CHAPTER 2

A Case Study in Intelligent Lust

Emily’s Story

Why is it that so many women reach their thirties frustrated and anxious about not having a life partner? The clock is ticking, and they feel a sense of urgency to marry and have children while they are still biologically able. They wonder how they got to this place—why no relationship has ever worked out.

And why is it that so many of us who do marry find ourselves in relationships in which sex has grown boring or has even disappeared after a relatively short time? We excuse its absence—“sex isn’t that important; other things matter more. It’s normal; everyone goes through it.” Yet over time, resentment builds and feelings of rejection or disappointment quietly erode our sense of well-being.

The answer to these questions is simple—our lack of sexual intelligence. It’s the main reason why so many relationships end in failure. It’s why we make the wrong choices and why so many potentially successful relationships never begin. Instead, we base our choices on many factors other than sex, such as social standing, security, or similarity in backgrounds and religion. It’s the rare couple whose sexual passion actually brings them to the altar, and when it does, it’s too often because sex is “hot” rather than deeply meaningful and gratifying. Most of us either don’t understand or ignore our true desires and consequently fail to use sex to guide us in choosing the best possible partner.

My patient Emily found herself exactly in this situation. When she began therapy, she had little awareness about how central sex was to her situation. She was confused about how to move forward in her life. She was in the “right” relationship yet felt stranded and alone.

By guiding Emily through the steps of intelligent lust, I helped her discover and use her true desires as a divining rod to find a partner not only with whom she was sexually compatible but also who helped her heal an old family wound.

My hope is that by reading Emily’s story you will begin to consider sex in a new light. You will recognize how much sex has influenced your choices though, like Emily, without your awareness. You will also see that, by understanding the true nature of your sexuality, you can change the choices you make forever.

Don’t worry about the absorbing details of the story or the specific steps. That will come later. Relax. Open your mind and let the meaning of Emily’s story naturally find its way into your consciousness. It won’t be long before you will use the steps of intelligent lust to help you make more meaningful and satisfying choices.

CHANGING THE COURSE OF FATE: EMILY

With her brown shoulder-length hair hanging neatly above her dark blue business suit, Emily sat in my office as though she were at work rather than at her first visit to a psychotherapist. A successful thirty-five-year-old event planner in Manhattan, Emily talked about herself easily but with little emotion.

Over the seven years since she had come to New York from Ohio, Emily had been fairly happy: she had a good career, a circle of kind friends, and she’d also had her fair share of dates, which hadn’t amounted to much until she met Josh, a thirty-seven-year-old lawyer.

However, after a year of dating, Emily had put the relationship on hold. When I asked why, she said, “It had become boring.”

When I then asked her to describe what she meant by boring, she told me the couple had fallen into a bland routine. Habits of Josh’s that she once found endearing were getting on her nerves, and neither of them felt any thrill, although on paper they seemed a perfect match: Josh had an excellent job, a similar level of education, and the couple had many friends in common. But there was no magic.

While Emily’s lack of interest in Josh was obvious in her words, I found the tense, unhappy expression on her face more revealing; it led me to ask, “What other feelings do you have besides boredom?”

Emily remained quiet for a moment. “I feel sad,” she sighed. Her body relaxed somewhat.

“About what?”

“About Josh. That it’s not working out.”

I nodded. “Are you sad for yourself as well?” I asked.

“Yes, but it’s more than just him. I just had my thirty-fifth birthday. And it was my scariest. I don’t want to sound like a cliché, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much time left. The clock is ticking. I haven’t made it work with anybody. I’ve never said this out loud, but I’m beginning to wonder if I ever will.”

Her eyes began to well with tears.

At first I wondered if Emily experienced difficulty with commitment. But when I inquired about her other relationships, she told me of enduring friendships with women as well as men, and how she believed in sticking with her involvements. In fact, she said, if she had a problem, it might be that she often didn’t know when to give up.

Despite her close friendships, she said she frequently felt lonely. “It’s like a dull and steady ache,” she said. “And it’s going to get worse, I know it.”

Her tears accumulated; I handed her a tissue and we sat quietly. As I suspected, behind the calm exterior ran deep currents of emotions, fear and sadness that she had been keeping from friends and, perhaps, herself.

Over the next week, when I thought about Emily, I wondered what other secrets she’d concealed and why she did so. It also struck me that, although she was attractive, Emily expressed almost no sexuality in her manner and appearance.

Early in the next session, I asked about Emily’s sexual relationship with Josh. Patients often have difficulty discussing sex, and Emily wasn’t an exception. She quickly challenged me, asking why the topic was important.

I told her that I was trying to examine all the possible sources for her difficulties with men so that we might find the best way to approach her dilemma.

She paused, frowned, and then admitted that she rarely spoke about sex, even with her girlfriends. When I asked why, she said that despite her liberal attitude toward sex in general, she found it “embarrassing” to discuss on a personal level.

I explained that most people would agree with her, but added that embarrassment is like any other feeling, and there’s no better place to experience it than within the walls of the therapy room.

She decided to go ahead and talk about Josh—although she couldn’t quite look at me as she spoke. She and Josh had never had “hot” sex, she admitted, and now they weren’t having any sex at all.

When I asked why, Emily’s face flushed. “No chemistry,” she said. “Never, actually.”

Emily was clearly uncomfortable, nervously shifting in her chair as she talked; she still refused to make eye contact. But over the years, I’ve learned that discomfort can yield substantial rewards, so I continued.

Emily told me about her conventional childhood in a Midwestern household. Her parents were teachers who recognized the importance of sex education in school, but as in so many families, sex was not discussed at home. And there were no signs that sex was a part of her parents’ marriage.

I asked her how she was feeling right at that moment.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Sex isn’t easy to talk about. I try not to think about it. So I guess I’m anxious.”

I asked her if she wanted to stop, because the questions I was about to ask were more challenging.

She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said.

I’ve found that patients say “I don’t know” when it’s true. And also when it’s not true. So I seldom pay attention to the words. Instead, I reassured Emily that she could stop the conversation at any time.

She nodded.

I then asked about her first sexual experience.

“You don’t mess around,” she said, and laughed. She explained that it was with a boy she’d dated during her freshman year in college, and the experience didn’t amount to much. While at school, she never got serious about anyone, and although she often had sex with the men she dated, only once did she consider it “hot.”

I registered this as important and planned to return to it, but for now, Emily was opening up and sharing information and I chose not to interrupt.

During her time in New York, she dated regularly but lost interest in men after a few months. While she occasionally had sex with these men, she never really enjoyed it. “Sex isn’t that important to me,” she said.

“Why is that?” I asked. She replied that she didn’t have a strong sex drive.

When the conversation wound down, I returned to the information I’d noted earlier and asked her to describe the experience in college that she felt was hot.

Again, she looked away. “Even though it was a long time ago, I remember it really clearly. He had an amazing energy.”

“What does that mean exactly?” I asked.

“He had this intensity about him—the way he moved, how he spoke, the way he paid attention to me. I was very attracted to him physically. Like I said before, that doesn’t happen to me very often.”

“What about his intensity was so attractive?”

She paused again. “I don’t know. He exuded masculinity. I’m kind of ashamed to say that. I don’t like those stereotypes, but most of the guys I meet aren’t like that. They’re just nice guys. Not that Ken wasn’t nice, but he definitely had an edge. There was nothing boyish about him. He was visiting a friend of mine and we had sex a few times over the week that he was around.”

I decided to take another chance and told her that I was about to ask some very personal questions, but that she would soon understand why.

She nodded slowly, which I took as permission to continue. I then asked her to describe with as much detail as possible her sexual relationship with Ken.

“He was very confident,” she said. “He was in control from the start. He was aggressive, but not in an overwhelming way at first.”

“What was your reaction to his aggressiveness?”

“I liked it. I feel funny saying this, but even though I didn’t really know him, I wanted to let go with him. I just wanted to let him do whatever he wanted.”

During the next few minutes, Emily described her memories of Ken. She seldom looked at me, focusing her eyes above my head and closing them slightly, like a cat focusing on some imperceptible object in the distance, as she recalled the best sex of her life.

“I liked that he dominated me. Even when I resisted, he’d have his way. That was a total turn-on. I enjoyed the feeling of submitting, being completely powerless with him. The last time we hooked up we spent all day in bed. I was really comfortable with him by then. It started slowly—a kiss on my neck, teasing my earlobe with the tip of his tongue. Then he made me strip for him while he sat and watched with his clothes on. He gave me instructions to do things to myself, to touch myself and get off in front of him. I’d never done that before. I don’t even like looking at myself naked, but I really liked it. He would ask me to walk over to him, and he would make out with me. I would pull the zipper of his jeans down. Then he would abruptly push me away.”

The more Emily talked, the more she became animated, her shyness turning into excitement. And she was looking right at me, as though the memory were making her brave.

“Eventually his instructions became more extreme. I felt like I was in a swoon. I know it doesn’t sound romantic, but it was. After I proved that I would completely obey him, he rewarded me. He fondled me like I were a delicate piece of china. He made me come the first time with just the tenderness of his touch. The contrast with what had happened earlier thrilled me. Eventually we made love as sweetly and passionately as I ever could have imagined.”

Suddenly self-conscious, she blushed a little. “I know this isn’t exactly politically correct, but I loved the feeling of being powerless with him.”

I thanked her for her openness and asked her if she was willing to be uncomfortable for just a little longer. “I have a question that might seem even more intimate.”

She nodded her head and laughed. “Go ahead. I’ve come this far.”

“I’d like to talk more about your fantasies. What do you think about when you masturbate?”

“Wow,” she said, slightly stunned, and then she paused to think. “Well, I guess I don’t masturbate much.”

“Why?”

“Good question. I’m not sure that I want to keep going back to that place.”

“Which place?”

“The place I went to with Ken—being submissive.”

“But that is where you go then when you do masturbate?”

“Yes. I fantasize about what Ken and I did years ago. Sometimes I substitute other men I see on the street. But honestly, I don’t masturbate very much.”

“One more difficult question then we’ll stop for today. What actually makes you climax? What thought or image do you have in your mind when you orgasm?”

She looked straight at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked myself that.”

“Ask yourself now,” I said.

She hesitated. “It’s more a feeling than an image.”

“What’s the feeling?”

“Total helplessness. Powerlessness.”

I felt we were making good progress; we now had identified that Emily had unwittingly attached sexual pleasure to the desire to feel powerless—to be overwhelmed or dominated by a strong man.

But along with the pleasure came feelings of shame and guilt. Emily felt that by submitting in bed, she was in danger of compromising her identity as a strong woman. Unable to accept the paradox, she disowned her sexual desires and, in the process, grew increasingly alienated from her true self and from her partner. She repeatedly chose men who would protect her from this dilemma by never making her face it.

I wanted to understand more about the psychology of her situation, so over the next few sessions we talked about her relationship with her parents and siblings.

At first Emily described an average childhood. But when I asked about her relationship with her older brother, her mood turned sour. She sat up in her chair; her body stiffened defensively.

Her brother was the favored child, she said. “He could do no wrong. Both my parents adored him. He was a really talented athlete, like my father. Our lives were organized around practices, games, and going to sporting events. The television was always turned to the sports channels. I had no athletic talent and no interest in sports either.”

Anger building, she paused to compose herself. I wanted to respect this awkward moment, but because I knew this was the time to explore her emotions, I asked Emily how her brother had treated her.

“He was totally selfish. I don’t think either he, or my father for that matter, had any interest in me. I usually had to fight to get the family to do what I wanted, even something as simple as changing the channel.”

“What was that like for you?”

“Not fun,” she said.

“What did it feel like?”

Emily paused and then answered with a single word: “Powerless.”

I sat silently. The word “powerless” had appeared again. We both recognized what she had said, but I left the word hanging in the air.

