Diane Gleim

When It Is -- And Isn't -- About Sex

10/11/2018

I work with many couples during and after the discovery of an affair or other form of betrayal. Let me tell you about one of them.

This couple came to work with me after the wife learned that her husband had had an affair with a work colleague. She was devastated and was openly questioning if she wanted to stay married to him. He was shame-ridden, deeply remorseful and afraid, saying he was willing to do anything to “save the marriage”. We spent the first year or so of their couples therapy working on managing the fallout from the affair, its impact on their relationship and the medical, financial, emotional, relational, sexual, and existential/spiritual consequences. Things mostly stabilized between them and they found a “new normal” in their lives.

Post-crisis, we began to discuss what their relationship was like pre-affair. This is an incredibly important part of the recovery work — I cannot emphasize this enough. They described an all-too-common situation I frequently hear from couples: her center of attention was being the stay-at-home parent to their young children while also managing her mental health; he focused on being the breadwinner and not causing her stress. As is so often the case, sex fell by the wayside. They described their sex drives as him having a higher libido, her a lower libido. He eventually explained how their lack of sex is what led him to have the affair. This resulted in her feeling guilty for not “giving him sex” (BTW, sex is not something you “give” another person but that’s another topic for another time), feeling angry that in his mind his decision to have the affair was about her not having sex with him during that very, very difficult time, and also feeling resentful about the now omnipresent pressure she felt to have sex with him to deter him from having another affair. He repeatedly said that if she would “just have sex with him more often”, he would be a happy guy.

Variations of this is, unfortunately, a narrative many couples create. When someone decides to do X (have an affair, be in a bad mood, start an expensive hobby) because “my partner doesn’t have sex with me.” People often make sex — or the absence of it — the reason they do something in a relationship. This is a false narrative!

When you make it about sex, you’re not making it about other important things, like your feelings about sex. When you make it about sex, it means you’re not being vulnerable with your partner and sharing what role sex plays in your life. When you make it about sex, it’s a sneaky way of shifting responsibility away from your own actions and experience and onto something — or someone — else.

Knowing that making it about sex is a slippery slope into avoidance behaviors I just described (and what would be the relationship implications if they did yikes), I didn’t want this to become their dominant narrative about his affair or their pre-affair sex life. So I asked him:

“What are you thinking and feeling when she doesn’t have sex with you?”

Him: “I’m thinking, I wonder if she still likes me, is she still attracted to me, does she still want to be with me.”

“Aaah” I said. “You have thoughts and feelings of self-doubt and relationship insecurity?”

He said yes.

I continued: “And so the way you know how to deal with those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings is to have sex with your wife. And when you have sex with your wife do those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings go away?”

“Yes,” he said softly, but he was looking me squarely in the eye so we all knew we were getting somewhere. She was quietly observing our exchange, riveted by what she was hearing for the first time.

I continued: “Well then, we need to help you find another way to cope so that you don’t always rely on having sex with your wife to alleviate those painful thoughts and feelings.”

There was a long silence in the room. This was big.

He risked vulnerability to show her his inner life. She saw a side of him that she had never seen before. Because he revealed this important thing about himself to her, he felt closer to her and she felt she understood him better. It was a powerful session, it shifted things between them, and was a moment they continued to reflect upon after it was over.

Humdrum and Ho-Hum

8/16/2018

I hear a common complaint from my clients: “<Sigh> I just don’t have the interest/drive/desire for sex." These clients feel badly about this and wish it was different. Maybe their health isn’t what it was. Or maybe they feel pressured by their partner and that is what is bringing them in. Or maybe they long to have more sexual interest/drive/desire like they used to; nostalgia is a powerful force my clients and I frequently reckon with in my office.

What I also hear from many of these folks is how busy and full their lives are…to the point of regret or even downright dislike. They describe a life not of abundance but of near-constant responsibilities in all areas: demanding jobs, demanding kids, the high cost of living in northern California, aging parents, the wish to engage more in hobbies and socializing, the need to exercise and eat healthy and get adequate sleep, the never-ending cycle of household chores and errands, and some vague notion about pursuing personal fulfillment and happiness (“Is this all there is?”).

