I took some liberty with my listing of the sexual response stages, as I already noted in the comic above. Most commonly, when people talk about the SRC, they’re referring to the classic Masters and Johnson’s four phase model, which just includes Excitement, Plateau, Orgasm, and Resolution. But then Kaplan came along in the 1970s and was like ‘Whoah, whoah, you guys left out step one: DESIRE. And also I think we can condense this a bit?’ so she reshuffled some stuff around and developed the three phase Triphasic model, which starts with Desire, proceeds to Excitement, and then concludes with Resolution. I think of OJST comics as appetizers, a small snack to wet your appetite before you fill up on the main course– so if the various stages of sexual response that I mashed together in today’s strip interest you, I hope you’ll be inspired to do some more research on them yourself!

You may have noted that I recommended folks read Dr. Emily Nagoski’s life-changing book, Come As You Are, to better learn about the Sexual Response Cycle, but if you don’t have the time to commit to that right now I’d also like to point you towards this guest comic that she and my good friend R. Stevens did for us on The Science of Desire (The Dual Control Model).

Further Reading:

► Sexual Response & Orgasm: A Users Guide on Scarleteen
► How do I have good sex? on Planned Parenthood
► How to Understand, Identify and Make Choices About Desire on Scarleteen
► Yield for Pleasure on Scarleteen
► How can you tell if you’ve had an orgasm? on Planned Parenthood
► Why can’t I orgasm? on Scarleteen
► When the Big O is a No-Show on Scarleteen
► Lions and Tigers and Orgasms, Oh My! When Orgasm Seems Scary on Scarleteen

If you appreciated reading those articles above, please consider donating to Scarleteen and Planned Parenthood for generously providing them to us in the first place!