Responsiveness outside the bedroom carries on into it. Connected partners can reveal their sexual vulnerabilities and desires without fear of being rejected. We are all afraid that we are somehow not “enough” in bed. “Look at me,” says Carrie. “I’m just a mess of freckles. Do you ever see a model with freckles all over her? I hate them. And when I think about it, I just want to put the lights out.” Her husband, Andy, smiles. “Now that would be a shame,” he says softly. “I like your freckles. They’re part of you. I want to be with you. I don’t want a model woman. I like polka dots, they turn me on. Just like you say you think bald men like me are the sexiest. You do think that, right?” Carrie smiles and agrees.
Secure, loving partners can relax, let go, and immerse themselves in the pleasure of lovemaking. They can talk openly, without getting embarrassed or offended, about what turns them off or on. Psychologists Deborah Davis of the University of Nevada and Cindy Hazan of Cornell University find in their studies that securely attached partners can more openly express their needs and preferences and are more willing to experiment sexually with their lovers. In the movies, lovers never have to talk about what to do in bed. It just happens. But trying to make love without feeling safe enough to really talk is like bringing a 747 in to land without a guidebook or help from the control tower.
Elizabeth delightedly tells me of the night her husband of twenty-five years, Jeff, was discussing a favorite sexual fantasy of being “educated” by a high-class lady of the night. Suddenly, Elizabeth deepened her voice, assumed a French accent, and for an hour, played the sophisticated lady of the night for her enthralled husband. “You were so kind of macho that evening,” Elizabeth says to Jeff. “I never knew you could be like that.” Jeff bursts out laughing. “I never knew I could be like that either. But then, you were pretty different yourself. Where did my little shy wife go, anyway?” Elizabeth laughs, then says, “But the best part of sex for me, no matter what we do, is afterwards when you hold me like I am so precious to you.”
Secure partners can soothe and comfort each other and pull together to overcome unavoidable problems that are never shown in the movies but are part of everybody’s everyday sex. Frank, who is having erectile difficulties, which he shamefacedly describes as “Charlie deciding to take a nap,” is recounting a recent lovemaking “date” with his wife that had all the earmarks of a disaster. “Sylvie said something about my weight at the beginning and I got ready to pout,” says Frank, “but then she realized what had happened and hugged me back to feeling okay. Then at a crucial moment, our eighteen-year-old came home early, and Charlie went for, well, I’d have to say a snooze on me. Sylvie reminded me of the book we read that said that in a forty-minute lovemaking session many men lose their erection for a moment or two, but that if they don’t panic, it comes back. We found a way to laugh about Charlie and stay close. Then the cream we use ran out, so Sylvie had to go hunt around and find some more.” Sylvie is now giggling uncontrollably. “Finally,” Frank continues, “when everything was back on track, I got a bit rambunctious and knocked the candle over. So then the curtain started to smoke!” He cracks a huge grin at his wife and quips, “Hot date, eh, sugar?” Picking up the story, Sylvie recounts how they decided to give up on making love and make hot chocolate instead. “But then” — she giggles again — “Frank said something sexy and we made love after all.” She throws her arms up and tilts her head to one side in a Marilyn Monroe–like pose.
These kinds of stories thrill me. They demonstrate that we can still have spontaneous, passionate, and joyful sexual encounters and make startling discoveries about our partners decades into a relationship. They show that we can connect and reconnect, fall in love again and again, and that eroticism is essentially play and the ability to “let go” and surrender to sensation. For both of these, we need emotional safety.
In a secure relationship, excitement comes not from trying to resurrect the novel moments of infatuated passion, but from the risk involved in staying open in the moment-to-moment, here-and-now experience of physical and emotional connection. With this openness comes the sense that lovemaking with your partner is always a new adventure. “Practice and emotional presence make perfect” is the best guide for erotic and satisfying sex, I tell couples, not seeking endless novelty to combat “boredom.” No wonder a recent survey on sex in America by Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago shows that married partners who have spent years together and built up emotional security have more frequent and more satisfying sex than non-married folks.
When experts suggest that only fresh relationships flying the flags of conquest and infatuation can offer exciting sex, I think of an older, long-married couple that I know and how they dance the Argentine tango. They are completely present and engaged with each other. Their moves are achingly deliberate, totally playful, and stunningly erotic. They are so attuned and responsive to each other that even though the dance is fluid, improvised in the moment, they never miss a step or a turn. They move as one, with grace and flair.
RESOLVING SEXUAL PROBLEMS
The most common sexual problems reported in North America are low sexual desire in women and premature ejaculation or lax erections in men. This does not surprise me. Most distressed couples are caught in Demon Dialogues. Women typically feel alone and disconnected. They either push for Solace Sex or shut down sexually. Men become insecure. They move into Sealed-Off Sex or experience sexual difficulties. Most often when a couple can create secure connection, their sex life improves automatically or through their concerted effort. The shared pleasure and intimacy of renewed sex, as well as the flood of oxytocin at orgasm, in turn enhance their relationship.
