thought into it. Show up at her office for an impromptu lunch, or have a hot bath ready for her at the end of a long day. Women love to be taken care of – even those who are incredibly independent – when the effort makes their lives easier. Put yourself in your partner’s shoes for a moment and determine what you could do to create a smoother day for her. Do it. Now, sit back as the thank-yous start to surface.

Here are a few theories introduced by the researchers in the study:

Women's genital responses are hidden from view and produce fewer "somatosensory cues." While men may get turned on by feeling themselves get erect, women do not. However, [studies have found that] even when women received feedback about their level of vaginal engorgement, correlations (between genital and subjective arousal) were low and statistically non significant. [In other words, being told we're getting turned on doesn't necessarily turn us on.]

Women may edit their self-report of feeling sexually aroused because of socially desirable responding. Positive affect directs attention to erotic stimuli, thereby increasing sexual response, whereas negative affect interferes in the processing of sexual cues, resulting in lower sexual response. Lower concordance among women may reflect their experience of negative affect while watching the conventional, commercially available erotica that is primarily produced for men.

Genital response to sexual stimuli may be an evolved self-protection mechanism. Female genital response is an automatic reflex that is elicited by sexual stimuli and produces vaginal lubrication, even if the woman does not subjectively feel sexually aroused...Female genital response entails increased genital vasocongestion, necessary for the production of vaginal lubrication, and can, in turn, reduce discomfort and the possibility of injury during vaginal penetration. Ancestral women who did not show an automatic vaginal response to sexual cues may have been more likely to experience injuries that resulted in illness, infertility, or even death subsequent to unexpected or unwanted vaginal penetration, and thus would be less likely to have passed on this trait to their offspring....Reports of women's genital response and orgasm during sexual assaults suggests that genital responses do occur in women under conditions of sexual threat.

That women can experience genital response during unwanted sex or when viewing depictions of sexual assault suggests that women's vasocongestion response is automatically initiated by exposure to sexual stimuli, whether or not these stimuli are preferred, and without subjective appraisal of these stimuli as sexually arousing or desired.

During processing of sexual stimuli, brain areas associated with emotional inhibition are activated among women. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a region of the brain where subjective responses to sexual stimuli are processed.  [The ACC appears to influence subjective responses but not genital responses, which helps explain the "upstairs/downstairs" disconnect. Incidentally, women's ACC is most active when we're ovulating and attracted to macho, high-testosterone men.  The ACC is activated when we're in conflict about something. Is the ACC also acting as a self-protection mechanism, warning us to proceed with caution?]

Bottom line: Physical arousal is not proof that a woman is really turned on. To really get a woman hot and bothered, you have to start from the top.