1. Do not link sex with nonsexual issues. Using sex as a reward or a bribe devalues the erotic experience and drives a wedge between partners.
2. Tackle one problem at a time. In a problem-solving discussion, only one problem should be discussed. Additional problems or discussions are to be avoided or redirected.
3. Define the problem clearly. A well-defined problem statement involves a description of the undesirable behavior, specifying the situations in which it occurs, and the nature of the distress accompanying it. A problem statement should be specific, feel-ing-oriented, responsible, and brief.
4. Practice creative brainstorming. Generate a list of solution pos-sibilities without evaluating their merits.
5. Be willing to compromise. Both partners are affected by and involved in a problem. Solutions should involve change on the part of each partner.
6. Clarify and summarize the final agreement. Once agreement has been reached, each party should clearly state what he or she is going to do differently. Putting it in writing may help.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Cunnilingus
(see Oral Sex)
Cybersex
You can become part of the cyberworld that links people across the nation and throughout the world by joining one of the information services such as CompuServe or America Online. All you need is a computer, modem and a credit card. These services connect computer users via E-mail, a system of sending messages that some people use as a dating service, a source for erotica, and even a way of having
“sex” on line. Cybersex involves no physical contact. Heated written exchanges describe simulated sexual maneuvers between two people either in confidential messages or within a group or “chat room.”
Why would anyone want to do this? Cybersex is a sexual stimulant for some people, a way of becoming safely aroused without cheating on a partner or taking emotional and physical risks in an encounter with a stranger. They enjoy the fantasy element of their encounters on line and are excited by the large number of available partners.
One can have as many cyberlovers as one likes with no guilt. Others may find cybersex inspires them to try new ways of making love with their partners or frees them to discover something new about their own erotic natures. And some people do move from connecting via the cyberworld to meeting each other in the real world.
The downside? Some people spend far too much time in cyberworld, cutting themselves off from the physical and emotional comforts of real relationships. Also, a lot of cyberlovers aren’t who they say they are. They exaggerate their physical attributes, lie about their ages, occupations, and marital status, and sometimes their genders. Someone who makes an emotional commitment to a cyberlover may be com-mitting to a fantasy, nothing more.
Cybersex can be liberating, a sexual fantasy with an edge of realism, or it can be a way of avoiding human contact, an outlet for workahol-ics. How much time are you spending in cyberworld?
EXAMPLE
“I liked cybersex because of the freedom to be whoever I wanted to be,” said Jane. “I could say whatever I wanted to say about myself.
Also I liked the element of danger. I never knew who I was talking to. Maybe he was a potential hacker/stalker.
“My best cyberlover approached me with the line, ‘Can I hold your hand?’ I thought that was romantic. He said he was an Olympic skating hopeful. Maybe he was. I said I was an actress/model. I wasn’t.
“We made a weekly date for sex on line. In addition to him, I had three or four other encounters each week with strangers I picked up in chat rooms. That worked for me because my boyfriend traveled a lot. I was very attracted to my skater. We talked about meeting each other, but never did. My friends who have met face to face with men they’ve met on line were all disappointed. Reality makes things worse.
“After a while, I got tired of simulated sex on line. I realized I didn’t have a life, so I quit playing around in cyberworld and got more in-volved with my boyfriend.”
Jane never considered her cybersex dates a form of “cheating” on her relationship, but some people do. Is it cheating? That’s not an easy question to answer. If you are withholding a great deal of your-self in a committed relationship, you are cheating in a sense, whether the withholding takes the form of cybersex, a real lover, or simply keeping important secrets.
SECRETS OF BETTER SEX
Desire
Desire is the erotic urge that precedes arousal. It is possible to become aroused without having first experienced desire just as it is possible to have desire without acting upon the feeling. The two are separate and different processes. Problems with sexual desire are the most common complaints treated by sex therapists today.
While the process of sexual arousal has been studied in detail, re-search on sexual desire has been done only in the last decade. Some of those studies indicate that the sex hormone testosterone, present
in both sexes, is responsible for sexual desire, or libido, in both men and women. But there is more to desire than hormones. Desire is sometimes elusive, often compelling, and frequently complicated, af-fected in varying degrees by marital conflict, repressed anger, broken trust, stress, anxiety, and many other factors within and outside the relationship.
In addition, each of us goes through cycles of desire having to do with fluctuating hormonal cycles, our health and physical condition and how we feel about our bodies, our workloads, how well we’re getting along with our partners. Many women, for example, desire sex more at certain points of their menstrual cycle than others. Two people will periodically go in and out of sexual sync in a long-term relationship. Couples who have never been sexually out of sync with each other probably haven’t been together long. It’s that common.
Like the common cold, this condition may make you miserable, but it isn’t going to kill you or the relationship.
More serious problems include lack of desire and incompatible de-sires, when one partner always wants more sex than the other.
EXAMPLE
The sex virtually ended when Laurie and Jim moved in together. She tried the conventional home remedies for arousing his flagging libido.
When she met him at the door in a red silk negligee and high heels, he said, “Jesus, Laurie, don’t you ever think about anything but sex?”
She cried while he stomped around the room blowing out candles not the sensual scene she’d pictured standing in line at Victoria’s Secret, red silk and credit card in hand.
She says he never wants sex. He says she always wants sex. That’s an amusing set-up in a Woody Allen movie, but not funny in real life.
“My boyfriends before Jim couldn’t get enough of me in bed,” she said. In the beginning of their relationship two years ago, neither could he. “What’s wrong with me now?” she asks. Have I lost my appeal? I’m going to be 30 in a year and a half. Does he want someone younger?”
Jim said, “No, I’m not tired of her, she hasn’t lost her appeal, I don’t want someone younger. I want sex once, maybe twice, a week,
SECRETS OF BETTER SEX
not the five or six nights a week Laurie wants to make love. She has sex on the brain.”
She questioned her desirability, but Jim said his manhood was in question, not her womanhood. He felt pressured to perform by Laurie.
What was happening to Jim and Laurie eventually turned out to be nothing more serious than their first out-of-sync cycle. He was putting in long hours at the office and was worried about his future with the company and perhaps his future ability to support a family. Dissatis-fied with her own job, she was expecting the relationship to meet more of her emotional needs just as he was willing to put less of his emo-tional energy into it. The more he withdrew, the harder she tried to get his attention by wearing higher heels, shorter skirts, and showing more cleavage. When she backed off, he came out of his sexual slump.
For other couples, a disparity of desire may be an ongoing fact of life. Some people have higher sex drives than others. That does not make one person “normal” and the other “abnormal.” They simply have different appetites for sex as they might for food, sleep, exercise.
And sometimes the people with high sex drives fall in love with and marry the people with low sex drives. How does that happen? During the courtship phase, the partner with lower drive will probably want a lot more sex than he or she normally does. The natural differences in libidos are masked by the excitement of the new relationship.