When Damon and Erika visit somatic sexologist Jaiya on episode 1 of the new Netflix series "Sex, Love, and Goop," they believe their problem is mismatched sexual desires.
Damon wants sex more often and on the spot, while Erika initiates less frequently and needs more time to get aroused.
But Jaiya tells them they both have similar "erotic blueprints," and that they can maximize that knowledge for a more connected sex life.
Here's what an erotic blueprint is, and how you can discover yours:
Erotic blueprints are a way to conceptualize what most turns you on .
Jaiya, who goes by that name only, created the five erotic blueprints to help people better understand how they and their partners are most aroused.
The first type is energetic, meaning being turned on by anticipation.
"It's touching somebody before you're touching them," Jaiya explained. Host Gwyneth Paltrow said this is her blueprint.
Next is sensual, or being turned on when all sense are engaged.
Then there's sexual, or feeling most turned on by traditional depictions of sex, like intercourse, porn, and nudity. Jaiya said this describes her.
Another type is kinky, or getting aroused by whatever's taboo to you, whether that's a particular sex toy, position, or scandalous thought. "What I find beautiful about the kinky is you could play in it the rest of your life and never have explored all there is to explore," Jaiya said.
The last blueprint is "shape shifter," describing people who are turned on by all of it. Nothing is off-limits for them, Jaiya said.
Damon thought his blueprint was sexual, but he actually was high in energetic.
To find out how much you are of each type, you can take this free, short online quiz.
When they took the quiz, Erika scored high in energetic and kink, while Damon scored high in sexual and lowest in kink.
It's common to see one partner highest in what the other is lowest in, Jaiya said, and that's not a problem — unless you don't try to understand and work with those differences.
But after playing with various forms of touch, including energetic ones like Erika lightly brushing the hairs on Damon's chest, it became clear Damon was in fact high in the energetic blueprint too. His body shook and shivered as tears fell down his cheeks (an "energetic orgasm," Jaiya calls it), and afterwards he said he felt like he'd just had sex.
"A lot of times, people can take on a masking of 'This is how I'm supposed to be as a man sexually in the world' because it's how they were taught they're supposed to be," Jaiya said.
But knowing Damon's true blueprint "is good news for the two of you," Jaiya said to Damon and Erika, "because you're both very high energetics." She went on to demonstrate with her own partner what that can look like — including simultaneously orgasming from energy alone, rather than genital stimulation.
"I mean seriously, if you can get that type of connection with the person you already love, what more is there?" Erika said.
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