The connection between her feelings about her father and brother and her experience with other men was becoming evident. I wanted to place this in the context of sex, so in our next session, I began by talking about the many mysteries of desire. I told her that scientists understood very little about sexual attraction. Still, most psychologists agreed that sexual desire formed during early adolescence and solidified by young adulthood. Emily listened carefully.

“People’s attractions are far more varied and original than anybody would like to admit. The details of these attractions are based on each person’s unique psychology.” I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts.

“As you noted last week, you felt powerless as a child because your father’s and brother’s interests dominated your daily life. We’ll probably never understand the mechanism for exactly how this occurred, but somehow you eroticized that feeling of helplessness. I believe your true desire, the desire to be dominated, is your unconscious way of managing those feelings.

“This may be difficult to understand, but perhaps, by making the choice to be sexually dominated, even in your fantasies, you are turning the feeling of powerlessness that had brought you such great pain into something pleasurable.”

Emily looked puzzled.

“I know this sounds paradoxical. But again, the experience of submitting to men—your brother and your father—is something you had no control over during your childhood, but, as a woman, by choosing to sexually submit—even if it’s only in your fantasies—you symbolically gain control over those childhood feelings. By converting the pain into pleasure, you become the master of your powerlessness.”

“Isn’t that kind of, well, twisted?” Emily finally said.

“Not at all,” I assured her. “The problem is not that you have these sexual desires. It’s that you’ve never acknowledged and accepted them. Instead, it sounds like you disowned your sexuality and chose men who would not threaten you as your father and brother had. You stayed safe but at the expense of being bored with men and being unable to sustain a relationship with one.”

“What do I do?” she asked.

“Many therapists,” I said, “would spend years helping you work through those issues concerning your father and brother with the hope that you might eventually give up what they considered to be pathological, or at least immature, erotic desires. But I’ve come to believe that although such a strategy might prove helpful in resolving family issues, most people’s true erotic desires will not necessarily change even after such a resolution.”

I went on to say that I have found it much more helpful for people to understand the meaning and purpose of their true desires and to honor rather than suppress them. I reminded Emily that only once in her many relationships had she followed those desires and that her brief affair with Ken was one of the most memorable experiences of her life. Her relationships became boring because she hadn’t respected her true desires and instead chose men for other reasons. By forbidding her physical attractions, she had sacrificed her core sexual identity.

“That formula has consistently failed,” I said. “In fact, I believe that you intuitively understood this was happening again with Josh—which is why you chose to break off with him and enter therapy.”

Now I took another leap, recommending that Emily experiment with dating men to whom she felt truly attracted and with whom she might realize her fantasies.

“We’ve already established the importance of power in your erotic life and that your true desire is to be dominated, which is a perfectly reasonable and normal yearning. Now you just need to learn how to use this knowledge to make better choices than you’ve made in the past.

“I call this combination of sexual energy and self-awareness ‘intelligent lust.’ It’s a powerful force.”

“How does it work?” Emily asked.

“It’s something I’ve been working on with a lot of my patients for a while now.”

“But lust? Doesn’t that mean that I just marry the first guy I lust after?”

“No, not at all. You don’t want to be driven by lust alone. But you also don’t want to ignore your sexual drive. Either way, you’re giving up things that are important to you.”

Emily nodded at this last sentence, knowing that she had made many poor choices over the years.

I continued. “Soon we can discuss how to use intelligent lust to guide your dating. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. What you need to do right now is figure out what qualities in men truly turn you on—the things that you feel make a man hot. And, of course, it’s important to understand what those qualities represent.

“Let me give you an example. Let’s say you feel attracted to men with short, thick bodies. When you stop to ask yourself why, the answer comes back that this type of body seems strong and powerful to you. Without even being aware of it, you conjure up feelings of submissiveness. Others who didn’t eroticize power might not find these qualities a turn-on; they’d be attracted to different qualities.

“For you, just thinking this way will represent a pretty radical change, since rather than honoring your true desires in the past and choosing men with the qualities that turned you on, you denied them.

“Are you still with me?”

