How We Become Sexually Attracted To Someone

5 min read

When it comes to sexual attraction, there are lots of things that affect how much we’re drawn to someone. As a sex therapist and coach, this is something I discuss a lot with my clients — and it can differ from the experience of sexual desire. In this post, I’m deep-diving into two key factors that affect how we become sexually attracted to someone (plus a few extra bonus factors).

My hope is that this post gives you a better understanding of the psychology behind sexual attraction and how complex it truly can be.

Factors that affect how we become sexually attracted to someone

Factor 1. Mood

In sex researcher Justin Lehmiller’s book The Psychology of Human Sexuality, he emphasizes the importance of our mood when it comes to sexual attraction. He talks about a study made by Krosnick, Betz, Jussim & Lynn (1992), where they examined what happened when one positive and one negative stimulus was introduced to people before they met strangers.

Lehmiller argued that you can view this as a case of classical conditioning, and I agree with him on this.

The fact that we’re more often sexually attracted to someone when we ourselves are feeling good – or to people who make us feel good, may not seem surprising in and of itself.

This is, however, interesting in relation to what “pick-up artists” usually preach.

A common pick-up method that was discussed a lot about 10 years ago is “negging”. In essence it means you say something negative to someone to catch their attention. Like “how nice your sweater is, shame the trousers don’t match”. Or – “your friend’s really hot”. Pick-up artists claim this is a very successful way of picking someone up.

There are, however, several reasons why this isn’t a good strategy.

For one, it’s not a very nice way of behaving, generally speaking.

And also, according to Justin Lehmiller and the science, it doesn’t really work.There’s a greater chance the person you’re interacting with will become attracted to you if they’re feeling good. Which, if we’re being honest, isn’t that likely if you insult them.

Factor 2. Similarity

Another interesting factor that determines how sexually attracted to someone we become, is similarity. Lehmiller means that this factor plays a role in the choice of partner.Wwe more often choose a partner that’s about as physically attractive as we are.

This is also a prominent factor when you consider our partners often have a similar intellectual capacity to our own.

This obviously doesn’t mean everybody makes this kind of choice. Just like with all research, this is more or less true for each individual – but the pattern is, none the less, there.

Lehmiller brings up dating sites as an example of this. He says that although the matching algorithms on popular matchmaking websites would have you believe that similarity equals happiness, this isn’t backed up by science.

What seems important at the beginning of a relationship doesn’t remain over time. How to keep a relationship alive is all about other things like, creating an intimacy inventory and sharing quick moments of closeness throughout the day. Layering in emotional intimacy that doesn’t just hinge on our similarities but also our differences – can be key.

Because no matter what made us sexually attracted to someone in the beginning – whether it was our similarities or not – there will be a whole lot of life that will come between our passion for one another, as time moves on.

And this, in turn, will mean we cannot just rely on sexual attraction alone to feed our bond. It also needs to be dependent on things like commitment, love and attachment.

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Other factors that may affect how we become sexually attracted to someone

Factor 3. Potential Competitiveness & Achievement

Another study the author points to – which I find so interesting as a desire expert – is a classic study from 1965. This study examined how attractive we perceive people to be, depending on how others have described them.

Descriptions were divided into four categories: solely positive, solely negative, negative initially then positive, positive initially then negative.

This may prompt you to ask a few follow-up questions. That’s what happens to me, anyway.

• Could it be that the results indicate a human inclination for competitiveness?

• Or is it a question of a sense of achievement, when a person goes from disliking to liking you. That we feel we’ve somehow deserved it, and thus, we feel sexual attraction?

Factor 4. Human-ness

Another study in Lehmiller’s book looks at clumsiness and awkward mistakes and how they affect how sexually attracted we feel to someone.

It’s thought that successful people (at least people who we perceive as successful) become more human to us, when they make minor mistakes. And it’s this “human-ness” that increases the power of sexual attraction.

However, if someone we think of as mediocre, slips up in a similar way – we feel less attracted. Seems a bit unfair, doesn’t it?

Sexual attraction is complicated

How we become sexually attracted to someone isn’t always clear-cut. Sometimes it has to do with how successful we perceive a person to be. Other times it has to do with winning people over, or the fact that we have similar personalities.

By learning more about what sparks attraction you can more easily learn how to rebuild sexual attraction in a relationship. And part of it is focusing on the things that drew you in before.

Because the thing is – no matter how you’re feeling about your relationship today – if you’ve once felt attraction, you can fan the flame once again (and this is one of the key things to know about keeping a long-term relationship alive).

Looking to get those sparks of attraction back in your relationship? In my online program Re:Desire, I help you create more desire and intimacy in your relationship – without pressure and stress. The program is based on sexological science, coaching & psychotherapy tools, and my extensive experience as both a coach and therapist. Read more and get attraction and desire back here.

First published on my Swedish website, Sexologkliniken.