One of the things we are never told is that arousal is something we can self-generate, through practice. The body can be brought toward arousal intentionally, through touch, breath, and pelvic floor.
Physical and mental arousal
Are you familiar with the difference between physical and mental arousal? In order to become more attuned to your desires, it is important to be aware of your turn ons, and when your body feels sexual energy. This can be a spontaneous process that starts in your body, or in your head. It is either a thought that makes you horny, or a physical sensation of arousal.
We can train physical arousal
This is key if you are feeling a drop in your desire for sex. By practising self pleasure and using the pelvic floor, you can start to engage your body towards increasing physical arousal naturally through practice.
A self-generated arousal practice, even five minutes a day, keeps the system active. When you do your pelvic floor training with your breath, everything starts moving. Lubrication responds. When you go through cycle changes in life, or stress, things can dry out. These practices are maintenance. The body learns what you teach it. It learns what you repeat.
"Your arousal and your pleasure are your responsibility."
What solo practice is
Your self-pleasure practice is the foundation. Not the fast, habitual version focused on release, but the exploratory one: learning what your body responds to, where sensation is strongest, what builds arousal and what flattens it.
Most people approach self-pleasure the same way every time. The same touch, the same pace, the same outcome. That repetition trains the body to respond only in that one way, and limits what becomes available with a partner. Changing the practice changes the range. What you discover about your own pleasure is what you bring into every sexual experience.
Try this
As many of these practices require privacy, which might not be immediately available, I invite you to simply imagine the practice. Visualise, sensualise, how you would do this practice, and what it would feel like.
Track your turn-ons throughout the day
Notice what turns you on during the day, and every time you feel something pleasurable, squeeze the pelvic floor. It does not have to be sexual. A delicious drink, a smell that you love, the warmth of the sun, a piece of music that moves you. Each time something feels good in your body, squeeze and release.
When you combine pelvic floor squeezes with pleasurable sensations throughout the day, you start building more arousal cues and pleasure pathways. The body learns to associate feeling good with being alive in that part of itself. Over time, this reawakens desire naturally.