When most people think of sex, they naturally think of intercourse.  Remember Bill Clinton saying, “I did not have sex with that woman!”  Ahem, he most certainly did.   But even a “zipless” encounter can be quite passionate and can quite definitely be counted as a sexual act.  Just watch “The Young Victoria” to see that people have sex all the time without having intercourse.

It isn’t just men that feel sex is only about intercourse and resulting orgasm.  Women often say that it’s the only part of sex they enjoy.  Perhaps it’s because it’s the only part of sex that has an official stamp of approval as being sex.  After all, most people are taught that “Sex is for after you get married
because it can result in pregnancy.  Since pregnancy nearly always occurs as the result of intercourse, it only makes sense that sex means such an act has occurred.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with intercourse.  It’s just that it’s very limited.  It requires that both partners be aroused, that the genitals are in good working condition, that the participants have the strength and stamina to follow through with the act.  That is, I think, part of the reason that people think of “sex” as being for young people.

If sex included every act of pleasure, people–both individuals and couples–would be much better off.  Including self-, oral, and manual stimulation would take the pressure off of having intercourse.  It would decrease unwanted pregnancy and disease.  It would make it easier to imagine having sex as one ages, or sex if one is alone.  And if a woman had discomfort with intercourse or a man struggled with erectile dysfunction as the result of temporary illness or stress, then they could still be affectionate and comforting with one another.

If you are someone that balks at the idea of venturing beyond sex = intercourse, it might be interesting to think about why that is.  Is it due to stereotype?  Inhibitions about other types of sexual activities?  A belief that sex is only for procreation, so if one is going to have sex for recreation, it had better be a reasonable facsimile?  If going outside your sex = intercourse comfort zone is truly distasteful, well, so be it.  But it could be that you realize you are holding back from exploring all types of sex, starting with cuddling and kissing.  And then what would be the harm of exploring your sexual potential?

As a sex therapist, one of the most heartbreaking scenarios in my office must be when one person announces with their partner in the treatment room that they don’t love their partner any more.  But perhaps worse than saying the words “any more,” are saying the words, “I never loved you.”  I can’t imagine what kind of turmoil it puts both partners into at the moment the words are spoken, but I can tell you that for me all the air gets sucked out of the room.  Is this couple’s relationship going to make it?

Recently, an article in USA Today discussed people that walk down the aisle, even though they know with some certainty that the marriage could fail.  Why do they do it?

• They thought they could make their partner change.
• They just didn’t want to be single.
• There was an unplanned pregnancy.
• They felt pressured by family.
• They wanted financial security.
• They figured they could make it work.

Obviously, for the most part these aren’t great reasons to get married.  Even in the case of an unplanned pregnancy, if there is no love, then there probably shouldn’t be a marriage.

Sometimes a person struggling with the issue of whether or not to divorce a partner because they never felt chemistry nor a connection will decide that they will stay for the sake of the children.  If the person’s partner isn’t drinking, cheating, or being abusive, then that is probably the best decision.  Once the children have grown, they can choose to stay or go, but giving offspring the best possible chance for success can be a sacrifice worth making.

If there are no children involved, then statistically the marriage probably will not last.  While children put a great deal of strain on a marriage–so much responsibility, so little time–they are also paradoxically the “glue” that can hold a marriage together.  Unless someone is very religious, there is little incentive to stay in a loveless marriage.

A loveless marriage is different, though, from a sexless marriage, or a marriage in which sex has never really worked very well.  Love may never be there the way it is portrayed in the movies or novels, but if someone has a decent sex life with their partner (regular, satisfying sex), they may choose to stay in the marriage.  If there is caring and respect, as well as sex, the marriage may survive despite the lack of passion, however that might be described or imagined.

If, however, there are long term sexual issues, even if the relationship is good in other respects, it may not survive (more…)

Most couples have great difficulty talking about sex, and when they do manage it, they often bungle the conversation.   From a sex therapist, here are seven ways to make communicating about sex easier.

