CHAPTER 11

The Advantage of Sex

Sex is an affirmation of life. By making sex a prominent part of it—placing it on the top of our list of priorities—it helps us face daily challenges in other parts of our lives. No matter what struggles there are, we put them aside and establish a time and place to embrace desire and pleasure. We are less likely to fight over folding the laundry or the details of renovating the house when we feel sexually satisfied. By following the steps of intelligent lust, we cultivate a physical and emotional language that allows our deepest emotions to be expressed and understood, constantly injecting new vitality into our relationship and increasing the quality of our lives together. Smart sex is better than great sex because it leads to building a relationship in which our sexual desires can be used to heal childhood conflicts and satisfy unmet needs that we have carried into adulthood. Communication, respect, trust, and generosity that begin in the bedroom find their way into every aspect of the relationship. Intelligent lust gives us an advantage in dealing with life.

Relationships that grow out of this process are stronger than those based on other factors such as social standing, security, or similarities in backgrounds and religion. Many of those so-called well-matched relationships fail because sex and sexual compatibility have not been a priority, and the relationship lacks that connection and all the ingredients that go into making it.

Whether it’s because of self-denial, poor communication, or misunderstanding of our true desires, problems arise in the relationships when thoughts and feelings go unspoken and resentments and frustrations build. When a relationship lacks the restorative elements of self-acceptance, transparency, and authenticity gained by following the steps of intelligent lust, there is often self-serving, abusive, or manipulative behavior taking place instead.

Typically when this occurs, men are more likely to express their frustrations by acting them out by drinking or engaging in secret affairs than they are by inviting discussion. We’ve all heard the refrain—“Men think with their dicks, not with their brains.” For women, conversation usually comes first. But after a few attempts fail, their behavior usually grows more covert, using criticism to undermine a partner’s self-esteem or playing the victim or martyr in an attempt to gain sympathy or, in some cases, living in a state of silent contempt.

On the other hand, in relationships in which smart sex is the centerpiece, behaviors like overreacting, acting out, or passive-aggression are less likely to occur. And a secret affair doesn’t typically happen when people are continuously communicating about their needs, sexual and otherwise.

The fact is that we are all driven by the same insecurities and frustrations. It’s not that “men are pigs” or “women are selfish bitches”; it’s that those relationships that favor secrecy over transparency, pretense over authenticity, detachment over intimacy, ritual over exploration, are much more vulnerable to trouble. Relationships are systems in which problems grow out of the interactions of everyone involved. “Bad” behavior doesn’t happen as an isolated act. Scratch the surface of the relationship and you will discover a cycle of actions, reactions, and counteractions that lead to it.

Of course, new challenges occur over time for every couple. Their resolutions require a process of direct communication, understanding, and problem solving. Couples who have investigated their sexual and emotional connection by following the principles of intelligent lust have already proven their ability to handle difficult and sensitive issues.

Margaret and Frank faced such a challenge.

FAITH THROUGH SEX: MARGARET AND FRANK

Frank’s father, a career military man who joined the army right out of high school, prided himself in his well-behaved children, an accomplishment he believed derived from strict military protocol. But Frank silently suffered throughout his childhood and adolescence. By the time he reached college, he had eroticized being a disciplinarian himself and became aroused by thoughts and images of administering punishment to his partners.

Margaret had grown up in a strict religious household in which sex was considered shameful. As a young woman, she felt guilty for having sexual thoughts, yet could not do anything to control them. In fact, whenever she heard her friends talking about sex, she was instantly aroused.

As we began to examine her sexual thoughts and fantasies during therapy, Margaret realized that what truly excited her was what she called “dirty talk.” A well-adjusted middle-school teacher, she imagined men calling her sexual names and describing to her how they would engage her in a variety of sexual acts. For this, of course, she also felt guilty and believed she should be punished. With therapy, she came to accept and appreciate the purpose of these fantasies as she understood more about how she had eroticized childhood religious beliefs that she now felt had been unfairly imposed upon her.

During the dating phase of our work together, Margaret met Frank at a teacher’s conference where he was making a presentation as the vice principal of a nearby school district. Over the course of several dates, Margaret talked openly with Frank about sex, during which time they recognized that their turn-ons were complementary. In time, they began to experiment by acting them out. They negotiated the terms of the initial sexual scene through conversation and boundary setting. Frank would talk dirty to Margaret, telling her about all the things he was going to do to her; this would arouse her tremendously.

Later in the scene, Frank would discipline her for behaving like a “naughty” girl, which would excite him tremendously as well. They repeated this scene regularly, each time changing the script, sometimes wearing costumes or uniforms, and often stretching the boundaries. These negotiations required enormous trust and respect, as well as a level of honesty and freedom that neither had ever imagined could be possible with anyone.

