Do mismatched sex drives have to be a dealbreaker?

Not at all, in fact it would be highly unusual if any two people did not have differences – often significant differences – in terms of the amount and kind of sex they want. It would be great if we could assume, going into relationships, that this would be the case and talk openly about how we’d like to navigate these discrepancies. Unfortunately there’s a huge cultural mythology that if a relationship is ‘right’ we’ll be matched in terms of our sex drives and desires. This means that people find it very hard to acknowledge, and get support around it, when that’s not the case.

How can a compromise be reached without the partner(s) with the higher sex drive feeling unwanted and/or the partner(s) with the lower sex drive feeling coerced?

It’s very useful to untangle sex from other things where possible. Instead of thinking, or saying, ‘I want sex’ we can tune in and identify what we really want, and then assess whether sex is the only way to get there. In your example it sounds like somebody wants to feel wanted by their partner. Can they explore where that ‘wanting to be wanted’ comes from, and what range of experiences give them that feeling? It’s very helpful to tune into what we really want and need, so we can take the pressure off sex being the only thing that can fulfill those wants and needs.

It can also help to make a sexual venn diagram, of overlapping circles for the people in the relationship, where we include all of our sexual desires in the circles, with the ones we share in the overlapping part. Then we can have conversations about how we might connect in ways where we can enjoy those overlapping desires. We can also talk about the ways in which each person might be able to explore and enjoy the desires they have that are not in the overlap. In consensually non-monogamous relationships that might be with other people, in monogamous relationships it might be in giving everyone time and space for solo sex of various kinds, for example.

What about situations where there is a kink vs vanilla compromise to be made? 

This is no different to the previous example really. Again if we assume that there will always be differences in desires, then kink/vanilla is just one of the ways those differences might show up, and it’s up to each relationships to keep returning to the ways in which each person might explore and enjoy those desires which aren’t compatible. 

In this case, however, it is probably worth unpacking more what’s meant by ‘kink’ and ‘vanillia’. Rather than assuming, it may be more helpful to list all of the erotic desires and fantasies each person has and mapping them on the venn diagram. It may be there are some compatibilities that show up when we don’t assume what counts as ‘kink’ or ‘vanilla’.

How common would you say this issue is, especially in LGBTQ+ and poly relationships?

It is extremely common among everybody. Given that all our sex drives and desires shift and change over time, even if we were 100% compatible at one point in time (unlikely!) then that won’t be true for the whole length of our relationship. It’s way more helpful to assume that we’ll fluctuate over time. There can be some more acceptance of sexual fluidity in LGBTQ+ communities, but there can also be a carry-over from mainstream heterosexual culture that sexual discrepancies are a problem.

One big question is how we can untether sex from other aspects of a relationship. A key reason that people often feel that they have to have sex when they don’t want to is that they assume that other aspects of a relationship are contingent on them continuing to have sex. If we want to be truly consensual we have to accept that our partners may stop wanting sex with us for a while, or even forever, and that this should not mean they would lose, for example, our love, respect, financial security, family, or anything else. Asexual and aromantic communities are perhaps at the forefront of navigating relationships in this way.

Struggling with sexual discrepancies can be less common in poly groups given that there is a built in possibility that people can meet different desires and needs in different relationships. However, there can still be an assumption in poly communities that for a relationship to ‘count’ as a relationship there needs to be sex involved, or that being sexually ‘compatible’ is better or ideal. Again, the more we can question such assumptions, the better.

What kind of resources would you recommend for those facing this sort of issue?

BishUK and Scarleteeen are two excellent websites for young people (but really useful to everyone), and School of Consent is brilliant. In terms of my own books, hopefully How to Understand Your Sexuality, Sexuality: A Graphic Guide, and A Practical Guide to Sex do a pretty good job at covering these issues. There’s also a free book about consent on my website, and the zine Justin Hancock and I created to Make Your Own Sex Manual helps you to communicate overlaps and mismatches in desire.

The post Mismatched sexual desires appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Why do many couples feel pressure to have a certain type of sex?

Unfortunately we have a cultural script that only certain things count as ‘proper’ sex. Generally this is penis-in-vagina sex leading to orgasm, although there are different scripts among women who have sex with women, or men who have sex with men. Even there there is still often an idea that there’s a default way that people should have sex.

Other things that many people like just as much – and often more than – penetration are either seen as ‘foreplay’ before the ‘real thing’ (like oral sex or mutual masturbation) or as ‘alternative’ forms of sex, with a lot of stigma around them (like kinky play or threesomes).

We see this idea of proper, normal, default script everywhere from Hollywood movies, to the medical categories for ‘sexual dysfunction’, to sex advice books, so it’s hard to escape from even when we know that it’s problematic.

How can people start to move beyond these expectations?

I think it’s useful to realise that – far from being good for us – the idea of a certain kind of normal sex is responsible a lot of problems people have with sex.

Trying to ‘achieve’ penetration and orgasm takes us away from being in the moment and from being open about our desires, which are the two things that are most vital for enjoyable sex.

