Why Focusing on “Normal Sex”
Undermines Sex
Forty-year-olds Thomas and Danni—a high school teacher and accountant, respectively—had many of the things most couples want. But not sex.
And that’s why they came to me. “We love each other, but no one ever initiates sex,” he said. “Yes,” she added, “and when we have sex, it’s tense, we’re nervous, it’s over pretty quick. It isn’t fun like it should be.”
Well, that explains why no one initiates, I thought. Love won’t get people into bed too often if the sex mostly just gets on their nerves.
Thomas and Danni clearly enjoyed the small amount of time they had together (she worked Saturdays and two evenings each week, while his hours were the usual Monday through Friday), but the lack of sex hung over their lives like a damp gray haze. I asked each of them why they didn’t initiate, and their answers were similar: “We’re uptight,” Danni said. “We’re stressed,” Thomas said. “We’re just not in the habit of it,” Danni said. “We’re so busy, and by the time bedtime comes, we’re just too tired,” Thomas said.
“Notice all the ‘we’ and the lack of ‘I’?” I asked. “Let’s try it again. I’d like you each to tell me why you don’t initiate sex.” After a nervous silence, they did. “I’m afraid I won’t get a good enough erection,” Thomas said shyly. “And if I do, that I’ll come too fast and Danni will be disappointed. And I’m concerned that if I make too much noise or get carried away, it will scare her.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Danni?”
“I know he’s worried about that stuff,” she said. “It makes me sad to see him so worried, so I don’t encourage us to make love. Plus, when we do have sex and I see how hard he’s trying to please me, I feel guilty.”
“So if Thomas weren’t concerned about all that, would you be more likely to initiate sex?” I’ve learned to ask about people’s willingness to initiate sex, rather than their willingness to have sex—I get much more information that way. “Well, even without that….” She too was shy. “See, I don’t always orgasm, and I’m afraid he’ll be disappointed, so that’s usually on my mind when I think about sex. So if I’m tired or there’s some other reason I don’t think I’ll come, or that it will take a long time, I don’t initiate.” And then she blurted out, “He really deserves a better sex partner than me!”
There was plenty to work with here. I was glad for them that their health insurance was covering our sessions. It looked like they would need a lot of them.
Thomas and Danni reminded me of the couple in O. Henry’s story “The Gift of the Magi.” You’ll recall that it features a very loving but very poor young couple who want to buy each other a Christmas gift. She cuts off and sells her exquisite hair so she can buy him a chain for his cherished pocket watch; he sells his treasured watch so he can buy her precious combs for her signature hair. Of course, each of them has rendered the other’s gift useless, but their love is affirmed.
Well, Thomas and Danni were keeping away from sex because they didn’t want to disappoint each other. And they were afraid of disappointing each other because they assumed that sex had to be “normal.” If instead of aspiring to normal sex they aspired to sex that was intimate and felt good, they could more easily imagine enjoyable sex together, and maybe even have it on a regular basis, their schedules notwithstanding.
And that’s pretty much what I told them.
“If you’re trying to create perfect sex, that’s going to be intimidating, whether you succeed or fail,” I said. “So you need a different goal. Rather than try to create a certain kind of sex, why don’t you just make love the way you do other things?” I continued: “How would you characterize the way you do other things together—you know, house projects, going out to dinner, watching DVDs?”
They easily generated and agreed on a half-dozen words: cooperative, fun, respectful, friendly, capable, relaxed. “And sometimes lazy,” Thomas added, and they both laughed.
“Great,” I said. “You know, not every couple is like this. But since you are, why don’t you just make love the way you do everything else?” Such a simple idea, yet so powerful.
Of course they had their objections to this. What if they got into bed, were “just themselves,” and nothing happened? What if one of them acted in a really selfish way? What if one of them wanted “kinky stuff”? What if one of them was left unsatisfied?
This is the sound of people defending their soon-to-be obsolete paradigm.
“First,” I explained, “neither of you is going to reveal yourself as dramatically different than you already know each other to be. You won’t go on some selfish sexual binge because neither of you is terribly selfish. And neither of you will reveal yourself as ‘wildly kinky,’ because neither of you is an extreme sort of person. Although,” I said, with a slight smile, “each of you is a creative type, and maybe sex is a place you’ve been holding back from each other. That can make sex boring, you know.” They looked at each other warmly.
