Introduction
“Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.”
—HENRY ELLIS
If you’re like most of us, the subject of sex makes you at least a little uneasy, if not completely uncomfortable. Sex is shrouded in so much mystery and secrecy and considered so personal that it’s a wonder we can ever have an honest conversation about it. But if we could talk freely and openly with each other, we would discover that sex means something different to everyone, often something far from the ideas that Hollywood and Madison Avenue feed us.
Some of us think of sex as a simple act of physical pleasure, while for others it’s a way of communicating deep feelings, and still others see sex as a spiritual experience. The definition of sexual activity also differs from person to person. It can be kissing, touching, intercourse, bondage, oral, conversational, punishing, dominating, wrapped in leather, romantic, observing, disciplining, and much, much more. It is as varied as our individual personalities.
But what usually doesn’t come to mind when we think about sex is what is actually happening when we engage in it with a real person. Sex creates a moment of extreme intensity in which our entire inner life—our history and imagination—is expressed in actions. It is an altered state of consciousness in which the past and the present, body, mind, and spirit, all merge to form a new reality unlike any other experience in our lives. Depending on the circumstance, sex can be either physically and mentally gratifying or alienating and unfulfilling.
Because sex is so compelling at all these levels, it is frequently in our thoughts. I have been a psychotherapist in New York City for thirty-six years, and during this time, I have counseled innumerable patients. In nearly every case, regardless of the problem that led someone to seek therapy, the conversation has inevitably turned to sex.
Some patients express disappointment over the amount of sex in their lives, some are frustrated by a partner’s lack of interest in sexual experimentation, some are concerned about sexual performance, some look in the wrong places to fulfill their desire, and still others are simply curious about their sexual fantasies and desires.
What I tell everyone, no matter what their issue, is that sex is more than any of these topics. It is a doorway into our deepest psyches. More importantly, sex can help heal our lives. By discovering our true sexual desires, as well as uncovering their origin, sex can be much more than just great. It can be life-changing.
This book will guide you to understanding your true sexual nature and show you how to use those insights as tools for enjoying smart sex, a kind of experience that will lead to personal and spiritual growth and a truly fulfilling life.
Why? Because true sexual fulfillment is based on self-knowledge and authenticity—not just the sexual act itself.
Here’s my theory:
I have never met someone who has grown out of childhood without some conflict or unmet need. For most of us, the pain or unhappiness associated with these conflicts does not preoccupy our current thoughts and feelings, but does become part of our individual psychology, setting the stage for how we interact with the world.
As human beings, we are naturally driven toward self-healing, whether it’s a small cut on our skin or a deep psychological trauma. Self-recovery enhances our chances of physical and emotional survival in the world. We are designed to do whatever we can to lessen pain.
At some point during the heightened sexuality of adolescence, we unconsciously eroticize these unmet needs or unresolved conflicts from childhood in a complicated attempt to heal ourselves. In other words, we turn early painful experiences into pleasurable ones in order to counteract their power over us. As human beings, we are driven toward reconciliation and catharsis.
As we grow into adults, these same conflicts, which now have sexual themes, are coded in our fantasies and desires or, in some cases, our sexual behavior. Through our sexuality, we attempt to gain mastery over feelings of powerlessness, shame, guilt, fear, and loneliness that might otherwise defeat us.
To help clarify this idea, here’s an example from one of my patients: thirty-eight-year-old Sarah, the only child of unhappily married parents. Sarah’s father, a warm and affable man, had failed in business as a contractor because, out of kindness, he often underestimated the cost of jobs, giving his clients bargains he couldn’t afford. He also had a secret habit of gambling on weekends and, over the course of a few years, lost the family savings. Furious, Abby, Sarah’s mother, never let her husband or Sarah forget this; Sarah was constantly compared to her father for her weaknesses and inability to assert herself in the world. Over the years, Abby’s anger grew increasingly abusive.
Sarah secretly wished that her father would stand up to Abby’s attacks and protect her—and himself. Instead, he withdrew from the family by sitting in front of the television for endless hours. Sarah felt abandoned by her father as he faded from her life.
During adolescence, Sarah daydreamed about sailors and sea captains and devoured romance novels with these themes. By the time she reached her late teenage years, like most boys and girls, she was flooded with confusing sexual feelings. Soon she was having sexual fantasies in which she was kidnapped by pirates, only to be later rescued by a strong and handsome sea captain. In her fantasies she unconsciously found an erotic solution to her childhood feelings of helplessness and abandonment by inventing a story in which she was held captive and finally rescued.
