Here are my notes on Jack Morin’s The Erotic Mind. And something for your M.I.N.D. ears.

See also Sex Talks, Come As You Are, Feng Shui That Makes Sense.


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  • The Erotic Mind as an encouragement to infuse sex with meaning — to deliberately infuse sex with meaning (magic401(k) sex). (Though sex is always meaningful, representative of one’s life.) The erotic landscape is large — sex is more than just the physiology of sex, or technique. ‘Eroticism’ as the world of meaning around sex; ‘eroticism’ as the interplay of sexual arousal with the challenges of living and loving. “The erotic is intricately connected with our hopes, expectations, struggles, and anxieties — everything that makes us human.” Sex is simple, eroticism is complex; sex is animal, eroticism is human. Eros is energized by the entire human drama. Eros is fueled by the energy of life itself — and thus contains a deep-rooted urge toward growth and self-affirmation. One’s “erotic truth”. The challenges of early life become the cornerstones of our eroticism. The erotic mind creatively expresses our innermost needs and potentials. Erotic peaks always reveal secrets about our idiosyncrasies, conflicts, and unresolved emotional wounds. Transform emotions & life-emotions through sex (from fear to celebration, from guilt to liberation.)
  • Every turn-off can become a turn-on.
  • Every turn-on, past a point, can become a turn-off. (e.g. anxiety/excitement)
  • Arousal is the antidote to performance. Pleasure (through arousal) instead of performance.
  • Attraction + obstacles = excitement. (e.g. physical/geographical/emotional distance, × sex drive simmer (Sex Talks)) Yearning renews passion. (“The sexual equation”) (Obstacles: cf appeal of scarcity — marketing)
    • Received ambivalence increases excitement. Ambivalence is an obstacle and thereby increases excitement (hence dynamics around playing hard to get; push & pull).
      • Resolving the other’s ambivalence can be seen as a win, a conquest (“search for power”).
    • It’s not the ambivalence but the resolution of ambivalence that turns on — overcoming doubt.
  • Four cornerstones of excitement: anticipation/longing, naughtiness, overcoming ambivalence, power.
    • Longing & ambivalence are turn-ons prior to sex; power & naughtiness are turn-ons during sex.
  • Peak turn-on experiences & fantasies. Distinct from each other, with their respective elements.
    • Look back on peak turn-on experiences for inspiration.
    • Fantasies provide safety & as such clearer, more direct insight into one’s turn-ons.
  • Fantasies safeguard reality. People with no sexual outlets in fantasies (or repressed) act out in real life. Acknowledge & embrace your shadow (literally doing it is difficult, I’ve tried) to keep it in check. Integrate into daily life — don’t split off. (Argument against banning pornography — I have my subscriptions reservations.) “The shadow is darkest when we refuse to look at it.”
  • The shadow holds the key to the whole self. “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
  • The fetish object is a shorthand — a focus point for arousal, potentially symbolic.
  • Restrictions backfire (e.g. in hierarchical professional relationships) — make the illicit relationship even more exciting, steamier.
  • Resolving problematic turn-ons results in a less exciting sex life — though more sustainable.
  • Fixing problematic behaviour doesn’t work if it jeopardizes your meaning-making paradigm. People subconsciously resist fixing problematic behaviour if it emerged as a goal to their life story. (On why Sex Addicts Anonymous doesn’t fundamentally work, compared to Alcoholics Anonymous — life loses meaning if you take away what the sex addiction was giving it; you first need to understand and find a new meaning.)
  • Rewrite personal history through fantasies. Get back at your wrongs in fantasy — behaving as you would. Counterbalance current reality through fantasies — exercising our power.
  • Women generally pay more attention to the emotional context & safety in their fantasies/peak turn-ons. “Strong, yet gentle.”
  • “I could hardly keep my pants on. But we undressed each other slowly, very tenderly, taking all the time we needed to fully enjoy every moment.”
  • “I asked him to sleep over but said I didn’t want to have sex.” (× Pavlina)
  • D/s relationships are empowering for both top & bottom. They tend to make both top & bottom feel powerful & validated.
    • The bottom feels desired by the top; the top feels desired by the bottom.
    • Submission (surrender) as disclaiming responsibility for what will follow — thereby letting us escape from sexual cultural scripts. “If I have no say over what is happening then I’m not to blame for my enjoyment. I’m just following orders.”
  • Peak eroticism is ultra-personal — one’s erotic eccentricities and quirks are given expression. One’s ultra-personal desires are played out in unedited form. Peak eroticism is an act of self-disclosure — makes for closeness. (How to Know a Person — one’s unique sexual personality as the result of one’s entire history)
  • CET (Core Erotic Theme) — the one common thread across all your peak turn-ons & fantasies. Usually linked to your childhood (or life story) — what you wish to affirm (or realize) through sex. “Look closely at a peak turn-on and you’ll undoubtedly sense that something close to the core your being has been touched.” Realizing one’s legend (“finishing unfinished emotional business”) through CETs (The Hero With a Thousand Faces). Understand your CET to coax it in productive ways.
    • “When you feel an irresistible response to someone, your CET is probably being stimulated, although you may have no idea why this particular person is affecting you so strongly.” (× also import/export).
