scared of sexWhat Is Sexual Intelligence? Why Does It Matter?
I started seeing Margot and Duane a year after their first child was born. They were pretty upset that they had stopped having sex regularly. They couldn’t figure out why one or both of them always had an excuse.
The two thirty-two-year-olds had most of what society thinks people need for great sex: They were both drop-dead gorgeous. Duane made a lot of money. They had paid help with child care. They not only loved each other, they seemed to like each other, too. So why no sex? Or as Margot put it, “Why do we have this desire dysfunction?”
Asking a lot of questions during a series of sessions, I got to know them pretty well. As with most of my patients, we uncovered some pretty strong reasons for the behavior they said they wanted to change. And no, neither of them had a “dysfunction.”
In fact, Margot really loved sex—and loved it with Duane. Unlike some women who have little interest in sex after a day alone with an active, healthy infant, Margot wanted her husband to lust after her. She said she “needed” this in order to feel appreciated, adult, and sexy—which she didn’t especially feel after finger-painting all day. She was absolutely ready to respond to practically any sexual invitation—which kept not coming.
Duane loved sex too, and loved it with Margot. But after working a twelve-hour day and putting his daughter to sleep soon after he got home, he could barely keep his eyes open. He yearned to tumble into bed with his sexy wife—and have her supply the energy for their erotic life. But no matter how much she talked about sex, or envied other sexy-looking couples, she never initiated.
Of course, they didn’t have this problem in the good old days. When they were courting just out of college, they would have sex every morning and every night. They both clearly remembered that no one initiated sex back then—it would “just happen.” And they were each waiting for it to “just happen” again. That’s not a “dysfunction”—it’s just an unfortunate idea.
We discussed their wish for sex to be as it was when they were younger. I explained that their lives had changed and that, for sex to “happen,” someone would have to initiate. Yes, that person might hear the word “no”; they were both stunned to even imagine such a thing, since the idea was so different from the sexual era they remembered. And, even if they were to resume having sex, their encounters probably wouldn’t be for an hour or two like they used to be. That prospect wasn’t really acceptable to them either.
They kept insisting that they loved sex and wanted sex—but they didn’t want the sex I suggested was available to them. So they continued having no sex, wondering how things could change.
Meanwhile, Margot was ready to conceive again as soon as possible. After all, she really, really, really wanted a son. And so, with Marilyn already almost two, it was time for the second one.
Duane wasn’t so eager. And that didn’t help their sex life. As I told them, “Working on a sexual relationship while dealing with fertility questions is like trying to rotate your tires while driving seventy miles per hour on the freeway.”
Nevertheless, they wanted to continue working with me, and I agreed. For his own reasons, Duane soon agreed to try for a son, telling Margot only one thing: “I’m concerned about what will happen if we don’t have a son. I don’t want to keep trying endlessly, okay?” Only slightly troubled, she happily said yes. They conceived almost immediately—no “dysfunction” there.
They took a break from therapy once Margot was a few months pregnant. Right on schedule, they finally had that second child, a beautiful, healthy girl.
Five months after little Charlotte was born, Duane and Margot were back in my office. Many women take as long as a year after giving birth before recovering their sexual desire. Not Margot—three weeks after having their daughter, she was ready for sex. Announcing this to Duane, she resumed waiting for him to chase her around the house.
Of course, Margot felt very apologetic about her body—she was still ten pounds more than her pre-pregnancy weight, and her personal grooming wasn’t quite back up to her usual rigorous standards. So she wanted sex, but she also wanted advance notice so she could wax, bathe, tweeze, use her lotions, and so on. This made sex even more complicated.
Duane, too, hesitated to resume sex—for completely different reasons. He scoffed at Margot’s suggestion that her beautiful body was less desirable than it had been. But he did admit that birth control was very much on his mind. He was happy with his two kids, son or no son. He already felt overwhelmed, and believed she did, too. But he feared she’d be devastated if he explicitly refused to try for a son, so he didn’t talk about it seriously enough for Margot to really hear it.
She needed to be chased, and so couldn’t initiate; he was anxious about being pushed to try for a son (and becoming accidentally pregnant), so he couldn’t initiate. And so month after month, they’d been skipping the great sex they remembered having years before.