Once she is feeling more secure, Ellen is finally able to confide in Henry that she cannot orgasm with him. For years, she has been faking it. Henry is not offended or threatened by this. He is comforting and supportive. He also hits the library and reassures Ellen with the information that roughly 70 percent of women cannot orgasm from intercourse alone. Together they come up with three erotic strategies for the “Orgasms for Ellen” project.
Let’s take a close look at how connection and bonding entwine in one relationship. Passion is not a constant. Desire naturally waxes and wanes, with events, with the seasons, with health, with a thousand reasons. These fluctuations, however, hit a nerve in most of us and, unless we can talk about them openly, can easily spark or heighten relationship problems. Many partners can tolerate infrequent intercourse, but they cannot tolerate feeling that their partners do not desire them. Dealing with such feelings is a challenge most partners have to face, even relatively secure ones. And so too for Laura and Bill.
They’ve come to see me soon after Laura has recovered from a depression triggered by losing her job. Her doctor, who knows that a healthy relationship is the best protection against relapse, picked up that she had some issues with her husband and sent them to me for a marital “checkup.” Laura lays out her concerns. “We love each other very much,” she says. “But, well, Bill was always horny. He was always touching me. And I liked that. If I didn’t want to make love, I could say ‘No’ and he’d accept it. We’d still cuddle and play and feel close. But now, in the last few years, he just doesn’t come on to me. When we do make love, it’s great, but if I don’t initiate it, it doesn’t happen. This hurts so much. We have been together for about twenty years. Is it that I am older now and not sexy enough for him? I am finding that I just go to bed later, when he is asleep. To avoid all that. But we are getting pretty distant here.” Bill responds, “I just don’t have the same drive I used to. These days work also completely drains me — you know that. But I like making love, and you are one sexy lady. I don’t see the problem here. Well, except that you are feeling bad, of course.”
This is one of those times when being able to have an A.R.E. conversation really matters. The question is, can Laura stay with her hurt and reach out to Bill, and can he hear her protest and respond? “Like you were saying,” Laura tells me
, “when we fight we can get caught in a kind of ‘I push and Bill goes moody’ thing, but we can talk and make up. And I think we have a good marriage. But it’s hard for us to talk about sex. We have tried, and it gets a little better for a while, but then it is the same as before.” Since they had already been able to look at negative spirals in their relationship and create more responsiveness between them, I suggest that we talk in the same kind of way about their sex life.
I ask what their sexual expectations are. Bill says he would like to make love every two weeks or so. Laura says she’d prefer every ten days. We all laugh. The problem suddenly seems to have shrunk. But then we focus a little more. Bill says that the only problem he sees is that Laura seems to be irritable and a little distant. “If I ask her to come and cuddle at night, she often doesn’t come, and I miss that,” he offers. “In fact, if I think about it, I miss it a lot.” Laura starts to tear up. “I just don’t want to cuddle and then get into that place where I start to think you might show some interest in lovemaking and be disappointed. And I guess I have been too scared to even talk about that. You just ask me if I am sexually frustrated and then when I say, ‘Not really,’ the conversation ends.” I see Laura’s anticipatory anxiety and her move into avoidance to protect herself. We agree that this inability to talk about the changes in their sexual life is beginning to come between and hurt them.
I ask them to expand on their hurt. Laura struggles for a while and then is able to distill what is so painful for her. “Some of it is a fear that you don’t see me as a woman anymore. I am just the wife. More wrinkles and a little pudgier than before. It’s scary that I am maybe not sexy anymore, not desirable to you. You hug me like I hug a friend. You don’t seem to pay me that kind of keen attention anymore. It used to make me feel so good. And so close.”
Bill is really listening, and he helps his wife out by asking, “Is that the heart of it? You feel rejected, that I don’t think you’re sexy anymore?” Laura sighs and weeps and nods her head. “Well, then when we do make love, I feel tense somehow. I do feel desired. For a moment. I know you are overworked and very tired, but I get that you can take sex or leave it. It’s not important. Sometimes I think that if I don’t come on to you, then that part of our life will just fade out. And you will let it go. I get mad now, thinking that. So I say to myself, ‘Fine, I won’t start it. He can go to hell.’ But then I have this hurt.” She touches her heart. Bill reaches out and takes her hand.
I ask her, “Is that it, Laura? Hurt is usually about sadness and anger and fear. You feel that sex with you is not that important to Bill. Is that it? Is there more?” She nods, then continues. “If I don’t go and reach out to you and suggest making love, I am stuck with all these feelings. If I do . . .” Her voice trails off, and she purses her lips tight. “This is so hard to say. It shouldn’t be so hard. We have a good marriage, and I am a strong person. But it is terrifying for me to come on to you. It’s like diving off a cliff. I never had to do that before. And when you smile sweetly and say that you are tired and turn to sleep, I just die inside. I pretend that it is no big deal, but it really costs me to ask you.” Bill murmurs, “I never knew that.”
“What do all these feelings tell you about what you need from Bill?” I ask Laura. She tells him, “I guess I need your reassurance that you really value our lovemaking. That you are still invested in it. That you still desire me. I need us to maybe put times aside that I can count on, so that being with me that way comes first sometimes. I need you to show me — the way you used to — that you are still my man.” Bill responds eagerly. In a rush, he tells her that he has been so burned out that he is “sleepwalking” most of the time. That he loves her and thinks of her with desire during his day. “But I never understood that suggesting lovemaking was so hard for you. I am so sorry,” he says. “I worry that if I come on to you and then am too tired, my erection won’t work so well, so I back off unless I’m sure.” They both begin to laugh and recount a few times when this happened and they simply ended up holding each other with a little erotic touching and lots of feelings of closeness.
This conversation was all that Bill and Laura needed to move their sex life back into a secure zone of play and connection. But it also acted as a wake-up call. I suggested that they come up with a sensual scenario to follow when intercourse wasn’t in the cards. Bill helped Laura do this, and he began to suggest making love more often. He was also more careful to reassure Laura that when she did suggest sex, he appreciated her taking this risk. He in turn told her explicitly that he needed to know that she wanted him, that he did not want her to avoid closeness or sex with him. He reiterated that he loved and desired her.
Bill and Laura also began to pay more attention to their lovemaking. Every room needs a little cleaning and redecorating from time to time, and that includes the bedroom. They read some erotic books together and talked for the first time in years about how they could turn each other on and have more satisfying sex. They reported that their sex life had improved, and so had their relationship.
As I told Bill and Laura in their last session, sexual technique is just the frill, not the real thrill! They had the best sex manual of all, the ability to create closeness, tune in to each other, and move in emotional synchrony.
PLAY AND PRACTICE
ON YOUR OWN
Was there a comment or a statement in this chapter that started you thinking about your own sex life? What feeling did it bring up in you? Write it down. What does this feeling, whether it is a body sensation or a clear emotion like anger, tell you about your own sexual life?
In bed with your partner, do you generally feel emotionally safe and connected? What helps you feel this way? When you do not feel this way, how could your partner help you?
What is your usual sexual style — Sealed-Off, Solace, or Synchrony Sex? In any relationship all three will probably occur sometimes. But if you habitually move into Sealed-Off or Solace Sex, then this tells you something about your sense of safety in your relationship.
What are your four most important expectations in bed? Think carefully about your answers. Sometimes they are not what we think of first. Partners have told me that their most important expectation after sex was to be held tenderly and caressed gently, but they’d never expressed that desire to their lovers.
Do you feel that you do enough touching and holding in your relationship? A single stroke can express connection, comfort, and desire. When would you like to be touched and held more?
If you wrote out a Brief Guide for the Lover of ________ and inserted your name, what would you put in it? Basic directions might include answers to the following: What helps you begin to open up emotionally and physically to sex? What turns you on the most before and during lovemaking? How long do you expect pleasuring or foreplay and intercourse to last? What is your preferred position? Do you enjoy fast or slow lovemaking? What is the most stirring way for your lover to move you into, stimulate you into deepest engagement in lovemaking? Can you ask for this?
What makes sex most satisfying for you? (This may not be orgasm, or even intercourse.) When do you feel most unsure or uncomfortable during sex? When do you feel closest to your partner?
If you can share the above with your lover, great. If not, maybe you can begin a conversation about how hard it is to share this kind of information.
WITH YOUR PARTNER
Can you agree on what percentage of the time you expect sex to be really stellar? Remember that in surveys couples report that at least 15 to 20 percent of sexual encounters are basically failures, at least for one partner. What do you want to be able to do as a couple when sex isn’t working for you physically? What do you do when sex isn’t working for you emotionally? How can your partner help you here? Create a movie scenario together of what this would look like on the silver screen.
Play the Perfect Game. It starts with,
If I were perfect in bed, I could, I would _________, and then you would feel more _________.
Can you each think of a time in your relationship when sex was really satisfying? Share the story of this event with your lover in as much detail as possible. Tell each other what you have learned from listening to these stories.
Think of all the ways sex can show up in your relationship. Can it be simply fun, a way of getting close, a straight physical release, a comforting way to deal with stress or upset, a route into romance and escape from the world, an erotic adventure, a place of tender connection, a burst of passion? Do you feel safe experiencing all of these with your lover? What might be a risk that you would like to take in bed? Can you tell each other the risk and explain how the other might respond if things went badly or if things went well?
We used to think that thrilling, erotic sex and a safe, secure relationship were contradictory. Now we know that secure relationships are a supple springboard for the most arousing adventurous encounters. And in turn, keeping your physical relationship open, responsive, and engaged helps keep your emotional connection strong. The next and final conversation further explores how to keep your love vibrantly alive.
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love Page 18