“Second,” I continued, “of course unexpected things will happen in sex if you’re just yourselves. Sometimes you won’t want to do the same thing, sometimes one of you will be much more energetic or full of desire than the other, and sometimes nothing will happen—you know, you’ll both be lazy and hope the other one will volunteer to do most of the work.” They laughed knowingly. We’ve all had that experience.
“The fact that being yourself sometimes leads to the unexpected in sex helps keep sex interesting, which is really important in long-term relationships. And it means that sex is periodically challenging, so it can be a vehicle for personal growth. Since you’ll be doing it with someone you really trust, it’s a safe medium.”
They seemed persuaded. And in the coming weeks they did report an increase in lovemaking—and the fact that they were relaxed, and enjoying it more. “It’s like making love with a good friend,” said Thomas. “Yes,” Danni agreed, “it’s like going someplace fun and not worrying, instead of sex being a place where worry is built in.”
Perfect. Their vision of sex was changing, so they worked much less at it. And since they found each other attractive and likable, I was certain they’d be having more sex. More importantly, they’d be enjoying it more.
What Is Sexually “Normal”?
Here’s what’s “normal”: adults have sex primarily when they’re tired.
This shapes the quality, content, and frequency of the experience. Most adults save their “prime time” for things that are either more important (raising their kids, working after hours, maintaining their health, handling crises) or more reliably satisfying (watching TV, going out, sharing hobbies, playing around on Facebook).
Not having much energy is one aspect of “normal sex” that most people don’t want. But many adults seem to believe that most sex will inevitably take place when they’re not at their best, without considering the consequences of this kind of sex life—that it may become routine, not involve much time, lose its playfulness, and that using contraception or a lubricant may seem like too much trouble.
If we think of “normal” as common, typical, and accepted as “the way things are,” this is what “normal sex” actually looks like:
• Awkwardness and self-consciousness are common.
• Communication is limited.
• Neither partner laughs or smiles much.
• One or both partners are obsessively concerned about performance.
• One or both are unsure what their partner likes.
• One or both tolerate what they dislike, hoping that it will stop soon.
• Masturbation is kept secret.
• There’s difficulty using birth control without embarrassment or conflict.
• Desire requires a perfect environment.
• Sex is sometimes physically painful.
• He believes that “her orgasm problem reflects on me.”
• She believes that “his erection problem reflects on me.”
Also, whether young or old, gay or straight, male or female, when American adults have sex, they frequently:
• Are self-conscious or self-critical about their body
• Don’t feel as close to their partner as they’d like
• Don’t feel confident that they’re going to have a good time (which is why they don’t do it more frequently)
• Are concerned about performance—either their own or their partner’s
• Feel inhibited about communicating what they want, don’t want, feel, or don’t feel
Health problems are also frequently part of “normal” sex—because normal people have health problems.
So, are you starting to look pretty “normal”? Are you starting to realize this might not be the right goal?
I want to change things for you—and not by improving your “sexual function.” This book isn’t literary Viagra. It’s more like literary brain surgery (sorry, no tummy tuck, boob job, or hair implants, just brain surgery).
The awkwardness and emotional isolation described above are what most people get when they try to have “normal” sex. And that’s why your vision of sex matters.
So let’s spend the rest of the chapter exploring why it’s not important to be sexually “normal” and why, in fact, pursuing “normal” sex is often destructive.
Of course, by “normal” sex most people don’t mean the reality I’ve just described, but a romanticized vision of perfect performance, perfect environment, and nothing too novel or psychologically challenging. The only thing normal about that kind of sex is the fact that so many people aspire to it, and so few people have it. (And here’s a secret every sex therapist knows: even when people get this kind of sex, they’re not necessarily satisfied with it.)
So if, like so many other people, you’ve been pursuing the wrong thing (“normal” sex), you need a new way to think about sex. Although most people assume it’s logical to have a performance orientation (how many times per week, how many minutes before orgasm), that’s only one way to look at sex. And it’s exactly the wrong way.
Normality Anxiety
Most people really, really don’t want to be sexually “abnormal.”
So they hide sexual aspects of themselves they think might be abnormal. They focus on things they think are normal, even if they aren’t that interesting. Sooner or later, this self-censorship and pretend-wholesomeness usually causes problems—because of the secrecy, the anxiety, the self-criticism, and the boredom.
It doesn’t matter what in particular you think is sexually normal and abnormal. If you’re concerned about this, if this concern shapes your behavior, your fantasies, or what you share with a partner, it’s almost certainly undermining your sexual pleasure and closeness.
I want to rescue you from that. Not by persuading you that you’re sexually “normal,” but by persuading you to not care.