Neither of them wanted to use condoms (she thought them “yucky,” he thought them unreliable). She didn’t want to use hormonal methods like the pill because of possible side effects or weight gain.
They talked about whether Margot could ever be happy with “just” two wonderful, healthy daughters. She said she didn’t need a son right away, and maybe, maybe could even live without one. But she couldn’t decide that now.
Meanwhile, they weren’t having sex. She wanted him to initiate, and he didn’t want to risk another pregnancy.
And so I asked about sex without any risk of conceiving—outercourse. Oral sex, anal play, hands-on-genitals, biting, whispering, sucking, stroking, playing. “Oh, foreplay,” Margot said dismissively. “I’d rather have sex.”
“We used to do all that stuff,” Duane said. And now? “Well, I love Margot’s blow jobs, but then we both want sex afterwards. And I’d feel guilty if I got a great blow job and Margot was still frustrated about not having real sex.”
The only dysfunction here was their distorted beliefs about “real sex.” Their mutual resistance to great-sex-without-intercourse was fascinating: it wasn’t “real sex,” it wasn’t their favorite kind, it was kinda dumb, they shouldn’t “need to” do it, they’d feel silly doing this second-rate thing. The usual explanations I hear every week.
It was a massive failure of imagination—and a demonstration of their limited Sexual Intelligence. “We know what great sex looks like—we used to have it all the time. And that stuff isn’t it,” Margot pouted. Agreeing, Duane predicted that “just outercourse” would leave them emotionally hungry. So they continued not having sex at all, emotionally starving and needing more emotional connection.
I tried to dig deeper to understand what all this resistance was about.
“First you say sex will never be like it used to be, then you say we shouldn’t expect to have real sex until we solve the question of another child,” said a frustrated Margot. “To accept this, I’d, I’d, I’d … have to change!” she sputtered.
“Yes,” I nodded sympathetically. “If you and your husband want to have sex at this stage in your lives, you’ll have to change.” They said they were on board. But no matter how I discussed it, they just couldn’t adjust to the idea. And so these bright, attractive, horny people rejected sex again.
The Value of Intelligence
We just saw how one couple pushed sex away because it couldn’t provide a particular kind of validation. We’ve looked at how people attempt to get this relief and reassurance—mostly by pursuing superb genital function. This is supposed to give you mythologically huge orgasms and lead to your partner’s rapturous satisfaction.
Rather than talk about how to enhance genital function, let’s turn instead to an entirely different way of thinking about sex. Let’s talk about what you actually need to create and sustain sexual pleasure and closeness over time. As a bonus, this approach will also provide relief from self-consciousness and self-criticism, and dramatically reduce your need for reassurance about your sexual normality and adequacy.
This different approach involves developing and using your Sexual Intelligence. Sexual Intelligence is the set of internal resources that allows you to relax, be present, communicate, respond to stimulation, and create physical and emotional connection with a partner. When you can do that, you’ll have enjoyable sexual experiences, regardless of what your body does. Compared to that kind of emotional and physical nourishment, the biggest, hardest erection or the wettest, tightest vagina are trivial.
Sexual Intelligence is more than knowledge, more than patience, more than confidence, and more than liking your own body. It’s all of these, but it’s more.
“Intelligence,” of course, is a familiar and useful concept. It can be defined by ability: the ability to learn or to solve problems. It can be defined narrowly: as innate cognitive capacity or the facility for abstract thought, and it can be defined broadly: as the ability to understand different ways of learning and organizing information and to select the best one in a given situation.
Imagine waking up tomorrow, completely by surprise and unprepared, in Moscow. You don’t speak Russian, and you have only your passport and 3,000 rubles. (Let’s say it’s summertime—we don’t want you freezing before completing the thought-experiment.) To figure out what to do, you would need more than knowledge—you would need intelligence. You’d need the ability to figure out what questions to ask, how to find people who can help you, how to make decisions in a different culture, and so on.
That’s what Sexual Intelligence is like—not the ability to be great in bed, or to function the way you did when you were twenty-two. Rather, Sexual Intelligence is expressed in the ability to create and maintain desire in a situation that’s less than perfect or comfortable; the capacity to adapt to your changing body; curiosity and open-mindedness about the meaning of pleasure, closeness, and satisfaction; and the ability to adjust when things don’t go as expected—when you run out of lube, or one of you has to go to the bathroom during sex, or you lose your erection, or one of you calls the other by the wrong name. Or all of these at the same time. (There’s a Will Farrell movie in there somewhere.)
