What Turns You On — And Why Your Partner Has No Idea
- Scott Schwertly
- 2 days ago
- 10 min read
Here's a question most couples have never actually answered out loud: what specifically turns you on?
Not in general. Not "I like when you touch me" or "I like romance." The specific conditions, feelings, environments, and experiences that reliably open you up — that your nervous system is actually reaching for every time you're intimate.
Most people have never named it. And most partners have no idea.
That gap isn't anyone's fault. Nobody hands you the language for this. So couples spend years hoping their partner figures it out, or quietly adjusting to a version of intimacy that's close but not quite right.
Brittney and I have been working on something to close that gap — for ourselves first, and now to share. We call it the Sexual Self-Portrait: a user manual for how you're actually wired, and how to hand that information to your partner.
We built one for each of us. It has genuinely changed how we show up for each other. Here's what's in it, section by section, with our own answers along the way.
Prefer to listen to this content instead? We covered this topic on Episode 45 of our Do You Feel That? podcast.
Why This Conversation Almost Never Happens
Everyone has an erotic operating system — a way you're built for connection, arousal, and being met. Most people were never given words for theirs.
Two problems compound each other. Talking about what you specifically need in intimacy requires a level of self-knowledge most people haven't developed. And sharing it requires a level of vulnerability most couples haven't built the container for.
The Sexual Self-Portrait solves both. The structure develops the self-knowledge by asking specific questions rather than vague ones. And the document format gives you a low-pressure way to share it — you're not launching a loaded conversation from nowhere. You're handing your partner something and saying: this is me, this is how I work.
It pulls together frameworks I've written about across this blog — the Core Desires work from the Somatica Institute, the Three Dimensions of Sex, Jaiya's Erotic Blueprints, the Enneagram — into one usable page.
Nine sections. Here they are.
Section 1: Core Desire
The question: When intimacy feels most alive, what am I really longing to feel?
This is the deepest thing your eroticism is reaching for, and everything else in the document serves it. It comes from the Somatica framework — the feeling state that, when genuinely met, opens everything else. Being seen. Desired. Safe. Powerful. Adored. Free. Claimed. Taken.
It's the most important and least discussed element of anyone's intimate life. Most people have never named theirs with any specificity.
Mine: Being Seen.
What my eroticism reaches for is being fully witnessed, met, and desired as myself — not performed at. When that's fed, everything opens. When it isn't, I can be having technically good sex and still feel like something essential is missing. Naming this explained years of experience I'd never been able to articulate.
Brittney's: Being Desired.
She wants to feel wanted — pursued, chosen, claimed. Making her feel unmistakably desired is the surest way to open her. It's a genuinely different core desire from mine, which is worth sitting with. We're not wired the same way, and for years I was unconsciously offering her what I would have wanted rather than what she actually needed.
Section 2: Dimension of Sex
The question: What pulls me into arousal most — meeting my partner, dropping into sensation, or a story and scenario?
Three dimensions, as I've written about elsewhere. Partner Connection — arousal through genuine meeting and presence. Trance — arousal through dropping into sensation and an internal altered state. Roleplay — arousal through scenario, story, and play.
Most people lead with one.
Mine: Partner Connection.
I'm wired for encounter, not stimulation. My arousal is psychological first and physiological second — the physical is the vehicle, being genuinely met is the destination. This is why presence beats technique for me every time, and why I write about presence more than anything else on this blog. I'm describing my own wiring as much as a universal principle.
Brittney's: Trance.
She arrives by dropping into sensation. This one produced an actual behavioral change for me once I understood it. My instinct, coming from Partner Connection, is to increase verbal contact — to talk, to name what's happening, to reach for connection through words. For her, in trance, too many words pull her out. Presence for her is often quiet.
I had been doing the thing that works for me and assuming it worked for her. It didn't. That single realization was worth the whole exercise.
Section 3: Erotic Blueprint
The question: What kind of touch, energy, or experience reliably turns me on?
This draws on Jaiya's Erotic Blueprints framework — five types describing how you most naturally turn on: Energetic, Sensual, Sexual, Kinky, and Shapeshifter.
Mine: Shapeshifter.
I contain all of them and need range to feel alive. What matters for me is rotating within myself — tender to dominant to playful — rather than importing new material from outside. The variety comes from range, not novelty.