The Two Sides of “Normal” Sex
Americans generally think of “normal” sex as having two components—a practical one and a less tangible, “moral” one.
The Practical Side of “Normal” Sex
Most people define “normal” sex with reference to what the bodies do, particularly the genitals (penis, vagina, vulva) and the mouth.
Physicians, therapists, and drug companies use language that supports this approach. Both professionals and popular advertising talk about “function” and “dysfunction.” Clinicians talk about what’s normal and what’s pathological. We talk about “sex” when we mean intercourse. We talk about “intimacy” and “romance” when we mean sex.
The physical side of so-called normal sex is the trajectory of desire, arousal, excitement, and orgasm. This reflects the model developed by Masters and Johnson in the 1960s, which we’ll examine more closely in Chapter 4. People unconsciously use this model when they use the word foreplay, by which they generally mean “stuff we do before real sex—i.e., intercourse.”
Most Americans categorize sexual activities as either intercourse (“real sex”) or foreplay; anything else is generally considered mere fooling around or flirting—or just plain perverse. The conventional idea is that all sexual activity is supposed to culminate in intercourse, and that it’s usually clear if a kiss or caress is foreplay or not. “Settling” for foreplay if a couple has the option of “real sex” isn’t considered normal.
There’s a small group of sexual activities on which there’s a positive “normality” consensus. Intercourse and open-mouth kissing (and, please note, only these) are pretty universally accepted among Americans. Oral sex is now considered normal by a majority of (but not nearly all) adults, followed by hand-on-partner’s-genitals. Vibrator-on-vulva is making a strong move toward normality this decade (especially among the young and well-educated), although vibrator-on-penis or vibrator-in-anus aren’t even close. In fact anything with the anus is generally disqualified. Role-playing, S/M, fetishes—few people think they’re normal. Most people don’t even think they’re “sex.” So there’s a majority “normality” consensus about these things, too—they aren’t.
So, to do normal sex, people need to have certain body parts behaving in “normal” ways—erection on demand, plenty of vaginal lubrication on demand, etc. Of course, clinicians know that our genitalia are particularly susceptible to various common influences: emotions, stress, alcohol, disease, fatigue, even longevity of relationship. Thus, these body parts may not behave as we wish; interestingly, many people don’t want to acknowledge this.
That’s why a lot of my work is with people whose bodies fail to act “normal” under circumstances that they think are normal; my job is to convince them to get away from this destructive model, so hard to achieve in real life. Maybe you’re reading this book because you’re familiar with the feeling that your body has “failed” you.
So interestingly enough, while most people think taking Viagra to deal with erection problems is normal, most people think the same person using a strap-on dildo for the same reason is abnormal. Similarly, many people think a menopausal woman using hormones to increase vaginal lubrication is normal, but many people would consider her abnormal if she was using fantasy or porn for the same purpose.
The Moral Aspect of “Normal” Sex
Once we move beyond how bodies are supposed to behave during sex, and which activities qualify, it’s much harder to figure out what makes for “normal” sex. Are fantasies a part of “normal” sex? How about games? Or toys? What kinds of experimentation qualify? And what about preferences—say, for masturbation over partner sex, or for oral sex over intercourse? Most people can say what isn’t normal—but they have trouble saying why, or what rules they use to decide.
Sometimes even two partners can’t agree on this. You can imagine the problems caused when one partner tells the other, “What you want us to do in bed isn’t normal.” That’s so much worse than “No thank you.”
So one way to approach this issue is to ask: what’s the opposite of “normal” sex?
When I ask patients this question, both men and women typically answer with words like kinky, perverse, dangerous, violent, immoral, out of control, unusual, and hedonistic. Occasionally I get satanic, which makes for an interesting conversation.
Most people have an intuitive sense of what’s sexually normal and what isn’t. But unless we just mean “statistically common,” it’s virtually impossible to define precisely what we mean by sexually normal. Psychologists and even sex therapists disagree among themselves about it.
That said, it’s especially interesting that most descriptions of normal and abnormal sex ultimately focus on two issues—control and corruption.
Even when people disagree about their standards—Joe thinks a blindfold and handcuffs are normal but a whip isn’t, while his best friend thinks “all that stuff is just too kinky for words”—we’re typically referring to the same ideas: boundaries and contamination.
“Normal” is an attempt to establish boundaries around sex so it can’t escape, acquire too much power, or hurt others. “Normal” is an attempt to make sex small enough that it doesn’t threaten us or even require us to grow. “Normal” is a recognition that eroticism resides in the unconscious, an untidy little junkyard if ever there was one.