That’s why everyone needs Sexual Intelligence. And that’s why with it, you can relax and enjoy sex in ways you may have thought impossible for you.
To manage their anxiety, their sexuality, and their partner’s sexuality, most people rely on the usual ways of looking at sexuality: “normal” sex, genital function and “dysfunction,” self-monitoring, trying to remember “what women want,” and so on. Most of my patients (and you, perhaps?) have proven that this limited approach doesn’t lead to pleasure and closeness. What do they need instead? Not technique or a great body, but Sexual Intelligence.
So what exactly is this Sexual Intelligence?
The Three Components of Sexual Intelligence
The three components of Sexual Intelligence are:
1. Information and knowledge
2. Emotional skills (which let you use that knowledge)
3. Body awareness and comfort (which let you express yourself and your knowledge)
The knowledge that most people seem to want about sex is “how can I be great in bed?” For those with a conventional “dysfunction,” the question usually takes the form: “How can I function right? How can I get rid of my dysfunction?” (This always sounds to me like: “How can I get my penis or vulva to sit up and do tricks?”)
In addition, many people ask me: “How can I get my partner to be more skillful or enthusiastic in bed?” “What do men/women really want during sex?” and “What positions give the most satisfaction?”
Although I sympathize with people’s wish to be (or feel) more sexually competent, I think that’s the wrong goal. Answering questions like these is not an effective path to creating more enjoyable sex.
No, the information you actually need would start with a uniquely personal owner’s manual to your body and your partner’s body, including your preferences (and your partner’s) about touching and kissing. Ideally, this manual would include the kinds of bodily changes you could expect over time—changes in the consistency of vaginal lubrication, the effect of hormonal changes on your sexual response, and so on. A reminder that back pain or a stiff shoulder greatly influences sex would also help.
An anthropologist’s field report on the incredible diversity of human sexuality would be valuable too. It would help put your (and your partner’s) experiences, fantasies, preferences, and curiosity in context, reducing your anxiety about normality.
A lot of what you need for more enjoyable sex isn’t specifically sexual. Emotional skills are necessary for satisfaction in many aspects of life, including sex. There is, to put it simply, no substitute for growing up—not even a perfect body or the best sexual technique. It’s like trying to run a car by stuffing hundred-dollar bills into the gas tank. The money itself won’t make the car run; it’s only of value if you can first convert it to gasoline. Emotional skills are the gasoline of enjoyable sex.
If people wanted only physical pleasure from sex, we could make the argument that only physical skills and knowledge are relevant. (I wouldn’t make that argument, but sooner or later someone on daytime TV would.) As we’ve seen, however, most women and men want more than physical pleasure from sex. So it makes perfect sense that we need emotional skills to create those other satisfactions. After all, how many times would you want to make love with someone—no matter how good-looking or talented—who was rude, self-involved, scared of closeness, and a terrible listener? (No ex-husband jokes here, please.)
Finally, we come to the body—the actual location of all that huffing and puffing we call sex. The popular idea of the body’s role in sex is that it should be beautiful, the better to trigger desire in both a partner and ourselves (as if looking in the mirror is what turns us on). This idea explains why so many people don’t feel sexy, and why they assume they aren’t sexy to others. And it makes people feel less eligible for sex as they get older.
Furthermore, it’s the body that supposedly does the exotic, athletic things that produce pleasure in ourselves and our partner.
Of course, this means that the body has to “function correctly.” Back in 1966, researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson defined the Sexual Response Cycle—the standard way human bodies respond to sexual stimulation. Everyone immediately compared themselves to this model; for those who missed it, Cosmopolitan and Playboy issued plenty of impractical, improbable instructions in the 1970s and 1980s. After that, Oprah and Dr. Phil spent two uptight decades telling everyone exactly what was sexually right and normal (i.e., what was sexually wrong and abnormal). Now, of course, everyone has pornography to provide unrealistic images of bodies during sex.
