5 Ways Women Show Interest in Sex that Men Totally Miss (and Other Things that Men Get Wrong About Women's Sexual Desire)

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Her enthusiasm for dancing was arresting. Her grin gave it away.

This 50 year old woman was moving her body to the music, and all you could see was how turned on she was — supple and soft in her body, her eyes beaming, and so fully enjoying herself. She was exuding sexy. 

I was watching her and her husband at an outdoor concert a couple of summers ago. As her favorite song came up, she danced up over to him, taking his hand and pulling him up to join her.

“Come on, let’s dance, I love this so much,” she was begging. 

He was not too pleased. He shifted his weight further into his seat, dug in his heels, and barked back: “You know dancing is not my thing.”

I watched her smile dim and her shoulders come forward a little into a slump. She went back to dancing by herself, just a little bit less excited, her fire dimmed a bit.

I bet that night she would be less likely to reach towards her husband for sex. Or want to show her sexy side to him.

And he would be utterly confused as to why she does not want to initiate sex with him. 

This is an example where men and women profoundly misunderstand each other. We miss and misinterpret each other’s signals for sex — so much so that it creates heartache for each other and sexless marriages.

It’s like men and women speak different languages, and we need translation. 

Men are literal and linear in their communication — in the same way their physiology and sexual arousal work. When he wants to have sex with you, he will say that he wants sex, and he can be ready for that in minutes, if not seconds. 

When he does that, women take it as he just wants sex and could care less about her — which is far from the truth. I talk about this in my last blog on 13 Revelations About Men’s Sexual Desire That Will Make It Easier to Initiate Sex

Women’s sexual desire works very differently

Under normal conditions of a long-term relationship, her wanting sex is a response to context — like the level of connection between her and her partner, her energy levels, and if she feels pressured by responsibilities around her. And her sexual desire is also a function of how connected she feels to herself — in other words, how sexy she feels. 

Her communication about sexual desire is different too. She speaks in hints and suggestions of what she wants, hoping the man will take the lead, and she can surrender to receiving. 

Women do not typically initiate sex directly. It’s unlikely that a woman will directly say “I want to have sex right now” out of the desire for her man. Nor will she want you to touch her genitals right away.

That comes later … MUCH LATER.

What she does is she intuitively initiates things that she knows will lead to her feeling sexy — because she intuitively knows that when she feels sexy and connected to her partner, sexual desire follows.

She is signaling that she wants to be met in a sexy way because that is what she needs to connect to sexual desire.

It’s not a linear process, nor a sure-fire way to have sex. But it paves the way for the sexual engine to get turned on.

Here are three ways that women initiate feeling sexy because she wants to feel sexual with her man.

1. She wants to dance with him

Dancing is physical, sensual and connecting. It allows her to loosen up, feel sexy, and be playful with her partner. Being in his arms through dancing, she starts to feel his attention on her — and it feels so good. She wants the man to sweep her off her feet, literally in this case, and take her on a fun ride in her body. And that is key: dancing allows him to connect to her body in a way that prepares her for sexual connection.

Dance plays with her body and it engages her as a woman — not just a mom, partner or a sexual service provider. It plays with her sexy.

2. She asks him to do the dishes and split household chores

That does not sound particularly sexy, does it? But there is no mistaking that every woman finds a man helping out in the house as a contributor to her libido.

Why? Because it frees her from the mental load of being mom, the manager, and the housekeeper. When women are drowning in responsibilities, the last thing on her mind is her partner or sex. Knowing that she is not the only one responsible for household chores — and more importantly, that her partner initiates doing them — affords her the energy towards feeding her sexy.

So when she is asking for help in the house, she is actually asking to help free her up to feel sexy with you again.

3. When she feels good, she wants to show off her body and asks how she looks

Women love to be seen and looked at, admired and complemented — even if we’re shy about it. Having had unwanted sexual attention growing up, for some women that attention feels threatening. But deep down, we get nourished by a man seeing us and relishing our beauty.

We love his exquisite attention on us and noticing how we are. When a woman comes up to a man, moving her body in front of him, showing off her outfit, and asking what he thinks — she is asking him to notice her, see her, and make her feel desired and wanted. And that turns her on. It makes her feel sexy and again, that’s the build up to feeling desire to be sexual with her man. 

4. She asks for his attention throughout the day and for more time together

She may come up to distract him when he is busy working on something. Or text him during the day with a hello. Or she may ask to spend alone time together in the evenings or on the weekends.

To men who have single-focused attention, she may come across as a distraction. But she is reaching out to connect to feel closer — again, so that she can start warming up to being sexual. If she is far apart from him for the entire day literally with no connection, she will as far away from her sexual desire in the evening. She needs that attention so that she feels close to him and that turns her on.

And if we boil it down to one thing that women need from men to feel sexy, it’s your attention on her. Not on sex, but her. Her energy, her light, her emotions, her body, and her spirit. She needs you to be with her.

Maybe it’s through texts during the day that you’re thinking of her.
Maybe it’s getting surprise flowers at the end of the day.
Maybe through something that you have planned for her to enjoy that night. 
Maybe it’s how you sweep her off her feet with a dance or a kiss and walk away, wanting nothing else from her.

5. She asks for a massage or to be touched on her body in a non-sexual way

And it being in a non-sexual way is what really matters. Touch that feels relaxing and has not strings attached allows her to relax and feel like a wet noodle — even fall asleep from it. But that does not mean that she doesn’t want to be sexual. It’s that she’s going through a process of building that turn on — and she will reach the threshold that puts her into a more sexual mood sooner if she is relaxed and attended to by her partner.