    • CETs try to re-enact past situations (to let them play out differently). Your CET brings you towards reproducing past situations, until you resolve them differently — karmic cycle (hell) (time loops). For example, being constantly attracted to ambivalent partners.
    • Peak turn-ons might not be the healthiest.
  • What do your fantasies & peak turn-ons have in common?
  • Lusty vs romantic attraction
    • “The romantic urge aspires to personal transformation through the temporary joining of two separate beings.”
  • Lust objectifies. Limerence idealizes.
    • Ironically, idealization can also be a form of objectification. The other person projects a private fantasy onto you.
    • In limerence, one is simultaneously over-receptive to the partner’s good sides & non-receptive to their bad sides.
  • Import vs export. Attraction is made of both. Import (characteristics of the other that we lack or wish for ourselves); export (own characteristics that are appreciated and validated by the other). (Dr. Tripp — often seen on a bicycle) (“qu’importe, l’amour s’exporte”)
    • Nurture the qualities you like by bonding with people who have them. “Through our attachments we can gradually cultivate within ourselves the very characteristics we find so appealing in our partners.” (Become rich one partner at a time.)
    • (e.g. reading fiction books to import what is missing in your life (Katie))
  • After limerence (NRE), sex life usually flounders. The merging erases the separateness/individuality that was the base for attraction. Love-lust conflict (& love-lust overlap).
    • Excitation + safety, for arousal. “Tantric practitioners believe that ecstasy is most likely to occur when relaxation and high states of excitement are combined.” “Relaxing into arousal.”
    • Loss of desire is not a problem but a message. (× procrastination is the messenger (Tiny Experiments))
    • Stay in touch with the original attractions that brought you together in the first place.
    • And pay attention to new sources of attraction, as the relationship evolves. Attraction’s biggest enemy is the tendency to stop paying attention.
      • To find more turn-ons, pay more attention. “Bored lovers develop an uncanny ability to miss opportunities for surprise, usually because they stop paying attention.” Priming lets you notice more, and improvise more readily and proactively with your environment. “Inviting fuck luck.” Creating the conditions for fuck luck.
  • Closeness is a turn-off when it becomes an obligation, or suppresses individuality (“when it threatens the separateness that is the basis of all attraction”).
    • Secrecy (withholding important information) vs privacy (retaining individuality).
  • Arousal/attraction as a spark — you have to be neither too close nor too far. “In both love and lust, the challenge is to find an optimal distance — neither too close nor too far.”
  • “Companionate lovers” (very similar) — not with passionate sex, but just getting along really well (soul friends). “Warm sex.”
    • “In most cases, an awareness of similarity is friendship, whereas an awareness of difference is passion.”
  • Sex Talks: re-state intentions explicitly (× Sex Talks). E.g. “I value our sexual relationship so much that I’ve been thinking about how to make it even better.” (× Culture Map)
  • Recall (together) past peak turn-ons.
  • Sensual touching activity (sensate focus) — goal-less, not performance-based. Reconnecting with pleasure (e.g. taking turn massaging). As an activity to counter performance pressure.
  • Physical excitation is an aphrodisiac (anxiety, breathwork, HIIT…).
  • Set (specific) sex life goals (× Sex Talks). “I want to learn how to get turned on without feeling anxious”, “I want to be able to enjoy sex with someone I love”. Link your goals to successful past experiences. Focus on what you want rather than what you don’t want.
    • 3 columns: Why I need to change (Push motivators); Potential benefits and rewards (Pull motivators); Antimotivators (fears/resistance to change)
    • The “gray zone” (confusing transitionary periods): characterized by loss of landmarks or clear pathways; feelings of grief and loss (self-death; mourning the ego).
    • Deliberately create a gray zone: tiny experiment a pause in your habits, or doing things differently, for a given period of time.
  • “Emotions are the stuff of life’s inner content and the basis of its richness.”
  • “Whether for good or ill, feelings exist to be felt.” To resist or deny our emotions is to strengthen them. Feel them (e.g. unproductive relational emotions) & move on.
  • (Healthy) Guilt is a self-directing mechanism to live according to our values (absorbed from culture, community, self.) — orienting us away from values we differ from. Guitless people are sociopaths.
    • Shame vs guilt (“I am bad” vs “I did something bad” — × Daring Greatly)
    • “Guilt reveals its richest aphrodisiac potential whe it is not forgotten, but vanquished.”
  • Children justify their parents’ behaviour (at their own expense) — e.g. deserving to be treated badly.
  • “Among The Group, 46% reported having at least one drink before peak encounters, 14% used marijuana.”
  • Add new self-perceptions to your identity rather than banishing old ones. (× Tiny Experiments)
  • Investigate what turns you on. (Make it happen.) (e.g. erotic fiction, eclectic porn, and noticing what turns you on.)
  • Remind yourself of how much you’ve wanted this.
  • We cannot control love, but we can choose it. Love isn’t just a fall, it is also a leap.
  • Peak turn-ons often happen on vacation — breaking the routine.
  • Start an erotic journal.
  • Talk about stuff.
  • Turn setbacks into opportunities for growth.
  • Break character.
  • Be proactive.
  • Try stuff.