Developing Your Sexual Intelligence
Dino was really, really cheerful. He was cheerful about being late to our first meeting, cheerful about having a problem that he couldn’t solve, cheerful about paying my fee (“even though it’s way too high!”), and cheerful about how “two other therapists couldn’t help me, so maybe you can’t either.”
All this cheerfulness was getting on my nerves, especially so early in the day (I’m a night person), but okay, I thought, let me get to know him before deciding that all this cheerfulness is part of his problem. You have to give every new patient the benefit of the doubt.
Cheerfully, Dino recited his symptoms: “I fall in love too easily, I like to rescue women, and then I get used and I’m miserable.” But if he understood this about himself, why keep repeating these behaviors?
“I can’t stop,” he continued. “I keep doing it, I watch myself do it, I say, ‘Dino, don’t do it,’ and I do it anyway. Maybe I’m a ‘love addict.’”
There were several things keeping Dino stuck in this Groundhog Day–like recurring pattern. As we discussed over time, he had failed, as a child, to rescue his mother from his alcoholic father. Hmm, so rescuing women as an adult might be an unconscious attempt to rectify this childhood “failure.” Another factor was his low self-esteem and the resulting low expectations; he would periodically joke about always ending up with women in trouble, because who else would be attracted to him?
The third factor that kept him trapped was his incredibly romantic vision of sexual relationships. He would throw around expressions like “soulmate,” “the only one for me,” “the chemistry uniting our spirits,” and “our destiny to be together.” Hanging on to concepts like these is asking for trouble. We get attached to the idea of the other person rather than seeing the actual person; we get attached to the concept of the relationship instead of noticing our actual relationship experience. It’s one of the ways people end up staying in a relationship long after it’s become destructive.
Finally, Dino needed every woman with whom he slept to judge him the best lover she’d ever had. This impossible goal was how he set himself up for failure, disappointment, humiliation, and self-loathing (in that predictable order). Sometimes he hadn’t received this “certification” before realizing the relationship was doomed, pointless, or actually destructive; at that point he’d double his efforts to achieve sexual approval as soon as possible—thus keeping him in the relationship. As things deteriorated, with anger, mean words, or days of no contact, he’d become more desperate to get his acknowledgment. He just couldn’t handle the possibility that a future ex-girlfriend might not say he had been the best.
While Dino admitted that he needed to change some of his ideas and hadn’t been able to, he drew the line at his vision of sex and sexual relating. “Oh, no,” he said. “I’m not giving up my romantic ideas about sex and love. And I can’t accept not being the best. If I give those up, I have nothing. No, you can’t persuade me on this.”
So there we were: his ideas about sex were a key problem, and he didn’t want to examine them, much less give them up. He instinctively feared that giving up his romantic, “best lover” ideas would change everything. I said I agreed—giving up these ideas might make him less eager to fall in love, less sure of himself, more introspective, even less relentlessly cheerful. And more adult.
Dino needed a major transfusion of self-discipline. Emotionally he was all over the place, cheerful about too many damn things (as if he weren’t connected to the reality of any of them), and feeling powerless about practically everything.
I had a teacher who used to say that our patients behave as if they don’t believe what they know. Dino knew that:
• He couldn’t rescue his mother from his father back when he was growing up.
• This made him want to rescue every needy or stuck woman he met.
• Perceiving such relationships as deeply intimate, and investing energy, time, and money in them, would result in him feeling disappointed, frustrated, and self-critical.
So why did he abandon all discipline when faced with a pretty face? Because he was trying to address an emotional deficit that he preferred not to admit he had. He was using sex and romance to medicate something that had nothing to do with sex.
Over several months, we talked about what it would be like to give up his project of rescuing the women of the world. At first he didn’t always take our work seriously, but when we kept coming back to his dark vision of worthlessness and shame, he began to see its importance. I was very sympathetic—what boy doesn’t want to save his mother? What boy wouldn’t feel bad about failing to do so? “And what boy,” I said, looking at him very, very gently, “what boy could possibly succeed in that situation?”
“So I didn’t fail?” he asked, tearfully. “You know, she really needed help.”
