Great Sex Secret (14 page)

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problems in relationships. People can change. Redemp-tion is possible. With candid feedback from friends and lovers, good communication, thoughtful introspection—

and, yes, some work on basic sexual techniques—almost everyone should be able to launch into romance with an open heart.

Ah, romance. This is where things get complicated.

How important is sex in love relationships—and what is the interplay between romance and love? Oscar Wilde once wrote: “A man wants to be a woman’s first love; a woman wants to be a man’s last romance.” But Wilde was talking about men wanting to marry virgins and women wanting their husbands to stop sowing wild oats and settle down (sentiments that are still with us).

What do we mean by romance today? In a 1992

study, psychologist Raymond Tucker of Bowling Green State University found that both men and women have a deeply romantic streak—but also a curious ambivalence about the place of sex in relation to love and romance. He asked people, “What constitutes a romantic act?” A rank-ordered list of the responses he received is on the next page.

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For Men

For Women

1. Taking walks together

1. Taking walks together

2. Kissing

2. Flowers

3. Candle-lit dinners

3. Kissing

4. Cuddling

4. Cuddling

5. Hugging

5. Candle-lit dinners

6. Flowers

6. Declaring “I love you”

7. Holding hands

7. Love Letters

8. Making love

8. Slow dancing

9. Love letters

9. Hugging

10. Sitting by the fireplace. 10. Giving surprise gifts It’s touching that both men and women have so much in common in their notions of romantic acts. But what’s most striking in these responses is that sex is not very prominent on either list; making love ranked eighth among the men and didn’t even make the top ten for women. Why this disconnect between intercourse and romance? Do most of these folks have lousy sex lives?

That’s possible, considering how many people (especially women) say they are disappointed with sex. But it’s also possible that Tucker’s subjects thought that his question about romantic acts was not about their sex lives. Sure, sex can be romantic, but what popped into their heads when they were asked about romance was the emotional/feeling side of relationships: love letters, walking on the beach, candlelit dinners, and the like.

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This gives us an intriguing glimpse of people’s attitudes about romance, sex, and love—and the way they may
not
be interacting in many people’s relationships.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg has a theory that takes this idea a little deeper. Sternberg postulates that true love can be seen as a triangle with three components: Passion—the lovers are physically attracted and have a sexual relationship;

Intimacy—the lovers are best friends and communicate effortlessly;

Commitment—the lovers agree to be faithful to each other.

Intimacy

Passion

Commitment

There are many possible combinations of these three aspects of love, most of which fall short of what Sternberg calls
consummate
love. These include:

• Infatuation (passion only)

• Friendship (intimacy only)

• Empty love (commitment only)

• Romantic love (intimacy and passion)

• Fatuous love (commitment and passion) 1 4 6

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t

• Companionate love (intimacy and commitment) With consummate or true love, all three sides of the triangle are active in the relationship, and each side interacts with the other two:

• Intimacy and good communication enhance the enjoyment of sex—and deepen the commitment and the desire to stay together.

• Passion (sex) deepens intimacy by expressing affection at another level—and strengthens commitment by holding lovers together through the vicissitudes of life.

• Commitment creates a safe and trusting environ-ment in which people can really let go and enjoy themselves sexually—and constantly creates new history for the couple to share.

In short, there’s a powerful synergy among the three sides of the triangle:

• Sex is better with intimacy and commitment.

• Intimacy is deeper with commitment and sex.

• Commitment is stronger with sex and intimacy.

All this helps put sex in context, and suggests a way to think about sexual techniques in a truly loving relationship: necessary but not sufficient. Ideally, techniques are always operating in a way that allows the authentic expression of our inner selves—but we can always learn and grow as people and work at becoming better lovers.

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Sexual Techniques Keep Us from

Doing What Comes Naturally

Sex in the context of love and romance sometimes takes on an almost mystical quality. The lovers run through the field in slow motion. They stop and turn toward each other in the sunset. Their eyes lock. They kiss. Slow fadeout.
But what happens after the fadeout?

Not to worry, because when people are really in love, they know what to do.

Unfortunately, this is a lie, and the movies and other vehicles of romantic mythology do a great disservice when they continue to propagate it. Yes, sex comes naturally. But when couples go totally by instinct, the sex is rarely great—especially for the woman—and even when the sex is good at first it often does not stand the test of time. Lovemaking that brings genuine satisfaction to both partners over time is neither easy nor obvious.

Having sex is innate; mutually satisfying lovemaking is learned.

When the basics of sexual technique (with a capital

“T”) are not learned, sex can be disappointing and drag down the whole relationship. Using Sternberg’s triangle again, this time looking at negative synergy, it’s easy to see how problems on the sexual side can affect the other two, souring communication and undermining commitment. According to sex therapist Charles Muir, there’s a disproportionate impact when a downward 1 4 8

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spiral begins: “When sex is good, it’s 10 percent of the relationship. When it’s bad, it’s 90 percent.”

Young couples need to learn fundamental sexual techniques. In fact, it’s downright unfair to expect every new couple to unravel the challenges that have flummoxed lovers for thousands of years. The confusing asymmetries of men’s and women’s sexual anatomies, the seductive myth that penetration produces female orgasm, the challenges of pacing and timing—this is a lot to figure out. Strong love with zero sexual technique (the bottom right quadrant on the diagram on page 134) is not the best place for a couple to be. To get into the top right-hand quadrant (true love with sexual proficiency), it really helps to be exposed to some fundamental insights that have been discovered over the years. Technique is certainly not everything, and it can’t solve deep incompatibilities, but getting basic

Mutually satisfying sex

information early in a

combines with love to take a

relationship can save a lot

romantic relationship to a

of time and resentment

higher level. That’s what

and help lovers get to the

sexual happiness is all about.

heart of the matter—last-

ing sexual happiness—a

lot sooner.