This book’s idea is different. Let’s view the body as a vehicle for attunement with a partner, and let’s enhance your body’s tolerance for pleasure and intensity. Let’s make sure your body is responding to what’s present during sex, rather than having semi-traumatized reactions to old aggravating or painful experiences. These perspectives are all more important than “functioning” or beauty or athleticism or technique. Besides, you can’t talk your body into functioning a certain way just by trying hard.
Together, the three aspects of Sexual Intelligence are what let our eroticism flow. They support functioning without putting functioning in the center of our sexual thinking or experience. When people say they want sex to be more “intimate,” they’re actually referring to aspects of Sexual Intelligence, such as self-acceptance, trust, good boundaries, and self-knowledge (all of which we’ll examine in Part Two).
What’s not included in Sexual Intelligence are things such as physical stamina, lots of sexual experience, youth, and the Timeless Techniques of the Mystic Orient. Yes, even though the media and their “sexperts” claim that physical qualities and special techniques are what create “great sex,” they are not the way to create the sexual experiences that you want.
Take, for example, Josip and Renata.
What do you get when you put two lawyers in the same marriage?
The serious answer is, “It all depends”; in Josip and Renata’s case, it was trouble. They just couldn’t get away from their adversarial approach to each other.
It would be easy to blame their professional backgrounds for this, but that wouldn’t be accurate. These were two people who had difficulty trusting anyone. Being lawyers just enabled them to make a living out of their personality deficits.
At home, meanwhile, they quarreled a lot: low-level bickering that periodically burst into yelling, blaming, and name-calling. They’d regret doing it in front of their kids, try to understand how things got out of hand, fail, promise to try harder, and get ready for the next round.
Why did they come to see me? They wanted to have sex more often, and they wanted to enjoy it more.
At this point you might be shaking your head—how do people expect to enjoy sex under these circumstances? And yet this is pretty common—people living in a less-than-perfect relationship wanting to have good sex. Unfortunately, there are no time-outs in life, so people can’t escape their marriages (or their emotional problems) while trying to improve their sex lives.
Since Josip and Renata were not hesitant to fight in front of me, I became familiar with their dynamic pretty quickly. They’d talk about some disappointment or frustration at home—him being late for dinner, her obsessing about the kids’ safety—and although they’d try to discuss things calmly, they quickly escalated. Within a minute or two, they’d be fighting about how “you always do this” and “you never do that.”
We really needed to do Marriage Counseling 101, which Renata hated. “I’m not a dummy, and I won’t be lectured to. I know how to be married,” she declared. Josip tried to calm her. “I think it would be great if we understood ourselves better,” he offered. “Especially you.”
You go help these people with their sex lives.
I explained that before we talked about orgasms, caressing, or positions, we needed to improve their ability to tolerate closeness with each other. They agreed that would be “nice,” although they really wanted to focus more on sex. “If we had more sex, maybe we wouldn’t fight as much,” Josip suggested. “Yes,” said Renata. “After Josip climaxes, he’s nice to me for hours, sometimes even for the next day or two.”
Realizing they were not going to be deterred from their ideas about sex and intimacy, I replied that I supported them in having enjoyable sex. “And I’m certain it will help,” I continued, “if you each learn these five skills”:
• Comforting yourself when frustrated
• Giving your mate the benefit of the doubt
• When hurt, redefining the other person as uninformed rather than uncaring
• Imagining how you sound to your mate before you say something
• Striving to understand your mate before striving to be understood
“I agree that Josip needs to grow up,” Renata said sharply. “But this all sounds like psychoanalysis. And besides, I don’t need to learn these things. I need for my husband to spend more time with me, and to not be such a jerk.”
Josip tried to respond cooperatively, but within minutes they were both being loudly sarcastic, each blaming the other for not trying harder to be sexy. Every mean thing they said just proved my point. Then I got an idea.
“Okay, you want a specifically sexual exercise. This week at home, I’d like you to do the hand massage as described in this handout* I’m giving you. Will you agree?” “Oh finally, something about sex,” Renata said, taking the form I offered. Scanning it quickly, she wrinkled her nose. “It’s just about hands,” she complained. “Well, it’s about bodies and pleasure,” I replied, familiar with that response after assigning this homework to a hundred couples over the years.
They said they’d do it.
