Knowing The 4 Stages Of The Sexual Response Cycle Will Help You Have Better Sex

We all want to be having good sex or at least better than we’re currently having, and we believe that if we’re just in the right frame of mind, if we’re turned on enough, if we have the right amount of passion, and so on and so forth, we’ll have a positive experience.

Sex is about many things, namely, intimacy, connection, emotion, and passion. Most of us approach sex through feeling more than anything else – I feel like having sex today, or I don’t feel like it, etc. But through this approach, we might be neglecting valuable clinical information that could be the key to unlocking our missteps and turning okay sex into great sex. One such example is the four-phase sexual response cycle, and other related phases. Knowing the four stages of the sexual response cycle will help you have better sex, once you have all the relevant knowledge. Here’s what you need to know.

The Origins of the Sexual Response Cycle

Imagine this – you’re a research assistant at Washington University’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the late 1950s. It’s an exciting and unprecedented time for the scientific field of human sexuality, and your research partner, a physician, is leading the charge. Together, the two of you are studying sexuality using human test subjects, including hundreds of study participants – everyone from gay men to prostitutes to married couples. You and your colleague eventually become test subjects yourselves and begin an affair. You later marry, start your own scientific research institute devoted to studying human sexuality, and then get divorced but continue to research as a team, publishing information that will change the field forever.

This was Virginia E. Johnson, and together with William H. Masters, the two scientists studied human sexuality at a time when such a field was still taboo, even in academia. Masters and Johnson pioneered the research we know now as the human sexual response system, and also studied sexual dysfunction and sexual arousal into old age. Their 1966 publication Human Sexual Response changed previously held notions about sex, male and female desire, orgasm, and other misconceptions about human sexuality.

The research attributed to Masters and Johnson was the first to examine sex from a physiological standpoint, and they drafted their linear understanding of sexual response phases using tools like electrocardiography and intravaginal photography on their test subjects. Though their publication has now been labeled as outdated by other researchers and therapists, their linear model is still the cycle most commonly taught today. Having a basic understanding of what happens to our bodies during sex, and why, can provide insight into how we can better work with the phases rather than against them.

Having a basic understanding of what happens to our body during sex enables us to work with our body, not against it.

Excitement 

The first stage of the four-phase cycle is excitement. The word “excitement” certainly encapsulates all the emotions you’re going through at this stage. Things are getting quicker, clothes are coming off, and your heart rate (and his, most likely) is speeding up. Your respiration increases. You may be blushing, and blood is flowing to both your labia and your vaginal wall. Arousal fluid is being produced, and increased blood flow and muscle tension are building. Your breasts and genitals feel more sensitive and responsive to stimuli and, as foreplay builds, arousal and desire build as well.

Plateau

The second phase is like excitement on steroids. Respiration and heart rate are still increased, but stabilizing. Your genitals are becoming even more sensitive, as are your nipples, and as the vagina dilates, the uterus elevates. Two small glands at the opening of the vagina, about the size of peas, continue to produce lubricant. The room might be spinning, or time might be standing still, because everything’s building for the next phase.

Orgasm

If this were a movie from the 1950s, here’s where the fireworks exploding or the waves crashing onto the beach would be playing. Orgasm isn’t just the “main event” when it comes to sex, nor is it just a feeling of tension release. It’s an involuntary contraction of the vaginal muscles, as well as a tremendous oxytocin dump.

Statistics vary from source to source about the number of women who don’t orgasm from penetration alone – some say it’s 15% percent, others say 80%. Sexual dysfunction in women occurs for a variety of reasons – stress, lack of trust or comfort, fatigue, or other psychological issues, which should be investigated more deeply. But, what is known – and what Masters and Johnson were the first to discover – is the male refractory period. Masters and Johnson documented how men require a rest period post-orgasm, whereas women require no such break, meaning they’re capable of having multiple orgasms in relatively quick succession. 

Resolution

The fourth and final phase is marked by a return to stability. Blood pressure decreases, heart rate goes down, and the two of you can fall back onto the sheets, satisfied with a job well done. Resolution is the ideal time for cuddling, snuggling, falling asleep, or round two. 

Work with the Phases, Not Against Them

Some might call it obsolete or an antiquated view of how sex works, but Masters and Johnson’s research gives us a fundamental understanding of how sex and desire are ideally suited for our bodies. We were created for intimacy, and there’s a comforting sense of surety we can find in that next time doubts or insecurities bubble up to the surface.

Yes, sex is a complex cocktail of emotions, hormones, and biological responses we may feel we have no control over. But we do have control. We have the power to connect freely and intimately during sex, to let two beings become one, and to give ourselves the gift of being completely in the present moment. That’s the best gift we can give ourselves, and the other person too. All the voices in your head might be fighting the other for dominance – how do I look? How does he think I look? Is he enjoying it too, or pretending? Should I speak up now, or wait? But learning to tune those out (a skill you have to practice) and leaning in to Mother Nature’s helpful hints is the real secret to success.

Closing Thoughts

Masters and Johnson’s work might not be the newest in the science of human sexuality, but it laid the groundwork for the entire field as we know it today. But it’s not them you have to thank next time you head for the bedroom, it’s your own body.