“Foreplay begins when the last time you had sex ends,” is a phrase I first heard from sex therapist and my good friend Dr. Kate Balestrieri.
It’s an important reframe.
Initiation isn’t the few minutes before sex starts. It’s the whole atmosphere between encounters—every touch, every bid for connection, every conversation.
By the time most couples think initiation has begun, it’s mostly already happened.
For the past two weeks I’ve been writing about The Invite—first about how contempt suffocates desire, then about what we’re actually asking for when we ask for sex. This week, I want to talk about how sexual invitation gets started.
Think about how initiation is portrayed in that movie.
Joe’s version is a grievance: “You’re supposed to want me.” Angela’s is silence.
And upstairs, the neighbors’ soundtrack plays on, a nightly reminder that other people apparently just... fall into it. Spontaneously. Effortlessly. The way it happens in movies.
Which is precisely the problem.
Movies are where many of us learned to initiate. We absorbed a script—the sudden grab, the smoldering look, the wordless escalation—and we’ve been running it ever since, wondering why it only lands sometimes.
Yet we also carry long-held ideas that shape how we approach or avoid making the first move.
That men should always initiate.
That wanting sex too visibly is needy, or unladylike, or desperate.
That if your partner really desired you, you’d never have to ask.
That initiating and being rejected says something about your worth.
We absorbed them from our upbringing, religion, culture, past relationships.
On top of the inherited beliefs sits a near-universal error I often see in my practice: one partner says “I do initiate. I reach for them in bed every night, and I keep getting turned down.”
And when I ask the other partner how they’d love to be initiated with, the answer has nothing to do with reaching over in bed.
It’s “I want to feel like they thought about me during the day, like a person they’ve been paying attention to, not a body that happens to be in the bed.”
Or “I want to feel wanted, not needed, like they desire me, not just sex.”
Or “I want to be touched slowly first, without it being a request. A hand on my back that isn’t in a hurry.”
Yes, there are many layers to this, but often what I find is that one partner tends to initiate the way they would want to be initiated.
What reads as thrilling to you may read as pressure to them. What feels romantic to them might feel like a detour to you. Treating your partner the way you want to be treated is guesswork.
This is where the research is useful.
In 2021, clinical sexologist Dr. Petra Zebroff published a study in the Journal of Sex Research. Nearly all previous research on sexual initiation studied the initiator: how people make the first move.
Zebroff built the first validated measure of the recipient’s experience: what actually turns you on when someone starts something with you.
Her framework identifies four initiation styles:
Sensation: touch is the doorway.
This style come’s alive through physical contact. The caress on the back of the neck, the slow massage, the kiss that’s about two mouths exploring each other rather than checking a box. The key with a Sensation partner is patience.
Start with non-sexual touch and build gradually. They can often go further than any other style, but only if you don’t rush the runway.
What kills it: going too rough or too sexual too fast. The reach-for-the-genitals opener is exactly the move that shuts this style down.
Sentimental-Emotional: connection is the doorway.
This style’s erotic brain switches on through feeling cherished. The initiation that works looks, to other styles, like it isn’t initiation at all: undivided attention with the phone face-down, meaningful eye contact, a declaration of affection, or doing a task they asked you to do. For this partner, emotional closeness is the beginning of sex.
What kills it: distraction, transactional energy, and any initiation that makes them feel like a body that happens to be nearby rather than a person who was thought about.
Seductive-Exotic: the game of desire is the doorway.
This style runs on anticipation and the dance of being wanted. The initiation that works started with the loaded text at 2pm, the look across the dinner party, the slow undressing, the passionate kiss that leaves no ambiguity. They want to see and feel your desire for them, expressed with confidence and a little theater.
What kills it: hesitation. Confidence matters because a tentative first move breaks the spell of being irresistibly wanted. If you seem unsure whether you want them, the whole game collapses. The failure mode is weak desire signaling.
Surrender: power is the doorway.
This style wants to be told, not asked. Their arousal lives in handing over control—the confident grab, being pulled in or pressed against the wall, clear direction in the heat of the moment.
The paradox that makes Surrender work: it requires the most communication outside the bedroom to need the fewest words inside it. Boundaries negotiated in advance, turn-ons and hard limits named, safe words in place. That scaffolding is what makes the letting-go feel free instead of frightening.
What kills it: being asked “what do you want?” mid-scene, and any confusion between confident direction and unwanted aggression. Consent isn’t the constraint on this style; it’s the foundation of it.
Most of us are strongly wired for one or two of these.
Here’s the collision that runs through so many bedrooms:
Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:
Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.
Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. Start with one session and a clear plan for what to do next.
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