What many of these folks end up doing is relating to sex the same way they approach the rest of their pressure-filled lives: using a cost-benefit analysis with time and energy playing major factors in their decision-making. So for example, many people relate to their workday mornings as follows:

“I must be at work at 9am. Therefore I will need to wake up at 6am so I have enough time to walk the dog for 30 minutes, then leave for the gym at 6:30am and workout for 1 hour, then at 7:45am I will get showered and dressed, then at 8:20am I will start commuting to work and it takes me 30 minutes to get there but I will give myself a little bit of a cushion in case there’s traffic.”

Folks also tend to relate to their workday evenings similarly: “I have to leave work to pick up the kids at 4:30pm, then drive home, make dinner by 6pm, make sure the kids do their homework, get them bathed and in bed by 8:30pm, then maybe after that I can do the dishes, maybe a load of laundry, and in bed by 10pm.”

Such discipline!

Every task is broken down into discreet chunks of time and prioritized according to any number of values (i.e. necessity, duty, self-care) while also assessing how much time and energy is needed to do that task and how much will be spent. I have heard more than once over the years a client say that when their partner invites them to have sex at night, they say to themselves “But I’m already so tired…how much sleep will I lose if I have sex tonight?” Wow - talk about unsexy sex. No wonder your sexual interest/drive/desire has declined.

Sure, sometimes sex is a box you check off your list of things to do. I don’t deny that reality and sometimes it honestly is a humdrum experience. In long term relationships that is going to happen…and when it’s disappointing and uninspired you need to practice resiliency, not blame your partner, and even move towards them versus away from them. After all, do you expect every dinner to be fantastic? You probably don’t, or I hope you don’t. Some nights you eat a bowl of cereal and move on, knowing that tomorrow and the next day and the next day you have another opportunity at dinner. Sex in a long-term relationship is the same way.

But when you perpetually consider sex a chore to maintain your relationship, it’s now in the same category as brushing your teeth or exercising to maintain your health. You do it because you should. There’s no emotional or relational investment to your partner, the sex itself, or a good outcome. You’re on autopilot. You do it to get it over with. When sex becomes “yet another thing you should do” in your life, you now relate to it differently and it inevitably loses its luster. (Cue that nostalgia. It’s often where people go in this moment.)

When clients describe their sex lives with a mindset that it’s “yet another thing to do”, I hear it and it honestly sounds pretty awful to me too. I feel sad for all involved. I hear one partner often trying to keep hope alive and keeping something afloat, while I hear another partner appreciating the other’s efforts but also feeling some degree of pressure and ultimately playing defense. The first thing I do is I usually encourage everyone to stop doing what they’ve been doing. I sometimes get push back from clients: “But then we’ll never have sex!”, they fear. “Doing that brings you the ho-hum sex you’ve been having, and isn’t that why you’re here in my office, to stop having that kind of sex?”, I say. Yes, they quietly acknowledge.

Creating a good to great sex life is not a emotionally or behaviorally passive experience and the work it takes to get out of these sorts of sexual ruts is proof of that. Your passivity is what in part produced your current humdrum sex life. It’s also not good to great because of your partner or because of mood-altering substances or because of the youthful and firm body you used to have or because years ago your feelings about your partner were mostly positive based on limited experience. Good to great sex is about you having an enthusiasm and openness to a not-yet-determined experience. Imagine that — not playing it out in your mind like a script that’s already been written and everyone knows their parts! This is a better mindset to have. And having the courage to tell your partner what you like and don’t like sexually helps too. But that’s usually step #2 in this process.

More on that later.

Frankie Says Relax

7/30/2018

Besides doing an assessment based on the presenting problem in my initial appointments with new clients, I’ve begun to assess for how does this person or couple relax. So I ask “What do you do to relax?” And I hear common answers like “Exercise” or “Watch movies or shows” or “Play video games.” I hate to break this to you, but none of those things actually help you RELAX.

