Reliable Arousal: How to Cultivate Desire and Turn Down Threat
Maria Cheung, BSc, MPH, ABS
Registered Clinical Sexologist and Authentic Tantra Practitioner (R)
Key Takeaways
Pleasure is dose-dependent—the same chemistry can show up as micro-pleasures (sunlight, laughter, touch, movement) or high-dose sexual pleasure (orgasm).
Arousal often acts like an automatic reflex (all-or-nothing); it can be retrained into a more reliable, dimmer-switch experience.
Desire can be cultivated (responsive cues, safety, connection)—not just something that happens spontaneously.
Persistent hypo/hyperarousal patterns can reflect protective threat responses; with the right support, you can decouple triggers and regain ease and confidence during sexual arousal again.
From All or Nothing to a Nuanced Arousal Response
What if I told you that pleasure is not binary. It is dose-dependent, and your capacity to receive it can be trained.
Have you ever felt like your mind desired one thing but your body was doing something else?
Or maybe you know yourself to be very sexual, but can’t predict when your body will show up reliably?
Perhaps libido and desire has always been there for you, but now it’s getting you in trouble, you can’t stop thinking about it, or you feel distracted?
Or life is busy and your body can’t seem to keep up - you delivered a human out of that amazing body of yours, you are in a demanding job, erections don’t see the same, menopause kicked in and life is just more complicated?
That’s because your body is likely stuck in an all or nothing state of sexual arousal like a light switch that is actually an automatic reflex in the body. What if I told you that pleasure actually works like a dimmer switch rather than an on/off light: the same pleasure chemistry can appear in low-dose experiences (sunlight, movement, warmth) and high-dose experiences (orgasm). What changes is the dose of pleasure and the body’s capacity to receive it.
Pleasure On a Range: Chemically Speaking
What do we mean by pleasure chemistry?
That euphoric sensation that we are all chasing, and replaying in our minds during sexual arousal is actually chemical. When we get butterflies in our stomach from locking eyes with our crush, that dreamy state we enter from delicious sultry kisses, and the intense surge of energy we feel in the throws leading up to and that even lingers after orgasm is both neurological and chemical.
During sexual pleasure and orgasm, some of the main chemicals released throughout the body include:
Dopamine: reward, motivation, and craving that can amplify arousal.
Endogenous Opioids: pleasure and pain relief, contributing to euphoria and relaxation.
Oxytocin: bonding, trust, and felt-sense of connection, often heightened with touch and orgasm.
Prolactin: sexual satiety and “afterglow,” commonly linked to the refractory or recovery phase after orgasm.
However, these pleasure chemicals are also found in many non-sexual activities, providing microdoses of pleasure for the body too:
Dopamine + Opioids: listening to music
Opioids: having a good laugh
Oxytocin: non-sexual touch (hugs, massages, breastfeeding)
Serotonin: sunlight
Endorphins + Prolactin: exercise
Ancient tantric practitioners discovered that you can self-heal, soothe and even achieve blissfull eurphoric and enlightened states by training and becoming aware of the body’s ability to sense, cultivate and self-dose it’s inherent pleasure chemicals. For example, while many of us in the West have heard of the Kama Sutra and know of the chapter on sex positions (due to appropriation by a then British explorer, titillated by his own prudent victorian view of sexuality of that time), sex positions is only a very narrow understanding of what that complete book offered. The entire book is actually 7 chapters and thick like the bible. The Kama Sutra was in fact a book on how to live life artfully, teaching you how to cultivate the range of simple to intense pleasure available to us all through the human body, which included and didn’t deny sexual pleasure too.
Modern Western Science is Catching Up to What We’ve Always Known
While once lost to this knowledge, this truth of our ability to self-heal and self dose our inherent pleasure chemicals is resurfacing in both Western and Eastern healing sciences.
According to Sex Educator Emily Nagoski’s book Come As You Are, she found phenomenon of two major styles of desire responses in people. She distinguishes the difference between Spontaneous Desire and Responsive Desire. Spontaneous desire are those who self identify that desire shows up as seemingly out of the blue (either internally or externally motivated), meanwhile those with Responsive Desire are those whose desire arise from cultivated cues such as flirting, emotional connection, safe touch etc. While she categorizes these two types as distinct, ancient wisdom of tantric practices actually shows that we can all cultivate a conscious responsive desire such that we set up our body up for reliable desire (and arousal!) through a series of primed internal and external factors.
Imagine if you could reliably have your body show up for and stay in a state of arousal when your mind desires it too - yes including after major life changes (pre and postnatal), going through menopause, after a break up, on new dates or through different stages of aging to keep the vitality up.
Is Your Arousal Stuck in an On/Off Switch?
How do you know if your arousal is stuck in a reflex loop of all or nothing? Some of those signs include:
Vagina-Owner
Hypoarousal
Numbness or no pleasure
Anorgasmia (inability to have orgasms)
No desire/low
Hyperarousal
Vaginismus
Pain/irritation during sex
Sex addicted/ compulsive sexual activity
Penis-Owner
Hypoarousal
Inconsistent erections
Numbness/needing high friction for sensation
Low libido
Anorgasmia
Hyperarousal
Premature ejaculation
Pain/irritation in the genitals
Porn/sex addicted
The Upgrade
When our body shows up consistently in these ways with little control it means that the body’s real or perceived threats have triggered a neurological reflex of protection during or in anticipation of arousal. The good news is, this is a natural response the body kicked into and it’s doing what it knows to do to keep you well and safe. The bad news is, the body is likely calibrated to inappropriate triggers for threat.
More good news- I’m here to tell you, you can learn to decouple the inappropriate trigger with the protective reflex, then learn to take back control of your body to stay aroused and even enjoy pleasure with confidence, ease and even playfulness again. You can reclaim your full range of pleasure again.
This is where a clinical sexologist can make all the difference. If you’ve seen a pelvic physio and saw great progress, or was possibly even told that there seemed to be nothing physically off balance with your pelvic floor but that your undesired sexual symptoms showed up again as soon as you tried to be sexual again, this is likely the reason why.
If you’ve gotten clarity from the article or feel newly hopeful again reach out to our clinical sexologist and Tibetan Tantra practitioner Maria Cheung to get the support that will make the difference. You deserve to feel confident, sexual and at home in your body again.
References
Nagoski, Emily. Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Pfaus, James G. “Pathways of Sexual Desire.” The Journal of Sexual Medicine 6, no. 6 (2009): 1506–1533. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01309.x.
Cera, Nadine, Sandra Vargas-Cáceres, Clarissa Oliveira, et al. “How Relevant Is the Systemic Oxytocin Concentration for Human Sexual Behavior? A Systematic Review.” Sexual Medicine 9, no. 4 (2021): 100370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esxm.2021.100370.
Pfaus, James G. “Orgasms, Sexual Pleasure, and Opioid Reward Mechanisms.” Sexual Medicine Reviews 13, no. 3 (2025): 381–399. https://doi.org/10.1093/smr/smaf001.
The Juggernaut. “How the West Reduced ‘The Kama Sutra’ to Sex.” December 19, 2022. https://www.thejuggernaut.com/kama-sutra-history-philosophy (accessed June 1, 2026).