These fantasies reflect a common pattern. Not only are they enormously enjoyable but, enacted under the right circumstances, they can also counteract feelings of powerlessness, guilt, shame, fear, or loneliness, and, remarkably, heal old and deep wounds. By sexualizing unmet needs and childhood conflicts, we convert the pain associated with these experiences into pleasurable events.
Our true sexual desires, such as Sarah’s rescue fantasy, emerge out of an unconscious attempt to work through deep-seated feelings.
For many of us, our true desires (and their meanings) remain hidden from our awareness. When we are conscious of them, they are often shadowed by shame; we tend to think of them as deviant, perverse, or sinful because we do not understand their significance and instead internalize how powerful institutions such as religion and psychology have defined them. We police, deny, suppress, or keep our erotic lives secret. In the process, we disown an important part of who we are and who we could become.
The consequences of this denial can be enormous. If we do not understand our true desires, we can easily be lost in the dark. We may well choose the wrong partner. Or, if we act on lust alone without understanding the nature of our desire, we may mistakenly become attached to someone simply because we have great sex with him/her.
Likewise, if we choose a mate solely on the basis of personality or family background, we may attain stability or security, but sex can feel boring, empty, or, in time, entirely disappear from the relationship. Even when we do have a good time sexually, if we are not sharing our deepest desires and fantasies, we miss the opportunity to widen our vision and fully engage our true selves.
On the other hand, if we set out to identify our true sexual desires and the unmet needs or conflicts they serve to counteract, we take a giant step closer to wholeness. We lift our attention upward and create an experience of life based on self-knowledge and self-acceptance. From this position of strength, we can choose a partner with whom we create a sexual and emotional bond that satisfies our deepest needs. We can enjoy smart sex, and we can live in intelligent lust.
INTELLIGENT LUST
What is intelligent lust? It is a process in which we discover these true sexual desires. By that I mean we bravely explore what really turns us on and then begin to think about where those desires come from and what they mean. Then, perhaps the most challenging but exciting part, we use these insights to create a meaningful, satisfying, and healing sexual life.
How can we identify our true sexual desire and use intelligent lust effectively?
The answer, which can be found in the pages of this book, is not complicated. You will be given step-by-step instructions on how to discern your true sexual desires, interpret what they mean, access the childhood conflict from which they originate, better understand chemistry, honor and communicate your true feelings, and act out fantasies in healthy ways.
You will also learn how to use sex to create a “restorative relationship” with a current partner or a new one—a relationship that counteracts the failures and disappointments that many of us experienced in our families of origin and subsequent romantic relationships. By virtue of its mutual respect, honesty, generosity, and trust, such a relationship helps repair old conflicts and satisfies the persistent longing of unmet needs. It helps us reconcile past feelings that stalk the present, releasing us from long-ago dramas and allowing us to attain a more fulfilling future. We’ll dive deeply into the specifics of a restorative experience in chapter 3.
Typically, people apply themselves industriously to school, work, friendship, health, raising children, and numerous other aspects of life. In the process of working hard, we acquire skills to succeed in these critical areas. With time, we can teach ourselves to become almost anything: a master cook, gardener, or tennis player.
But when it comes to sex, we leave it to happenstance or take a laissez-faire attitude. We expect sex to occur naturally without thinking or learning about how to succeed at having it. Even worse, there are successful movements to keep sex education out of the schools where young people can begin to explore their sexuality. And where courses do exist, the curriculum is so limited by conventional attitudes and political concerns that there is no true exploration of what sex really means. How can we be so fatalistic about it when sex is so central to our lives? There is so much to learn about sex and how we can improve it.
This book will take you through the steps that will teach you to become an expert on your own sexuality. Sex will cease to be shaped by fate and the universe. Instead, as you gain knowledge and learn to take action around your fantasies and desires, sex will take you deep into your body, emotions, and soul and deep into the tangle of relationships. Sex will become more intimate, open, trusting, and generous. And, without question, more fun.
More intimacy does not mean less autonomy. More passion does not mean less stability. In discovering your true desires, you open the closet door and take stock of all that’s in it. You get to know yourself by observing what you’ve shelved or hidden behind other things. As the pieces of your erotic history and their meaning become clear, you become more authentic. Your fantasies and your actions begin to match because you can now reach into the closet without fearing what’s in it and instead use everything inside to create a fulfilling experience based on your own preferences and style.