Exercise gives you a temporary rush of endorphins (i.e. make you feel good and that probably has a secondary sexual benefit when it comes to your self-esteem and body image) but it can also make you feel fatigued - or as a client recently described it, “spent.” And watching movies and shows or playing video games distracts us, takes our mind off other things, and is a bit like numbing ourselves. When I describe that relaxed is a state of feeling calm (vs. tense), alert (vs. distracted or numb), and awake and energized (vs. tired), many of my clients sheepishly admit “Yeah, I don’t really have that feeling regularly.” Some clients are even courageous enough to confess “I don’t really know what that feeling is.” Boy am I glad my clients are this honest; it tells me precisely where we need to focus our efforts.

I can’t tell you how many people minimize the need for regular and consistent relaxation in their lives. I think part of this is the economic realities of living in expensive northern California; part is the demands of our two-income, two children families and lifestyles; part is how omnipresent technology is in most people’s lives; part is a very American mindset regarding hard work and sacrifice; part is the individual’s psychological and trauma history; part is the existential anxiety we all start to feel at a certain age; and part is the individual’s relationship to and understanding of their own body.

Is it any surprise that those people who struggle to relax also have sexual issues? Absolutely not. The connection between these things is no coincidence. As I like to say, who we are outside the bedroom is exactly who we are inside the bedroom. My clients frequently tell me that when they begin a sexual experience with their partner their minds are elsewhere: on their stressful job, the never-ending household chores (this is where I’m reminded of choreplay as a way to “solve” one partner’s anxious feelings but if you've ever done it you know it doesn't really solve anything), the kids, what other productive thing they could be doing with this time instead, how much precious sleep they expect to lose if they have sex at this late hour, etc. What they hope happens, and I do too, is that at some point during the experience the sex becomes interesting enough or arousing enough or pleasurable enough that they are able to change their focus from those other thoughts to instead what is happening in their here and now and go with it. If they don’t or can't, sexual problems generally occur.

But I want to reverse that. What if you started a sexual encounter already relaxed and with a calm mind and body? What if you got relaxed first and then had sex? This is what people say a glass of wine or music or cannabis or candles helps them do. Problem is, all of those are passive ways of transitioning into sex and experiencing your sexuality. What if you actively took steps to not just set aside the worries of the day but to also get into your body, feel your sexuality, and prepare for partnered sex? What would that take?

Think about it.

"Sex Addiction" - There's Another Way

6/24/2018

One of my biggest frustrations as a mental health professional is that certain ideas and terms, promoted in pop psychology circles and then spread throughout media, get established in the culture as legitimate without widely-accepted scientific knowledge and research. Here’s a perfect example: “codependency” was a popular “diagnosis” in the mental health field several years ago. Many people entered therapy with the presenting problem “I’m codependent”. Treatment programs popped up all over the country, many of them very expensive, claiming they “treat codependency.” Codependent Personality Disorder was even proposed as a diagnosis in the DSM-III, the publication of mental health disorders, in 1987 but thankfully failed to be included due to a lack of scientific evidence.

As the two sayings go, everything old is new again and those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

This is and has been happening again with the concepts of “sex addiction” and “porn addiction”. Once again many people, and statistics are showing that it is predominantly men, are entering therapy with the presenting problem “I’m a sex addict” or “I have a porn addiction.” Once again treatment programs have popped up all over the country, many of them very expensive, claiming to “treat sex addiction and porn addiction.” And once again Sex Addiction was proposed as a diagnosis in the DSM-V in 2013, its most recent publishing, but thankfully failed to be included due to a lack of scientific evidence.

I certainly do not expect the general public to understand the controversies and conflicting research surrounding such provocative “diagnoses” of “sex addiction” or “porn addiction”. Yet it is still paramount we, the mental health profession, ask questions like:

- Why are “sex addicts” predominantly men? They also tend to have more conservative and negative
attitudes about sex - why is that?
- What is the influence of mental health issues like depression, anxiety, OCD, or a personality disorder on their sexual functioning and sexual decision-making?
- What are the stressors (marriage, relationships, parenting, money, health, work) in these men’s lives and how are they coping with them?
- What messaging and values (from family, from religion, from culture, from friends, from his spouse) did he internalize about his sexuality? How do those square up with what is actually going on in his sexual self? Does he really believe those messages and values now? What are the consequences if he does and does not follow them?