“Love is all you need/Love is all you need…” sang the Beatles. But love is not enough, and neither is giving
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flowers, walking on the beach, and snuggling by the fireplace. It’s certainly important to be in love and get along and communicate well on a day-to-day basis, and yes, people can survive for a lifetime without great sex.

But without some basic knowledge about how to make intercourse mutually satisfying, many couples will spend years figuring things out and may never arrive at truly satisfying lovemaking.

Communication: The Key to Joining Love and Sex
For couples who are having difficulty finding their way to mutually satisfying sex, the most powerful technique is being able to talk openly and honestly about sex.

Unfortunately, says sex therapist Judith Seifert, “Most people find it easier to have sex than to talk about it.”

There’s something about expressing preferences in bed—saying what we like and what we don’t like—

that’s very challenging. We want to be pleasing and passionate (“Yes, yes, yes!”), but the words are difficult to find when things are not going well (“Not that way; here, let me show you.”). We don’t want to come across as demanding and judgmental and hurt the other person’s feelings (“Not like that!”), and we certainly don’t want to spoil the moment. But people are not mind-readers. All this reticence leads straight to “Not tonight, I’m too tired.”

Compare this reticence to a situation where feedback 1 5 0

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flows naturally: having someone scratch your back.

You have no hesitation saying, “A little bit lower. To the left. A little further over. Right there. Not quite so hard. Yes! A little more. Ahhhhh! OK, that’s enough.

Thank you!” Why can’t we give feedback like this for, say, stimulating the clitoris? That’s the only way it’s going to be done right, because the woman knows what she’s feeling and what’s needed to bring her to orgasm. But many women hesitate to give honest and specific feedback, especially at the beginning of a sexual relationship.

They’re afraid of hurting their partners’ feelings, making them feel incompetent, coming across as selfish and pushy, and driving them away.

Sex-advice columnist Amy Spencer shared a telling personal story about not speaking up. Her boyfriend thought that she didn’t like to make love in the morning. In fact, she did, but rebuffed his advances because she was turned off by “the halitosis from Hades, the chin grit suitable for sanding pine furniture, the way he slept with his black dress socks on.” If he had known all this, he probably would have addressed her grievances immediately, but she could never bring herself to tell him, and he never thought to ask.

Here we have the classic hesitation waltz of poor sexual communication. She can’t bring herself to speak up.

She hopes that he will figure it out, but he doesn’t. He assumes that she will tell him if there’s a problem, but
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she doesn’t. Perhaps unconsciously, she’s putting him through a mind-reading test, and the poor guy flunks.

The problem festers under the surface, producing resentment and frustration. In this case (as in many others), lack of communication kills the relationship.

If a man can’t ask in a nice way what the problem is with sex in the morning, and if his lover can’t ask him to do something as simple as brush his teeth, shave, and take off those damn socks, how much more difficult is it going to be for them to talk about some truly intimate sexual concerns—for example, touching her clitoris a little differently? But this is the state of communication between many, many lovers. Given the deep roots of our sexual reticence, it’s really hard to talk openly.

One short-term solution for couples who are having difficulty putting their thoughts into words is to use an indirect approach to sharing sexual likes and dislikes. In
The Good Orgasm Guide
, British sexologist Kate Taylor has these suggestions:

• Respond audibly (not necessarily with words) to things that your lover does that are pleasurable and fun; this provides encouragement for him or her to continue. (In the case of the spurned morning lover, this might consist of complimenting him on his freshly shaved face, sweet-smelling breath, and lovely naked feet when they make love in the early evening. Hint, hint.)

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• Extinguish things your lover does that are not working for you by not responding. (Of course if something is painful, uncomfortable, or degrading, you need to speak up.)

• In asking your lover what he or she likes, give either/or choices the way your eye doctor does when zeroing in on the correct prescription for a new pair of glasses: Which do you like better, this way (demonstrate), or this way (demonstrate)? It’s a lot easier to express a preference between two options than to ask for something directly.

• If you’re having difficulty pleasing your partner, ask him or her to take you by the hand and show you nonverbally.

These are starting points. They can help get the flow of honest feedback going between lovers, and can serve as bridges to the ultimate goal—being able to come right out and say it. The key is listening to feedback, communicating honestly, and keeping your eyes on the prize: genuine, mutual satisfaction for both partners by the end of each lovemaking session.

★

Does sex make love better? Does love make sex better?

Yes
! What’s technique got to do with it?
Plenty
. Being in love is where it all begins, and the interaction of all
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three sides of love—intimacy, commitment, and sexual passion—is what fuels a deep and lasting love relationship. But if a couple does not have a good approach to making love with mutual satisfaction (i.e., both having orgasms), their love will not reach its full potential.

And if they are stuck with a technique that consistently frustrates one partner, their love (no matter how deep) will suffer. Orgasms matter. It’s hardwired.

The point needs to be made once again: making love in a way that deeply pleases both partners is not easy or obvious; it doesn’t come naturally to the vast majority of people. Learning sexual techniques with a capital “T”