Excerpted from Sex Talks. Copyright © 2022, Vanessa Marin and Xander Marin. Reproduced by permission of Simon Element, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.
From Chapter 8, “The Fourth Conversation: Pleasure”
Your Sex Personality Type
Next, I want to give you a framework for getting to know what brings you pleasure—it’s your Sex Personality Type. It’s not the whole picture, but it will show you the lens through which you filter your experience of sex. In my work with thousands of clients, I came to realize that we all experience enjoyment in unique ways, and we need different circumstances in place in order to enjoy physical intimacy. By identifying which one of the eleven Sex Personality Types you resonate with the most, you’ll learn valuable information about how you define and experience pleasure. (You’ll likely relate to more than one type, but try to pick the one that most closely defines you.)
You’ll also notice that the Sex Personality Types fall into one of three categories:
- Body
- Mind
- Spirit
As I mentioned in the Intro, pleasure can be experienced in myriad ways, but I’ve found that these are the three most common categories. You can experience enjoyment in all three places, but you’ll likely have a primary locus of pleasure. Or you may need to have one type stimulated first, before you can unlock pleasure in other ways. Body-based types are deeply in tune with pure physical sensation. Mind-based types need to feel mentally and intellectually stimulated. Spirit-based types are all about the energy, emotion, and intimacy of sex.
The Decompressor—Body
For you, sex is all about stress relief. You get enjoyment out of the act itself, but your primary source of pleasure comes at the end, when you’ve had a release. You love nothing more than basking in the afterglow when sex is over.
Physical intimacy is a way that you blow off steam and unwind, and you typically seek it out when you’re feeling tense. You may masturbate for the same reasons, too. Orgasms are important to you because they bring about that feeling of relief or release. Sex just doesn’t feel complete without that.
The Explorer—Mind
Sex is your playground! For you, pleasure is all about novelty. You’re curious about sex, and you get genuine enjoyment from learning, experimenting, and trying new things. You like pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. In that way, a number of different acts can bring you pleasure; you don’t have or want a set routine. You don’t take sex too seriously, and you can laugh about it if your explorations don’t work out perfectly. You may read articles or books about sex, so it’s no surprise that you picked up Sex Talks in the first place!
The Fair-Trader—Mind
For you, equality is the most important aspect of sex. In order for you to feel pleasure, there needs to be a balance between you and your partner of giving and receiving. It’s important to you that you and your partner are both enthusiastic. You like knowing that you’re both open to each other’s needs and are willing to work together to make sure everyone who wants an orgasm gets an orgasm. This can sometimes make feeling pleasure in the moment tricky for you, since you’re so fixated on the equilibrium that you can sometimes tune out your own experience.
The Giver—Mind
You view sex and pleasure as a gift that you give to your partner. Your partner’s sexual experience is at least as important to you as your own, but typically even more so. You’re very in tune with your partner’s experience, and it makes you feel good to know that you can make your partner feel good. You tend to struggle with receiving pleasure, and it’s challenging for you to pay attention to your own body in the moment.
The Guardian—Spirit
For you, it’s extremely important for sex to feel safe, and you’re not able to feel pleasure unless it does. You need that foundation of security with your partner and with yourself. Your boundaries are important to you, as is enthusiastic consent. You may have experienced sexual abuse in your past, which has led you to seek out safety as an adult. Prior negative experiences with sex may make tuning into your own body feel trickier. Or you may simply like feeling that bond of trust and security with a partner before and while being intimate.
The Passion-Pursuer—Spirit
You get the most pleasure when sex feels all-encompassing, intense, and passionate. Maybe even animalistic. You’re very in tune with the energy between you and your partner during sex, and that energy is even more important than the physical sensations. You love the idea of letting go and losing yourself in the moment. In your opinion, the best sex is when time seems to stand still.
The Pleasure-Seeker—Body
For you, sex is about pure physical pleasure. You just like to feel good! You may even be confused about all these different personality types, because you think sex is just one of those simple pleasures in life. You enjoy touch and physical contact throughout the day, too. You don’t need to feel emotional connection with someone to have great sex with them. You may be a kinesthetic type of person—you learn by doing, and you’re tactile.
The Prioritizer—Mind
The most important thing for you is that sex is something you and your partner prioritize over other things in your life. You don’t want to make excuses about being too busy or tired; you want to be intimate before that. You value your sex life, and you’re willing to spend time on it and make sacrifices for it. You like sex to be consistent, and you may even like having a specific routine for how often you have sex. For you, pleasure is all about the circumstances. You enjoy yourself the most when the scene has been set, and there’s enough time and privacy to focus on each other.
The Romantic—Spirit
Sex is all about connection for you. You want to experience real emotional intimacy with your partner while you’re being physical. It’s important for both you and your partner to feel present in the moment with each other. Sometimes you may like slower, more drawn-out experiences. You like exchanging “I love yous” during sex or making eye contact. Pleasure is much more about the intimacy between you and your partner than the pure physical act.
The Spiritualist—Spirit
You enjoy sex that connects you to a higher purpose, and you think it should
be a transcendent experience. Pleasure is so much bigger than what’s happening
in the body. You may be religious, or you may enjoy Eastern philosophies
like Tantra.
The Thrill-Seeker—Mind
For you, there’s a thrill to having sex that feels forbidden or taboo. You may enjoy an element of power play in your sex life, like allowing your partner to dominate you, or your dominating your partner. Whereas the Explorer simply likes exploration for exploration’s sake, your pleasure is all about the taboo.
Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life is available from Amazon and Bookshop.