Aside from sex, what turns you on?

Is it: Music? Art? Laughter? A beautiful view? A mountain? An ocean? Sports? Danger? Playing an instrument? Accomplishments? Getting an award? A full moon? A scary movie? Having fun? Intelligence? A beautiful face? Eyes? Other specific body parts? Animals? Flowers? Growing your own vegetables? Colors? Fast cars? Storms? The list could be endless.

I am turned on by many things; most people are, to some degree, but one night, I discovered that I was turned on from being turned on. What does that mean, exactly? I can only explain that on this night, after sex, still feeling the ‘glow’, I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude, and love so intense I was stunned to silence. This experience went beyond the ultimate ‘turn-on’ from sex, because it was more all-encompassing. This was an awareness that came from feeling my partner’s love and appreciation of what we had just accomplished together, but with a much greater depth of wonder, of which I’d never before felt to that degree. It was as if someone had set off a flair right before me.

With my guy, I generally have lovely, satisfying feelings after sex, but this time, those feelings were more enhanced, more profound. I was experiencing, to the fullest, the very moment when gratitude, exhaustion, satisfaction, and fulfillment exploded into such a brilliance, after getting off, that at that moment I could have started fucking all over again in order to release that euphoria. Unfortunately, because my guy was unable to recharge that quickly, all I could do was just feel the awe.

I would compare that feeling to seeing the green flash, which is that rare phenomenon when the Earth’s atmosphere causes the light from the Sun to separate, or refract, into different colors just as the sun goes down. Because it only lasts a few seconds, a person has to be at the right place at the right time to see it. But what a high to say you did.

I’ve always thought that good sex is the ultimate high, yet on that night, it was more than just getting gratification from a much needed or wanted romp in the sack, of feeling that Oh My God pinnacle of release that brings the zenith of emotions beyond mere satisfaction. It was an all-encompassing euphoric realization that I was turned on way beyond that sexual aspect. I was turned on by my partner’s love and appreciation of being turned on by me. I was turned on by the ‘turn-on’.

Having sex did not always bring on that kind of high, early on in my life.

I remember, all too often, how ashamed I’d feel about feeling good after fucking. My upbringing taught me that sex was sinful if the couple was having sex just for the fun of it, instead of for the sake of procreation, and especially if the couple was not married. Sex was not just for enjoyment.

Then why were we made to be able to feel so good having sex? I would often wonder. Theologians likely love this topic, because it gives plenty of latitude for opinions and ultimatums. However, that is not where I want to go with this subject.

I am usually very happy with the post-coital glow of closeness, having just met the goal of the ultimate surrender together and feeling very good about that with the warm, fuzzy feelings which follow. And, with us, sex has become better and better over the past few years. Perhaps in our aging process, we’ve had to try harder, or we just appreciate it more, but whatever the reason, I am not only grateful for the experience and the power in which it’s been delivered, I am grateful for the desires, for the actual ‘turn-on’. Having discovered this new experience of a brand new turn-on was like being reborn, of gaining a whole new insight into an even broader view of ‘high’. And what a grand awakening!

I feel turned on a lot by things other than sex! Especially from music, like hearing a roaring rendition of In the Halls of the Mountain King; oh, my God!! There is also Tchaikovsky’s Swan Theme from the ballet Swan Lake; I could swoon. And then hearing the music from Man of La Mancha as well as seeing the movie; there is nothing I cannot accomplish! There are many soul-moving songs out there written in minor keys, my preference, that fill me with extreme joy.

I am sure that it’s talent freely given from the heart and soul that is the turn-on, whether it be in the form of music, art, or speech.

I am also very turned-on by the moon, in whatever phase it may be in, but when at its fullest, it brings on the grandest ‘euphoric high’. I feel beautiful and desired, and I want to have unrestrained sex by the moonlight, to sing or dance to do whatever I can to unload the fullness I feel inside my soul of gratitude and love.

I am also turned on by looking at a flower with its intricate petal formations, like a Dahlia with its sprays of many tiny petals, reminding me of a mini sunburst or a Ranunculus with their rows of layered corolla, so precise and delicate or a Begonia with its waxy and sculptured petals. No one can do it better than Mother Nature herself.

Like with storms. Lightening and thunderous rainstorms can be very frightening, and yet what a turn-on! Doesn’t a frightening, yet awe-inspiring thunderstorm make you feel like wanting to grab the one you love and make mad, passionate love? It does me.

What does being ‘turned on’ really mean? Possibly different things to different people.

The definition in Webster’s Dictionary says: “A turn-on is a person or thing that causes someone to feel excited or sexually aroused”. Webster’s uses the example: “tight jeans can be a real turn-on.” Yet we all know that it is so much more than that.

Just getting turned on by tight jeans or a tight sweater showing cleavage, or a muscle shirt showing off muscles isn’t even close to the real deal of being turned on. The many examples of other types of turn-ons could, as easily, end with the same result as a needed release with sex.

I have a challenge for you. See how many times you can feel yourself getting ‘turned on’ in the course of a day, through means other than seeing sexy attire or a sexy person. You might surprise yourself with the many examples you find when you’ve opened your mind by seeing beyond ‘sex’. And you might surprise yourself at how much happier you feel. Also, the next time you are making love, feel the joy afterward, the love and gratitude for the turn-on from your significant other, to see if you, too, can realize the same turn-on from being turned-on. How turning someone else on, or being turned-on by another affects you mentally. See if you, too, can reach that ultimate pinnacle and feel that extraordinary ‘high’ after the physical release that morphs into mental awareness, the supreme satisfaction.

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