Pathways to Pleasure: Climbing the Arousal Staircase

Pathways to Pleasure:

Climbing the Arousal Staircase

This post was written by Community Partner, Pleasure Coach & Sex Educator Andrea Bertoli.

You, conscious reader, probably want to experience deeper pleasure in your beautiful body. Perhaps you also want to create a more expansive sex life (for yourself or with others)?

This ‘staircase of arousal’ practice is one of the most powerful practices you can integrate into your masturbation and sex play to experience deeper states of pleasure. Not only does it help you build more capacity for pleasure in your body, it helps to train your nervous system to literally handle more of the good stuff.

Often, when I talk about the soul-expanding, body-sparkling, love-creating magic of whole-body orgasms, my clients and students simply don’t believe me! But I promise, it’s real and yes, it’s possible in YOUR body. Just like cultivating a deeper, longer meditation practice or getting into that peak asana in yoga class, it takes practice… and oh, what fun this type of practice can be!

Follow the Pleasure, Not the Orgasm

One of the best things you can do for your sex life is to take away the goal of orgasm.

Wait…what?! You might be thinking—duh, that’s the point!

But, what if instead of chasing the orgasm, you follow the arousal. You pay attention to the gentle, flowing river of your organic pleasure wherever it might lead. Maybe you try something new, find a new sensation that makes you feel tingly, maybe you take a break, maybe you get really close… maybe you even do have an orgasm.

So many of us get caught up in the chase of the orgasm—clenching and pushing to get there, using those favorite go-to moves or that one specific toy that takes us over the edge. And if you’re in a heterosexual pairing, you might find your sex script relies on penis-in-vagina intercourse. Nothing wrong with PIV, but it’s not the most reliable path to orgasm for those of us with vaginas—especially because we usually rush into penetration before we’re fully aroused.

Sometimes it’s great to have sex like that. It’s predictable, we know what to expect, hopefully it feels good to everyone involved. If you love your version of regular sex, awesome. If you want to figure out what MORE can feel like, please keep reading.

Play on the Staircase of Arousal

Sherri Winston, in her book Women’s Anatomy of Pleasure, asks us to think of pleasure and arousal like a 10-step staircase.

The first step is being non-aroused; step ten is orgasm(s). All the steps on the staircase are your unique arousal process. Just like a real staircase, you simply can’t start at the top. You need to start at the bottom and walk up to the top. But it’s the HOW of the climb that makes all the difference!

You can climb your staircase in a linear way, from the bottom up to the top until you reach your orgasm. Totally fine!

But indulge me for a moment: imagine that you’re walking up a set of stairs.

Stop on step two, then stop on step five, then come back down. Then make your way to step nine, and back to five. Maybe you walk up to the final step.

It’s a wildly inefficient way to move about through the world—but this is exactly the type of arousal practice that can help you FIND MORE ACCESS TO PLEASURE.

The numbers are totally unique to you: there’s no ‘right way’ to be a five, or a seven. You get to practice for you, and your numbers might change as you get more advanced in the practice (and more tuned into your own arousal). The point is the mindfulness of it, the focus on pleasure, not the number itself.

Integrating the Practice

So let’s say you set up an afternoon play session with yourself. You start to touch your body, feeling your skin and your favorite erogenous bits. “I feel turned on, and my arousal is at a three,” you might notice.

You can decide to keep moving up the staircase with more direct touch, maybe adding a toy or more intensity or speed. Now you might notice: “That feels really good; my arousal is at like a six.”

Now, you can decide which way to go in this choose-your-own-adventure. You can keep building arousal to 7, 8, 9, and then 10. Or you can stop here, and simmer. You can back off from intense, direct stimulation and try something else. Stretch, do some deep breathing, take a tea break, and/or add some body movement to spread the arousal into your whole body.

Then do it again, and again. Bring yourself up… then down; up… then down again. Maybe you take yourself over the top with a bigger, deeper orgasm. Maybe you choose to simmer in your aroused state for the rest of the day. This Sex Witch wants to remind you that sexual energy is creative energy is life-force energy, and learning how to cultivate and hold it is a whole practice in itself.

It’s often best to explore this practice on your own, but once you find ease with this exploration, you can bring it to your partner(s). Invite them into the practice, ask them to dance with you in your river of arousal, guide them into the breath, and continue to climb!

I like this staircase model for everybody, though it’s especially helpful for men who want to learn to control their ejaculation and for women that want to become multi-orgasmic (it’s in you, I promise).

Want to get deeper, higher, and more sexy?

For those that want to explore more about sacred sexuality and find deeper realms of pleasure, join my free, monthly online Mindful Sex workshops focused on juicy topics like this. I’ll be teaching a free workshop about Hot & Sexy Perimenopause on October 26, and Deep Eroticism for Men on November 30. My work is always available for your exploration: find my writings here on Conscious City Guide, get my shame-free pleasure education on Patreon, find me on socials, or reach out to connect.

More About the Author: I help people build stronger relationships, create intimate communication, explore their desires, and practice sensual connection in a grounded, holistic way. My approach to coaching and teaching uses tools from Tantra, mindfulness, and yoga to help you find new ways of relating to yourself and others, and will create space for you to rethink sex and pleasure.