“Yes,” I said, “I understand she did. But no boy could have done it. You tried your hardest, I’m sure.”
When his emotional wall finally cracked, the tears finally came. Decades of shame, self-hatred, and desperate loneliness flooded him. “I’m tired, so tired,” he said. “Can I please rest? I don’t want to help any more women for a while.”
I wanted to give him permission so much. Instead, I said, “Dino, if you want to rest, you can decide to do that. You can even decide to end your rescue project altogether.”
“It’s okay?” he asked.
“Dino, you don’t need to ask me. I’ll support you no matter what you decide.”
“I want to stop,” he said. “I’m stopping. I’m done. I’m done!” he said almost defiantly.
It took several months for him to come to terms with the implications of his decision. He also had to wrap up a relationship in which he was not going to get the validation he wanted. “So I just go ahead and feel bad?” he asked.
“Yes,” I smiled. “You just feel bad about the relationship not working out, about your affection not being returned, about your efforts not being appreciated. You don’t have to do anything about it.”
“This is both terrible and great,” he said. And he was right.
Let’s talk about some practical approaches to developing your Sexual Intelligence, such as communicating better, paying closer attention, and redefining “sexy.”
Know Your Conditions
What are your conditions for good sex? Do you know how to create them? How often do you make love when you don’t have the conditions you need?
In his classic 1978 book Male Sexuality (now available as The New Male Sexuality), Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld discussed the concept of conditions for good sex. He said that everyone has conditions, or requirements, for enjoying sex.
I believe that conditions can be divided into three categories: those about yourself, those about the environment, and those about your partner. Examples of conditions include:
• About yourself: You need to feel clean. You need to have no chores pending.
• About the environment: You need privacy. You need a softly lit, romantic room.
• About your partner: You need your partner to say, “I love you.” You need your partner to be drop-dead gorgeous.
Many common conditions express cultural ideals. For example, some people can’t enjoy sex if they believe that they can be heard. Thus, they can’t make love at home unless their kids are gone; they also have trouble in hotels if they believe the walls are too thin. Other people can’t enjoy sex unless the man initiates, or makes more money than the woman.
Some conditions are more unusual: Some people can only enjoy sex if the woman is wearing high heels or lingerie. Others require absolute silence or constant chatter, or the risk of being seen. Otherwise, sex is boring or scary.
We can all benefit from identifying and understanding what we need to enjoy sex. Then we can ask ourselves: Do our conditions fit our values? Do our conditions attract the kind of people and experiences we want? Or are our conditions so narrow that satisfaction is almost impossible? If you desire a sense of danger, for example, you’ll be fine as long as you’re with a partner who isn’t hostile or self-destructive. Similarly, if you can’t take pleasure in sex unless every single one of your chores is completed, you may never enjoy sex in this lifetime.
How do your conditions match with those of your partner? If you need a lot of time to feel connected and relaxed and your partner is impulsive or noncommunicative, it will be hard for you both to feel comfortable at the same time. Similarly, if you like nasty talk but your partner enjoys lots of soft words and gentle looks, it may be difficult to create an environment you both like.
Couples in such situations, unfortunately, often argue about who is right and who is “unreasonable,” “uptight,” or “kinky.” This is not real communication.
Instead, people in such situations need to share their disappointment, anxiety, and self-criticism. If a couple can decide that neither partner’s conditions are wrong, they can begin to strategize about how to make love in ways that satisfy them both: For instance, they can take turns getting their conditions met. Or they can interpret their conditions in new ways. For example, if privacy is an issue, playing music or wearing a blindfold during sex can provide a sense of sexy seclusion.
Similarly, instead of needing to be squeaky clean before making love, a talk with your partner about how he or she actually feels about your body smells may be helpful. And having your partner stroke your genitals with a damp towel may satisfy your need for cleanliness in a way that enhances the sexual mood rather than detracting from it.
Although Seamus had lived in the United States for over ten years, to me he sounded as if he’d walked in off the movie set of Angela’s Ashes or Michael Collins. “Yes,” he smiled, “I do have a bit of a brogue, don’t I?”