We need our bodies to be played with and explored — before our genitals are touched. Way before! Especially in a sensual or teasing way. All over the body. Then, all over the genitals, too. (here is more to a woman’s genitals that the clitoris and the vagina). Just because it feels so good to be touched. It could be in a few hours or in a few days when she is ready for sex, but that closeness and an appreciation of her body is kindling on her fire.

The point is that when a woman is initiating these, she is naturally and intuitively setting up the mood for sex and initiating things that would have her build up her sense of sexiness and her arousal. She is building her desire up for sex.

And these are prerequisites to feeling sexual and wanting sex.

They are not sufficient for sex — but they’re necessary.

Nor does initiating dancing or touch mean that she will necessarily want sex as a result of it.

There are all important things for men and women to understand to be able to meet each other sexually in a way that works for both of them.

What Men Get So Wrong about Women’s Sexual Desire

There is an order to how women experience sexual desire, and the order is based on what feeds what.

Think of following a recipe for a cake: to use flour, you have to grow the wheat first to make it. If you skip the growing part, you cannot make the cake.

Now, growing wheat does not necessarily make the cake either. It’s one of many ingredients that matter. But it’s a necessary one.

If flour is the basic ingredient for cake, feeling sexy and connected is the basic ingredient for being sexual for a woman.

In both cases, the seeds need to be sown first.

So when she asks to dance with her and he thinks, “what, she ‘just’ wants to dance?” he is getting it wrong. Really wrong.

She wants to dance so she feels sexy so she feels close to him, like lovers, so she can open up to more with him sexually. And that’s a prerequisite to reaching out to initiate sex.

If he is annoyed or disappointed that she does not want more, she will feel that and pull away. 

It’s not that she does not want sex with you. It’s just that she is no where near wanting to have sex with you. Her sexual engine is not only empty, it’s no where to be found. Like I said, the seeds that can become flour have not even been sown. 

And this is so hard for both women and men to really understand because we experience sexual desire differently. And because the media and our entire culture presents sex and sexual desire as most men experience it, both men and women run into trouble. Both start to believe that women are broken.

Because women compare themselves to men and how sexual desire looks for them, we end up being confused about our own bodies or what we even need. 

When women bypass all these necessary steps to have sex, sex feels like hard work. Super hard work! 

She will work really hard to get turned on — make a big effort on an emotional and mental levels — but it won’t be real turn-on. 

It will be forced — and in the long-run, this is exhausting. And it’s what causes her to not want to have sex again. 

Usually she has no idea what to ask for to change it — because what she needs has nothing to do with sex per se.

But it has to do with attention — his exquisite attention on her, his emotional and also physical connection. And his attention on her body — to play with her body and let it awaken.

And, crucially, it has to do with being taken out of the realm of responsibilities of work and motherhood and to be connected to as lovers. Feeling wanted and desired and flirted with. This engaged our sense of sexiness within us, our womanhood.

But there is a caveat that every man needs to understand and heed, too: this play needs to be about play and not have a goal associated with it.

Specifically, this cannot be done as a way to get sex.
It cannot come with an expectation that sex with follow.

Because if you are buttering her up for sex, she will feel it.

And if you’re touching her and on some level, hope it turns sexual, she will feel that too, and she will shut down.

And you will lose her trust because of it.

Women’s sexual desire does not work on demand, on a timer or under pressure. It’s needs to be allowed to blossom on its own — at her own pace, on her own terms. You can’t speed up the process, or pull the petals off to get her to open up. 

But when a man can use his strong masculine heroic energy and patience to give her the safety she needs to get turned on on her terms, she will surrender into his arms.

What a woman needs the most is for a man to flirt and engage with her emotionally and physically — for his enjoyment of her. Of her as a woman. Of her skin, her smell, her energy, her spirit. WITHOUT A GOAL. WITHOUT AN EXPECTATION. And not as an obligatory step towards sex.

He has to enjoy her — and she will learn to relax in his presence and find her own libido.

And he has to learn to trust that he does not have to work so hard to get sex. When he trusts that he will get what he wants, he can relax and enjoy her.

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What Couples Can Do to Connect

In long-term relationships, couples who get stuck in gridlock patterns stop having sexy fun for fun’s sake. They stop touching for the sake of the pleasure of touch. They stop flirting with each other because it’s fun. And these elements become laden with yet another responsibility: “he is touching me again, so he must want sex” is what she thinks.

This short-circuits the safety in the relationship — and thus the nutrients that she needs to feel sexy.

It takes a joint effort — with both partners on board — to get back into the sexy mode. 

Couples need to reconnect to each other and intentionally add sexy time back to their lives.

And women need to learn how to carve out time to fill her sexy tank and be able to ask for what she needs to reclaim her own sexy . 

And when both people take time to learn about each other, they can create magic together — in the bedroom and beyond.

What to do with this information

To truly understand each other and what makes you both light up for each other, get curious. Start a conversation and ask each other how you see sex and what motivates each of you. What are your signs and signals? How do you express sexual desire?

Ask open ended questions and listen to learn. Which means do not talk; listen. Take time to understand each other.

Want to a ready-made list of 19 questions that could spark a conversation about sex that comes from a place of mutual appreciation and finding common ground?

Dare to follow your heart. Dare intimacy.

P.S. When you’re ready to find your way back to yourself and your partner, here are a few options for you: