Why We Have Sex

We're always saying it around here, sex is marital glue. But it isn't always.

New study, University of Toronto, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, summed up in last week's WSJ. Worth a look.  What you learn:

We have two ways of dealing with this particular bodily function, sex.  We participate because either:
(1) we want to feel good, make our partner feel good, or
(2) we want to avoid a bad feeling about ourselves or about our partner or relationship-- the negative consequences of not participating.

Whereas it might seem that our motivations to approach or avoid are relatively circumscribed and few, a previous study at the University of Texas (2007) found 237!!! motives to have sex, everything from spiritual closeness to the Old Mighty to retaliation for a partner's affair. That retaliation could be sex with the partner, or with someone else. These are mind-boggling motives no matter how they shake out, and great fodder in therapy, they reveal so much about us.

There probably really are precisely 237 reasons to have sex because the Texas inquiry had to be qualitative, meaning social scientists interviewed enough people for a long enough period of time to literally saturate the category, reasons to have sex.

And we're not even talking about the reasons for not even bothering with sex, another study altogether which surely would include the intimacy fears-- those fears of exposure, annihilation, suffocation, rejection, etc.,-- as well as our personal mental status problems, i.e., depression, and let's not forget our physical laments, marvelous, valid, at least for awhile, excuses-- as in menopause, peri-menopause, pain, fatigue, hunger, etc. Such are among the reasons we literally, physically, but mentally, too, avoid having sex.

But avoidance in the University of Toronto and Texas studies is about avoiding psychological thoughts and feelings by having sex, not physically avoiding it.

See how confusing it is to be an academic?

The University of Toronto team divided responses into two categories. Self-motivated or partner motivated reasons for having sex. (Interesting that sex becomes the object of a preposition, not a verb here, and we're always saying that love is a verb.  Self-motivated and partner motivated reasons look like this. Try to figure out which are which:

If I do it, I'll start my day out right.

If I don't do it, he might find someone else and I'll be alone.

If I do it, he'll start his day right, and I want him to feel good.    

If I don't do it, he might think I don't really love him, might even look for someone else.

It isn't easy, sorting all of this out.

And yet, two basic, important findings:

(a) Partner motivated approaches are the most telling predictors of couple satisfaction. So it's okay, you see, to be selfless to a point.
(b) Whether or not it is for me or for my partner, if the reason is positive, there is higher relationship satisfaction overall. You feel like a better team.

That's the marital glue we're talking about.

It also means we shouldn't be having sex for negative reasons. (Obviously, the reasons are always wrong in any type of sexual abuse that isn't consensual or in which consent is coerced). But to make a seemingly good relationship (we have sex!) truly good, much better, the job would be to work out the negative reasons. Work them out and the relationship is more emotionally intimate.

And when that's how it is defined, truly emotionally intimate, it likely that sex will be marital glue. I would go so far as to say, only then.

I'm truly grateful for that study, because it makes it much easier to explain to my patients.  I mean it.

therapydoc

Going Home, Part Three

FD was in the bedroom and it was dark. He was standing opposite the twin single beds, just staring.

"Which one is yours?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Which one did you sleep in when you were a kid?"

"Why, both."

"You can't sleep in both."

Fact is, I clearly remember the moment it dawned on me that there were two beds, two big twin beds in my bedroom and there was only one of me. Maybe I didn't actually have to sleep in the bed I had been sleeping in for the past three or four post-toddler years. I could choose. There was the one under the windows, the usual bed, and there was the other by the opposite wall.

Soon after that decisive moment I shyly asked,

Mom? Do you think I could switch beds?

Sure, she said.

The strangest things can give a kid power. Two beds. Can you imagine? And some people grow up sharing one, sometimes sharing one bed with more than one person.

I did appreciate it, you know. I never took it for granted that I had that choice, a second bed. And I switched off on a regular basis.

Although pondering the bed situation in the dark with F.D. was interesting, I slipped off to get a drink of water from the kitchen. The skin, the skin. It has to be hydrated at any age (that's what they tell me in InStyle). My parents were reading in the living room so I joined them, not quite sleepy enough to go to bed. We talked a bit, caught up on who is sick and dying, the latest funerals. So many people I vaguely remember but remember! Pretty soon F.D. joined us in his pajamas.

They were thrilled. My parents adore him. More than me. He is a doctor, after all. The real kind. We all settled into some serious reading and then F.D. excused himself and went to bed. I still wanted to read more before joining him. By the time I tossed my book to the floor and stumbled to the bedroom, he was asleep in the bed by the wall. I snuggled in next to him for some heat.

When I thought it possible to brave the cold sheets alone, I slipped away to stretch out more comfortably in the other twin. In seconds I was out.

Woke up the next morning hearing the bedroom door close gently. F.D. was returning to bed. He'd been up at 4:00 learning. (When I refer to "learning" on this blog it often means learning Jewish law or Talmud, like it does now). He sat down next to me.

"I have bad news."

"Oh no, WHAT?"

I was nervous. When parents are getting up in age and sleeping more than usual, bad news is something you don't want to hear.

"The 30-cupper went out. The water's cold."

NO!

"No coffee?!(expetive)"

"I'm afraid not."

another expletive, not a bad one.

"They have orange juice," he said. "Lots and lots of orange juice. With calcium. Must've been on sale."

"I hate orange juice."

"Maybe there will be coffee at the hotel. They often serve it with a little cake just outside the room where we daven (pray-rhymes with Mahvin) at the hotel," he offered hopefully. We were invited to a Bar Mitzvah at a hotel. That's why we were staying with at my parents' house.

"I can't wait that long."

"It is bad, I know." He patted my hand.

"Yup. More than bad." I already had a headache that didn't quit that week. Maybe allergies, maybe stress. For sure a combination of both. The thought of no coffee was too much.

"I'm going to take a little nap before shul," he said softly, resigned.

We traded places. He took my bed and I put on my slippers and headed for the kitchen, thinking about how I could make coffee without hot water. (You don't cook anything on the Sabbath, remember, not even water.)

Dad was sleeping sitting straight up in a chair in the family room. He heard me and woke up.

"How are you, Dad?" I asked.

"Good." Then as an afterthought. "Have some orange juice," he said.

"Okay," I answered. He went back to sleep.

I opened the refrigerator door and found what I was looking for-- the Hershey's chocolate syrup and the milk. I took a large plastic cup, two teaspoonful of Folger's instant coffee, a huge glob of Hershey's, a half a cup of milk, a half cup of water, and stirred vigorously.

It fizzed like a phosphate and wasn't half bad. Try it.

I made one for F.D. then looked in the cupboard where they keep their daily medications and found some Tylenol. Took two with my chocolate phosphate.

Exhausted, joined F.D. in my old bedroom. "I brought you some coffee. It's iced coffee but without ice. Want some Tylenol?" I asked.

"Uh, no." He turned over.

I set down his drink, finished mine, joined him in that bed by the windows.

We lay there under the covers just looking around as the early morning sun gradually brightened up the room. It had been a pleasant bedroom for a kid, pink carpet, pale pink, hot pink, and peach curtains, matching bedspreads. I remember picking it all out. (note, choices). Now the decor is muted down to pale pinks, creams and cranberries, walls are off-white. Mom's made many nice changes.

"Do you remember when I used to sleep in the other bedroom, your brother's room, when we were engaged?" F.D. asked me.

"Uh, huh."

He continued. "I thought to myself, maybe one day, one day, I'll get to sleep in HER room. With HER."

"You did not."

"I did," he said. "Of course I did."

"Nah, I don't remember."

"That was a nice time of our lives," he said.

"Yup, we were 21 years old. Doesn't get any sexier than that," I said. Then correcting myself,

"Intellectually sexy, I mean, of course. We were young, but not too young. Old enough to make our own decisions, mature enough to consider everyone else's feelings. Still we felt good about making the choices we thought were right."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know. Like it was good that we told the parents to do whatever they liked with the wedding. Just let us get married already."

"Uh, huh. I see."

"There were other choices that we made, some weren't that hard," I said. "They seem harder for the kids these days."

"We were religious."