1. Identify what you want to talk about.  Do you want to talk about orgasms that fizzle, sexual boredom, or your partner’s lack of attention to after play?  Saying vague things, like “Sex with you is boring,” isn’t going to solve the problem.
2. Keep your communication style assertive.  Don’t put your partner on the defensive.  Focus on what you want, not on what your partner does or doesn’t do.
3. Help your partner help you.  Be specific about what you want your partner to do.  “Change things up” isn’t as clear as, “I would like to have a little more manual attention before we have intercourse.”
4. Speak in language your partner appreciates.  If your partner doesn’t like you to use coarse language, then don’t use it when you are giving feedback or asking for what you want.
5. Be sensitive to your partner.  If your partner is awkward or hesitant in bed, telling him or her that they are as exciting as a flounder won’t help.  Tell your partner something you like, then what you’d like them to do differently, then thank them again for doing what you enjoy.
6. Don’t bring up the past unless absolutely necessary.  That means both things that happened between the two of you, and things that happened between you and another partner.  Move on and focus on the present moment and what you’d like to see change in the immediate future.
7. Give feedback at an appropriate time.  Right after having sex isn’t it.  Choose a time when you are both likely to be relaxed and your partner will be receptive.  Let your partner know what you’d like to talk about ahead of time.

Have any tips you’d like to add?  Leave a comment and I’ll post those that I think are helpful.

Yet another sexual myth to explode:  It’s always the woman in the relationship that doesn’t want sex.

Not true.  Not by a long shot.  It may not happen as often, but it happens more often than most people think.  And women are just as affected when their partner doesn’t want sex as men are when their partners turn them down over and over again.

Women in sexless marriages complain of feeling unloved, rejected, and unattractive.  In part because of the myth that “men always want sex,” they sometimes feel even more desperate than their male counterparts.  They experience intense sadness–and frustration.

When it comes to sex, even if you’re not talking about it, you’re communicating something.  When a man withholds sex from his partner, more often than not, he’s expressing displeasure with some aspect of the relationship.  What that is differs from situation from situation.  But getting a man to open up and talk about it directly can be difficult.  Quite often, he himself has no idea why he’s upset.  All he knows is that he doesn’t much feel like having sex, and there the story ends, leaving his partner frustrated.

I do frequently advise that physical problems be ruled out.  Unless you’re trained in medicine, you really can’t tell just by looking or studying someone’s behavior what might be going on in someone’s body.  Low testosterone and other medical problems can interfere with desire.

Also (and here I must admit I gave a big sigh), it can be difficult to convince a man to come into therapy, if a woman thinks this might be helpful.  He may call it “hocus pocus,” accuse the therapist of “just wanting to make money off of us,” or feel too embarrassed to talk about his problems.  Both male and female therapists, if they are worth their salt, understand this and know how to talk to men about their concerns.

Even though this is a difficult situation, it can be important that a woman supports her partner with the understanding that this may be difficult for him, too.  Instead of making threats or saying things designed to hurt, work on the problem together to find a solution.

That’s the question that someone recently posed to me, wanting to know if a marriage could continue if both spouses simply agreed that their sex life wasn’t very interesting, that sex wasn’t very important, and that their relationship worked well enough in other departments–parenting, finances, socializing–that they could stay together and simply do without.

Answer:  I suppose.  Before I moved into the field of sex therapy and had a more general practice, there were folks that confessed to me that they hadn’t had sex with their partner in a year, or two, or five.  Generally, they stayed in their marriage because of children and finances.  And generally, they were unhappy with the state of affairs, but felt that this was the best course of (in)action.

But being in a sexless marriage didn’t mean that they weren’t having sex.  Probably about half of those folks eventually drifted into an affair or, in the case of men, availed themselves of prostitutes. And then there was always the internet and the comfort of one’s own hand.

In my view, this is simply solving a problem with a problem, creating yet another level of complexity to a poorly resolved situation.  Affairs take energy, prostitution is still illegal, and both carry the risk of an STD.  These two solutions, plus the use of porn, create a huge but silent divide in terms of any intimacy that might be afforded by the marital relationship.

Rather than putting effort into avoiding sex, why not tackle the problem of an impoverished sex life?  Put on your emotional hip waders and splash into the river of relationship to try to sort things out together.  What is missing that you need?  Is it more respect and intimacy outside the bedroom?  Mutual interests that create a feeling of togetherness?  Permission to explore one’s inner fantasies with one another?  Better technique?  Improved lifestyle so that there is energy for sex?

Can a sexless marriage be normal?  Perhaps, but why would you want it to be?