It was not only in sex that they related so well. The couple came to enjoy doing many things together outside the bedroom, where they learned to treat each other with the same respect that marked their sexual scenes.

As time went on and life presented them with the usual difficulties, the couple seemed able to navigate them with greater ease than many of the other couples they knew. They had built a foundation for conversation and negotiation in which nothing was off-limits. They could apply these skills to any problem.

Then a crisis occurred: a student accused Frank of soliciting her for sex. He vigorously denied the charges to school officials—and to Margaret—but despite his denial, he was placed on probation until an investigation had been completed.

Margaret found the charges ridiculous. Not only did she believe Frank’s denials due to their mutual trust, the details of the girl’s accusations did not match up with what Margaret knew about Frank’s sexual preferences. For Margaret, the trust and respect that she had nurtured with Frank, which started with sex, extended way behind beyond the bedroom walls. By establishing sex as a priority in their relationship, they continually explored the nuances and subtleties of their desires with emotional honesty and, in the process, cultivated a profound understanding of one another that permeated every aspect of their lives.

While Frank was on probation, Margaret stood by him, defending him to friends and family against their judgments. Luckily, the student eventually confessed to her mother that she had fabricated the accusations to distract school officials from her failing grades. The case was closed, and Frank was reappointed to his position.

OVER THE LONG-TERM

Intelligent lust isn’t about immediate gratification.

As our experience matures, we discover the deeper subtleties and nuances of our own and our partner’s erotic truth. Over time, as past conflicts heal, desires change too. Couples may find themselves less interested in the kind of sex that once attracted them. Underneath the sexual compatibility that originally drew the partners together, there are deep psychological and spiritual connections. And while the frequency or intensity of sex may decline or entirely disappear, the ability to handle life’s complex emotions only increases with experience. Even if one partner changes at a different pace than the other, the standard of life we’ve fostered over the long-term, with its deep respect and trust, sustains us. We’ve established a life outside of the bedroom in which creativity and pleasure continues to hold a central place even when sex doesn’t.

SHOCK TREATMENT: BARBARA AND GRETCHEN

When my patient Barbara started dating Gretchen during Barbara’s last year of college, they were both political activists, members of the feminist caucus on campus. They were attracted to each other as much by their political beliefs as by their physical appearance and attitude. From their first date, Gretchen was generous with her praise and affection toward Barbara, which is exactly what Barbara had hoped for in a mate, having grown up with little of either as the only daughter among four competitive brothers.

By the time Barbara was fourteen, she recognized that she was “different” and that her attraction was to other girls. It never created much of a conflict for her. She simply accepted it as a natural expression of who she was and pursued her interests accordingly. What was more troubling to her, though, was that when she began to have sexual fantasies, she imagined herself as a delicate girl dressed in lace and frills. Barbara experienced herself as everything but delicate. Even as an adolescent, she was tall, thick, and muscular with a cocky attitude that mimicked her brothers. As she grew into adulthood, it became difficult for her to reconcile her fantasies with her feminist beliefs.

When she met Gretchen, she was electrified by her fierce intelligence and her forceful presence. When they became sexual after a few months of dating, they each felt that they had met their perfect match. Gretchen not only made up for the affection that Barbara missed during her childhood, but she was more powerful in bed, allowing Barbara to embrace her secret “girlie side,” which, surrounded by four aggressive brothers, she had learned to conceal. “Survival,” she told me in therapy, had depended on being as “tough and ballsy as they were.”

For twenty years Barbara and Gretchen built a life together, Barbara as a social worker advocating for abused women, Gretchen as a documentary filmmaker. They created a family of close friends, many of whom, like them, applied their feminist beliefs in their work.

While they were active sexually in their early years, as time moved forward, sex gradually diminished. But because the relationship was loving and supportive and had allowed each of them to play out their fantasies to the fullest, it had gratified those unmet needs from childhood for which their desires had served as antidotes. Acting out their sexual preferences had allowed them to integrate aspects of themselves that their role in their original families hadn’t permitted. Each grew to embrace the complexity of who they were. The relationship had been truly healing for both of them.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Barbara was standing at the window of her and Gretchen’s forty-eighth-floor apartment just five blocks from the World Trade Center, eating a bowl of her favorite cereal as she typically did before work. They had taken the apartment because the view of downtown was so sweeping. The Twin Towers stood as its centerpiece.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an airplane flying in the direction of the towers. Before she could even grasp what was happening, the plane flew into the tower and flames spread across her view. She dropped her breakfast to the floor, ran into the bedroom where Gretchen was asleep, woke her, and pulled open the shades.

“A plane crashed into the Trade Center,” she sobbed. But before she could finish her sentence another plane was headed for the second tower. Gretchen jumped out of bed and the two watched as the second plane hit. They stood at the window embracing, tears running down their cheeks as victims chose their deaths by jumping from their office windows.

When the towers fell and debris struck their building, they were evacuated down the darkened stairway, forty-eight flights, by firemen and, in the chaos, left to wander the streets. Dazed and bereft, they walked slowly uptown, choking on the smoke and smell until they arrived on the Upper West Side at the home of a good friend.

Three weeks later they were allowed to return to their apartment, which was now coated in ash. With the aid of the Environmental Protection Agency, the apartment was restored to normal, but outside the window was a huge gaping hole where the towers once stood. Now a bright searchlight lit the space twenty-four hours a day.

After the initial shock wore off, Barbara and Gretchen had opposite emotional reactions to the event. Barbara cherished all that she had in her life and felt especially close to Gretchen and others whom she loved, wanting to draw them even nearer. Gretchen felt, “Life is short and I better make the most of it.” While Barbara clung to Gretchen, wanting to spend precious time with her, Gretchen felt she “wanted to live in the moment.” That included having sex again. The couple had long ago given up their sexual relationship, but now Gretchen demanded one. The difference in their reactions was what brought them to therapy.

After some history gathering during the initial session, we focused on the events of September 11, six months earlier, and each of their experiences of the grief that followed. While they had repeated the story many times to friends, they connected deeply to their emotions, reliving each moment as they had remembered it, but now, without the veil of shock. It was a profound and moving session.

In the next session we talked about how the attacks had changed their attitude toward life. Gretchen spoke movingly about how easily life could be cut short and how important it was to make each day “meaningful and satisfying.” Barbara told about the “surge of love” she felt for Gretchen and her overwhelming desire to be in her presence. When Gretchen finally mentioned that sex was an important way to stay connected, Barbara said since neither of them seemed particularly interested in sex long before September 11, Gretchen’s renewed desire came as a great surprise.

“It just isn’t in my frame of reference anymore. I feel satisfied just being close to Gretchen, sleeping next her, holding her. I never felt our relationship was any less vital because we were no longer having sex.”

Unlike many couples who come for therapy, there was an ease in their communication that was accompanied by open exchanges of tenderness and affection. Not only was it clear that they cared deeply for each other, but they also cared about what each other needed.

“I don’t want to give up having sex for the rest of my life,” Gretchen said poignantly. “September 11 reminded me that I was missing it. It made me think of what I value. Something we did well together.”

Barbara nodded her head understandingly.

Previously, when I had tracked their sexual history, I had learned that early in their relationship they had gone through their own version of the steps of intelligent lust, which served as the foundation for a restorative relationship.

For Gretchen, sex became a way to counteract the powerlessness she felt as a child. Her parents were both “self-involved actors,” who seemed to “perform the role of parents rather than actually being them.” They were more like “shadows of people, and frankly they didn’t know what do with me. I kind of raised myself. I did what I wanted, when I wanted because I could, and it wasn’t always pretty.” By adolescence, she had turned sexually promiscuous, dominant, and aggressive with other girls. In effect, she had eroticized the lack of power she felt in gaining her parents’ attention and found it thrilling to discover a way to get others to respond to her. In college, she used that energy in her work as a social and political activist, rising to a leadership position for which she was highly respected on campus.

“When I met Barbara she was there, there! She was a real person and was really into me and that changed my life,” Gretchen said lovingly. “She was as strong and powerful as I was, but really tender in bed.” It became evident from our conversations that Barbara’s admiration for Gretchen, as well as her obvious desire for her sexually, had satisfied both of their needs. They quickly discovered that they were sexually compatible. In bed, Barbara could liberate her most “girlie” self without fearing rejection. Gretchen could freely express her dominance and enjoy Barbara’s femininity. Over time, they had many happy and playful moments, sometimes taking their “masculinity and femininity” to stereotypical extremes, often with humor.

As Gretchen’s story unfolded, I began to wonder if the trauma surrounding September 11 had awakened feelings of powerlessness and confusion similar to those that had once dominated Gretchen’s childhood but had since diminished through her loving partnership with Barbara.