Sharing sexual fantasies with our partners brings us closer to them. By joining fantasy with reality, we create an experience of authenticity with our partners that exponentially strengthens the union. Smart sex goes a long way because it brings pleasure, meaning, and fullness to life.
There are many reasons why you may have chosen to read Your Brain on Sex. You may simply be curious about human sexuality and see the book as a resource for understanding its complexities. But more than likely, you are having concerns about your own relationship to sex. Maybe you don’t feel good about it. Perhaps you’re having difficulty letting go and enjoying sex—you feel self-conscious, embarrassed, or ashamed so you avoid it. Maybe you have trouble choosing partners with whom you are sexually compatible, and therefore your sexual experiences end in disappointment. You might feel detached from sex altogether and wonder why you have no interest in it. Or maybe you’re unable to stop thinking about sex and worry that you have too much interest in it. Perhaps you delight in sex but stop short at orgasming and don’t understand the reasons why. Possibly you’re preoccupied with achieving an orgasm as if it were the only goal of sex. Certainly, some of you have picked up Your Brain on Sex because you’re in a long-term relationship and rarely have sex anymore. You’re worried about why this has happened and what you should do about it.
Whatever the specific reason that drew you to this book, you’re reading it now because you want to improve your sexual experience. You want to feel better about sex and about yourself. Your Brain on Sex will help you achieve these goals. It holds the key to understanding your sexuality and to achieving a more authentic and fulfilling sexual life.
Just as we take into account such variables as religion, family background, and education in choosing a perspective mate, sexual compatibility should be high on the list of considerations. Ideally, this process of self-discovery that takes place by following the steps of intelligent lust should happen before we choose a partner with whom we make a lifetime commitment.
When we undertake a fearless personal inventory of our desires and their origins, we will learn what it is we are truly attracted to and what would constitute the maximum level of sexual compatibility with a partner.
But many of us are already in committed relationships. In no way should this prevent us from embarking on this journey. Instead, we should enter it with eyes open, aware that discovering our sexuality through the steps of intelligent lust can challenge the stability of the relationship, particularly if a partner is unwilling to embark on a similar journey. A partner may fear that discussing sexual desires may be hurtful and create distance and thus refuse or avoid it. In fact, the opposite often proves to be true. We must do our best to involve our partner in the process. Ideally, Your Brain on Sex should be read together.
But single or coupled, the initial steps are meant to be undertaken independently. When you reach step 5 (chapter 8), you will be shown how to share your discoveries with a partner, long-term or not.
Part I, Introducing Intelligent Lust, will provide you with the road map for examining your true sexuality. It will give you the tools and constant support to reach below what you know about your sexuality and bring your subconscious thoughts and feelings to the surface. You’ll learn about the power of sex and its ability to heal old wounds and satisfy unmet needs.
Step 1, Getting in the Right Frame of Mind, will prepare you for the journey. Having the right attitude is essential to healing your sexual life. You’ll learn how to open your mind to your deepest thoughts and to get past social taboos and psychological prohibitions that cause you to limit your sexual experience. It will help you put aside what you have been told is “normal” and discover what your real sexuality is beyond the prescribed conventions you may feel compelled to follow. You’ll be instructed to keep a journal that you can use to record your insights and monitor your progress toward a more meaningful and satisfying sexual life.
Step 2, Identifying Fantasies and True Desires, helps you recognize your deepest desires as they are revealed through your sexual fantasies. By answering the questions in this section, you’ll begin to recognize what actually interests you sexually and perhaps even put into words desires that you have been afraid to acknowledge before. Descriptions of other people’s fantasies are included here because we often see ourselves in other people’s stories. You may recognize your fantasies and sort out their themes by comparing them to the ones described. You might even find yourself aroused or completely turned off by some of these stories, which will serve as a clue about what your true desire might be.
Step 3, The Meaning and Purpose of Desires: What Our Fantasies Say about Our Past, might be the most challenging. Most of us are mystified about where our sexual desires come from and how they were formed. We may wonder whether they have any particular meaning or significance in our lives. Why do we prefer certain kinds of sex? Why do we like sex that is rough versus sensual? Oral versus genital? Why do we get off on being dominant or submissive?
