How Your "Erotic Blueprint" Can Help You In The Bedroom

If you’re familiar with some of the most popular personality tests, like the Myers-Briggs or Enneagram, chances are you also know about love languages. Unlike some of the other test options, the five love languages involve not only how you like to receive love, but also how you prefer to show love to others. If you’re in a relationship, understanding your and your partner’s love languages can help you both communicate love and affection for each other and fulfill emotional needs — but what about your sexual needs?

Just like the five love languages operate like a framework of how to express love, the five erotic blueprints work similarly with your sexual relationships. “It is a creative way to look at sexual identities created by Jaiya, a somatic sexologist and sex educator, that couples may find more appealing and fun than trying to label or clinically diagnose their sex lives,” says sex therapist and certified sexologist Dr. Gloria Brame.

Jaiya created the five erotic blueprints as a way to teach people about their sensual selves, and how they can best experience pleasure and express themselves without sexual shame. If you’re looking to discover more about your sexual identity, keep reading for the lowdown on the five different erotic blueprints.

What Are The Five Erotic Blueprints?

Your erotic blueprint (sometimes called your erotic language) teaches you how you can best experience pleasure as well as how you can please your partner. “It breaks sexual identities into five basic types,” says Brame. “I look at it as a useful therapy tool to help people explore sexual identity without shame.”

You can be one of five erotic blueprints: energetic, sensual, sexual, kinky, and shapeshifter. Each type has different characteristics that form your sexual identity:

Energetic: If your erotic blueprint is energetic, your focus is on the exchange and dynamics of having sex. Foreplay might be your focus, considering the connection and tension it can build, and things like flirting and teasing — sexually-charged activities that don’t involve touching — can be just as pleasurable for you as the full thing.

Sensual: Sensual people are all about the five senses. Everything you can see, smell, taste, hear, and touch comes into play when it comes to your pleasure, and you love taking your time and really experiencing all of it. Using things like wax play or experimenting with tastes or textures might really turn you on.

Sexual: Those with sexual blueprints like to get straight to it. Anything and everything surrounding sexual acts themselves is what brings you pleasure if you have this erotic language. Think: jumping straight into the sheets after a romantic dinner and less lead-up foreplay.

Kinky: Whether it’s a breeding kink or a dom/sub dynamic that really revs your engine, if you’re someone with a kinky erotic blueprint, you’re into everything that’s a little more “out there.” Playing with elements like pain and pleasure or power exchanges is fitting to your sexual identity.

Shapeshifter: Lucky for you, if your erotic blueprint is a shapeshifter, you take on some elements of all the different types. You are adaptable and can often suit the needs of whatever partner you’re engaging with sexually and enjoy a wide array of activities in the bedroom.

Why Is Your Erotic Blueprint Important?

In the same way that understanding your love language can help strengthen your relationship and make you a better partner, understanding your erotic blueprint can make you a better lover and sexual partner. “Couples who are working to reconcile differences in how they approach intimacy may find the concept of ‘erotic blueprint’ very useful — both in terms of understanding their own sexuality and their partner’s,” says Brame.

If you and your partner feel like you’re dealing with some sexual incompatibility or issues within the bedroom, learning more about your erotic blueprints can certainly help, Brame says. “Based on Jaiya's five categories, understanding that you may be more sensual than energetic for example allows you and your partner — who may be more energetic than sensual — to open new dialogues and make solid compromises so both of you feel heard and ultimately satisfied.”

Jaiya’s website has a quiz that you and your partner can each take to figure out your erotic blueprints. From there, as Brame suggests, you can start a conversation about how you each can have your sexual needs and desires fulfilled within your relationship using the framework.

What If You And Your Partner Have Different Erotic Blueprints?

There’s no need to fret if you and your partner have different erotic blueprints, says Brame. “[Erotic blueprints] are empathic, theoretical, and designed to educate and support clients while giving them positive ideas for improving sexual intimacy,” she tells Bustle. Like the five love languages, the erotic blueprint types are not an exact science, nor does it mean a partnership is doomed because you don’t have the same needs or desires.

Once you and your S.O. have committed to learning about each other’s blueprints and begin using them for mutual pleasure, you just might have a better sex life. “I can well imagine that people who use erotic blueprints to guide their progress probably do find success because the tools force them to talk about these things in depth and take a practical approach to problems,” says Brame. In short: Knowledge is power, and that certainly applies to your time underneath the sheets.

Expert:

Dr. Gloria Brame, sex therapist and certified sexologist