Many manifestations of so-called “sex addiction” can be summed up with the following statements: “I like X and I shouldn’t like X” or “I do X and I shouldn’t do X.” What a wonderfully succinct description of an inner conflict! This is exactly what psychotherapy is here to help with - better understanding of self. “Why” is a question about motivation and it is a fundamental question in psychotherapy. It is a fundamental question sex addiction treatment providers generally fail to explore with their clients, other than ascribing it to the “diagnosis” of “trauma”. Another reason sex addiction treatment providers give for "sex addiction" is “because it’s addiction”, yet that’s a circular explanation that does nothing to illuminate the inner workings of the individual’s psyche.

So why would a man do X when he feels or believes he shouldn’t do X, you ask? Maybe he feels he shouldn’t do X because it’s illegal and he doesn’t want to get arrested and go to jail. Or because his family-of-origin messaging/religion said so. Or because if his wife found out he’s afraid she will judge him for it and that prospect is painful him. Or maybe because it’s a symptom of his depression but because he’s a man and male depression often presents differently than in women he (and his doctor) failed to recognize it. Or maybe because he’s angry at his spouse and can’t tell her so this is how he has been displacing and sublimating his anger. Or maybe because he hasn’t had sex with his wife in years and doing X is a way to stay monogamous.

These are just some of the reasons I’ve seen in my male clients for doing what they do. They are explanations and not excuses. That being said, explanations matter because when we understand the "why" we can better begin to change what we want to change. Calling yourself (or your husband) a “sex addict” jumps over the “Well, why is that?” question itself and the necessary exploration of the possible answer(s) to that question. As Douglas Braun-Harvey and Michael Vigorito described in their book, “Treating Out-Of-Control Sexual Behavior; Rethinking Sex Addiction”, when someone enters therapy saying “I’m a sex addict” and the therapist accepts this without much of an assessment, this is akin to you telling your doctor “Hey doc, I have cancer” and your doctor responding “When would you like to start chemo and radiation?”

Being a sexual person means accepting the consequences of your sexual choices. Hell, being an adult person means accepting the consequences of your choices. And let’s face it: that’s painfully difficult to do at times. For many it’s even more so when those consequences happen in the sexual arena of their lives and they lack an understanding of their motives. I work with these issues every day and see first-hand the consequences in people’s lives.

Sexuality, and more importantly sexual choices, do not exist in a vacuum and they are not solely driven by biological processes. Sexuality and sexual decision-making exists in a context that includes biological, psychological, and social factors and is constantly taking in and responding to the internal and external stimuli of these factors.

What ultimately matters is that I, as a sex-positive clinician, understand how a person’s relationship to sexual activities and/or pornography can be problematic in their lives and relationships. What also matters is that I hold a humane and judgement-free space for curiosity and respect for my client's lived experience while we explore their underlying motivations. I get that many people do not understand their sexual selves and may even be afraid of examining their sexuality. I am here to help.

Finally, I have no idea how far and wide (or not far and not wide) this blog post will travel. Many others with bigger and better credentials than mine have written about all of this before. Some of those people have received not just troll-y emails and comments for their opinions on this topic but some of them have even received threats of harm to themselves and their families. So not cool, Internet. It is alarming that a difference in opinion can generate such animosity and aggression. Tension can be healthy and has the potential to move us towards a better outcome; it is not inherently a threat. And as a society we need to learn to better tolerate our differences without resorting to attack.

One For The Ladies

6/4/2018

A common issue I see is low or absent sex drive in women who report previously having a high(er) sex drive. These women usually, but not always, have been with the same partner for years. Their emotional reactions to the phenomena run the gamut. Some of these women are distressed by its decline/disappearance while some women are ambivalent while even others are relieved. Remember, sex is never one-size-fits-all and if I’ve taught you anything, dear reader, it’s that there’s always good reasons why she feels the way she does.

So I ask questions and learn about her sexual history. Was there a time when she had a high(er) libido? Was it with her current partner/relationship? When did it start to decline and what was going on in her life? What has she (or they) tried to increase her sex drive? Were those attempts successful? Why or why not? Why is she seeking treatment now for this issue? What are her partner’s thoughts and feelings about (A) her lower libido and (B) her seeking help for it? Are there any drawbacks to having an increased sex drive? And so on.

