Calendar Kinks: When Scheduling Sex Turns You On

Prior to practicing polyamory, Sean McLaughlin was never a "calendar person." The 25-year-old living in New York City had always approached her sexual and romantic relationships with a "go with the flow" and "let's just see what happens" attitude. But two years ago, when they began dating and having sex with multiple partners at once, they could no longer ignore the need to maintain an up-to-date calendar, one that included which partner they'd be seeing, likely having sex with, and when.

"When I started practicing polyamory, I just got so much busier," McLaughlin tells PS. "I had to lean into having a color-coded calendar, always looking at it. And suddenly, scheduling something with a partner became exciting. Like I get to plan something out with someone I'm really interested in. And this element of security when it went onto the calendar was so gratifying."

McLaughlin had heard the following stereotype repeated to her many times throughout her life: "Polyamory is just people with a scheduling kink." She often jokes about it herself and, regardless of whether it qualifies as a kink, she admits to taking pleasure in the fact that the sex is planned in advance.

"There is something really sexy about when it goes onto the calendar," McLaughlin says. For many, the idea of blocking off one to two hours for "sexy time" on their calendar, staring back at them like a meeting with their manager, would be anything but arousing — maybe even a turnoff. Therapist Lauren Bailey, LCPC, says this association between calendars and sex is expected.

Lauren Bailey, LCPC, is a staff therapist at the Expansive Group who specializes in mixed-orientation relationships and non-traditional families.

Bailey says, "We see it in movies, books, stories from friends, where one partner sees another from across the room and they burst into some passionate sexy encounter," like in "Crazy, Stupid, Love" when Hannah (Emma Stone) runs into the bar frequented by Jacob (Ryan Gosling), shouts "you!" and passionately kisses him on site. "But that's actually not the type of desire that the majority of the population has," Bailey adds. She identifies two ends of the desire spectrum: spontaneous and responsive, with most people falling somewhere in between or occasionally at one extreme.

Spontaneous desire refers to exactly what's seen in the aforementioned "Crazy, Stupid, Love" scene: eyes meet, sex drive hits, passion breaks out, and clothes come off. On "The Mel Robbins Podcast," sex therapist Vanessa Marin defines spontaneous desire as when the mental desire comes first, thinking "I want to have sex right now," followed by physical arousal, like getting wet or growing an erection. But Marin says 85 percent of women actually experience responsive desire, "Where people feel desire and arousal in their bodies first, and the mental desire follows."

Bailey explains that responsive desire kicks in when something specific about another person turns you on, like hearing them say something sexy, witnessing an impressive act, or receiving an intimate picture. When Bailey discovers their patients primarily experience responsive desire, they find that recommending them to schedule sex with their partner often proves highly beneficial for them, especially if there's a desire discrepancy between them and their partner.

"I often encourage people to not just schedule a 'sex day,' but an 'intimacy day,' where there's something like saucy texts or sexy pictures sent throughout the day, and there's a continual flirting happening throughout that time," Bailey says. "So when they are actually able to be physically close with each other, the desire is already up, arousal is already up, and so it makes the entire day really exciting and fun, rather than just focusing on having the sex."

After that "Crazy, Stupid, Love" scene of Hannah running into the bar to kiss Jacob, just minutes later, viewers see the two grappling with a desire discrepancy. Fans of the movie know that once they're back at Jacob's house, Hannah feels flushed, a little drunk, and embarrassed, asking Jacob to give her the "moves" he uses on other women to make them eager to have sex with him — textbook responsive desire behavior. Jacob, on the other hand, is portrayed throughout the first half of the film as someone driven by spontaneous desire.

As Bailey explains, scheduling sex is a powerful tool for building a healthy sex life between partners with desire discrepancies — a dynamic inevitably more common in polyamorous relationships where people have multiple partners with multiple desire mechanisms.

"This is a beautiful way I think the poly community has it kind of figured out right: If I have responsive desire and I have a partner who has really high spontaneous desire, maybe we can engage in an open relationship or non-monogamy, so they could get their needs met, and I don't feel as much pressure," Bailey says. "I think poly folks really have this understanding that the reason they are poly, either by orientation or by practice, is because one partner is not going to meet all my needs."

Emmanuela Gore, a 28-year-old bisexual, likens their polyamory practice to building a "roster." While they experience both responsive and spontaneous desire, their experiences as a dark-skinned, non-binary person have made them struggle with the "notion of desirability" and often make them feel anxious when trying to decipher whether or not someone is attracted to them. Organizing their partners, or the people they know are attracted to them, into a "roster" gives them a sense of security and safety.

"If you have a roster of three, four, or, if you're really lucky, five hot and fab people, then you can tap into any of those people when you feel sexual desire towards anyone on that roster," Gore says. "There's a sense of security in knowing you can have a fun, safe experience. I also like the idea of building familiarity with our bodies in relation to others. A one-night stand can be great and fun, but it's usually clumsy and uncomfortable. The excitement comes from its temporary nature. However, when you're with someone familiar with your body — someone invested in mutually celebrating and enjoying each other — it's much more likely to be a good time."

The concept of the "roster" is well known in the modern dating zeitgeist. In November 2024, writer Olivia Petter described it in Vogue as a "survival mechanism" and a tool to put the "fun back in dating." But she differentiated a "dating roster" from polyamory because to her, roster-dating is done with the goal of settling on one partner, while polyamorous people typically date multiple partners long-term.

Gore agrees, explaining that the purpose of their roster is to identify partners who can meet their desire needs. The structure of communicating to each partner that Gore sees them as sexually attractive, and that the partners feel the same about Gore, gives Gore a sense of safety, which is a turn-on.

"It feels really good," Gore says. "It feels really good for people to intentionally make time and save room in their lives for you. Life is really hard and there's a lot going on, and so if someone is telling me that they're so into me that they will hold time on their calendar to see me, that's really hot."

Gore doesn't know if they would label it as a kink per se, but the intentional decision to carve out a specific time just for themselves helps them feel safe, thereby empowering them to feel sexy and desirable. Bailey explains this as responsive desire in action: understanding the conditions for sexual pleasure and taking steps to evoke it in the person you want to be intimate with.

Is it a "calendar kink"? Is it a "dick appointment"? Perhaps it's just a reminder that sometimes, the most sensual thing someone can do is make time in their life for you.

Shahamat Uddin is a freelance writer largely covering queer and South Asian issues, but also related lifestyle topics and entertainment. His family hails from Sylhet, Bangladesh, but after growing up in Roswell, GA, he now lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Butter. Outside of PS, he also has bylines in Teen Vogue, Vogue, Vogue India, New York Magazine, Them, The Nation, and more.