What, for example, would you do if you found yourself enjoying something you believed was sexually abnormal? Would you change your mind about the sex, or about yourself? Or would you laugh the whole thing off and try to forget it?
I see examples of this in my practice all the time. Take Arthur, who discovered during masturbation that he gets really excited from a light stroking of his perineum (the surface between the anus and the back of the scrotum). Once he decided it was “too gay,” however, he never did it again. Or take Serena: she doesn’t like to have her breasts squeezed much at all, but once she’s turned on she loves to have her nipples pulled and bitten—in fact, she used to climax this way before a lover told her it was “really, really weird.” And she believed him.
Arthur and Serena came to see me together for couples counseling, each with several such sexual secrets. And although they’d been partners for three years, neither had revealed what they knew about their own arousal patterns; in fact, both of them deliberately stayed away from the stimulation they felt was abnormal. Talking about these things was terrifying for them—and liberating. They ended up learning much more about each other—and themselves—than they ever expected.
Our obsession with “normal” is an attempt to stay clean while dealing with something potentially dirty.
Partly because sex deals with body fluids, partly because it deals with execretory organs (literally or in the neighborhood), partly because it deals with the mysteries of pregnancy and birth, partly because it’s just damn messy, and partly because sex can release us from the normal rules of physical respectability and restraint, it’s often seen as something to engage in from a certain psychic distance.
Is smelling a lover’s underwear normal? What about asking him or her to wear the same pair for days at a time, then smelling them? What about oral sex during menstruation? Or swallowing semen? Or loving to swallow semen? What about tongue-kissing first thing in the morning, when you have dragon-breath?
What’s important is not whether a specific activity is or isn’t normal. What’s important is the concept of “normal” sex itself. As long as some things are normal, there will, by definition, be things that are abnormal. And if you don’t want to think of yourself as sexually abnormal, that ultimately requires eternal vigilance. But no one can fully enjoy sex under that oppressive regime.
Cultural Norms
American ideas of what’s sexually normal have changed dramatically in just the last sixty years.
In 1948 America was scandalized when Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s research showed that a substantial number of American couples were practicing cunnilingus. Now marriage counselors encourage it.
Before 1965 contraception was illegal in the United States (until Griswold v. Connecticut), and until 1972 it was illegal for unmarried people (Baird v. Eisenstadt). Until 1967 sex with someone of a different race was illegal (Loving v. Virginia). And non-intercourse sex (sodomy) was only decriminalized in 2003 (Lawrence v. Texas). That’s a lot of change in a very short time.
Ideas of what’s sexually normal are dramatically different from country to country, too. In China, for example, adults generally don’t kiss in public; even holding hands is considered risqué. In most of Europe, adults and children typically go to the beach topless or nude. (They don’t consider this a sexual practice, but that’s the point—in America we do.) Clitoridectomy (female genital cutting) is practiced by Muslims in North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia on about two million girls each year; in the United States it’s illegal and considered violent child abuse. Premarital sex is expected and considered normal in Holland and Scandinavia, where sexual decision-making is freely discussed within families.
Each new advance in technology raises the issue of sexual normality all over again. Here are just a few recent American examples:
• Videocassette recorders: Between 1980 and 1990, over two-thirds of American TV households acquired a VCR. This phenomenal rise in consumer interest was driven to a large extent by the new chance to watch pornography privately. But was watching porn “normal”? And what kind of porn? Should a husband hide his porn-watching from his wife? Should he invite her to join him? Should she accept?
• The Internet: When cheap, high-speed broadband hit America in 2000, tens of millions of people immediately became involved in “virtual relationships,” either as themselves or via representations. Second Life, chat rooms, instant messaging, phone sex, age play, gender play, role play—the opportunities are now literally endless. Suddenly people are coming into contact with sexual subcultures, ideas, and behaviors that just a short while ago were completely invisible to them. And now many people are wondering: Is it normal, kinky, or downright sick for an adult to pretend to be a teen, a millionaire, a spy, the other gender? How many hours a week (or day!) is it okay to spend on the Internet in these pursuits? Is sexy chat with a stranger a form of infidelity, a sign of insecurity, a new frontier of eroticism? Perhaps all three? Law enforcement demands that people stop age play, claiming it encourages child molesting. While they have no data to support this claim, state and federal governments now spend tens of millions of dollars in precious tax money stalking and entrapping those interested in age play with other adults.
