The Dual Control Model
Sometimes you just need some warm socks
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How has it taken me all these months to write an explainer about the dual control model???? It is THE mechanism in your brain that makes sexual response happen (or not happen) and you truly can’t know what’s true about your sexuality without knowing the dual control model!
Well, better late than never.
Full transparency: This model of sexual response was developed over twenty years ago by my dissertation co-chair Erick Janssen and the clinical head at one of my internships during grad school, John Bancroft. I am a child of the dual control model. I can no longer imagine considering sexuality without this language.
It’s called the “dual control model” and it’s based on the wild idea that sex works like everything else in your brain. That is, the sexual response mechanism in your brain is controlled by a pair, a coupling of mechanisms.
First there’s a sexual accelerator, which notices all the sex related information in the environment. That’s everything that you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or, crucially, anything you think, believe or imagine, and it sends those a signal that says turn on. That’s the one we’re used to hearing about on a lot of sex advice is focused on increasing stimulation to the accelerator and it’s functioning at a low level all the time, including right now, the fact that we’re talking about sex is a little bit related to sex. And so therefore you’ve got a little bit of turn on signal happening.
At the same time, in parallel, you have brakes that are noticing all the good reasons not to be turned on right now. Everything that you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, think, believe, or imagine that your brain codes as a potential threat. That sends the turn off signal.
So the process of becoming aroused is a dual process of turning on the ons and turning off the offs.
(Obviously, the model is much more complex than this, including the fun fact that there are actually two brakes, not one, but this is enough detail to start using the idea in your own sex life!)
Here’s the giant news: It turns out when people are struggling, sometimes it’s because there’s not enough stimulation to the accelerator… but much more often is that there’s too much stimulation to the brakes.
And sooooooooo many different kinds of things can hit the brakes. Stress is probably number one on the list. Body self-criticism is very high up there. Relationship issues. Trauma history.
Some of the things hitting your brakes are easy to fix. If you’re distracted by grit on the sheets, change your sheets. If you are constantly monitoring for sounds outside the door, have your sex at a time that there isn't somebody in the house or lock the door. These are things that can be dealt with by warming your cold feet. (Literally!)
It turns out in the research, in order to know what’s happening in the brain during orgasm, researchers need participants who can masturbate to orgasm in an FMRI machine. If you’ve ever had an MRI, you know that it is not the sexiest environment. And it turns out that only about half of people, even among those who volunteer for this study, actually get to orgasm because the context keeps the brakes on.
You’ve got this noise, and you know there are people around and it’s strange and stressful and unfamiliar, but it turns out there was a Dutch researcher who let his participants keep their socks on and he doubled the likelihood that a person was going to be able to have an orgasm. And you’ve got to wonder why. Is it a blood flow thing? Is it a fetish? What’s going on here?
No, it turns out their feet were cold, which distracted them, which kept the brakes on enough to keep them away from orgasm. Give them socks, warm their feet. They’re not distracted, the brake releases, and they can get to orgasm.
I told this to a friend, who immediately went out and bought… a pair of over the knee wool socks! The friend got warm feet, the partner of the friend got some fun visual stimulation.
See? Stuff hitting the brakes isn’t all “repair your relationship” and “heal your trauma.” There are simple things that you can do in order to access more freedom with the accelerator.
If having the lights on hits your brakes, keep the lights off!
If worry about being interrupted hits your brakes, lock the door! Have sex when no one else is home! Go to a hotel!
If you’re distracted because the last load of laundry never made it to the closet, allow your partner to treat you to the sight of them strolling around the bedroom naked, putting clothes away in a playfully seductive way!
All of these are real examples from real people, even the laundry one!
The simplest way to start applying the dual control model to your own sex life is to make a basic list of things that typically activate your accelerator and things that typically activate your brakes. Then, if you have a partner, have them do the same. Talk to each other about ways you can help remove things that are hitting each other’s brakes.
What you’ll learn is that a lot of the techniques to make it easier to want and like sex—i.e., to turn off the brakes—having nothing to do with what happens in bed and everything that happens in all the rest of your life.
There’s a brake, y’all!! 😃
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Stay safe and see you next time.