The default sexual script also leads to a lot of people having unwanted sex – because they feel they ‘should’ do this ‘proper sex’ – which makes them end up wanting to do it even less. In long term relationships, people often stop enjoying sex because of having such a limited sexual script, rather than being able to enjoy how their desires shift over time and pick from a wider menu of  activities which can all be great.

If people are experiencing a period of no sex within a relationship, how can they approach and resolve the situation with their partner?

The first thing to say is that it’s absolutely normal to stop having sex. Actually far more relationships stop being sexual over time than those that stay sexual, and even in those that do remain sexual, the sex fluctuates over time.

As therapist and writer Esther Perel points out, it’s actually very difficult to have relationships that are both warm and companionable, and hot and passionate, at the same time. As most long term relationships become more warm, they stop being hot. It’s a cruelty of the sex advice industry that it sells us the myth of ongoing hot relationships.

Also people in asexual communities teach us that it’s perfectly possible to be a healthy human being – in a healthy relationship – without being sexual, so accepting not being sexual is absolutely an option. One thing people should never do is to try to make themselves have sex that they – or their partner – don’t want. So much non-consensual sex happens this way and it takes a massive toll on people’s mental health.

If one or both partners do still feel desire for sex then there are a huge array of openly non-monogamous and monogamish relationship styles to consider. It’s also worth thinking how each person is building solo sex into their lives, including fantasy, erotica, and/or porn – this is really important in itself, and for understanding yourself as a sexual person. If partners do want to have sex with each other, then exploring their individual fantasies and desires, communicating about these, and finding the potential areas of overlap is a good start. 

What are the best ways to begin a conversation with a partner about rethinking expressions of sex and intimacy within the relationship?

I’ve created some zines to help with this, with Justin Hancock, called Make Your Own Relationship User Guide and Make Your Own Sex Manual. These can help you to figure out both what relationship style works for you and your partner/s, and what you’re into sexually, as well as communicating that. It’s a great idea to make these things an ongoing conversation in your relationship as people often have different assumptions about what their relationship rules are, or what they’re looking for from sex.

Beyond heteronormative penetrative sex, what forms of sex could couples explore?

Justin and I recommend expanding out your notion of sex as far as possible. Get together and write down all the things that could possibly be thought of as erotic, sensual, or hot by somebody somewhere. Then you have a menu to work off and can go through ticking which ones you’d be keen to try, or not, and other thoughts about each activity. That way you can build up a sense of your overlapping desires and interests.

It’s also a great idea to explore sexual fantasy – whether that’s fantasies you have in your head, erotica, or porn, that you enjoy. Sharing this can be an excellent way to see where your areas of overlap might be.

Justin and I did this podcast of all the things you can do sexually with somebody which don’t involve genitals – it’s a really long list. The Wheel of Consent 3 minute game is also a great way to explore different kinds of physical touch and dynamics between you. It’s a good way to learn how to be consensual too.

What other forms of intimacy could couples explore?

Often when people want sex it’s for some particular reason, for example to feel close with their partner, to relieve stress, to get into a high energy state, to relax, or to be playful. It’s worth checking in with the state you’d like to be in – rather than just saying that you want sex. There might be lots of things you could do – alone or together – to get into that state.

Taking the pressure off sex is one of the most common pieces of advice from sex therapists. So think about carving out time to spend together as a couple where you tune into what you’d like to feel at the end of the time together, and come up with non-sexual things you could do to get there. For example it might be that a massage, cooking together or going for a walk together relaxes you and meets your need for intimacy, or that playing a game together, teasing and tickling each other, or watching comedy meets your need for playfulness.

It’s great to do solo time like this too because it’s good for couples to get both time together and time apart.

The post Rethinking sex in relationships appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Monday 16^th January 2012 saw the launch of a new Open University research project called Enduring Love? Here I will introduce the project and also summarise the talks at the launch about current thinking on relationships, and the pressures they are under.

There has been plenty of research on break-up, divorce and separation. The team behind this project decided that it was time that we knew more about what makes people stay together as well as what makes them split up.

The plan is to get as many people as possible to fill out the online questionnaire so that the researchers can get a good idea of the diversity of ways in which people are experiencing long-term relationships, as well as anything that people who stay together have in common. At the same time, there will be much more in-depth research on sixty couples who will keep a diary of their relationship, take part in interviews together and separately, and explore the way they live and how they feel in their relationship. The detailed research will consider various aspects of the couple relationship such as emotions, sex, commitment, and the way that their partnership fits with other important relationships in their lives. You can already get an idea of the kinds of things people are saying about their relationships from the video clips and podcasts that the team has put together.

The project is called Enduring Love? with a question mark to give the title a double meaning. The researchers are keen to explore what makes relationships work for those who stay together long term and who find that a fulfilling way to live. At the same time it is clear that some couples feel pressured to stay together even when they are very unhappy. It is useful to know what makes an enduring love, as well as what the experience is like when love itself becomes something to be endured. Of course many relationships include elements of both these things: when times are hard the relationship feels like something to be endured, and when things are going well the ‘enduring’ nature of the relationship is something that may be celebrated. Enduring hard times can build intimacy as well as sometimes breaking it.