It’s incredible what these questions uncover. For example, maybe her sex drive changed after the birth of their first child when life, and her priorities, went a new direction and not to mention she felt fatigue like she never had before. Maybe after baby and baby weight she did not like her body and felt deeply insecure and judgmental about being sexual with it. Maybe her sex drive took a nosedive after her alcoholic mother was diagnosed with cancer and their historically tumultuous mother-daughter relationship became even more draining when she began to take care of her mother. Maybe her libido went underground as a result of growing resentments she had towards her partner. Or maybe she’s just plain bored and unsatisfied with the sex she and her partner do have but doesn’t want to tell her partner her truth for fear of hurting their feelings.

We examine these life and relationship issues and their impact on her libido but there’s a powerful detail in all this that gets easily missed. Often what is revealed is that at some point, she decided to sacrifice her right to sexual pleasure. She traded it in for something else she deemed more valuable: sleep, time with the children, advancing at work, completing household chores, or preferred emotional states like not feeling bad about her relationship, not feeling bad about her partner, or not feeling bad about herself. This usually seems like a worthwhile trade-off for a period of time until it doesn’t and the consequences become big…and she finds her way to my office.

Ladies, you must stop doing this! Sexual pleasure is not something to be bartered. When you make your sexual pleasure optional and unimportant you make sex optional and unimportant. You have a right to sexual pleasure so honor it. Pursue it. You have unique anatomy that allows you immense pleasure. Even the World Association of Sexual Health’s Declaration of Sexual Rights has stated we have a right to sexual pleasure. It’s #7 if you’re curious.

Helping Trans Clients With Their Sexuality

5/11/2018

Recently I presented at the TransLife Professional Symposium here in Sonoma County, a conference for professionals who provide services to transgender individuals. There were physicians, psychotherapists, educators, and lawyers in attendance and the workshops represented the various medical, psychological, educational, and legal needs of the trans population. I presented on how to talk to your trans clients from a sex-positive perspective. It was an honor to be part of such a progressive conference.

Our society has come a long way in a relatively short amount of time to support, validate, and make legal the diverse trans experience. We (I think?) have a greater understanding of gender identity versus sexual orientation. We (I think?) understand the importance and in many cases necessity of hormone therapy and gender confirmation surgeries. We (I think?) understand that if one is transgender, not respecting this can lead to mental health issues including trauma, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and suicide and all of those have public health implications. All of this (I hope?) feels greatly affirming to trans people. But where my profession still has a growth edge is in talking to transgender folks about their sex lives. It’s yet another taboo subject under the bigger taboo umbrella of “Talking About Sex In Therapy”.

A good portion of your sexuality involves your feelings about your own body both in general and regarding specific body parts. For example, cis-gendered folks have told me “this body part is too big” or “that body part is not big enough”. These are feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and shame and also involves fears of judgement and rejection by others based on those body parts and their perceived deficits.

For a trans-identified person, this aspect of their sexuality is often made more complicated. In addition to the feelings I stated above (and others), sexual organs and erogenous zones can be full of emotional turmoil for additional reasons: perhaps those body parts represent a rejection — not by others but by themselves “this is not me”. Perhaps those body parts symbolize a disconnect from the body they were born with versus the body they want and need to feel authentic and whole. Or perhaps a certain body part represents sadness or anger because they do not have the resources to change it to what they envision and need. For many trans individuals, their bodies do not feel like home. Add to that the fact that those very parts are often where body-based sexual pleasure is obtained and sex is now made more confusing and emotionally messy.

Most people tell me that when they can receive sexual pleasure from their partner(s) they feel loved, accepted, and seen. Sounds amazing, right? But when a trans person has understandably conflicted and unresolved feelings about their own body, using that very body to engage in sexual activity can feel risky, scary, and downright unsafe - not necessarily because of their partner (although that’s true too), but because of themselves. Perhaps you can now see why it’s common for a trans individual to feel intensely uncomfortable with their own sexuality.