She nodded her head. “Yes,” she said in a barely audible, but excited, whisper.

“Then let’s take this next step. Between now and your next session, I’d like you to think about the qualities in men that most attract you, maybe even write them down. Think about chemistry. Try not to censor yourself. Let your mind roam freely. You’re probably already aware of those qualities but have never sat down and actually thought them through.”

The following week Emily’s demeanor seemed lighter. She’d done her homework and generated a list of new discoveries. “Tall. Lean. Athletic body. Also, a rough beard, small tattoos, strong hands, and a distinctly cocky manner. And a certain smell, the natural kind a guy has after a long day.”

None of the men she’d dated in the past possessed these qualities.

Now we talked about what the qualities symbolized. For Emily, a rough beard represented masculinity; a tattoo meant toughness; strong hands suggested power. This was the first time she had consciously thought about these attractions.

Emily was ready to move to the next step and discover what her fantasies meant. At the end of this session, I gave her more homework.

“I’d like you to think about all the details of your sexual fantasy. Ask yourself about the actual story surrounding the theme of domination and submission. Identify the action and the plot. What are you doing? What is your partner doing? What words are spoken? How do you feel? How does the fantasy end?”

I told her that if she had difficulty imagining the details, she could masturbate to conjure them up. She squirmed uncomfortably in her chair—a perfectly natural reaction.

In the next sessions, Emily reported, with mild embarrassment, that she had masturbated several times. The narrative in her fantasies remained constant: A man possessing her desired qualities convinced her to have sex during a long, intense conversation in which she challenged his cockiness, but ultimately surrendered. Sex started slowly, with gentle touching and kissing, but intensified as the man grew more persistent and demanding.

“Eventually,” she said, “he’d get his way. I’d do anything he asked, like I was under his spell.”

Now she became more animated, wanting to describe things in greater detail. “You asked me to think about how my fantasy ended. I figured out something that surprised me. I always ended up on top. I would make him come through my movements. Then I would have an orgasm too.”

An interesting twist: In each fantasy she turned the tables and put herself in control of her partner’s orgasm. I remarked, quite conscious of my wording, that it must be a powerful feeling to bring someone to climax in such fashion.

“Now that you understand this, it sounds like you’re ready to replace the fantasy with real experiences,” I added.

In the next sessions the topic was dating. We determined that Emily should be on the lookout for men with whom she felt chemistry based on the qualities she had identified. Now that she could allow it, sexual attraction would be her compass. She would be open to any man she met, regardless of his background. Most importantly she would stay open to her true desires as well.

Over the next six months, as we discussed other aspects of intelligent lust, I prepared Emily to apply the steps of intelligent lust to dating—in other words, to connect her fantasies to reality. Through coaching, she was becoming comfortable with the idea of acting them out. Emily dated frequently, each time becoming increasingly comfortable reading her sense of attraction. She let go of the artificial limits she’d created about similar backgrounds, ages, experience, and interests. With coaching, she talked about sex more easily. Men who seemed uncomfortable by the conversation did not make it to the next date.

“I feel empowered,” she said. “I rarely get bored anymore. If I lose interest in a guy, I know why and I move on without wasting time. Chemistry isn’t only about sex. It’s also about enjoying differences and the tension they create. I’ve had some amazing fun with guys. I’ve gone on dates that would have been totally out of my comfort zone a year ago.”

One evening, Emily and some friends went to a club to watch a rock band perform, and she was drawn to one of the musicians, Dan. He was stocky rather than lean, but he exuded masculine energy.

“He looked like a bit of a bad boy,” she later told me. “The kind of guy I never would have let myself be interested in before.”

Feeling confident, she stayed behind after her friends left and struck up a conversation. “We had a few drinks, flirted wildly, and exchanged phone numbers. He called the next day.” Soon they were dating.

As she got to know Dan over the next several months, she learned that he was a native New Yorker who made his living as a physical trainer. “He’s totally comfortable in his body and not at all shy about sex,” Emily said. “I feel really comfortable with him. We had amazing chemistry from the start. We’ve already done a lot of sexual exploring. We’re totally compatible. Best of all, I think I could fall in love with him.”

