Pleasure or Performance: A Sex Therapist on the Importance of Understanding You and Your Partner’s Pleasure Archetypes
Phoebe Blogg is a Senior Lifestyle Journalist and Freelance Writer. She has worked and interned across several titles including Harper’s BAZAAR, Elle, JONES Magazine and more.
Although a fashion enthusiast at heart, Phoebe has quickly become infatuated with the beauty realm after trialling, investing and re-investing in several top-shelf products.
Now knowing what acids, to combine with which serums in what order, it’s safe to say… Phoebe has become accustomed to the evolving world that is the beauty industry.
Some of her favourite Adore Beauty products include, Bondi Sands Melt Me Cleansing Balm , Salt By Hendrix Niacnamide Body Serum and Who is elijah, muse edp.
Heads up, this article includes sexual wellness content. Now, onwards!
There’s no denying it…today sexual pleasure means business.
Whether you are discussing the matter with friends or openly seeking help from a professional, the days of sexual pleasure being viewed as somewhat of a taboo-like, topic are simply no more.
Whilst the significance of self-pleasure has and continues to remain an important part of many women’s sexual and interpersonal experiences, in 2024 attention has grown towards understanding, respecting and acknowledging our partner’s pleasure, and the positive ramifications that can come from doing so.
Now I know what you are thinking…what exactly does understanding my partner’s pleasure entail?
When striving to fully grasp what your partner deems pleasurable and why, you must first understand the term ‘pleasure archetypes’ and how these archetypes can directly relate to the behaviour and emotions your partner may be exhibiting.
To better understand pleasure archetypes, their characteristics and the importance of acknowledging our partner’s, Adore Beauty spoke with Australian Relationship and Sex Therapist Selina Nguyen (she/they) for a detailed debrief.
Selina Nguyen, Relationship and Sex Therapist.
“I often compare it to the Love Languages, which is a very pop psychology framework for understanding the different ways we all like to give and receive love. We understand that we each have different needs when it comes to love and that my needs may be different from yours, and that's not inherently bad - it just is,” said Nguyen.
“The pleasure archetypes work in the same way, in that they create categories for our minds to grasp onto and better understand the different types of pleasure we love and might prefer. It gives us a framework for learning more about ourselves, our bodies and our pleasure.”
The archetypes were created by Adore Beauty and Sunroom, in The Pleasure Space app.
As many Adore Beauty consumers may already know, this app is where content creators can chat and share information about sex and build communities in these realms.
Each archetype is linked to a real-life content creator, or archetype ‘muse’, who embodies that archetype characteristic.
After learning that there are 16 pleasure archetypes in total, Nguyen confirms that as evolving emotional and hormonal humans it is inherently normal for us all to relate strongly to not one, but multiple archetypes.
“We can absolutely identify with multiple of the archetypes. Pleasure is an ever-evolving presence in our lives, and the archetypes aren't designed as strict boxes nor do I think they should be. They're more so launch-points for diving deeper and challenging the ways we think of pleasure as a culture,” said Nguyen.
“The archetypes and the quiz itself see pleasure not as sexualisation or selfish hedonism, but as aliveness and joy and delight and when we frame it in that way, we know that our pleasure is bound to change as we grow as humans.”
Without going into great detail on each archetype Nguyen shares an explanation that distinguishes just how vastly different the 16 archetypes are from one another.
“There are 16 (pleasure archetypes) in total, and each is very different in the types of pleasure they centre and prioritise,” she said.
“The Poet for example is all about meaning, emotionality and story-telling whereas, The Artist is about self-acceptance and creativity. Some are about spontaneity and experimentation, and others are about being in service to others or physical touch.”
Whilst this piece is all about the importance of understanding and acknowledging our partner’s archetype, Nguyen stresses that to do so successfully, we must first understand and identify our own archetype/s.
To best determine which archetype you are, Nguyen suggests taking the Pleasure Space quiz in addition to being in touch with your fluctuating emotions and desires with and without your partner.
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“Of course, you can take the incredible Pleasure Space quiz that I've created in collaboration with Adore Beauty and Sunroom, it's such a valuable resource in just getting the conversation started about pleasure and getting you thinking about what types of pleasure you value, what are you curious about and how we can create more space for that in our lives.”
Once aware of your own pleasure archetype and the symbolic values and desires you may exhibit or withhold as a result, you can move towards understanding, acknowledging and potentially servicing your partner’s pleasure archetype/s.