A radio ad for a broken windshield caught my attention–not for the reason the advertisers wanted to, but because I heard it as a perfect metaphor for what happens when couples don’t deal with their problems:

Mr. Jones had a tiny chip in his windshield.  He went through a car wash on a hot day and CRACK!  His windshield shattered!

Are you ignoring a problem in your relationship?  Have you made the problem as tiny as a chip in a windshield because you are afraid to bring it up, or don’t know how to deal with it?

Sometimes partners fear that their entire relationship will split apart if they talk about what’s bothering them.  People keep things bottled up for years, sometimes decades, figuring that it’s better to just keep quiet.

But you know what happens.  The same annoying behavior happens over and over.  You hold in your feelings.  Steam builds up.  Crack!  Now there’s an argument with ugly words and hurt feelings.  And somehow, the issue that really irritated you in the first place gets lost.

Sometimes the therapy office becomes a safe place where partners can learn to communicate what discourages them about their relationship.  In my own practice, that’s sometimes about sexual frustration.  But sometimes it’s other issues, like feeling ignored or criticized.

The little chips get filled in and smoothed over.  Couples learn that their relationship is stronger than they had imagined.  This is when they see that they really do love one another; they picked each other for a reason.

I don’t want to be too Pollyanna*.  Not every couple works things out.  They have basic incompatibilities that were ignored, or so much anger and resentment have built up due to poor communication and relationship skills that they have worn each other out.

But like that chipped windshield, most couples do find that their relationship can be salvaged–though the process may take a little longer than what is promised in that radio ad.

*FYI for trivia collectors, Pollyanna was a character in a novel and later a movie that lost the use of her legs in a car accident, then showed unending optimism, even exclaiming when she opened a surprise package, “Oh, what beautiful crutches!”

Malibu.  Brunch.  Perfect SoCal day.  Sitting with my husband, friend, and lover of 23 years on Geoffrey’s spacious restaurant patio, peering out at the Pacific, glasses of chardonnay in hand.  The only thing that would be better would be, perhaps, owning a home with such a view, but this is a very good second.

We relax and reminisce over other beach towns we’ve visited up and down the West coast and talk about an upcoming trip to Washington and Vancouver Island.  We crack jokes.  We flirt.  We jokingly give the waiter grief about the “crappy ambience” and he gives it right back.

A half hour in, while we slurp down oysters, my husband looks over at another table and is appalled.  A young couple sits down and instead of immediately enjoying the view or giving one another a smile, they whip out phones and begin to text.

“What a waste of life!”  It isn’t as if my husband doesn’t cut loose on his own crackberry sometimes, but I can assure you, it isn’t at times like this.  “They’re so young.  I wonder what they’re Saturday night was like.”

From the bland energy coming from their direction, we guess, not much.  My husband and I wonder if this is how the downhill slide starts with some couples:  ignoring one another during prime romantic time.

We weren’t glaring at them, I swear, but they noticed us noticing them.  The phones were put aside.  They looked at the menu.  They looked at the water.  They looked at each other.  And a little while later, they were laughing.  By the end of the meal, they asked the waiter to take a photo of them with the Pacific as the backdrop.

“That’s more like it,” my husband said.  “They can text any time.  But they can’t get moments back again.”

And with that we clinked glasses, happily making more moments and memories together.  Because when you think about it, that’s what a relationship really is, a series of moments, each with the potential to be wonderful or challenging.  On the balance, you have to have more good moments than bad.  Your history is what ultimately dictates the longevity of your relationship.

No Malubu-hoo-hooing over lost opportunities.

Short post today.  Simple advice on CBS News from Dr. Jenn Berman.  I’d just add an emphasis that sex is part of a healthy lifestyle.  It doesn’t much matter how often you and your partner have sex if it works for both of you.  What matters is making a commitment to staying healthy, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and sexually.

Kind regards,

Dr. Stephanie Buehler

If there can be an elephant in the room, can there also be one in the bed?  Absolutely.  I hear it all the time:  Couples that have sexual problems that go on for years.  Recently I heard about a marriage that’s been cold for over 3 decades. The solution they came up with is unconventional and not one anyone would ever imagine for themselves as they walked down the aisle.

Unresolved trauma is sometimes at the heart of sexual problems.  Both men and women that have been sexually abused may have difficulty enjoying a healthy sex life, even after years of being together.  What triggers mental and physical memories can be tough to identify, but the guilt when this happens to a couple is almost palpable.