Eventually I spoke. “Fear is such a primitive emotion. When we experience it as an adult, it triggers the emotional memories we have of it as a child. It’s like a highly combustible chain reaction. We automatically mobilize those defenses that worked for us in the past to try to contain the fear we feel in the present. I wonder if that might be going on now with you, Gretchen. I don’t mean to underestimate the importance of the idea of living in the moment or the importance of desire. But I have a feeling you’re taking things a step further, or perhaps a step back, more accurately, to how you protected yourself as a young person when you felt alone, frightened, and powerless in your family. I remember your motto: ‘I’ll do what I want, when I want to.’ And mostly that meant expressing your feelings sexually. You found strength as well as a way out of your loneliness by connecting sexually with other girls. I wouldn’t be surprised if those same underlying feelings are driving your sense of sexual urgency now.”

We sat in silence for what seemed like a long time but what was probably only a few minutes. Gretchen seemed to be taking in what I said. Her eyes began to well with tears. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. It didn’t occur to me.” She paused again. “I am scared. And I do feel helpless. I haven’t really let myself feel that since the day of the attack.”

Barbara gently reached for Gretchen’s hand. We sat in silence another few moments until Barbara spoke. “There’s been a lot of pressure on me to have sex, but to be honest, it didn’t feel like it was sex that you wanted. I was confused. I couldn’t figure out what you needed and give it to you. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to get off the hook about having sex. I’m not against it. It’s true that sex doesn’t matter to me the way it once did, but I can get into it again if that’s what you want. It’s just that I really didn’t feel that’s what you were asking for.”

Suddenly, a smile crossed Gretchen’s face. She wiped her tears with her hand.

“Can we have sex just for the fun of it then?” She laughed.

Barbara laughed too. “I’m game,” she said.

Barbara and Gretchen had always considered each other’s needs. Over the years, they maintained a relationship that was respectful and supportive, that had deep roots in their early experiences of sexual exploration. And while in later years, they had silently agreed to a relationship in which sex didn’t play a central role, Gretchen had raised the issue again in reaction to the fear aroused by the events surrounding September 11. As sometimes happens in therapy, a switch gets turned on. By recognizing the meaning she had placed on sex, Gretchen instantly felt free to handle it differently. The insight offered her a choice—a way to diffuse the heaviness and pressure she had placed on sex. She could deal with her current fear by discussing it with Barbara and uncouple it from the idea of renewing a sexual relationship. They could approach sex again without the sense of urgency. And from what I understand, they did.

ALYSSA’S THOUGHTS

Generosity

I think women of my father’s generation may have a harder time with issues of shame and guilt since conventional ideas of sexual morality are so deeply entrenched in their history. On the other hand, I think they also have a greater understanding of the generosity required to create meaningful and satisfying relationships. Many men and women of my father’s generation—that is, children of the 1960s—worked together in movements advocating for political and social causes, including civil rights, women’s rights, or protesting the war in Vietnam. There was a strong feeling of being in something together to benefit society as a whole—a kind of mass restorative experience that is ingrained in the consciousness of their generation. And while my generation and the following ones may have advanced on the ladder of sexual freedom and perhaps feel less shame about sex, they also have less of an understanding of the power of working collectively—“there for the greater good go I.”

I see a trend toward self-involvement in younger people rather than toward sharing and giving. Generosity seems to be an underappreciated concept among us, perhaps because we were the first generation to be truly indulged by parents who themselves rebelled against the restrictive upbringing of the 1950s. The feeling I get from my contemporaries is that life is more about “me” rather than “we.”

I have been using the steps of intelligent lust in my practice for the past several years and find that they can serve as an antidote to this. Intelligent lust not only makes sex a priority, but it also encourages empathy and equality: the ability to identify with a partner’s experience and give it as much legitimacy as our own. It fosters an understanding and respect for a partner’s interests and preferences. It values generosity above self-indulgence, beginning when we first enter into a dialogue about sex with a partner and continuing through acting out a partner’s fantasies. Intelligent lust has a very strong “we” factor. Not only is there the opportunity for each of us to heal our own past conflicts and satisfy our sexual and deeper needs, but we can also help a partner heal his or hers. This allows for both the element of fun and passion in sex as well as emotional attachment. I believe that while the steps of intelligent lust focus on self-exploration, the ultimate goal is sharing. And I have found that most partners are just as excited by discussing and acting out their partner’s fantasies as their own. It creates a sense of total openness and reciprocity and in turn allows each partner to relax into the experience. And knowing that you are acting out your partner’s desires, seeing them aroused, is often a great turn-on!

If we teach people about their sexuality early in their lives, they will have the tools to seek more authentic experiences right from the start. This should provide greater protection from blindly falling into relationships with partners with whom we are not sexually compatible and with whom sex grows empty, boring, or meaningless—a typical death knell to a relationship. Without a real understanding and respect for our unique sexuality, we are more likely to marry a partner for the wrong reason.