Pleasure is a two-ended sword, meaning that to feel pleasure we typically like to be pleasured or engage in pleasurable activities ourselves - hence the need for those in a relationship to recognise and discuss their archetype/s with their partners.
“In knowing your pleasure archetype, it can put some of your behaviour into context because pleasure ties into the ways that you choose to spend your time, what's important to you and why,” said Nguyen.
“My favourite part about this quiz is that it centres pleasure as a part of who we are, not just something that we do. It encourages us to reclaim it and take up that space which historically many women and AFAB folks have really struggled to do. In talking about it with our partners, it makes our individual pleasure known, welcome… and hopefully celebrated.”
When discussing just how fundamentally important it is to truly understand our partner’s archetype, Nguyen confirms that intimate discussions surrounding the topic can lead your partner to feeling more comfortable. Once comfortable, further conversations surrounding sexual – or even non-sexual pleasure, are more likely to occur.
Understanding your partner’s archetype is also significantly valuable in that it opens the door for conversations about pleasure to occur and continue well into the future.
“Any good and reasonable partner would want pleasure and happiness and joy for their partner, and ideally we're doing what we can to support each other and ourselves in that.
Accepting each other's archetype is one example of that because it'll be more common and more likely to be the rule that your and your partner's archetypes won't line up, rather than the exception to the rule. The way that we experience pleasure is as unique as our food palates and preferences,” she said.
“The joy is in the diversity, not in the sameness. If we were all the same, we might not eat or experience anything new ever,” she said.
Whilst Nguyen does state that there is joy in diversity, the issue of couples not aligning with each other’s archetypes is one she frequently incurs with clients.
This difference in sexual desires and archetype characteristics can often lead to one individual feeling as though they need to change their behaviour, actions or values to align or please their partners.
Differences such as this may lead one individual in the relationship to feel as though they are performing for their partner, rather than being genuinely engaged in the moment.
“I would get curious about what parts of it feel performative for you. Is it about a specific request that your partner is making? What are the barriers that stop you from being present? Are there any shifts that we can make towards more openness or curiosity?
The pleasure archetypes are intentionally quite broad and non-prescriptive so that you can pick them up and run with them in whatever direction inspires you. It's just information, they're not justification for getting our partners to do whatever we want them to,” she said.
“Going back to my food analogy, just as we would negotiate what to eat on a date night, we have to strike a balance between what I want and what you want. That's all relationships ever are, right?...embrace the difference, get creative about the ways you can stay connected and have fun with it.
It is important to remember that sexual pleasure should always feel genuine, if it does start to feel like you are performing for your partner rather than pleasing them, this may be a sign that an increased effort needs to go into the discussion of what one another desires, enjoys and ultimately feels comfortable engaging in."
When asking Nguyen if she has noticed an increase in the number of couples coming to her with the hopes of better understanding each other’s pleasure archetypes and broader sexual desires, she confirms that the range of clients coming to her with issues surrounding desire discrepancy has only increased.
“The most common reason why couples see me is for a desire discrepancy where one partner wants sex more often than the other. From there, we dig into how we got stuck in this place and we often find that the lower-desire partner wants sex, but they just don't want the sex that's on offer,” she said.
“This opens up a whole conversation about the spectrum of pleasure, how we can create more space for pleasure in our lives and how that opens the door for sexual desire for many people. It’s not about sex or just about desire, it’s about pleasure.”
“For many of us, we are really disconnected from our pleasure, our bodies and our sexuality so I'm guiding many folks to learn about it often for the first time in their lives and how to share that with their partners and own what they want. My most successful couples are those that can really run with it, savour the exploration and see it as a privilege to share the journey with their partners.”
Aside from better understanding your partner as a person and sexual being, learning more about your partner’s pleasure allows you to deepen your connection with them…being entirely present in the health of your relationship and its future.
Pleasuring your partner should be as enjoyable for you as it is for them. May it be an intimate moment in the bedroom or a discussion surrounding emotional vulnerability, once you gauge and learn about what your partner finds pleasurable, then and only then will you truly understand your significant other for the person they are.
“Learning more about our pleasure archetype/s as well as our partners allows us to show up more fully in our relationships and it can be such a deep form of acceptance and intimacy to have someone meet you in it or to really support you in it," said Nguyen.
Final Thoughts.
At the end of the day, learning about your partner’s pleasure can be a fun and transformative experience for both parties involved.
Remaining open-minded, educated and non-judgemental is bound to make both you and your partner feel comfortable and confident. Then and only then will you be able to step into the next phase of your relationship, equally deepening your emotional and physical connection with one another.
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