Brittney's: Sensual, with responsive desire.
She turns on through the senses — environment, touch, sound, atmosphere. And her desire is responsive rather than spontaneous, meaning it arrives in response to a good build rather than showing up on its own.
That distinction matters enormously in practice. She rarely starts at the same place I do. She needs the runway to get there. For years I read that as lower desire. It isn't. It's differently structured desire, and it responds beautifully when the conditions are right.
Section 4: Emotional Wiring
The question: What does intimacy give me emotionally? What do I need to feel before I can fully let go?
This is where personality structure meets intimacy. We use the Enneagram, though any framework that gets you to honest self-description works.
Mine: Type 4 with a 3 wing.
As a Four, I fuse erotic charge with emotional meaning. Sex isn't a separate category of experience for me — it's continuous with everything else I care about. That gives it real depth, and it means being erotically met lands close to a core life need rather than registering as a preference.
The 3 wing adds an achievement and presentation layer: an awareness of how the encounter is going, a desire for it to land well. That's the spectatoring I've written about, showing up as a personality feature rather than just a bad habit. My growth edge is letting go of the inner observer and trusting that presence is enough.
Brittney's: Type 7 with an 8 wing.
She processes erotic charge through lightness and play — the flush-and-giggle — rather than through gravity or intensity. Adventure and fun are on-ramps for her. Heaviness is not.
The 8 wing gives her strength and appetite underneath the playfulness. She prefers a submissive role, but one held inside safety and play rather than severity. That's a specific and useful thing to know. "She likes to submit" would be too coarse. The container it needs to live inside is the actual information.
Section 5: Arousal Arc
The question: How do I like to begin? How does it build? How do I like it to end?
Naming this gives your partner a map to travel with you rather than guessing where you are.
Mine:
Open — slow and sensual. Presence and closeness first. "I love being this close to you." "I don't want this to end."
Middle — intensity. Wanting and being claimed. Direct, desire-forward language centered on being wanted.
Close — return to connection. Surrender that comes home to closeness. "I want all of you." "Stay right here with me."
The shape matters as much as the content. It moves from connection into intensity and back to connection. Skipping the return leaves me somewhere incomplete.
Brittney's:
Slow sensory build, then safety, then letting go. She needs an unrushed warm-up in a rich sensory environment — music, lighting, scent. Environment displacement reliably unlocks her fuller erotic self: hotels, vacations, being somewhere new. Once she feels safe, desired, and eased in, she can drop into trance and surrender.
Her arc is longer than mine on the front end. Knowing that has changed my pacing more than any technique I've ever learned.
Section 6: Favorite Position
The question: Which position do I love most — and what does it give me?
This section surprises people. Your favorite position isn't random. It flows from your core desire — it's the physical shape that best lets you be met.
Both of us: Missionary.
For me, face-to-face is maximum presence. It serves Being Seen and Partner Connection directly. For her, it's face-to-face and connected in a way that fits being desired and a safe, held surrender.
Same position, two different reasons. That's the useful part — understanding why you gravitate somewhere tells you something about what your body is reaching for.
Section 7: Music and Atmosphere
The question: What sound, mood, or atmosphere helps me drop in?
Sound sets state. The right sonic environment helps you arrive.
Mine: Dark and sensual. Moody, atmospheric, slow-burning. Sound that deepens presence rather than energizing.
Brittney's: Chill covers. Soft, mellow, atmospheric — the sensory ease she needs to relax into the build.
Different, and worth knowing. We've stopped defaulting to whatever's convenient and started choosing deliberately based on whose arrival we're prioritizing.
Section 8: What Lands and What Doesn't
The question: What reliably works — and what consistently pulls me out?
A simple two-column list. The most immediately actionable section in the entire document.
What lands for me: Chosen presence — being wanted specifically. Sustained eye contact and being seen. Words that carry connection, not just heat. Leading from grounded, present masculine energy. Tender aftercare — softness as its own intimacy.
What doesn't: Performative, mechanical talk that narrates the act. Borrowed lines recited rather than meant. Being a passive recipient — stimulation without encounter. Rushing past the slow build.