Seamus’s marriage, career, children, and house were here in California. His parents, sisters, friends, and favorite foods were in Dublin. He was torn in half, wanting to be loyal to both his lives. He was, as my Yiddish grandmother used to say, trying to dance at two weddings with one backside (it really sounds better if you say “tuchas” instead of “backside”).
He wasn’t handling the conflict too well.
Some years he visited Ireland three or four times, inevitably arguing with his wife Catherine about using their money to do so. On the other hand, whenever he spent one of the kids’ school holidays in California, his mother would sigh, his father would frown, his sisters would complain, and he would feel awful.
So Seamus, with one eye on Ireland and one eye on his kids, became increasingly discontented. Catherine tried to help, to no avail. His kids wanted more of his attention. That didn’t help. So did she. That really didn’t help. In fact, over time he became less and less interested in sex, which was why she insisted he see me.
He told me about feeling split, ultimately resenting Catherine for “pressuring” him. I suggested it might be easier to resent someone five feet away than people five thousand miles away. “Maybe it’s also easier to resent Catherine than to feel hopeless and guilty,” I added gently.
“You don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s gained some weight since having the kids. The house is always a mess—she says she’d rather draw or sing with the kids than badger them to clean up their room. And she hates to cook. Half the time she asks me to pick up something on the way home, or we have some weird combination of stuff.
“These things add up,” he said decisively. “Who can be in the mood for sex when everything’s out of control?”
That must have been exactly how he felt—out of control.
And his house growing up in Ireland? “Ah, that was a home,” he fairly glowed.
And that was his picture of how things ought to look now: “My father’s house,” he recalled with a lilt. “Everything’s organized, everything revolves around him. Supper when he comes home. Quiet when he reads the paper. Kids answer when they’re spoken to. Wife saying, ‘Yes, dear,’ when he’s grumpy. No conflict, no wife saying, ‘We don’t communicate like we used to.’”
And, he added, “I certainly can’t imagine my mum complaining about not having sex often enough!”
No, Catherine wasn’t like his mum, and Seamus’s California house wasn’t like his dad’s. It was messy, noisy, full of life. And it had a wife who rarely said, “Yes, dear,” even when he was grumpy.
What about when they had courted? “She was the most colorful woman I’d ever met,” he recalled. “I was fascinated.”
Colorful she still was. But as she had grown, acquiring the responsibilities of a family and home, she had become more independent. Her “color” combined with her independence was difficult for Seamus to handle. So was his home. So was his split heart.
Sex was where he collapsed. To feel desire these days, he needed to feel that everything was under control: no marital differences, no messy house, no complaining kids, no internal emotional conflict. No wonder he wasn’t initiating sex anymore. His conditions were too exacting, and they were never met.
He seemed to understand this idea when we explored it. “But I can’t change how I grew up,” he said pragmatically. “So what am I to do?”
“One thing you can change,” I said, “is your relationship to Ireland.”
“You don’t want me to give it up, now, do you?” He eyed me suspiciously.
“No,” I said. “But if you’re going to be internally conflicted about this for the next two or five or twenty years, you need to figure out how to have sexual desire at the same time.”
After a moment of silence, the tall redhead spoke. “You’re saying I might not fix this California-Ireland problem for a while, then?” This was a new way of looking at it. He had been waiting for the split to magically resolve so he could start his life. “So I have to get on with things now, like making love with my wife?”
“Yes. And while you’re at it, learn to appreciate her body as it is, too. It isn’t likely to reverse course and magically look ten years younger anytime soon.”
He laughed. “Love the one you’re with, eh? Doctor, you’d be very popular back in Dublin,” he said. “Okay, let’s talk about getting hot for my Catherine.” So we talked about renewing his attraction to her: seeing her as colorful, not flaky; as a mother who nourished the kids’ creativity, not as a poor housekeeper; as a fleshy woman who desired him and was energetic in bed, not as an over-the-hill mum.
And I told him to limit himself to dancing at one wedding per night.
It worked. After only six more sessions, we said good-bye. “Perfection would be great,” he said when we parted, “but it’s no longer necessary. Enjoying what I have is damn fine,” he added with a smile.
