Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (67 page)

169
Chapter Six of
Passionate Marriage
is devoted to background and practical advise on
hugging till relaxed
.

170
You’ll be easily distracted, so start off doing
hugging till relaxed
someplace where you won’t be disturbed, especially if you have kids. And if you do have children, get good at doing
hugging till relaxed
in private, and then do it in your living room (with your clothes on). It will lower the anxiety and tension in your house and help everyone calm down. It reduces the ambient stress level, creating an environment that promotes healthy brain function.

171
Repetition is critical for success with all the activities I describe in Part Four. Clients who do
hugging till relaxed
frequently (almost daily) for at least ten minutes obtain better results. When you’re starting out, several times a day works best. Frequent repetition and massed practice appears to be important in neuroplastic training (Doidge, 2007).

172
You can quiet your mind and calm your heart by counting breaths: Take a deep breath in and count “1.” Exhale deeply and count “2.” Slow your breathing and keep counting “1—2—1—2.” This focuses your attention and synchronizes your mind and body. When your mind drifts off and you’ve lost count, start over.

173
Taylor (2009).

174
Svoboda, McKinnon, & Levine (2006).

175
Your right and left hemispheres communicate through your corpus callosum.

176
Some couples start off working with
heads on pillows
and then add
hugging till relaxed
. These two activities are not hierarchical. It’s a matter of how
best to use them in your particular situation. For instance, one couple started with
heads on pillows
because they needed to confront years of deception between them. They did
heads on pillows
with clothes on, looking eye to eye. Out of bed, they began to deal with how they lied to each other, face to face, day after day. This laid the groundwork for doing
hugging till relaxed
. For more details on
heads on pillows
, see Chapter 11 in
Resurrecting Sex
.

177
Cozolino’s (2002) book on psychotherapy and neuroplastic changes has six of the seven items listed here. To this I have added “intense and profound intersubjective moments of meeting” based on the work of Stern (1985 and 1994), Schore (1996), and others.

178
Sexual dysfunctions and low desire often go hand in hand. Sexual desire is an important component of your total level of stimulation in a sexual encounter, and thus greatly determines whether or not your body responds and you become aroused and reach orgasm. If you have low sexual desire, you’re more likely to have difficulty getting aroused, staying lubricated or erect, or having an orgasm.
Resurrecting Sex
contains a complete system, called the
Quantum Model
, for resolving sexual dysfunctions, including arousal problems like lack of interest, difficulties with lubrication or erections, and orgasms that are too fast, too slow, or no-show. See pp. 31–36 and 170–171.

Basically, your total level of stimulation has to reach your body’s physical response thresholds for genital response and orgasm. When your total level of stimulation reaches or exceeds your response thresholds, your genitals do what they’re suppose to do. Your total level of stimulation has three components: (1) your body’s ability to respond physically, (2) stimulation you receive in all sensory modalities, and (3) your emotions, thoughts, and feelings while you’re having sex. Increased desire adds directly and indirectly to your total stimulation. It enhances your sensations and optimizes your thoughts and feelings. By applying the
Quantum Model
’s three dimensions, you can systematically analyze your sexual dysfunctions and resolve them.

179
See
www.misterpoll.com/polls/3256/results
.

180
This discussion of restarting your sexual relationship also applies to relationships that are not necessarily completely celibate.

181
“First, externally produced stimuli normally carry more biological significance than self-produced stimuli, and self-produced stimuli need not be picked out as important. An animal must be attuned to sensory events that indicate the actions of other animals, and this can only be achieved by being able to ignore the sensory events that arise as a consequence of the animal’s own actions. This allows unexpected stimulation to be selectively detected. The attenuation of self-produced tactile stimuli might distinguish them from biologically more important (externally produced) stimuli … As the tactile stimulus diverges
temporally or spatially from the motor command producing it, the efference copy is less able to predict and cancel the sensation, which is therefore perceived as more tickly.” See Blakemore et al. (1999), p. 556.

182
The medial frontal regions of the brain. See Frith & Frith (1999).

183
Damasio (1999).

184
Fridlund & Loftis (1990) and Harris & Christenfeld (1997).

185
Stearns (1972) discusses the neural pathways of the tickle-laughter reflex arc in Chapter 1.

186
See Johnson (2002) and Ellis (2007). Havelock Ellis, a famous sexologist of the early 1900s, speculated about a neural connection between tickling and laughter mediated by a common cognitive component.

187
Posted by Ron on July 25, 1999, in the “Tickle Torture Forum.” Also see
www.ticklingforum.com
and
www.ticklingemporium.com
.

188
The corpus callosum. See De Bellis et al. (1999).

189
How does “getting control of yourself without dropping your alliance with your partner” fit with focusing on being able to hold on to your self by yourself? Holding on to your self independently is always the bottom line. It’s a fall-back position that lets you relax. You can temporarily stop the activity at any time if you need to get control of your self by yourself.

But “holding on to your self independently” doesn’t mean away from your partner. Differentiation is about holding on to your self while you’re emotionally and physically
close
to your partner. If your Four Points of Balance are weak, you maintain your emotional balance by keeping people either more distant or closer then they want to be. This strategy for overcoming ticklishness will challenge your Four Points of Balance and stretch your ability to maintain a collaborative alliance with your partner. If you do have a true collaborative alliance and your partner isn’t pressuring you to conform, your brain may still say he is. If it does, show yourself the difference between what’s happening in your mind and what’s actually happening between the two of you. Repeatedly comparing the two, right then and in subsequent sessions, will quiet your brain’s hyper-reactive emotional centers.

190
Subjects in one study reported ticklish sensations when the examiner’s hand approached but did not touch their bodies. See Newman et al. (1991).

