by Emilie Lavinia
Red Magazine
Sexual tension is a common phenomenon that is widely acknowledged as being experienced by both men and women, yet it’s largely misunderstood.
There are very few studies that have been done on the mechanics of sexual tension, but we all know how it makes us feel. But what exactly is sexual tension? How does it work? And how can you tell if the other person is experiencing it too?
Experts will tell you that the answers lie in our brain chemistry, that what we’re experiencing when we feel sexual tension is the product of estrogens and androgens – the female and male sex hormones, and our innate biological drive to seek pleasure and reproduce.
Ultimately, you feel sexual tension because your brain is firing hormones like adrenaline, dopamine, oxytocin, kisspeptin and norepinephrine around your body. These chemicals can make us feel an incredible mixture of excitement, security and anxiety all at once.
But what actually causes our hormone levels to spike in this way? And why does this reaction only kick in around certain people?
Sexual tension is the powerful experience of feeling what you believe is a mutual physical attraction to another person. It manifests in physical reactions in the body that you’ll notice when the other person is around. What makes the attraction tense is the lack of certainty that surrounds reciprocity and, usually, a lack of familiarity with the other person.
Smriti Joshi, lead psychologist at Wysa, suggests that sexual tension is “a very normal, common experience.”
“It occurs when two people interact, mostly in close physical proximity to each other, and they feel a strong sexual desire without it leading to any sexual activity,” Joshi said.
“You may experience this with a colleague, a friend or a neighbor and it can lead to you feeling weird about having strange desires – especially if you didn’t expect to feel this way about someone or haven’t considered having a relationship with them, yet you feel triggered by them sexually.”
A team of scientists led by renowned US anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher found that our lustful feelings towards another person are determined by three factors.
These are biological, such as physical appearance; social, such as a person’s manners and behavior; and developmental, meaning whether they remind you of a triggering experience or their presence feels familiar or comforting.
Combine these three factors with other environmental factors, such as being in close physical proximity to someone, where you are in your menstrual cycle and how your hormones are behaving, the temperature in the room and what you both happen to be doing, such as completing a task as a team, and you have a recipe for sexual tension.
Julia Kotziamani, sex and relationships expert at Superdrug Online Doctor, explains: “Sexual tension can affect anyone and is largely a biological reaction, though how we deal with it is in our control.”
“These feelings can be quite powerful for some people. However, some people don’t have a strong response to sexual tension, and some don’t experience it at all,” Kotziamani said.
Sexual tension can be one-sided, meaning it’s possible for our feelings not to be reciprocated. Sometimes our hormones can mislead us and the signals firing in our brains can lead us to act on impulses that aren’t always good for ourselves or the people around us.
That’s why the impulsive and hormonally driven part of our brain that controls our flight or fight response is often called the Reptilian Brain. The Reptilian Brain perceives things very simply: an unfamiliar thing is bad and a familiar thing is good.
Kotziamani continues: “Depending on the circumstances, it may be possible to identify someone else as feeling the same as you, or it may be much harder. If you’re in a bar and someone is a stranger, for example, it may be easier to detect their body language accurately than if you are at work with a colleague.”
“You’ll also have to use your sense of judgement to determine whether it’s worth acting on what you perceive to be sexual tension.”
“Remember that not everything we feel is going to be reciprocated by others and that consent and making sure people feel safe and comfortable around us is really important.”
“Sexual tension is definitely not just in our heads or our rational minds,’ Kotziamani said. “It can cause a range of physiological symptoms. It feels different for everyone and everyone will have a different experience of how sexual tension feels in the body.
Tomorrow: Just in time for Valentine’s week, the 21 signs of attraction, as identified by experts.
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