We learn a lot about sex as children from social institutions such as churches and schools and later in conversations with our peers and from the media. But nothing influences our sexuality more than our families and what we learn from them. What we sexualize is far from random. Behind every sexual desire is an unmet need or conflict that grew out of our childhood experiences. Our desires represent an unconscious attempt to counteract the feelings associated with these conflicts. This is a difficult concept to get our minds around. Step 3 provides examples of the types of unmet needs and conflicts that many of us experience in our childhoods. It teaches us to identify the feelings below these conflicts and to understand the ways we might have converted them into pleasurable sexual desires in an effort to heal ourselves from the pain these old conflicts continue to bring us as adults. By comparing your own experience with the family dynamics described in the case examples as well as by answering the questions asked in this chapter, you will be able to map the relationship between your history, your current feelings, and your true sexuality.
Chemistry is not as much of a mystery as most of us think. Once we’ve identified our true desires and their meaning and purpose in our lives, we will be able to make sense of our attractions to other people. Step 4, Cracking the Code of Sexual Chemistry, helps us identify exactly what turns us on or off about another person. We learn why tattoos, for instance, or blond hair excite us and unmarked skin or dark hair don’t. Here we will understand the specifics of chemistry, and the exercises provided will help us actually connect our ideas about attraction to the real people we come across in our daily lives.
While the first four steps of intelligent lust involve solitary explorations of our hidden thoughts and feelings, steps 5 and 6 involve a connection to other people. With our eyes now opened, we can begin to apply what we’ve discovered about ourselves to actual situations with partners.
Knowing with whom we are sexually compatible is essential to choosing the right partner—someone with whom we can be honest and open and with whom we can form the “restorative relationship” that is essential to healing old conflicts, satisfying unmet needs, and improving our chances of sexual gratification. Step 5, Determining Sexual Compatibility, teaches how to find out if a potential partner will meet or disappoint our expectations whether we want a short-term affair or a long-term relationship. The questions and exercises in this step challenge us to be direct, open, honest, and generous with potential partners as well as show how to determine their capacity to do the same. It calls into question typical dating protocol and offers a new direction for more authentic dating experiences. This step teaches us what makes us compatible with someone on multiple levels and how we can join with a partner in an effort to help correct past relationships and heal old wounds and at the same time enjoy amazing sex.
If you are already in a committed relationship, this is where you will learn how to share what you have discovered about your sexuality with your partner. Up until this point, it’s been an independent exploration. If your partner has been following the steps as well, it’s also the time for him to discuss with you what he has learned. The information in this chapter will guide you in integrating your partner into the world of your true desires. (Those of you whose partners haven’t joined you on the journey or who you suspect may not share your sexual preferences can skip this step and jump ahead to chapter 10, When You’re in a Committed Relationship and You’re Not Sexually Compatible. You may have the chance to return to it later.)
Having established our “theoretical” sexual compatibility with a potential or long-term partner through the exercises in step 5, we come to a whole new level of interaction in step 6—Acting Out Sexual Fantasies. Here, actions speak louder than words. Through the exercises suggested in this chapter, we bring into alignment what we have discovered about our true sexual preferences with actual sexual experiences by physically enacting our desires with a partner. The exercises prepare us for sexual encounters rich with opportunities for engaging our innermost fantasies and preferences. Body, mind, and soul are merged through action, creating a level of authenticity within ourselves and with another person never previously achieved in sex. Achieving greater confidence in who you are takes away the fear of losing yourself in your partner’s needs and desires. You want to satisfy his needs while taking care of your own at the same time. Whatever your past reasons might have been, you no longer worry about being overwhelmed or smothered by a partner, or have a need to retreat because you feel secure enough in who you are to surrender to the passion of the moment.
This is what turns great sex into smart sex. By that I mean sex that is driven by self-knowledge and self-esteem, two of the fundamental goals of intelligent lust.
In completing the steps of intelligent lust, we’ve changed. We feel better not only about our sexuality but also about who we are as people. We understand the profound connections between our past and our present and have a strong sense of our future goals for sexual self-actualization. And if we are in a relationship, we’ve learned how to use sex to improve it.
Part II, Living with Intelligent Lust, will give you the opportunity to deepen your understanding of your sexual experience by focusing on the particulars of your circumstance. If you’re in a committed relationship, you’ll find advice here. What do you do if you’re not sexually compatible with your longtime partner? What if you have no interest in sex or the opposite, you’re sexually compulsive? You’ll find answers to some of these difficult questions in this section.
