You’re sitting in class and you notice the cute girl sitting in front of you. She has long legs and a pretty smile and you can’t help getting aroused. Your mind wanders and pretty soon you imagine the two of you making out in the school bathroom.
Of course you don’t actually do anything. It’s clear this is neither the time nor the place to have sex with that cute girl. There's not exactly much chance she'd agree to it. And your teacher probably wouldn't be too keen on sex in the classroom either.
Sexual brakes
The reason we don’t jump into bed every time we get turned on is because there’s a part of us that puts the brakes on sexual desire in inappropriate situations, sexpert Dr Erick Janssen explained at the World Congress for Sexual Health.
The brakes of sexual inhibition work in two ways. The first has to do with performance anxiety – you might get turned off if you’re worried about pleasing your partner, for example. The second has to do with the consequences of having sex – say if you’re worried about being caught by your parents.
What’s interesting is that what’s a total turn off for one person might have no effect at all on another. Take unprotected sex. Let’s say you’re lying in bed with a new partner and she doesn’t want to use a condom. For some guys, the thought alone causes them to lose their erection. Yet for others who rank low in this kind of sexual inhibition, there’s pretty much nothing that’ll make their erection droop.
Sexual gas pedal
Sexual excitation is the other part of the arousal picture – it’s like the gas pedal that revs us up and turns us on, says Janssen. As with sexual inhibition, people are very different when it comes to how easily they get in the mood for sex.
Your morning shower is the perfect example. When you stand under the running water, lathering shampoo into your hair, do you ever get aroused? It turns out that bathing can be a super turn on for people who rank high in sexual excitation. Whereas for other people, taking a shower is just about as sexy as going for a walk in the park.
How easily do you get turned on? How much time do you spend daydreaming about sex? Leave a comment below or join us on Facebook.