• Cell phones/sexting: Three-quarters of teens have cell phones, and millions of them are “sexting”—sending or receiving sexually explicit photos of themselves and their peers. Law enforcement has gotten heavily involved, attempting to wipe out the activity with the claim that it’s terribly dangerous, demanding enormous penalties—felony jail time and sex offender registration. Parents are trapped in between. They tend to feel it’s more harmful than kids do, but less dangerous—and less worthy of draconian punishment—than legislators and law enforcement do.
In each of these cases, the question “what is sexually normal?” is of great interest socially, politically, and economically. There is still no consensus on any of these fronts, which shows that whatever we come to believe is sexually “normal” is culturally negotiated, not inevitable or somehow “natural.”
Ten years ago, who would have thought that any of the following would be considered as mainstream (“normal”) as they are today?
• Erotic spanking, blindfolding, and handcuffing
• Vibrators (now available on Amazon.com)
• Swing clubs
• Internet pornography
• Hotel room pay-for-pornography
• Coarse language on HBO and basic cable TV
Once you realize that what you think you know about “normal” sex is just one idea among many, a whole world of eroticism will open to you. A sexual world beyond self-criticism and anxiety, beyond orgasm, beyond success and failure. And that’s where sexual relaxation, enjoyment, and intimacy can truly take place.
Why Is Focusing on Normality a Problem?
The fact is, anxiety about being sexually normal creates emotional isolation. That’s why many people are at their loneliest when they’re making love.
For most people, emotional isolation kills genuine sexual desire and pleasure.
Focusing on “normal” sexuality makes sex an enterprise with stakes that are too high. At any moment, our preferences, fantasies, or inhibitions can expose us as unacceptable—to ourselves or to our partner. Being “normal” (in other words, not abnormal) becomes more important than feeling pleasure or closeness. Fearing judgment, we don’t do the things we’d do if we didn’t fear being judged (for example, a man asking to have his nipples pulled). And we do things we otherwise wouldn’t (such as intercourse when we’re not ready) if we didn’t imagine that that’s what normal people do.
So our yearning to be sexually normal, combined with our anxiety that we aren’t, leads us to keep sexual secrets from our partner. Being authentic appears to involve just too much of a gamble.
Neither pleasure nor intimacy can flourish in such an environment. In this setting, a lost erection is a disaster. Difficulty climaxing is a crisis. Farting or wetting the bed is a tragedy.
And not just for one person, but for his or her partner too. Because many people focus not only on their own “function” but on their partner’s too—and they take their partner’s functioning personally. Many people scrutinize their partner’s arousal and orgasm because they don’t want to be judged a failure—a “poor lover.” But how can you relax when your partner is examining your sexual response—not in a joyful, attentive way, but with an eye for signs that he or she has failed?
Jedd was a gruff-looking, gruff-talking guy, an electrician whose hands looked like they’d been earning a living for years.
Within minutes of sitting down, he told me three things: he grew up in a poor Italian family in Brooklyn, he loved his wife Martina, and he was wearing pantyhose. Apparently, those facts were of roughly equal importance. Guess which one he and Martina had been fighting about?
It had started a few years before with panties—hers. When she found out (“More and more of them were getting stretched out, and I couldn’t understand why. Then I figured it out”), he gave her a book to read on the subject, and they had a long talk. He made it clear he wasn’t gay. “I believed him then, and I believe him now,” she said.
Like most straight men who wear women’s underwear, he liked the feel. And it helped him relax. But he couldn’t just enjoy his little hobby. He wanted to discuss it with Martina. “Constantly,” she said. “It was always, ‘I want to make sure you understand. I want to make sure you know I’m not sick. I want it to be okay with you, and not something we have to hide.’ We had to talk about it every day.”
“See, you really don’t like it!” Jedd was almost triumphant.
Martina turned to me. “I don’t care that he wears panties, or stockings, or any damn thing,” she sighed. “He buys his own stuff, he keeps it with his clothes, I don’t care. Can we please change the subject? I’d like to go a whole week without talking about it. I’d like to have my husband back!”
“Doc, she thinks I’m weird. Tell her I’m not.” Before I could speak, Martina jumped in. “Of course I think it’s weird,” she growled. “But so what? You’re not perfect, Jedd, and frankly, there are other things you do that bother me a lot more.”
Jedd was clear. “We can’t get our sex life back until you accept this about me.” Martina looked at me, really frustrated. “In Brooklyn, in the old days, we knew that the only way to deal with a person this stubborn would be to just kill them.” We all smiled.