We were both thinking the same thing.

"Yup, decisions, decisions."

"We need to make one right now," he said.

"You mean, Should we get dressed and go to shul?" I asked him, closing one eye, then the other.

"Uh, huh."

Decisions, decisions.

"We still have time to nap awhile," I said.

"Okay."



Copyright 2007, therapydoc

Recreational Intimacy

The 5 Types of Intimacy. People tend to have very fixed ideas on the subject of intimacy, but there are at least five types. It’s not all touchy feely, which is good, because many people are very uncomfortable with direct, romantic expressions of love.

But because there are five kinds, relationships that are light on one, two, or perhaps even more of these varieties suffer. You sort of have to have it all, to have it all. Lacking any one of them can be the reason a committed relationship dissolves. And unfortunately, it's not at all easy to have them all.

We'll start with recreational intimacy. Counselors sometimes suggest that couples go out and find something they like to do together. Not bad advice, but it's not good, either. It's like saying, You guys go out and find a movie you both like.  There may not be such a thing.  And the process of finding one might be more trouble than it is worth, a prelude to an argument.

But the doc says, Do this.  So you choose one, but by the time you make the decision you are late for the  7:45 and didn't get tickets online. You fight the crowds, get frustrated and bored. You can do it, maybe, but why?

What these counselors should suggest is that you work less at finding something you both want to do and more at doing something together. Anything. The catch is having fun. The rule on an assignment like that is to keep it light, try to make it fun. You can still go to a depressing movie, but only if it’s good and one of you can do an imitation later.

I tell people not to worry about both of you liking an activity. Whatever you choose to do, it can be something one of you likes and the other totally hates, as long as it's not morally objectionable, disgusting or distasteful.

Games, sports, or the arts work nicely. Even pinball at a bowling alley. This is a personal bias, I'm going to admit. It could be that I'm showing my age, but video games don't seem to be as interactive as pinball used to be. Pinball was a whole body experience (a little more sexy, I think), the visual field more expansive. You had a whole machine to work. 

Regardless of the game, the partner who doesn't like the activity still has to have fun for a couple of hours, make himself have fun. Two hours is plenty of fun. It won't kill you.

Another misconception about intimacy is that you have to spend a lot of time at it. It isn’t a quantitative thing. Spending six hours trying to enjoy a Saturday night might be less worthwhile than a half an hour a night every night during the week. We really are talking quality time.

But you hate Gin Rummy? Too bad. You have to either make it fun somehow or pretend to be having fun. Pretending is one of life's most unselfish challenges. Don’t think of it as being someone you're not. Think of it as becoming someone you want to be. If it’s okay for your spouse, it’s okay for you. Of course if it's morally objectionable, then it's not okay for either of you.

Pretend you're Gerry of Ricky and Gerry (gender nonspecific). Ricky has picked an activity that Gerry hates, golf. Gerry has the hard part-- not-- bursting Ricky's bubble.

Gerry has to think, Ricky wants me to do this. Ricky wants us to have fun together doing this. How can I make it happen? The answer is:

By not complaining. By laughing as much as possible. By letting go of thinking how dumb you look when you miss the ball. By thinking of how funny you look—it's good to laugh at yourself! Try to remember how happy Ricky is that you are there, just chasing after a little ball. Complement Ricky on how well he plays. Let Ricky teach you and don’t get defensive.

Ricky, has a big responsibility here, too. Ricky can't make you feel like a clod. Ricky has to ingratiate him/herself because Gerry is doing what Ricky wants. Gerry is sucking it up, and Ricky will have to do that next time. Sorry, Rick.

Thinking like this is a challenge, no doubt. But it is just this sort of (1) empathy and (2) fake it 'til you make it that is the key to intimacy. It's hard to be happy doing something that doesn't naturally make us happy. It's unnatural by definition and yet. the pay back is amazing.

Recreational intimacy can be hard even when you're doing something you both love to do, too, primarily because the other types of intimacy interfere with the process of your interactions with one another.

That’s why all five plates, all five types of intimacy, have to be twirling at the same time..

Copyright 2006, TherapyDoc