#335 "The Praise Kink" Why You Can't Receive a Compliment (And What It's Costing You in Bed)

I want to share something a friend sent me. We've known each other for sixteen years now.

"A thing I appreciate about you, maybe the thing I appreciate about you most, is how open and welcoming you are when I firehose you with compliments and encouragement. A lot of people shy away from it or don't even open the door to it. You, on the other hand, would have it injected into your veins if you could."

I blushed a little when I read it. Then I sat with it because I felt the duality between who I am today and who I used to be. This was not always true for me. There was a high-achieving version of me that would have deflected every compliment, turned it into a question, made a joke, and made it a little uncomfortable that way. Minimized it. Denied it. Said something like, "Oh, I'm just doing my job." That version of me had desire, but it was out of a need for validation, and she had a minimal capacity to receive pleasure and joy, to just let things be. I always felt like I had to earn it.

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The wound underneath it

After eleven years of doing this work with high-achieving women and an increasing number of men, here is what I know. If you are a high achiever, if you had emotionally unavailable or abusive parents, if you are in a relationship where you give more than you receive, one of the fundamental wounds we carry is not knowing how to receive pleasure and joy.

We know how to earn. We know how to perform. We know how to give and give until we're empty, then give a little more until it's affecting our health, our bank accounts, our emotions. But receiving, letting something in without immediately having to justify it, that's foreign. It feels dangerous. It feels greedy. We're addicted to the struggle.

This is not a personality trait. These are learned nervous system responses in response to trauma. Most of us learned that love was conditional, that attention came from performance, or from shrinking ourselves small enough not to be noticed by the abuser or the angry parent. So we became incredibly good at doing, at being efficient, and incredibly uncomfortable with having any needs or receiving at all.

How does this show up in the bedroom

If you are a high achiever, you most likely have a praise kink, the experience of being aroused by verbal affirmation. In and out of the bedroom. Being told you're doing well, being seen, being acknowledged.

Think about what actually happens in your body when your partner says, "You feel so good." This is energy; we're giving and receiving energy, and we are tolerating greater sensation. That is what good sex is, our ability to be present with high sensation, pleasure, and pain, different sides of the same coin.

For the high achiever who has spent her life performing for approval, it hits differently. It tickles the pleasure centers in the brain, and it's a place where receiving is not only allowed, it's the whole damn point. Praise kink can be a way to bring you back into your body when you're stuck performing, stuck in your head.

Here's what it sounds like. "That's my good girl." "You're doing so well." "You look so beautiful like this." "Take your time." Pay attention to how you respond internally to those words, because that's how you'll know if this is for you.

And you can respond too. If he says "that's my good girl," you can say, "I've always been yours, I'm your good girl." If you're overcome with sensation, you can say, "Tell me again, slower," and get that rush of pleasure again.

This goes both ways. If you want her expressive, you need to meet that energy too. If she's letting it out, you say, "Take your time, I've got you, let it out, baby, I'm here." Do not expect her to do it when you will not do it yourself.

These phrases are permission slips to pleasure. The more good sex a woman has, the more good sex she wants. It is not a drive; it's a reward system.

Why is this actually the work

The reason most of my clients cannot access these states of pleasure is not about technique; it's not about lingerie. It's that our nervous system's pleasure set point is set so low that when we are the recipient of that much attention and praise, even though we crave it, we don't know what to do with it.

When somebody tells you that you did a good job, do you immediately look for a catch? Minimize it? Wonder why they're praising you? That flinch lives in the nervous system. It learned to try to keep you safe. But you are an adult now, not a little kid.

Learning to receive pleasure is a body-based skill, a nervous system skill, and it is the foundation of desire and intimacy.

A practice to start with

I use this with my clients, called feeling love. Think of the last compliment you were given or the last time you were praised. If that's buried too deep, think instead about a sunset, your dog, your kids laughing. Find the feeling of pure love. Notice where you feel it in your body. Your chest. Does it feel like it's expanding? Warm? Tingly? Sit with that sensation two or three seconds longer than feels comfortable.

We need to flex our receiving muscles. So before you deflect the next compliment, find the feeling. Try to expand it. Stay with the sensation a few more seconds before you deflect, before you minimize, before you give the credit to somebody else.

Connect with Dr. Jordin:

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And if you want to go deeper on super traits, over-functioning, and building a pleasure-centered relationship and life, the Pleasure-Centered Society on Substack is where that work lives. JOIN HERE

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