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I realised this past week that I had never posted on intimacy on this blog. I found this surprising. I’m not sure what prompted me – perhaps all the advertising about Valentine’s Day.
I wondered why I was reluctant to post about sexuality and I came up with two reasons.
- Being impatient will all the hollywood cum Mills and Boon approach that enough of the in love experience will fix everything in a relationship.
- Not wanting to get trapped in the physiology-is-what-it-is-all-about obsession with bodies.
What can I usefully say on this topic – on which there seems to be an avalanche of stuff always being said.
The statement that has stayed with me was from a sex therapist:
every day couples come to me with sexual problems. Every day I treat intimacy problems.
It would seem unusual for their to be many purely physical sexual problems (it’s a pretty primal thing, and even if we aren’t climbing the alps of ecstasy every time it is usually a pretty pleasant way to spend time). There are of course hormonal realities and if this is the problem then they can sometimes be addressed by medicine.
It seems more likely that sexual problems are more to do with our past and emotions. Many of us have had bad experiences with sexuality and even more of us have been told silly and unhelpful things about sexuality (that it is shameful to forget ourselves, that it is a ‘lower’ part of ourselves than our thoughts, that it needs to be disciplined or it will get out of control (which would be bad), or the reverse: that every sexual encounter should be perfect (one couple I know got rid of this by saying “this time’s just for practise”), it is the key to the meaning of life – imagine having to live up to those sort of messages!). Learning new attitudes may well be an important part of enjoying our sexuality.
Usually if we are comfortable being intimate with our partner then sexuality won’t be much of a problem. Intimacy doesn’t just happen though. We need time to catch up with ourselves emotionally. And we need time to get in touch with our partner too. We need the time and space to be undisturbed. And we need to be secure enough with ourselves and our partner to be in touch with what we like and they like.
In brief my opinion is: the best way to improve our sex lives is to focus on intimacy. If there are problems then it may be useful to talk to a therapist or doctor.
I hope this Valentine’s Day you have time for intimacy – sexual and non-sexual.
P.S. on a different topic. I have finished the text of a free report. Called “It’s Not About Success” (about 17,000 words). I plan to release it as a PDF in a few weeks to promote a course I will be opening for enrollments. You can get to it by clicking on “It’s Not About Success” or by clicking on that heading in the sidebar to your left under the heading “Site Info”. I would be most grateful to receive any comments at all that you have. Thanks. Evan
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