Persevere with sex

'Good sex is like good bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand' - Mae West (The Rosetta Vase, Grayson Perry.)

'If our sex life were determined by our first youthful experiments, most of the world would be doomed to celibacy. In no area of human experience are human beings more convinced that something better can be had only if they persevere' - P.D. James.

This blog suggests how you can persevere with sex, in order to get something better. It does this by, describing four ways, to make two mistakes, in sex. Providing ideas as to how these mistakes might be avoided. The two mistakes are : 1) considering other people too little and 2) sabotaging our wider goals. Mistakes that have traditionally been set apart.

This setting apart has come at a cost. It disregards everyone's capacity to make these mistakes. Making those mistakes more likely to happen. As if these mistakes could not be understood and so avoided. This blog is my contribution towards ending that oversight. It also aims to complement the 'me too' movement (Delavingne, 2022.) We begin feeling too much.

Feeling too much

You may have had the experience of feeling too happy, too anxious, too sad, too disgusted and/or too angry. At these times you may have felt out of control. You may not have known what to do. At the same time, as you grow up, you may learn that, experiences of intimacy and sexuality can help you regulate your emotions. It would be reasonable then to imagine that making an experience more intimate, or sexual, might be helpful when you feel too much.

However, to do this safely, you must remember these experiences involve another person. So mistakes can happen if you indulge in private fantasies, or choose to act them out, when with other people. In these ways you may intrude into another person's experience without their consent. Imposing your unregulated emotions on them. An experience that may be distressing for the other person.

I suggest, the better you are able to experience your emotions, without having to immediately act upon them. The less likely you are to make these mistakes. The skill of emotional regulation. Language is key to this skill. So the more able you are to talk about sex, the more likely, you will be able to safely engage in it. Talking with the person you would like to have sex with, before and while you have sex with them. This habit should help you to not consider other people too little or sabotage your wider goals. These two mistakes can also occur when you feel too little in your intimate and sexual encounters.

Feeling too little

'Who has done that?'; 'Why did you / I do that?'; 'Why didn't I / you do that?'

Sometimes you may make unconscious mistakes when feeling too little. These mistakes can be understood as the result of a dissociation. Dissociation is when you disconnect from your immediate environment. Providing an escape when it feels like there is no other escape. Perhaps, an escape from particular feelings or memories.

Feelings, or memories, you may not want to identify with or re-experience. Depending on what you have found unbearable in the past. Feeling this way again may lead you to dissociate. Then behave in ways that you normally do not want to. Perhaps unconsciously playing out an avoided memory.

'Sex is always about emotions. Good sex is about free emotions; bad sex is about blocked emotions.' - D.Chopra

Reducing the chances of these mistakes happening involves pausing when you feel detached in your intimate or sexual experiences. Talking about these experiences when they occur. Developing your ability to stay consistently connected to yourself, your emotional experiences, the other person and the reality of the intimate situation you are in. Another way you can consider other people too little, or sabotage your wider goals, is by separating your intimate attachments from your sexuality.

Separating intimate attachments from sexuality

Separating your intimate attachments from your sexual experiences may be a conscious decision or an unconscious habit. Sometimes, to preserve an intimate attachment you are scared of losing through making it more sexual. Sometimes, to preserve a sexual experience you are scared of losing by making it more intimate.

Separating intimate and sexual experiences prevents their interaction. Eliminating potentially helpful blended intimate/sexual experiences. So, in this context, neither your intimate attachments nor your experiences of sexuality may feel sufficient. Requiring more attachments and/or sexual experiences, to meet your needs. This may neither consider other people sufficiently nor fit with your wider goals. If this is the case, you might consider re-connecting your intimate attachments to your sexual experiences.

This reconnecting is a skill. It involves meeting your needs for security and adventure in a more limited number of relationships. You may begin by understanding the different internal processes of romantic idealisation and mutual connection (Priebe, 2022.) Moreover, there are also habits which may help: 1) Having periods of absence from your partner(s) 2) observing your partner(s) in their element 3) surprising, or being surprised, by your partner(s.) In these ways sex, with our usual intimate partner(s), may 'stop being a thing we do and instead become a place to go together (Perel, 2013.)' The final experience which can lead you to make these two mistakes is by having an excess of sexual desire.

Excess sexual desire

'We are excessive when something about ourselves needs to be recognised and we need other people to help us work out what it is' - Phillips, 2008

For example, excessive violence may be a response to unrecognised injustice. However, that may not be immediately obvious to the excessively violent person or the witness of the behaviour. So the same excess behaviour, that indicates that something needs recognition can also blind us to what that something is. Overwhelming our abilities to think by flooding us with emotion. Circumstances which prevent people understanding what we need (Ripley & Ward, 2023.)

When the excess is sexual desire, your resultant behaviour may demand recognition of an unmet need but not actually achieve it. Possibly because excessive desire considers other people too little. Excess sexual desire that feels like an irresistible urge to act. The individual, and people who come in to contact with that desire, may end up feeling 'mad' about sex. As if they had 'lost their minds' or had no choice.

Consider John Malkovich's character in the film 'Dangerous Liaisons;' who asserts (to Michelle Pfeiffer's character) that his aggressive seduction of her is 'beyond my control.' When in reality this is not the case and the character actually needs something else. The excess preventing the discovery, and recognition, of the unmet need.

You may also rely on intimacy and sexuality to meet other unidentified needs. So sabotaging your wider goals. Avoiding these mistakes involves increasing your awareness of your sexual desire, talking about it and considering your actions as choices. As well as finding additional ways to identify and get your needs met.

In each of the four possibilities, an insufficient understanding, of yourself and others, leads to mistakes of intimacy and sexuality.

Habits that could increase our understanding of sex

'He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.' - Terry Pratchett

Healthy intimacy and sexuality, can occur through a combination of shared play, talking, stopping/starting, and restraint. Marking safe enough relationships by negotiating boundaries. Being present without overwhelming each other. Acknowledging and apologising for mistakes that occur when our minds are flooded by emotional experience.

So with thought, insight, and practice, you can provide ways to tolerate each other's feelings without violating each other's boundaries. So making intimacy and sexuality, a safer and healthier container for your emotions. Mastering these tasks seems to be made easier by talking about these issues. As individuals, in therapy, as couples and in wider discourse. This blog is my contribution to that discourse.

References

Benjamin, J., (2017). 'Another take on the riddle of sex,' in Beyond the doer and the done too, (chp 4,) Routledge.

Delevingne, C., (2022). Planet sex, BBC series [Video file]. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0df25jx (extracted 12/12/22.)

Pullman, P. (2015). Northern Lights: His Dark Materials 1: now a major BBC TV series. Random House. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b1v2

Perel, E. (2013). The secret to desire in long-term relationships [Video file]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa0RUmGTCYY (extracted 23/10/2022.)

Phillips, A., (2008). 'Sex Mad' BBC Radio 4. [Video file] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpbu3QmNIdM (extracted 11/10/2022.)

Priebe, H., (2022). Limerence : What is it and how do we let it go? YouTube., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l5ALCPEBkc&t=2s

Ripley, B., & Ward, S., (2023) Lust, Seven Deadly Psychologies, (BBC Radio 4.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001t3dt

n.b. I have also collated a number of other helpful resources on intimacy and sexuality. To access them : CLICK HERE