Trans folks have unique challenges when it comes to having sex, too, and my profession needs to support them in better understanding their sexual selves. Helping trans folks better integrate their sexuality — not just their gender identity — into themselves and their sense of place in the world, and learning how to be a sexual being with their body, is another important aspect of the transitioning process.

Wholeness for Vets

4/24/2018

'Whole Again': A Vet Maimed By An I.E.D. Receives Transplanted Penis

This provocative news article is getting a lot of attention today because of these two words: "penis transplant." Certainly gets one's imagination going, doesn't it?

Headline aside, every war brings home new medical and psychological wounds that our veterans must live with every day and our health care system must learn to treat effectively. While many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home alive, they are also not coming home intact. Whether a veteran is suffering from medical or psychological scars (or often both), many of them hope to resume their sexual relationships with their partner once home. Or if they're single, they hope to find a partner and build a life together. Sexual functioning represents "normalcy" to many but it also is about connection, one's sense of self, their ideas about their future, and as the article states, a wholeness. Genito-pelvic injuries have far-reaching consequences. We need to remove the shock, stigma, and shame surrounding them and treat these brave individuals with the respect and dignity they so greatly deserve. I'm happy to see this article illustrates the beautiful humanness in it all.

Valentine's Day

2/14/2018

The common belief is that Valentine’s Day is the day to celebrate love, especially romantic love. In reaction many people get anxious, or feel insecure or angry, or become critical of the day. “Singles appreciation day”, “a Hallmark holiday”, and “It’s just about obligation” are things we have all heard. I want to offer you a different perspective on how to observe this day that has nothing to do with your romantic relationship status and everything to do with yourself.

Think of all the traditional gifts we give those we love on Valentine’s Day: beautiful flowers, sweet treats, a delicious meal, a soft teddy bear. All of these gifts involve the senses. The tokens exchanged on Valentine’s Day are not about love but are instead about sensuality.

Valentine’s Day can be a day to celebrate indulgence and sensuality - two things us Americans don’t seem to do well. You may be thinking “You’re right we have a problem with overindulgences! We overeat, drink to excess, over spend, and binge watch.” But I would actually argue that those activities aren’t about overindulging, at least not the way many of my clients tell me they do them; they’re examples of consuming a luxury without mindfulness.

I’ll paraphrase a French philosopher: the excess of pleasure without savoring is debauchery. Unfortunately this is what many of us do: we don’t savor a sensual experience. To savor something means we slow down, notice all the many facets and nuances of it, experience it fully, and appreciate it. If you’ve ever been to Italy, you understand what I’m talking about. Italians know how to savor - a glass of wine, a carefully-prepared meal, a beautiful piece of art, music, or fashion. We could learn something from them in this regard. Americans deprive ourselves of sensual pleasures over and over which creates a sense of scarcity about the very thing we are denying ourselves. So we end up devouring it because we think it’s scarce…only to then feel guilt and shame about devouring it. When given the opportunity to indulge our senses after a period of self-denial, we can easily go overboard.

Old habits die hard and our culture’s history of denying the self for virtuous reasons that lead to attaining one’s moral and spiritual goals is still there under the surface. I know: I often bump up against these hidden beliefs with my clients. To fully enjoy a sensual experience is a scary prospect to some because of the intensity of their self-denial behaviors and their anxiety about pleasure. Some folks swing back and forth between self-denial and overindulging, creating an emotional seesaw. I believe it’s this seesaw, not the pleasurable sensations themselves, that cause an individual’s pain and suffering. No wonder we have such mixed messages about the pleasures of Valentine’s Day and end up making the day about love instead. Love, even in all its enormity and complexity, seems more manageable than individually savoring sensual pleasures.

When I talk to my clients about the need to build a better appreciation for sensuality in their daily lives, I can tell they don’t really understand what I mean. Many people confuse sensuality with sexuality so let me explain. Sensuality is the use of one’s senses to notice and experience pleasure whereas sexuality involves sexual feelings. For example, receiving a massage is a sensual experience — the dimmed lighting, the warm hands on our body, the smell of the massage oil — without it necessarily involving sexual feelings.

