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Buckle Up! It’s Time for a Sexual Vocabulary Lesson

By Jamie Azar, Certified Sex Coach

I’ve mentioned that, before becoming a sex coach, I was an English teacher. Hence, I have a particular soft spot for grammar and vocabulary. And honestly? Vocabulary matters—especially when we’re talking about sex.

Even within the fields of sexuality education and practice, sexual terms are often conflated. While that may seem insignificant, using terms interchangeably when they describe different experiences can create confusion—not only in our general understanding of sexuality, but in our ability to understand how our own bodies and pleasure operate.

Disentangling these terms can give us important information and direction when it comes to understanding ourselves, addressing challenges, healing, and creating more expansive pleasure.

Where Did the Idea of Sex Drive Come From?

The term “libido” comes from the Latin word for desire or lust and was made popular in the early 1900s by Sigmund Freud. Freud described libido as a biological drive—akin to hunger, thirst, or the need for warmth. This idea stuck, and for decades, we’ve used phrases like “high sex drive” or “low libido” as if sex were something our bodies need to survive.

Believe it or not, sex is not a biological or survival necessity. That’s right. We need food, water, and oxygen to survive. Without them, our bodies eventually stop functioning. Sex is different. While sexual connection, touch, intimacy, and pleasure can be deeply important to our emotional well-being and quality of life, an individual will not die from a lack of sex. This distinction matters because sexual desire does not operate as a simple, automatic survival drive. Instead, many contemporary understandings of sexual desire recognize it as something influenced by motivation, context, reward, and incentive. True biological drives are connected to survival. Sexual desire, on the other hand, is more accurately described as an incentive-motivation system—meaning we need a reason, a context, or an incentive to feel turned on. If sexual activity isn’t motivating to us in some way, or if we are not consistently getting something positive out of the experience, sexual desire can be difficult to experience or access.

You might feel motivated to be sexual…

  • Because you feel attracted to someone

  • To relieve stress

  • To feel attractive or desired

  • To help combat symptoms of depression

  • To experience pleasure

  • To feel a sense of spiritual connection

  • To reconnect after conflict

  • To celebrate something

  • To be playful or have fun

  • To feel a sense of comfort

  • To act out a fantasy

  • To feel close to someone

Desire Vs. Arousal: What’s the Difference?

While these terms are often conflated or used interchangeably, which is understandable due to the considerable overlap and the tendency for these to occur simultaneously (although not always the case!), there is a difference. Sexual desire refers to the psychological interest in sex. This is the wanting. The motivation. It involves the longing or interest in engaging in sexual activity, experiencing sexual pleasure, or connecting with a sexual partner. Various factors can influence sexual desire, including hormonal changes, emotional and psychological factors, relationship dynamics, and personal experiences. Additionally, someone might feel a strong desire for sexual intimacy with a partner they are attracted to, even if they are not currently sexually aroused. It’s a subjective feeling that can vary greatly from person to person and can change over time.

Arousal on the other hand refers to the physiological and psychological response to visual, auditory, tactile, or emotional cues. It is the body’s preparation for sexual activity, characterized by physical changes such as increased blood flow to genitalia, erection, lubrication, and increased heart rate. Some people experience desire first then arousal (spontaneous desire), while other experience arousal first and then desire (responsive desire) and neither is more valid than the other.

What Affects Your Libido?

Desire, often referred to as libido or “sexual appetite” as we know, isn’t linear or static. It ebbs and flows and is shaped by a range of factors from hormones and physical health, whether that’s changes in estrogen, testosterone, or thyroid function, or other medications like antidepressants or birth control, which can also play a role. Our mental health: anxiety, depression, and chronic stress can dampen desire, as well as relationship dissatisfaction and negative cultural, social, religious conditioning and strict gender norms, all of which can create immense barriers to pleasure.

Spontaneous sexual desire is often what people are referring to when they say they have “lost” their desire or that their libido is “low.”

However, for many people, responsive sexual desire is their predominant experience of their libido. This means that significant physical arousal may need to happen before sexual desire occurs. Because spontaneous desire is culturally seen as the norm, a large percentage of the population are misrepresented and misunderstood, leading to beliefs that something is “wrong” with them.

The good news? Desire can be nurtured.

Having an understanding of how your desire operates is key to understanding your pleasure. We know that the mind and body work in tandem to create pleasure, and once we recognize that desire is something we can consciously and intentionally cultivate through care, pleasure, arousal, motivation, and context, we can find a greater sense of agency in our sexuality. It can be liberating to know that there is no one “right” way to experience sexual desire. By communicating more openly, identifying what may be getting in the way of desire and reducing those barriers, trying new things, prioritizing care and pleasure, and challenging cultural myths about what desire is supposed to look like, we can create more opportunities for pleasurable and fulfilling connection.

If you and your partner are struggling to connect sexually and want to find more ways to nurture desire and satisfaction, working with a sex therapist or sex coach can help. Together, we can explore your unique blueprint for desire, break down shame and barriers to pleasure, and discover more authentic forms of relating.

Schedule a Free Consultation Here!

Jamie Azar is former graduate of the Pleasure Psychology and Sexology Certification program, a sex, relationship, and intimacy coach, educator, writer, and mindfulness practitioner based in South Carolina. She offers 1-1 coaching with singles, couples, throuples + to co-create a safe, sex-positive, transformative, liberating, and empowering space that fosters personal and relational growth. She specializes in dismantling limiting beliefs, deconstructing, and destigmatizing harmful narrative constructs, to help clients reframe and redefine their understandings of selfhood, sex, sexuality, and relationships. To work with Jamie go here!