The next week, they reported they hadn’t. “She fought with me most of the week,” Josip said. “Including the one time we sat down to do the stupid homework,” Renata added. I didn’t say a word, and the room fell silent for a few moments. “Okay, maybe we should talk more about how to get along better,” she sighed.
We’re still working on it.
This couple keeps wanting to know when we’re going to talk about sex. I keep focusing on enhancing their ability to trust, be patient, exercise self-discipline, and see each other as friends—in short, making their relationship one in which a sexual connection would make sense. That’s a key aspect of Sexual Intelligence—enhancing the relationship to enhance the sex. Some people think it works in the opposite direction. It almost never does.
Sexual Intelligence as a Narrative
Everybody tells stories about themselves. I don’t just mean “Where did you buy that car?” or “What’s your favorite TV show?” We’re always telling other people about who we are, always relying on some narrative to explain ourselves—big-picture stories, descriptions of what’s important, who we are, and how we got to be that person.
When it comes to sex, each of us also has a narrative. These narratives answer fundamental questions about our identity: When it comes to sex, who are you? Why? How did you get that way? Here are some common narratives about sexuality: I am…
scared of sex
a romantic
undersexed
always ready for more
no good at sex
still getting over my last experience
frightened of men/women
not good at trust
interested in lovemaking, not “sex”
a victim of date rape or childhood sexual exploitation
impulsive, a risk-taker
always horny
oversexed
unlucky with men/women
good in bed
unable to communicate my needs
not sexually desirable
done with sex
confused about the whole sex thing
a sucker for a good line
a sex addict
As an organizing principle for thinking about sex, Sexual Intelligence is a kind of narrative: of personal adequacy, of presence, of connection, of sufficiency, of agency and ownership of your own body, of relaxation (whether you’re excited or not), and of acceptance (of things as they are rather than as you imagine or fear them).
Sexual Intelligence is also a narrative of not caring about what isn’t important. Of course, first you have to decide what that is. Then you need the self-discipline to ignore it, even when others value it and it seems to beckon you.
Here are some things my patients pay attention to during sex (or between sexual encounters) that interfere with their sexual enjoyment:
• The desire and ability to do every sexual thing
• Who’s hurt them before
• Feeling competitive with all men/women or with their partner’s previous partner(s)
• Conventional “distractions” (undone chores, the sound of the TV in another part of the house)
I work with my patients to decide that these things aren’t important, and I help them develop the self-discipline to ignore them. Many people don’t realize the role of self-discipline in creating enjoyable sex—and in enjoying it. Perhaps you picture good sex as wild and carefree (which of course it can be), and assume that it’s therefore completely spontaneous and free of boundaries. But that’s like imagining that an enjoyable meal or a nice day in the park just happens without any preparation or mental focus. If you’ve ever gone to a popular bistro and spent your meal fretting about the location of your table, or gone on a picnic and obsessed about running out of sunscreen, you know that deliberately focusing your attention on what’s important is a key part of enjoying activities.
The same is true for sex—to enjoy it you have to be mentally prepared, as well as know what not to pay attention to.
So the Sexual Intelligence narrative is about your actual experience, rather than a comparison of your performance, desire level, or fantasies with various standards (“manly,” “youthful,” “sexy,” and so on). Instead of thinking about whether your performance is adequate or your fantasies are normal, this perspective helps you evaluate your sexuality according to your enjoyment, your connection with your partner, and your values.
The Sexual Intelligence approach involves changing your relationship with your sexuality, not simply getting your body to do better tricks. It’s far less about what you do, and more about who you are—what you think, feel, believe, and want. That’s why you won’t find any instructions in this book about lingerie or toys or positions.
Enhancing your Sexual Intelligence is the most reliable and far-reaching way to enhance your sexual experience.
The concept of Sexual Intelligence helps explain why some people are sexually frustrated even though they don’t have a “dysfunction” and their body works fine. It’s because good “function” doesn’t guarantee the closeness, physical attunement, and relaxation that makes sex enjoyable.
Because the Sexual Intelligence approach encourages and facilitates self-acceptance, it reduces secret-keeping and isolation, improving the rest of your relationship.
The Sexual Intelligence approach doesn’t require your partner to change; in fact, in helping you accept yourself, it helps you accept your partner, rather than waiting around for him or her to change. And this approach will help you deal with future changes—in your body, your relationship, and your health.