Chapter 10, When You’re In a Committed Relationship and You’re Not Sexually Compatible, will provide specific guidance for how to integrate a partner into the life of your true sexual desires. Through case examples, it will also show how different couples handle differences in sexual desires. But what do you do when you’re in a long-term relationship and you discover you’re not at all sexually compatible? This chapter includes some suggestions.
Successfully forging a relationship based on respect, honesty, trust, openness, and generosity by following the steps of intelligent lust better prepares us for dealing with the issues and crises that typically occur in relationships over time. Chapter 11, The Advantage of Sex, emphasizes the importance of making smart sex a priority. It highlights the advantages of such a “restorative relationship.” A dramatic case example demonstrates the trust and strength a couple can have in dealing with an unexpected blow to their relationship.
Some of you are reading Your Brain on Sex because you are concerned about specific problems such as a lack of sexual interest, too much interest in sex, or the combination of sex with alcohol and drugs. Chapter 12, When Enjoying Sex Seems beyond Your Control, will help you understand the possible reasons for these problems and offer recommendations for handling them. You may indeed want to read that chapter first.
My intention for you in following the steps of intelligent lust is not to idealize smart sex, but instead to realize it. How quickly you succeed in getting there will depend, of course, on the speed at which you travel. Moving too slow or too fast has its risks, and of course, no journey is without some detours and obstructions. You will intuitively know what you can handle and exactly when. Trust yourself. In the end, you will be grateful for what you’ve learned, the changes you’ve made, and the promise of a more fulfilling future.
Psychotherapy is as much an art as a science. Within the context of a given theoretical model, clinician individual, styles emerge over numerous years of practice in which they learn the strengths and limitations of their ideas as well as the personal qualities they exercise to implement those theories. I have discovered over a long time that the best therapy is a reciprocal experience in which both the therapist and patient are transformed by the process. The case stories that populate this book are taken from my thirty-six years of practice. While I use them to illustrate and dramatize the ideas proposed in this book, it was also through the richness of each encounter with these patients that I was able to formulate and codify my thinking into the map that I offer you in the pages.
Because the personal background of any therapist—age, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and other factors—heavily influences his or her thoughts and actions and consequently his or her general approach to therapy, I have always found it useful to consult with colleagues whose backgrounds differ widely from my own. In evolving my ideas about intelligent lust, I discussed theories, presented cases, and even succeeded in getting some colleagues to follow the steps of intelligent lust themselves. Our discussions helped me expand and modify my original ideas to include what I present to you now.
In recent years, I have also delighted in the opportunity to engage in regular conversations about therapy with my daughter Alyssa, a licensed professional counselor in Portland, Oregon.
I am fortunate to have a colleague who knows me well and also feels comfortable enough to question and even challenge my thinking where other colleagues might not. As much as I could share the experience I gained from thirty-six years of practice, Alyssa could introduce me to the latest scientific thinking and research as well as, with freshness and excitement, her own counseling discoveries. She has shown a particular interest in women’s sexuality and relationships, which perfectly complement my own. She is a member of The Society for the Study of Sexuality and leads a women’s therapy group. Consequently, the ideas that I was exploring with regards to intelligent lust were ones that we agreed she would experiment with, too.
While it may seem odd or even “creepy” for a father to engage his daughter in frank conversations about something as intimate as sex, I believe in treating the subject of sex with the same openness, honesty, and respect that I naturally would any other subject. As a therapist, friend, and father, I choose not to shroud sex in forms of secrecy and silence that foster dysfunctional and exploitative attitudes. My desire is to break down barriers and encourage healthy attitudes toward sex, acknowledge its value as a healing experience, and emphasize the meaning and satisfaction that smarter sex can bring to our lives.
As Alyssa learned to apply the steps of intelligent lust with her clients, we discovered that there were important gender and generational differences that influenced the particular direction of every case. As a result of our exchanges, my practice has been enriched by the perspective of a heterosexual female therapist of a significantly different generation who lives and works on the West Coast.
I have asked Alyssa to comment on the ideas and cases where appropriate throughout the pages of Your Brain on Sex, with the hope that her comments will enrich your experience, too.
NOTE ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY
The identities of patients in this book have been carefully disguised in order to protect their privacy and the confidentiality of their therapy.