You Can’t Out-Accelerate Your Brakes

4 days ago

2 min read

Most advice for improving sexual desire focuses on adding more stimulation: buy some lingerie, introduce a new toy, schedule a date night, or take a romantic weekend away.

But here’s the problem with that advice: you can’t out-accelerate your brakes.

None of those things is likely to help if your foot is still firmly on the brake.

Understanding Your Sexual Accelerator and Brakes

The Dual Control Model explains that sexual response isn’t controlled by one simple on/off switch. Instead, it emerges from the interaction between two separate, relatively independent systems: the Sexual Excitation System and the Sexual Inhibition System.

Sex educator and author Emily Nagoski helped bring this research to a wider audience in her book Come as You Are, using the accessible language of an “accelerator” and “brakes.”

Your sexual accelerator notices potential reasons to become aroused. It responds to information from all five senses—what you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch—as well as your thoughts, fantasies, and internal bodily sensations.

Accelerators might include:

Emotional closeness
Feeling desired
Sensual touch
A partner’s scent
Erotic imagery or fantasies
Novelty
Feeling confident and comfortable in your body

At the same time, your sexual brakes notice potential reasons not to become aroused right now. Your brakes are also influenced by what you sense, think, believe, imagine, and feel inside your body.

Brakes might include:

Stress or exhaustion
Pain or physical discomfort
Unresolved relationship conflict
Performance pressure
Body-image concerns
Feeling emotionally or physically unsafe
Fear of being interrupted
A lack of privacy

Sexual arousal and desire become more likely when the accelerator is activated and the brakes are released.

More Turn-Ons Aren’t Always the Answer

When someone is struggling with desire, the problem isn’t always that their accelerator needs more stimulation. Sometimes their brakes are receiving too many signals.

In that situation, adding lingerie, toys, or an elaborate date night may not address what is actually getting in the way. These things could be enjoyable, but they cannot automatically override stress, pain, pressure, resentment, fear, or exhaustion.

In fact, feeling pressured to become aroused can become another brake.

This is why improving sexual desire isn’t only about turning on the ons. It’s also about turning off the offs.

Instead of only asking:

“What turns me on?”

Try also asking:

“What’s hitting my brakes—and what might help me release them?”

Learning about your accelerators and brakes can help you approach sexual concerns with greater curiosity and less shame. Your sexual response isn’t broken; it may simply be responding appropriately to the information it is receiving.

Explore Your Own Accelerators and Brakes

Emily Nagoski offers a free Sexy Contexts Worksheet and additional Come as You Are resources on her website.

For a more detailed exploration, my Mapping Your Accelerators & Brakes worksheet helps you identify the internal, relational, sensory, and contextual factors affecting your sexual response. It is available for purchase (5$).