191
Anxiety arousal / sexual arousal is sexual arousal triggered by the physiological side effects of anxiety. As your body becomes more physiologically activated, it can trigger sexual arousal. This is a naturally occurring response. However, people raised in highly anxious households often develop this into their dominant sexual arousal pattern. As children and adolescents they are sexually aroused or masturbate in highly anxious surroundings. Masturbation isn’t the problem, it’s the negative plasticity, emotional learning, and context it occurs in.
This combination makes developing a dominant anxiety arousal / sexual arousal pattern more likely. It’s why many people like to have extramarital affairs and lie. A little anxiety makes them hot.

Highly anxious, stressful houses involve constant arguments, or things being thrown or broken, or corporal punishment, or days of “nobody speaking to each other” and emotionally freezing someone out. Sometimes one or both parents are alcoholics, or the family breadwinner keeps loosing his job or becomes seriously ill. The more acute the anxiety and stress, and the more poorly differentiated the family, the more likely you are to develop a powerful anxiety arousal / sexual arousal pattern. For the physiology behind anxiety arousal / sexual arousal, and a case example of how to deal with it, see
Resurrecting Sex
.

192
Whelihan (2000) and Berg (2000).

193
You could argue that Kate and Paul
did
feel more safe and secure with each other while going into the experience. They established a collaborative alliance through hand-holding, and each saw the other was motivated to go forward. However, this overlooks how they got there: It came by regulating themselves and not trying to “get what they needed” from each other.

194
Calter et al. (2002). Your posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) and medial prefrontal cortex.

195
Subsequent analysis is carried out in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex, in a three—structure system. See Allison, Puce, & McCarthy (2000). The evolutionary role of social gaze in vertebrates apparently changed substantially for primates compared to other animals. This may have been driven by changes in primate faces and eyes that facilitated communicating about the environment, and emotional and mental states. Eyes communicate different messages depending on the status, disposition, and emotional state of the sender and receiver of such signals. See Emery (2000).

196
Batki et al. (2000).

197
Schuller & Rossion (2001).

198
Knut et al. (2001). Averted gaze and mutual gaze also trigger blood flow responses in similar areas which differ from those involved in face processing. These areas include the occipital part of your fusiform gyrus, the right parietal lobule, the right inferior temporal gyrus, and the middle temporal gyrus in both hemispheres. See Wicker et al. (1998).

199
You can read more about eyes-open sex in Chapter 8 of
Passionate Marriage
. The origin of eyes-open sex as a clinical tool is covered in
Constructing the Sexual Crucible
.

200
Eyes-open sex and orgasm described here involves partner engagement and bonding, and not just visual stimuli per se. It is usually of equal interest to men and women. This is different than looking at photos of sexual activity.
Men are generally more interested in and responsive to sexually arousing pictures than women (although plenty of women like this too). Men and women show similar activation patterns across multiple brain regions, including ventral striatal regions in the brain’s reward circuitry. But men’s amygdala and hypothalamus are more strongly activated, even when women report greater sexual arousal, and differences show up more in the left amygdala than the right. See Hamann et. al. (2004).

201
I don’t recommend starting off with
hugging till relaxed
with one partner lying one on top of the other, or sitting in the other’s lap. It triggers too many other issues. If Paul and Kate had tried this earlier in therapy, it probably would not have worked out as well. Paul offered to hug lying down with Kate on his chest, but it would have been a dodge for him letting himself be held. He would have been holding Kate rather than her holding him. He also wouldn’t have learned to stand on his own two feet—literally and emotionally—while letting himself be held.

202
I’ve said couples always communicate, even if they think they don’t. If you analyze automatic talking just before orgasm, you’ll often find it’s not the gibberish it appears to be. It requires extensive mind-mapping to fill in the blanks. But context and emotional learning through your body usually makes this fairly easy, if you know the person. If you have a collaborative alliance, most people can do it on the spot. This very positive circumstance increases positive plasticity.

203
Eastern cultures make many references to female sexual power. There’s a Hindu myth that the gods
Shiva
(male) and
Parvati
(female) competed to see who could create a better race of people without the participation of the other. Parvati’s well-shaped, well-mannered, and attractive
Yonijas
beat the stupid, feeble, misshapen
Lingajas
of Shiva in battle.

204
Fisher,
Anatomy of Love
, p.32.

205
A woman’s ovulatory cycle also plays a big role in her response to sexual stimuli. Her hormonal state when first exposed affects her subsequent response as well. If she is ovulating during her first exposure, her interest is high and remains high on subsequent exposures. But if her first view occurs in her post-ovulatory phase, her sexual interest is lower and remains lower later, even when she’s ovulating again. See Wallen (2009).

206
Perper & Weis (1987) and Perper (1985).

207
Bonobos have 98 percent of our genetic profile, making them a very close relative. Bonobos are among the smartest apes, they have similar physical traits, and their sexual behavior is most similar to ours. See de Waal (1995).

208
A “fuck buddy” is someone with whom you share sex and friendship (“friendship with benefits”), with the clear understanding that it’s not about love or a future together.

209
Of 150 marriage and family therapists attending my 1993 Networker Symposium presentation, less then a dozen (8 percent) acknowledged personal experience with fucking. At the Louisiana Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Annual Conference, the figure was 15 percent. This means you can easily end up seeing a therapist whose sole knowledge of fucking comes from reading this book.

210
Think of this as harnessing the sexual energy in your union—
yin
and
yang
in Eastern terms. Tantric sex utilizes the “energy loop” formed during sex. It’s no surprise that fucking, doing your partner, and being done create desire and growth. According to Tantra, self-awareness and self-transcendence are part of your sexual potential and the sacred goal of sex.