At the launch event we heard from a representative from the Department of Education who spoke about ways in which the research could feed into government strategies around relationships. For example, it could help to illuminate the diversity of relationship styles that people are currently engaged in, feeding into relationship education in school PSHE, developing relationship therapy training, and informing programmes which help couples to transition to different forms of relationships (for example, those who continue to co-parent or live together when they are no longer a couple).

After the talk from the DoE, author and journalist, Kate Figes, spoke about her book Couples: The Truth which was based on interviews with a range of couples. She found that people don’t tend to reflect on their relationships whilst things are going well – only when things go badly wrong. People also felt that their relationship had to be private and that it was disloyal to talk about what went on in their relationship to anybody outside of it. Finally, people were very concerned about whether their relationship was ‘normal’.

Of course when nobody speaks openly about the reality of relationships, it is easy for us all to assume that everybody else’s relationship is much better than our own (because that is what they look like from the outside), and to worry that something is wrong with us. One reason that I love the book Mistakes were made (but not by me) is that it argues that intimate relationships are actually one of the most challenging things we can possibly do, because letting someone in so close that they get to see all sides of you is exposing, and often confronts us with difficult truths.

Kate’s ideas resonated with my own thoughts on this topic as she highlighted key pressures that relationships are currently under, many of which I also explore in my book Rewriting the Rules, which is out later this year. She said that there is romantic pressure to find a soulmate who will provide us with our happily-ever-after; there is sexual pressure to have perfect exciting sex throughout a relationship; and there is pressure to be monogamous, with any kind of infidelity regarded as unacceptable. However, the first two pressures make it more, rather than less, likely that people will end up looking elsewhere because nobody can be everything to us, people change over time, and such insularity can leave us gasping for freedom.

Kate reckoned that important ways forward were for people to be more honest about the lows and highs of their relationships, to communicate better with each other, and to recognise the impact of our backgrounds, cultures, and family histories on how we understand relationships (which will inevitably be different to that of our partners). She also argued that the adversarial legal system is very bad for people who are trying to shift their relationship into a different form (co-parenting for example) and that mediation is a better alternative.

We also heard from academics Lynn Jamieson and Ann Phoenix who talked about their own research in this area and what their hopes were for the Enduring Love? project. Lynn spoke about the way our understandings of coupledom has changed over time. An older participant in her research spoke about the way marriage used to be just what people did at a certain age, whilst many now see love as a vital ingredient. Lynne, and others in the audience raised questions about who we count as a couple. For example, many couples now don’t live together some, or even all, of the time. There are also people who are in secret couples which others in their lives do not know about. And polyamorous people have relationships with more than one person so they may be in more than one couple, or in a triad/quad or family rather than a couple at all. In Rewriting the Rules I question the dividing rules that we have between romantic love and other kinds of relationship which are not always clearcut (what about a romantic relationship that has become more like a friendship over time, or a close friendship between people who live together and have intense rows and good times together?).

Lynn suggested that the Enduring Love? research could provide valuable insights into ‘practices of intimacy’: what are the building blocks of relationships that we may not be aware of but which we use everyday to connect with those we’re close to? What is the role of talking (and deciding not to talk about certain issues)? Other practices include practices of caring for each other, learning about each other, spending time together (physically present and digitally mediated), prioritising, and giving and receiving.

Lynn agreed with Kate about the ludicrous pressures of cultural ideas such as ‘The One’ and ‘Mr/Ms Right’, suggesting that we might move towards celebrating more pragmatic arrangements that people have in their relationships. Ann Phoenix went on to explore such ideas further in her talk which highlighted the roles of myths and stories that couples have about their relationships (which draw upon cultural myths as well as family backgrounds). Like Kate she highlighted the importance of recognising that all relationships have dissatisfactions and disharmonies as well as shared stories, even if these are more rarely spoken about with others.

Ann suggested that key areas to consider, when exploring relationships, include the diversity of experiences of those in transnational couples (who may be forced to live apart and/or have different backgrounds and privileges, for example), and same-sex couples. Like polyamorous people, such couples have the additional pressure of frequently having to explain their relationships to strangers, which is a very different experience to those whose relationship is take-for-granted and even celebrated by others and by wider culture.

Ann also discussed change, which is something that I focus on in Rewriting the Rules. She said that over time we are not the same people who we were back when we got together, never mind being the same couple. She also questioned the binary way in which we tend to see ‘enduring’ and ‘breaking up’. As I explore in my chapter on break-up, given the shifts that relationships go through over time we might begin to challenge what it means to ‘stay together’ and to ‘split up’ and what there might be between these two extremes. Perhaps ‘enduring love’ is a love that is flexible enough to shift and change over time as the situation demands it.

Hopefully the sociological approach taken by the Enduring Love? researchers will enable a continued exploration of the psychosocial nature of relationships. Our intimate relationships happen in a wider context of global, economic, political, and social change as well as within wider social networks which may support or constrain our relationships. We know, for example, that social policies influence whether people can live together or not, and economic situations and policies determine who can get married. Clearly cultural ideals about relationships impact our expectations and experiences. Relationships are not something we learn how to do once and for all, rather they are a work in progress operating within a world which is also changing all the time.

The post Enduring Love? appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.