Today is a day you have permission to slow down and savor sensuality so I hope you will go home tonight and enjoy the fuck out of those flowers, that chocolate, or your dinner. Notice everything you can about it. You might find that you not only experience a deep sense of pleasure and relaxation but that you also feel really fulfilled doing so. You might even learn a thing or two about yourself. And none of this has anything to do with your romantic relationship status.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

2/7/2018

One of the sex therapy sub-specialties I treat is erectile disorder (previously called erectile dysfunction for you psych and sex nerds) which is defined as difficulty getting or maintaining an erection and/or decrease in erectile rigidity the majority of the times during a sexual encounter. Helping men with this issue is always a good portion of my practice - it’s a very common problem and the TV and magazine commercials sure know it.

Most of these adult men say it’s not a new occurrence, they have had this issue for a long time, and they each have their own valid reasons for seeking help now: a new romantic/sexual partner is on the horizon or their long-term sexual partner is getting fed up or they themselves have simply gotten fed up. Generally speaking, men who struggle with their body’s sexual functioning and come to see me have a similar experience: they’ve tried various ways to “fix it” (including medications prescribed by their doctor) but have only had intermittent relief from the problem. Some haven’t had any relief from medication. They also have emotional pain, fears, and anxieties — about past failed sexual encounters, about future encounters, and about the process of seeing a sex therapist just to name a few. My office is usually their last stop, at least in their minds, and they’re feeling desperate, ashamed, embarrassed, and afraid…while also feeling a sense of immense urgency to get it “fixed” NOW. Welcome to session #1.

Helping a man better understand his body and getting it to do what he wants it to do when he wants it do it is my goal for him as well. But it’s so unfortunate how many men become engrained to believe that their manliness, their ability to be a great lover, is completely dependent on one body part performing on demand. So much hangs in the balance for them. I can’t help but feel for their plight.

So I do an assessment as there can be many contributing factors to ED. We identify what could be causing his erectile issues and then we get to work. He may go see his doctor and get a blood test. He may begin to make lifestyle changes and then we see how that affects his sexual functioning. Sometimes there’s a simple solution: “Have just one beer, but not two, if I want to have penetrative sex that night.” Or “Turns out I had borderline high cholesterol that may have been the cause so I’ll work on my diet.”

Often times, however, the solution is more complex. Things like learning anxiety reduction and self- and body-awareness techniques. Changing his (and possibly his partner’s) definition of sex and “being a man”. Figuring out how his partner can not blame herself, her appearance, or his pornography viewing as the reason for his unpredictable erections. Identifying things his partner can say that will help, not hurt, his sexual confidence should he have another episode of ED in her presence. And he may have to learn how to speak kinder to himself and what it means to be sexually resilient.

So that’s the actual work we do in sex therapy. But inevitably what also happens is we touch upon much larger themes of what it means to be a human being in the 21st century. It’s fascinating how sex does that.

In particular, what I find so curious about sexual functioning issues is how some people hold tightly onto culturally-determined (and, unfortunately, often porn-informed) ideas about sex when real life sex is showing up differently. Those tightly-held ideas can be about what “sex” is, how to “have sex” with someone without actually engaging in a conversation about how that person likes to “have sex”, what you “need” to “have sex”, and what it uniquely means to each person if these shortsighted ideas and goals are not met. There ends up being a difference between what is and what should be and it can create conflict both within the individual and in their relationship. Folks can go to dark emotional and relational places if they or their partner misses the mark sexually and they experience that conflict. I’ve seen people end relationships, buy sketchy products online from unknown origins to “fix” themselves or their partners, harm their partners emotionally, and sacrifice their integrity — all when their idea of sex simply wasn’t showing up in their actual lives. It doesn’t have to be this way and the turmoil is optional.

Men Men Men Men

1/1/2018

Unfortunately during my week off from seeing clients between Christmas and New Year’s I got sick with a nasty cold. So instead of all that I had planned to do, the week was a perfect opportunity to both rest and read. I knew immediately which book on my nightstand I would grab: Esther Perel’s latest, “The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity.” It turned out to be a great week after all.