Know Your Body as It Is
There are no perfect adult bodies or faces. As supermodel Cindy Crawford used to say, “Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.”
Your body is, what, a quarter-century old? More? A half-century old? After a few years, everything on earth gets a little beat-up, even our bodies. And things acquire little idiosyncrasies. Your Honda’s front tires squeak only when turning left, not right. Your blender leaks at high speeds but not at low speeds. Sometimes it’s easier to move your chair than to adjust the overhead light.
If most of the sex you had when young was while you were drunk or stoned, you’ll be having sex with a new body now. (Assuming you’re not still having sex only when drunk or stoned. You may notice the music has changed since then too.) If you don’t have quite the stamina or upper-body strength you had ten years ago, that will also affect your sexual repertoire. In this regard, sex is not sacred—your cardiovascular system thinks it’s just another workout, like a stationary bike (without the Kindle or iPod, presumably).
If you began your sexual career with many partners and now you’re with only one, your body may respond differently—requiring more warming up, for example. If a lot of your interest in sex has been about conquest and now you’re with one regular partner, your body may need new things (positions, games, toys) to get sufficiently excited. And if you’ve been watching a lot of porn or have become a regular vibrator user, that may affect your body’s responses too.
If you now have physical pain in certain positions that didn’t bother you before, that’s something to admit to yourself and adapt to (that’s why there’s all those chandeliers for sale on eBay). When familiar activities go from being a source of pleasure to a source of pain, a change is needed—along with the emotional skills to handle the loss. Some people who lack those skills attempt to avoid the necessary change. Denial is one way people end up in the emergency room—whether from choosing ski slopes they can no longer negotiate safely, or from having sex in kama sutra positions that are now far too challenging. Denial is also one way people develop low desire—to avoid acknowledging the physical pain of once-familiar sexual activities.
How Sex Actually Feels in Your Body
Let’s take this idea a step further and discuss how your body actually feels during sex. Not how you assume it feels, not what you think about what you’re doing, but how things actually feel. The human body brings a huge amount of sensory equipment to every sexual event—much of it unused, misinterpreted, or ignored.
For many of us, attending to our actual experience during sex is more complicated than it sounds. That’s because when we keep repeating a certain action or behavior, we eventually do it from habit rather than from a consciousness of being present. That’s understandable—if you paid careful attention every time you brushed your teeth or buttoned your shirt, you’d never have time to leave the house, much less actually do anything.
In addition, if you’re anxious, you may be so focused on other things that you can’t really feel how sex feels. As we’ve already discussed, during sex people often focus on how they look, sound, or smell; trying to function correctly; trying to ignore physical or emotional pain; or on trying to figure out how their partner is feeling. It’s obviously difficult to feel the different parts of your body, and subtle changes in stimulation, when you already have so much on your mind.
Most of us understand this principle in other settings; for example, if you’re doing an important job interview in a restaurant, you’ll hardly notice how your food tastes. In general, anxiety reduces our ability to experience novel things or to enjoy ourselves.
Here’s how that dynamic can work during sex:
• If during sex you’re imagining a fantasy in order to get more excited, you’ll miss some of the actual sensory experience.
• If you have a judgment about a certain kind of stimulation (fellatio is for whores, nipples are for gay guys, finger-in-vagina is for frigid women or inept men), your prejudice will prevent you from trying it—or actually feeling it if you do.
• If you don’t clear your mind before having sex, stray incoming thoughts (chores, work, next week’s schedule) can settle there, reducing your focus on your experience.
Perhaps at this point you’re asking yourself, “Why should I have to pay attention like this during sex? I didn’t have to do that when I was younger.”
Yes, that may be true. But now you’re older, so perhaps you want a fuller, richer (maybe even elegant) experience. And if you’ve only started having sex sober in the last year or two, your ability to pay attention has increased dramatically. Learning how to do that properly is an art form that has to be mastered; no one is born knowing how to pay attention during sex, and our culture discourages everyone from learning it.