What lands for her: Unrushed sensory build. Feeling unmistakably desired and pursued. Safety first — it's the ground everything else grows from. Environment displacement. Lightness, playfulness, adventure framing. Dominance held inside safety. And sometimes quiet — letting her drop into sensation.
What doesn't: Rushing the start or skipping the warm-up. Explicit, performative dirty talk. Too many words when she's dropping into trance. Heaviness as the on-ramp. Pushing past her pace instead of following it.
Notice something: several things on her "doesn't work" list would land beautifully for someone with different wiring. None of this is universal. That's the entire point of the document.
Section 9: How to Meet Me Well
The question: If my partner remembered only a few things about how to meet me — what would they be?
The short version. Your manual in a few sentences.
Mine: See me. Honor the arc. Presence over performance. Hold me after. Feed the core desire through genuine presence, let the words mean something, travel the arc — slow to intense and back to connection — and land in tenderness.
Hers: Make her feel desired. Slow down. Set the scene. Keep it safe and playful. Then let her drop. Lead with pursuit and warmth, build the sensory environment, honor her tempo, and let dominance live inside safety. When she's arriving, know when to go quiet.
Why This Changed Things for Us
The game changer isn't the document. It's what building it reveals.
Most people think they know what turns them on. Building the Self-Portrait reveals the gap between what you think turns you on and what actually does — with specificity. The Core Desire section alone produced conversations Brittney and I had never had in years together.
Two things I'd flag from our own process.
The working read is as valuable as the self-portrait. Building your own is essential — only you can write it authoritatively. But building a working read of your partner is a different and equally useful exercise: your current understanding from the outside, held loosely, offered for correction.
I built one for Brittney before she'd written hers. That act — handing someone your best understanding of them and saying tell me where I'm wrong — is one of the more intimate things I've done in our marriage. It says: I've been paying attention. And it's explicitly incomplete, which invites correction rather than defending a position.
It's a living document. We don't treat it as fixed. We revisit it, update it, ask each other is this still true, what's shifted? That revisiting is its own form of intimacy.
How to Build Yours
Move slowly. Don't try to complete it in one sitting. Some sections — especially Core Desire and Arousal Arc — reveal themselves over time rather than in a single reflection.
Answer honestly and skip nothing. There are no wrong answers. Only what's true for you.
Build both versions. Your own, and a working read of your partner. Hold the second one loosely.
Share it outside the bedroom. Not during an intimate encounter. In a relaxed, low-pressure moment: "I've been working on something I want to share with you. It's basically a guide to how I work — what I need, what helps me arrive, what doesn't. I'd love for you to read it and tell me what surprises you."
Then offer the read you built of them: "I also made a working read of you from my side. I'm holding it loosely. I want to know what I got right and what I'm missing."
That conversation, document in hand, is one of the most intimate exchanges a couple can have.
The Nine Prompts
Core Desire: When intimacy feels most alive, what am I really longing to feel?
Dimension of Sex: What pulls me into arousal most — meeting my partner, dropping into sensation, or a story or scenario?
Erotic Blueprint: What kind of touch, energy, or experience reliably turns me on?
Emotional Wiring: What does intimacy give me emotionally? What do I need to feel before I can fully let go?
Arousal Arc: How do I like to begin? How does it build? How do I like it to end?
Favorite Position: Which position do I love most — and what does it give me?
Music and Atmosphere: What sound, mood, or atmosphere helps me drop in?
What Lands and What Doesn't: What reliably works — and what consistently pulls me out?
How to Meet Me Well: If my partner remembered only a few things — what would they be?
The Bottom Line
Your partner cannot give you what they don't know you need. And most of the time, they genuinely want to.
The Sexual Self-Portrait is the bridge between what you need and what they can give. Build it. Share it. Let it change things.
And if your partner builds one and hands it to you — receive it as the gift it is. They're giving you a map to their most vulnerable self.
Ready to go deeper?
If this resonates, there are two ways to take the next step with Coelle.
Download the Coelle app — Guided audio intimacy sessions designed for couples who are ready to stop performing and start arriving. Built for exactly the kind of intentional connection this post is about. Download Coelle here.
Work with me directly — I offer one-on-one sex and intimacy coaching for individuals and couples, drawing on my background in sport psychology and years of personal somatic work. Book a free discovery call here.
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