This book is not a how-to-recover-from-infidelity sort of book — those books have been written. Rather, think of this book as a meditation on infidelity, relationships, and sexuality. Esther spends most of the book discussing and exploring the many facets of relationship betrayals and highlights some of the more interesting, and existential, issues that are always present. Her writing style is beautiful and poetic. Just like any good book, this one was a true pleasure to read. I hope you will consider reading it; you don’t need to have experienced an affair to ponder and learn.

In particular, I was so impressed with chapter 11 “Is Sex Ever Just Sex?”. This chapter was about male sexuality and compulsivity. And it was like none I have yet to read in a major book on the subject of human sexuality. Esther put words to what I have been thinking and seeing in my office for a long time. It’s time we start talking about it more. So let’s start with…

“Men want sex and women want love.” Oy. You hear this sad, pathetic, tired, and old heteronormative trope over and over in every corner of our culture. This is absolutely not true! I sit with men every day, I help them learn about their sexuality, and I can tell you with great certainty it’s not just sex that they seek.

(BTW, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard that trope said by a woman in my office. And yet that very [false] belief is getting in her way. This sort of message is so damaging to relationships. I spend a good portion of my week dismantling them and helping my clients take the emotional risks to really interact with each other — and not interact with their faulty perceptions and projections of their partners.)

In reality, men are just as complex sexual creatures as women. Generally speaking, besides the sensual pleasures of sex, I’ve found that men turn to sex to feel emotional vulnerability and relational connection. This is something us women need to learn and learn NOW. “Men want sex” because it’s the one place they can safely experience being vulnerable with another person — and straight men want to experience that with women. Wow! What a humbling compliment, ladies (truly).

Men get so many toxic messages about what it means to “be a man”. “Man up.” “Brush it off.” “What are you, a pussy?” They may hear those statements as children or teens and stop hearing them as adults but those memories and messages remain. Those are all harmful messages about masculinity. Even in adulthood it doesn’t really stop. Other men at the office or on the dating app are seen as competitors, people they have to defeat in order to win the prize.

All these kinds of messages tell men it’s not OK to (1) have feelings, (2) recognize those feelings, (3) give voice (internally or behaviorally) to those feelings, and (4) let alone work to soothe those feelings in a constructive, healing way. So how do a lot of men cope instead? By stuffing their feelings and/or withdrawing. That’s when a man “solves the problem”…of their uncomfortable feelings. Sex can definitely help distract us away from our emotional discomfort and create a mood change. (Enter sexual compulsivity.) Ours is not a culture that makes it easy for men to cultivate caring relationships with other men. No wonder sex is so important to them — it’s where they can finally let their guard down and maybe, just maybe feel a full range of emotions (like maybe vulnerability and connection) with another person.

Another thing I have seen repeatedly that Esther discusses in chapter 11 is the dilemma of the sensitive and caring man. This is the guy who maybe self-identifies as a feminist, maybe was raised by a single mom, maybe had a sister or two who had great influence on him, or maybe it’s the guy who is paying attention, close attention, to all the things women in our culture are saying right now about toxic masculinity and the use of power. This guy wants to honor and respect his female partner (and all women) and be their ally in the fight for greater equality for women…and he has sexual urges and desires. Urges and desires that may not fit nicely into the egalitarian relationship he and his female partner have fostered outside the bedroom. How do those sexual urges square up with that? It’s confusing and perhaps shameful for him.

The fact is, there is an element of sexuality that is aggressive. This is eros, the life force. It’s big and powerful and intense at times. We all have this aspect to our sexuality, men and women alike, and we need to learn about this part of our sexual selves if we are to have healthy sexual relationships based on self-awareness and mutuality.

I’ve worked with quite a few men over the years who have an uneasy or unknown relationship to their own sense of their masculinity and sexuality. They want to be strong and powerful and successful. They want to be admired by other men…and of course women. They want to be caring, sensitive, and skilled lovers. Just as the 21st century woman feels a lot of pressure to “have it all”, most 21st century men feel an equal amount of pressure to be all those things — a superman. Each man has to go through a process of examining these messages to decide what sort of man — what sort of human being — he in fact wants to be in the world. It’s no minor task and the implications are huge. And it has the potential to change his relationships and our world for the better.

<<Previous

Blog