When I inquired about the differences in their backgrounds, she said, “He loves that I’m a strong, successful woman. He has a lot of respect for me, and I do for him. He never tries to dominate me outside of the bedroom. In fact, we do a lot of what I want. I mean, it’s not perfect. Stuff comes up. He hates that I work so late. He’s not super-sophisticated. I don’t like some of his friends and he doesn’t like many of mine. But it works. We have so much going for us.”

“What else do you have going for you other than what you already mentioned?” I asked.

Emily explained that in the process of exploring sex, the couple had developed a level of honesty, openness, and trust that Emily had never imagined possible. This fortified their bond and carried over into all aspects of their life together.

Emily had moved into the final stage in using intelligent lust, naturally, with little guidance from me.

“We talk about everything,” she said. “I think that once we felt safe talking about sex, we weren’t afraid to talk about anything. Isn’t that the idea? To let yourself go? To take a risk and make yourself vulnerable even though you could be rejected—or wind up feeling like a fool?

“I think this makes us open about other emotions. Dan will come to me and tell me if I’ve hurt his feelings. And I know I can talk to him about whatever makes me feel insecure. If we can tell each other our wildest sexual thoughts—and even explore them—we can certainly support each other in whatever else we do in life. For the first time in my life, I really feel like myself.

“In the past, I’d hide my sexual feelings. How can you communicate and grow when you’re hiding something that important?”

“It sounds like you’ve developed a strong sense of self-respect,” I said.

“I think so,” she said. “I know more about myself than I ever imagined—and I see who Dan really is in all his complexity. We know each other’s good and bad and we still love and admire each other.”

In six months I’ll see Emily for a follow-up session. I don’t know whether she and Dan will still be together. Life is unpredictable. But I do know that all human beings have an indomitable need for health and fulfillment, and Emily will be much closer to both.

ALYSSA’S THOUGHTS

As a thirty-five-year-old woman myself and a counselor who works primarily with women in their thirties, I find that Emily’s case has particular relevance to me. In my experience it is often during this time in life that women seek out counseling, and it is, more often than not, due to dissatisfaction with their relationships and their sex lives. Emily was able to identify that the choices she was making in her life were not bringing her the results she wanted. She was beginning to internalize and interpret this dissatisfaction as some sort of character flaw, a fixed trait that most likely would cause a lifetime of loneliness.

In my experience, it is also not uncommon for women to attribute a sexual incompatibility to “low sex drive,” though virtually all of them can describe times in their lives or partners with whom sex was frequent and satisfying.

Yet some part of Emily was able to recognize that perhaps an increased awareness in her underlying causes and motivations for her choices could help her change patterns, change the course of a fate she was hesitating to see as being sealed. That perhaps she could gain insight or learn a practice that could allow her to make decisions with more intention and consciousness. By dating men who “looked good on paper,” Emily was only dipping her toe into the possible choices she had in partners. This is where many women are, a place that feels comfortably concrete. But by recognizing in herself only what was at the tip of the iceberg, she was missing information that held more substance.

Perhaps because I am a younger female practitioner, or perhaps because I live in Portland, a notably sex-positive and generally sexually permissive city, many clients who approach my services are comfortable talking about at least some aspects of sex. They typically have an idea of whom they are attracted to and what turns them on. Where I find most of my clients become stuck is in the process of translating their desires into action, the process of seeking out and finding appropriate partners and then in addressing their desires with them. The practice of assertiveness, or asking for what you want, is one that can be learned. Many women lack assertiveness skills, and there are many reasons for that, socialization and fear of rejection being at the top of the list. By first understanding the meaning of her desires, Emily was able to then translate insight into action, seeking out someone who was a better fit for her. She then expressed her desires in a way that showed integrity and confidence, despite the fact that it may have felt new and scary. This shift, the increased awareness and intentional action, makes it possible for many women to accept themselves and create relationships in all areas of their lives, both personally and professionally.