Perhaps you’ve been watching a sport on TV for years. Some people watch the same way their whole lives; others watch in increasingly complex ways as they understand the game more, over time becoming impatient if confronted with simplistic announcers or a lack of instant replays and multiple cameras. While many people go to Super Bowl parties to drink and talk, others like to stay home and intently watch the game, and they’re not complaining about “having” to pay attention to get more enjoyment from watching. They think it’s an opportunity for extra pleasure. It’s interesting that people resist paying attention during sex: closing their eyes during sex, too busy creating sex to feel it, afraid of discovering something uncomfortable about themselves, feeling too overwhelmed or alienated by the experience to cuddle afterwards—i.e., to continue the erotic encounter after orgasm, feeling one’s body close to another’s.
In addition, digital technology and devices like smart phones now encourage a continual splitting of attention that’s new and troubling.
Most people assume that multitasking is not only innocent, but advantageous and even necessary to manage the modern world. Research shows that for repetitive tasks like dressing or wiping a kitchen counter, it’s a fine way to organize ourselves. For more complex activities, however, not only is multitasking not innocent, it’s really detrimental. The first things multitasking undermines are (1) creativity and (2) intimate human connection. Don’t you think sex should involve at least one of those? If so, multitasking and sex really don’t mix.
American teens send and receive over 3,000 text messages a month, which is one every six minutes that they’re not asleep or in school. The rate for kids under twelve is almost half as many messages per month. Adults may say that’s crazy—but adults text almost that much. My patients complain about spouses texting at the dinner table; the spouses typically claim they can listen while they text. I think that speaks to the quality of their listening.
Many young people consider it perfectly acceptable to answer their phone or begin texting in the middle of a face-to-face conversation with someone. If you’re not prepared to say that this custom interferes with human connectedness, let’s agree that it changes the meaning of human connectedness. And that certainly changes our internal expectations about intimacy—including sex.
In the 1970s people had to develop an etiquette about using ATMs (for example, how close to the person using it should the first person in line stand?). Similarly, (young) people are right now developing an etiquette about texting after sex: How long afterwards does a polite person wait? How many texts are okay? How much privacy should your sex partner give you while you’re texting?
Inevitably, we’ll soon see a bunch of romantic comedies in which people are texting during sex. If the film Network (1976) were remade today, Faye Dunaway would be texting during sex—and William Holden would be confused and dismayed. They were, if you recall, from different generations.
Anyway, you know what Albert Einstein said about multitasking: “Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.”
Redefining “Sexy”
There’s an apocryphal story about Don Jose, the most accomplished bullfighter in Spain.
At the height of Don Jose’s career, some journalists arrange an interview with him. When they arrive at his spacious home outside Madrid, they find him in the kitchen wearing a frilly apron, washing dishes.
“It’s the maid’s day off,” he explains. “I’m just about finished.”
The journalists look at each other, feeling awkward. “Your home is beautiful,” they say, “and we appreciate you making the time to see us. But we’re confused. You are our national hero, courageous, skillful, the symbol of masculinity to every man and woman in Spain. And here you are wearing a frilly pink apron, so muy delicado, muy femenino.”
“Feminine?” he responds, his dark eyes flashing. “Feminine? I am the symbol of masculinity to every man and woman in Spain. Everything I do is manly. If I wear a frilly pink apron, it is manly to do so.”
If Don Jose could decide this, so can you. You can decide what is manly, or womanly, or sexy—and you’d be silly to craft a definition that excludes you. It would be like starting a club and writing membership rules in a way that made you ineligible to join.
Why be limited to John Wayne or Kanye West, Mae West or Jessica Alba, Sex and the City or Mad Men (or Silence of the Lambs), or any image? We all need to create our own images of what’s sexy. Here are a few examples of what you could decide is muy erotico, muy caliente:
• Remembering exactly how your partner likes her hair touched
• Bringing a special snack to bed
• Kissing with eyes open
• Bringing him socks if his feet are cold
• Taking out the lube as you’re getting into bed, instead of waiting until you “need” it
• Gently washing her vulva before sex, or the ejaculate off his chest afterwards
Clinging to overly narrow definitions of ideas like sexy, womanly, “good sex,” and “good lover” is a terrible mistake; clinging to definitions that exclude you as you are is not just a mistake, it’s the opposite of Sexual Intelligence, a real obstacle to sexual satisfaction. Imagine you’re advertising a new car or a new sneaker. Would you apologize to your audience for the product not being perfect, or would you say, this is the definition of perfection? Would you say, “I hope you want this,” or would you say, “Trust me, this is what you’ve been looking for”?
