Field Notes: On Desire

Two voices, one goal: expanding how we talk about our bodies and ourselves

Carissa & Erica: Hi everybody! This week, we’re doing something a little different.

Carissa: For those who don’t know me, I’m Carissa Potter. I’m an illustrator, artist, and I have a Substack called Bad at Keeping Secrets.

Erica: And I’m Erica Chidi, I’m a writer, strategist, and health educator, with a background as a full-spectrum doula, and I have a Substack called Soft Boundaries.

Carissa: Erica and I met at a Mother Mag dinner many years ago and had one of those conversations you never forget.

Erica: Ever since then, we’ve been supporting each other’s work and quietly trying to find a way to collaborate on something meaningful.

Carissa: So we’re starting a series called Field Notes—where we explore sexual and reproductive health topics together. I bring the visual storytelling and personal perspective, while Erica provides the health education, plus her personal perspective.

Erica: We're starting with desire because Carissa had this moment a few weeks ago that made her text me saying, "I need to understand what's happening with my body."

Carissa: Exactly! I'm 42, and desire still feels like this mysterious force that comes and goes without any logic. So I share about that confusion in my note.

Erica: And in my note I dig in what desire actually is versus what we’ve been socialized to believe.

If what you read below resonates, please share, like or restack—and also, let us know how you're navigating desire in your life and if what you read today helps things feel a little softer.

XO

Erica and Carissa

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WEIRD LONGINGS by Carissa Potter

I don’t think we can control who, when, and why we desire things. I know some of you do, and that’s okay and good for you, but I’m in this spot where I want to control things. Of course, I’m an anxious person, and yet my experience has shown me that even if I think I can control things, unknowable variables get in the way.

When the snake rolled over my Dansko while I was drawing last month, something inside of me changed. I didn’t prepare for a milk snake—I live in urban California, not rural Florida, where I think maybe these things happen more? I have no facts to support this. But I imagine places where this might be a commonplace thing that people just coexist with. It’s not where I live. A mouse, maybe. A black widow crawling into your mouth while you are napping? Totally possible. A 4-foot-long red and black reptile? Never heard of it.

Relationships are hard. I’ve been working on mine for 15 years. The flow is up and down—and downright painful since our daughter was born in 2019. Being close has become a job. Something that, if we don’t work at it, falls to the backburner. And then one day, you look across the table while eating a dinner that is painfully tense because of kids screaming and running, stress at work, and you have no idea what it was that attracted you to the miserable person chewing their carrots.

I am the miserable person. You are the miserable person.
Prolonged misery is so infectious.

Over time, without intending to, we became passing ships in our home. Once the person I laughed myself to sleep with over the day’s ironies, now we avoid each other because we might say or do something that would upset the other.

The day after the snake arrived, I became obsessed with my husband.
It was not my intention.

The spike in hormones—perhaps brought on by the magic of the snake, or ovulation during perimenopause—came while I was driving and some 311 from my high school days came on the radio. I gripped the wheel, my body morphing in anticipation. I felt the weird urge to drive home and read erotic fiction. This was not the time.

The car drove while my mind rested in the desire to be held, to be touched by this person who, the night before, had fallen asleep in the adjacent room at an unknown time, listening to 432 Hz in his headphones.

Daydreaming about moments of closeness, I scanned the radio for more of this feeling.
The Cranberries came on—Zombie, a song I never really related to—but in that moment, it was the sexiest song I had ever heard.

Later that night, when we were both home, he was telling me how M was annoying him at the grocery store because she was hanging on him while he was picking out apples and almost pulled his pants down.

Josh is a focused guy, and picking out which apples to get is serious business. It’s legitimately annoying to have someone pulling on you all the time and potentially de-robing you in public.
But it got me excited. I don’t think it was the embarrassment he would have felt by not being dressed properly that got to me. It was the idea of his body. His body just being there close to mine. Without clothes.

I was grossed out by myself.
That is disgusting.
No one fantasizes about having sex in a grocery store.
Or at least, this feeling was new to me.

Normally, I would have responded, “Oh, that sounds hard. Seems like you made it home in one piece with the apples.”
We would move on with our med schedules and dinner prep.
There would be something else that would annoy us.
We would gripe about it together.

Time ticking away with the small problems that consume our existence.

But today, and I’m embarrassed to say this, hence why I’ve only really talked about this with my therapist, my body was aroused.

Like I was in a rap-pop song and we were tipsy, dancing at a club.
I’m 42 years old.
I don’t go to clubs.

I told myself I was lucky to feel this way for someone I was legally bound to love—expanding the love beyond desire but still inclusive of it.

I don’t think we can control who we love and when we love them.
Or maybe we can, a little. My jury is out.

For me, this points to a complex equation for enduring love that has variables beyond my control and understanding.

I just felt lucky that it wasn’t a cucumber I was getting hot and bothered by.

That, in some ways, this was very convenient. And within the realm of pro-social norms in the culture I exist within.

The inconvenient bit was that Josh was having a hard time at the moment managing his stress levels.
Both of us were so low on fuel that we were having difficulty supporting each other.

Our cups were empty.
Until mine wasn’t.

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MIXED SIGNALS by Erica Chidi

We throw the word “desire” around constantly, but most of us have it wrong. We’re confusing desire with arousal—and that confusion? It’s the source of so much sexual frustration and shame.

There are two types of desire:

Spontaneous desire is what we’ve been sold. It arrives unannounced. Out of nowhere. About 70% of men experience it this way. Only 10-20% of women do. But here’s what nobody tells you: spontaneous desire isn’t necessary for pleasure. It’s often just new relationship energy talking—that intoxicating hit of unfamiliarity.

Responsive desire is different. It only shows up after something starts. Your partner kisses your neck. Your body remembers: *oh, right, sex, yes, I want that.* Most of us live here, especially in long-term relationships.

But desire and arousal aren’t the same thing.

This matters—because understanding the difference helps you recognize what you actually need to access your own pleasure.

Desire is imaginative. It’s your mind wandering toward what you want. Painting it vividly. It rises and falls with your life—stress kills it, safety feeds it, and you can choose to prolong it. Your capacity to fantasize, to anticipate, to want—that’s desire.

Arousal is generative. Nipples hardening. Moisture gathering. Breath quickening. Blood pumping. It’s immediate. Physical. Temporary. Your body saying yes in real time.

My friend Emily Nagoski taught me something crucial: these two don’t always match up. It’s called arousal nonconcordance. Your body might respond while your mind stays distant—arousal without desire. Or you might crave touch desperately while your body won’t cooperate—desire without arousal. It’s common after childbirth. During perimenopause and other major hormonal shifts.

Having the language to name what’s happening in our bodies changes everything. It gives us ownership. Creates connection where there was confusion. Cultivates compassion where there was criticism. When we can identify and articulate these experiences, we take the next step toward pleasure, toward knowing ourselves, toward the kind of self-love that comes from truly understanding how we work.

Desire is the wanting. It’s the pull toward sex—sometimes it shows up as fantasy, sometimes as a warmth in your belly, sometimes as an ache between your legs. It’s emotional longing. Physical yearning. Mental anticipation. Desire rises and falls with your life—stress kills it, safety feeds it, overwhelm blocks it, feeling alive in your body awakens it. That magnetic pull toward pleasure, toward another person, toward your own sexuality—that’s desire.

Arousal is your body getting ready. Blood rushing to your genitals. Nipples hardening. Wetness gathering. Breath quickening. Those little beads of sweat behind your knees. It’s your body’s physical preparation for sex—immediate, measurable, temporary. Your tissues saying yes in real time.

Have you ever struggled with desire? If so, what helped?

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