One’s upbringing can also cause sexual shame and guilt.  Being raised by parents who are unable to communicate about sex in a realistic way or who try to exert too much control over their children may raise individuals that are inhibited.  Adults are also affected when parents were obviously lacking in affection or when one, or sometimes both, parents had affairs.

Ignorance, sadly, is another reason that couples struggle.  Women are sometimes so fearful about the pain of initial intercourse or the possibility of pregnancy that they develop a condition called vaginismus that makes penetration impossible.  Men sometimes are certain that they should be capable of having sex, no matter how tired or turned off they are.  Our culture perpetuates all kinds of myths about sexual performance and appearance that leave people feeling inadequate.

The longer the elephant is ignored, the hardest it is to get it out of bed.  Couples start to fight and blame one another for the elephant of their unfulfilled sex lives.  Partners begin to look outside of the marriage as a way to escape the elephant.  They shut down and try to pretend the elephant just isn’t there.

The thing is, it isn’t that easy to talk about sex for some couples.  And some couples don’t understand how to keep their sex lives going once the initial fire has dimmed.  Books like my ebook, Sex and Passion, The Essential Guide Now and Forever can help.  So can talking to a sex therapist; find one at www.aasect.org.  Elephants like this don’t just get up and walk away.

Kind regards,

Dr. Stephanie Buehler

If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know that I noodle around on the Internet looking for story inspirations.  Today I have a link to one psychologist’s story about Sex and ADD and thought I’d post about it, especially since I have since quite a number of people with AD/HD and sexual issues over the past several months.  (AD/HD is Attention Deficit Disorder, which can be with or without Hyperactivity and can be diagnosed in adults.)

Dr. Lawlis, who works on the Dr. Phil Show, states in his blog entry on Psychology Today that the key to keeping people with ADD or ADHD content in the bedroom is with novelty, and plenty of it.  The problem is, that describes about 99% of all human beings.  I’m being facetious here, but you get the idea.

Since I work with couples, my clinical findings are much different than those of Dr. Lawlis. The most common complaint of men and women with ADD/ADHD is being unable to have an orgasm–and it isn’t because of lack of novelty.  It’s because the mind is either working overtime, so the person is distracted, or because the mind is unfocused and the person loses concentration during intercourse.

The other thing that I have observed is that men with ADD/ADHD look for novelty through pornography rather than getting their needs met with a partner.  It doesn’t seem to be a matter of personality or character; it’s just that pornography works very well for this purpose.  One of the side effects of looking at a lot of pornography is delayed ejaculation when with a partner.  What happens, it seems, is that the person using pornography gets desensitized to plain ol’ vanilla sex with their partner.  This exacerbates the need for novelty, and sometimes it’s a bigger need than a partner can realistically fulfill.

Women who have difficulty with orgasm seem to differ from men in that they are simply distracted by being with a partner.  They may be able to have orgasm on their own, but when having partnered sex they can’t conjure up the state of light concentration that is needed to climax.

What to do? Medication can help, as can refraining from self-pleasuring while trying to learn how to get one’s needs met with partnered sex.  Good communication, as always, is key, in that partners with AD/HD need to be able to talk about what turns them on.  A permissive attitude toward erotic exploration can help both partners experience better sex.

Outside the bedroom, things often need to change, too.  Both partners need to thoroughly understand AD/HD.  There are multitudes of books and websites on the topic, just do a search.  The thing is that the person with AD/HD needs to take responsibility for his or her problem and learn how to work around it or cope with it.  He or she needs to communicate why doing something may be difficult and what kind of support they need, e.g., if remembering to make appointments is hard, then either the person with AD/HD can take on a different task in exchange for help, or they can come up with a system that works.  AD/HD can be frustrating for both partners, but less so if they work together in partnership than as adversaries.

The problems of AD/HD are real.  AD/HD may be overdiagnosed (though there are some people who think it is actually underdiagnosed) but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.  Also, just because you can’t see a problem like AD/HD proves nothing. Sometimes a partner will think a diagnosis of AD/HD is just an excuse.  It shouldn’t be.  A diagnosis should point to ways to making things better.

If you have a sexual problem, it is entirely possible that you have an attentional problem, too.  Not sure?  A sex therapist is a trained psychotherapist and should be able to help you figure things out.

Kind regards,

Dr. Stephanie Buehler