For people who say, “But such-and-such has been my image of sexiness or masculinity all my life, I can’t change it,” I say, don’t change it then—expand it. Decide that “sexy” can include both Lady Gaga and you, that “masculine” is both LeBron James and you. You can create any category you want, as long as you personally qualify.
If that sounds too arbitrary, you’re half right. It is arbitrary—all these categories are. Why Britney Spears one year, Lindsay Lohan the next, and now neither? It’s all fads—which means these categories are just arbitrary consensus, with no intrinsic value. In the bedroom, the only consensus necessary is between you and your partner(s). And that starts with you. Decide you’re sexy, dammit!
Name one good reason that you refuse.
Communicating to Create Outcomes
In Chapter 5, we talked about the importance of making communication a technical skill rather than an emotional one. We saw that when someone is afraid of the outcome of communication (whether their reason makes sense or not), he or she naturally hesitates to connect verbally.
And we saw in the last chapter that some people give a special meaning to not communicating—that it’s romantic, or that it allows sex to be “spontaneous.” Not communicating in order to make sex more romantic or spontaneous is like walking barefoot so you don’t scuff your shoes. It’s like keeping your umbrella in your car so it doesn’t get wet in the rain. It’s like, as my mother would say, burning down the house to roast the pig.
No, you can get more value from communicating than from not communicating. So let’s look at the practical/technical side of communication, starting with a food analogy.
Whether you cook or not, you undoubtedly know hundreds of words for ingredients, kitchen tools, and food preparation. Here are a few examples:
• Ingredients: Spices, sauces, vegetables, oils, meats, dairy products, grains, sweeteners, stock
• Tools and objects: Pot, strainer, frying pan, measuring cup, bowl, knife, peeler, cutting board, plate, refrigerator, oven, can opener
• Actions: Boil, fry, sauté, chop, pour, measure, whisk, mince, steam, mix, toss, slice, bake, stir, nuke (isn’t that everyone’s word for what a microwave oven does?)
Now imagine a couple trying to cook a meal (or even a snack) together without using words like these. It would sound like this: “Honey, please take the X, and Y it in a Z for a few minutes. Then….”
No matter how good these people are at charades, anything more complicated than pouring a glass of water would be impossible. At best everything would take a really long time. And each person would feel very frustrated. So a common vocabulary is essential whenever two people want to pursue a joint project, from building a birdhouse to throwing a dinner party to cleaning a bathroom to sharing sex. That’s why we need words for body parts, erotic activities, and our subjective experience. “Honey, use your y’know to y’know my y’know” doesn’t provide much guidance.
Recall the Bible story about the Tower of Babel. When God wanted to stop the construction of a grand edifice that would reach all the way to heaven, God didn’t need to take away people’s tools or materials. He just had each one suddenly speak a language that no one else could understand. The project screeched to a halt within moments.
A sexual vocabulary is part of Sexual Intelligence, and is absolutely essential for enjoyable sex. If your vocabulary consists primarily of “down there” and “it” and “y’know,” it will be hard to guide your partner, inform your partner, or share with your partner. And it’s far less likely that you’ll get the kind of sexual experiences you want.
So assuming you’re convinced that talking about sex with your partner is a great idea, how should you go about it?
Let’s start in bed, perhaps during sex.
Dos and Don’ts for Communicating About Sex in Bed
• Ask your partner to do one or more things you know (or you think) you’d like. (Sexually, I mean; this isn’t the time to request help installing antivirus software.)
• Talk about what you want more than about what you don’t want; for example, instead of saying, “That’s too fast,” say, “I’d like it slower.”
• If you say, “Don’t do that,” add, “Do this instead.”