“Jedd, how do you feel about dressing like this?” I asked. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he replied defiantly. “Jedd, I’m a sex therapist,” I said. “You’re not the first guy I ever met who wears pantyhose. My question is, how do you feel about it?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said softly. He repeated it, with tears in his eyes. He’d been saying it—to his wife, to himself—for years, but he didn’t really believe it. He was ashamed of what he liked, and ashamed of what he was doing.
“It’s hard to believe that Martina accepts it when you don’t, isn’t it?” I gently asked. “You know she’s upset about how much you talk about it, not how much you do it, right?” He nodded. “And maybe if you accepted it a little more, you wouldn’t have to talk about it so much, right?” Again a nod.
In truth, neither of them was wild about Jedd’s interest in women’s underwear. He didn’t quite understand why he was so drawn to it, and she didn’t understand why he was so adamant about the whole thing, alternately demanding and pleading for acceptance.
“Jedd, talking about this all the time is driving Martina crazy,” I said. “That doesn’t mean she rejects you. Any subject gets boring if you talk about it too much, whether it’s lasagna or Notre Dame football or Jedd-wearing-panties.
“But if you’re talking about it this much, you must be concerned about it, right?”
Yes, he said, he had concerns he needed to talk about. “Ordinarily, you’d talk with a friend, or Martina’s brother, maybe even a priest,” I ventured.
“Forget all of them,” he laughed.
“Right. Then maybe you should see your own individual therapist about this,” I suggested.
“I don’t want a shrink to tell me I’m crazy,” said Jedd.
“No, you want someone to talk to, right?” And I referred him to someone knowledgeable with whom he could talk.
“Once you’re seeing him,” I said, “I’d like you to limit your conversations with Martina about this—at least for a little while, okay?” Martina was delighted, but concerned. “Jedd, we’ll still talk about all the other things we always talk about, right?”
“And maybe, Jedd, when you’ve come to terms with your interests, you can relax enough to have sex with Martina again,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” said the tough guy from Brooklyn. “I admit that she’s been here all along for me. I want to be her man again.”
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Every week, couples in conflict ask me what’s sexually normal. Is sex once per month during the first year of marriage normal? Is getting turned on by spanking—or being spanked—normal? How long should intercourse last before the guy ejaculates? Is wanting oral sex during menstruation normal? Is getting turned off by nasty talk normal?
Sometimes people are worried about themselves. Sometimes they’re critical of their partner, and they want to wheel in the heavy artillery of “You’re not normal. I’m normal.”
Every year around Valentine’s Day I get the same kind of questions from the popular media. And although I know the current statistics—how many times per month, how many inches, how many minutes—I generally don’t mention these, whether I’m talking to patients or to USA Today (the newspaper delivered free to your hotel room so you have something to read while brushing your teeth). I say that deliberately or not, people generally make trouble with these numbers, and they’re better off without them.
Nobody is satisfied with this answer.
I say forget the number of times people have sex per month, or how often someone masturbates, or how long it takes to climax. Those averages tell you nothing. Knowing that you don’t laugh during sex, are too embarrassed to use lubricant, or can’t tell your partner, “No, not there, here,” tells us much, much more.
Because that describes your experience. And that’s what sex is about—experience, not numbers. What really matters in sex isn’t the things you can measure; it’s how people feel, which is a lot harder to explore, understand, measure, or fix. And as with all problems, if you’re trying to fix the wrong thing, it doesn’t matter what you accomplish.
That’s why, when it comes to sex, conventional self-help usually doesn’t help, because it generally doesn’t challenge people’s basic ideas about what “normal” sex is. More importantly, how could self-help help when it doesn’t challenge the idea that it’s important to be sexually “normal,” and very important to not be sexually abnormal?
Instead, most self-help books are prescriptive: they tell people exactly what kind of sex they should have, and then tell them how to have it. That approach obviously hasn’t worked very well. That’s why people are still buying self-help books, still going to sex therapy, still begging The View to feature yet more “sexperts.”
What every self-help book and guru needs to say is that people’s desire to be sexually normal keeps them from being their authentic sexual selves, leading to performance anxiety and sexual dissatisfaction. Sexual Intelligence—based on self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and profound communication—is a better approach to resolving sexual dissatisfaction.
If you want to know what’s sexually normal, remember these features:
• Normal is having sex when you’re tired.
• Normal is worrying about being sexually normal.
• Normal is not talking about being worried about these things.
• Normal is feeling emotionally isolated during sex.
Surely we can aspire to better than this.