• Be friendly when talking about sex (unless you’re about to climax—in which case demanding something and forgetting to say “please” seems reasonable).
• Unless something dreadful just happened (a condom broke, you discovered your partner’s been faking orgasms), save the serious conversation for after sex.
• Nothing says, “I’m here with you” like eye contact. Look at your partner periodically during sex, especially when talking or listening. Even “Oh God, oh God!” deserves eye contact, just like “Wait, do that soon but not yet.”
• Save “Don’t ever do that again” and “How many times do I have to tell you” for after sex is over—either later that day or later that week. Or maybe never.
• Take your partner’s hand and stroke yourself (leg, hair, butt, nose, whatever) with it the way you like. Whisper “like this.” In fact, whisper a lot. It’s sexy.
• Don’t talk about how a former partner did something better. Don’t talk about how someone else looks better or feels better. Don’t talk about how someone else’s bed never had cracker crumbs in it.
• Don’t ask, “Where did you learn that?” or, “Who taught you to do that?”
• If something feels good, say so.
• If something feels really good, say so more than once.
• Don’t ever, ever, ever say that something feels good when it doesn’t.
• Don’t ask, “Why the hell did you do that?” Just say, “No thanks.”
• If your partner says, “I love you,” you don’t have to say it right back; you can smile, or you can say, “Hmm, good.” And never say “I love you” if you don’t mean it. Or if you don’t plan on saying it again within thirty days.
Sometimes the best time and place to communicate about sex is outside the bedroom. Here are some examples of things to say or discuss when you’re not in the middle of sex:
Tips for Communicating About Sex in the Kitchen (or Wherever)
• Ask what some word or gesture or face meant.
• Ask what your partner likes, or if he or she likes a certain thing.
• Use the right names for body parts.
• Sit close enough to touch when you talk. Then touch when you talk.
• Discuss and decide on a “safe word”—an unusual word (like dinosaurs) that, if either person says it during sex, means “Stop right now, and I really mean it!” And don’t fool around with the word once you’ve agreed on it.
• Discuss policy: “Just so you know, I’m not going to want X in the future, so please don’t ask me about it or try it.”
• If you aren’t sure what your partner meant during the most recent lovemaking, ask: was that “No, not now,” or “No, not ever”?
• Confirm your contraceptive agreement(s)—what, when, how? And here’s some advice: “trying harder” has no place in this conversation. Contraception is about what you do, not about what you try to do, or try to remember to do, or think you ought to do.
• Clarify and resolve any disagreements about logistics: room temperature, alcohol during sex, socks in bed, talking nasty, locking the door, and so on.
• Describe your body’s current situation, whether temporary or permanent: lower back pain, difficulty squeezing your hands, asthma. If necessary, remind your partner whether you’re right- or left-handed (an important factor when arranging the bodies for a hand job). Also mention where you’re particularly flexible or strong—for example, hips or arms (an important resource if someone’s getting on their hands and knees).
• Don’t judge what you don’t like (“Ugh, that’s kinky/perverse/unromantic”). If you don’t want to do something in bed, you don’t need a “good” reason. So you don’t have to justify your lack of interest in it by criticizing the activity or its sponsor.
• Like Amazon.com, you can inquire: “Since you like X (sex-related act), I wonder if you’d like Y (a slightly similar sex-related act).”
• “Hey, one of these days when we’re in bed together, do you maybe want to try X?”
• “You should know that when we’re not getting along so well, I’m a lot less interested in sex.” Unless you’re one of the unusual people for whom the truth is, “When we’re not getting along, I’m a lot more interested in sex.”
If you use different words or have different dos and don’ts, but your conversations sound pretty much like these, that’s fine—as long as you’re communicating with the goals of enhancing clarity and closeness. I know that sometimes over lunch or a drink, a friend tells us a personal story with too many details, and we think, “Um, TMI—that’s Too Much Information.” But there’s almost no such thing in sex—as long as the communication is done with the goals of clarity and closeness, and you’re paying attention to what you’re doing, more information is almost always better than less information.
Along with paying attention to your conditions, your experiences, and your concepts, communicating is one of the best ways of increasing your Sexual Intelligence.