Marriage as nuclear reactor

I recently saw this great video about the partial nuclear meltdown of the reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania that got me thinking about how a nuclear reactor is like a long term relationship.

Each is a highly complex system. They both generate energy. They both have fail-safes, self-regulatory properties built in to ensure that the energy stays within manageable parameters. They work off of feedback loops (such as an atomic chain reaction in the reactor, emotional responsiveness in a couple). Feedback loops by their nature can quickly lead to the release of too much energy (meltdown, meltdown).

A schematic of a long-term relationship

The presenter, Nickolas Means, talks about the stories that people tell about systems failures (he calls himself a “disaster storyteller”). This is where the interest for me as a therapist really kicks into high gear. Based on the work of Sidney Dekker, Means talks about ‘first stories’ and ‘second stories.’ The first story is essentially a assigning blame. Who failed? Who made the critical error? Means is at pains to show that if we look for human error we can find it but that we won’t learn much that is of use for avoiding future failures if we do. The Presidential commission into TMI could have thrown the operators on duty under the bus and been done but that wasn’t what they did and they learned a lot about the system as a result. People generally act in ways that make sense to them with the information they have even though that may lead to bad outcomes.

‘Second stories’ are about figuring out how a system failed given the assumption that people generally act the best they can, given their circumstances and knowledge at the time with the aim of improving the system to avoid a repetition of the failure.

Moving people from ‘first stories’ to ‘second stories’ is a big part of my work, getting people from assigning blame to thinking about what changes they could make so that they avoid a similar systemic failure.

The myth of sexual desire per se

A supervisee recently told me about a couple she had begun seeing. “It's the old story. The man wants more sex and the woman has less desire.”

It is an old story; once a relationship gets to a certain point the man desires sex, and the woman doesn't. How useful a story is it?

Rosemary Basson writes

Women’s sexual motivation is far more complex than simply the presence or absence of sexual desire (defined as thinking or fantasizing about sex and yearning for sex between actual sexual encounters)...

At the beginning of a given sexual experience, a woman may well sense no sexual desire per se. Her motivations to be sexual are complex and include increasing emotional closeness with her partner (emotional intimacy) and often increasing her own well-being and self-image (sense of feeling attractive, feminine, appreciated, loved and/or desired, or to reduce her feelings of anxiety or guilt about sexual infrequency).

1327-1328

Basson, “Women’s sexual dysfunction: revised and expanded definition”

For the systemic therapist there can be no such thing as a free-floating sexual desire per se, a sexual desire that exists outside of a context, independent from all the other systems in which a person operates, the bio-psycho-social stew.

Basson pointed out something important about women's desire; that women's desire is highly mediated by context. But what is latent in this observation is that desire is always contextual. We can see that most readily in women, particularly women when they get a little older and have been in relationships for a while. Men may not experience their desire as embedded in their context, but it is. We only see men as having sexual desire per se until the moment we realize that there is no unalloyed, pure, crotch-generated, hormonal surge of desire, totally separate from intrapsychic and interpersonal, social and cultural context.

“Thinking or fantasizing about sex and yearning for sex between actual sexual encounters,” ie desire – for any gender, any sexuality, for any place in the life-cycle or for any moment in the trajectory of a relationship - arises in a set of contexts that give it its shape.

The intensity of early experiences of desire, whether our own or as shown in the culture, mask more or less effectively its contextual nature, leaving us with an impression of some walled-off, pure desire, Basson's posited desire per se. But a fourteen year old boy's first sexual longings are as complex and as bound up with hopes, expectations, wishes as a fifty-two year old woman's. The difference is that in the case of the fourteen-year old boy, all those multi-variate, complex forces align to erase their own footprints as it were, whereas for the fifty-two year old woman the fact of desire being contextual is less self-effacing.

Everyone's desire is contextual. It is an artifact of certain kinds of desire that they are experienced or appear less circumscribed by context. A painting by Jackson Pollock draws attention to its paintedness. But every painting is painted.

Sexual Disaster and the Adventure of Coupled Sex

I have been writing and thinking a lot about how people’s sex lives interact with the rest of their relationship over the course of many years. As a culture, coupled sex is almost always played for a gag or a tragedy. (Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are hysterical, but they are also gorgeous and super sexy). Very rarely do we see long term coupled sex as sexy. It seems to squeak us out like seeing mom and dad. And yet the vast majority of sex that is being sexed is between people who have been together for more than 2 years.

The fear of being disgusting to one's partner is pretty powerful. Like the earth being hit by a comet, an ill-starred event, coming loose from the cosmic order. It is horrible enough to be sexually disgusting to a stranger who one never have to see again, but to risk being disgusting (and not in a sexy “you dirty, dirty boy/girl” way), perverse, shameful to someone we have to raise children with, share a mortgage with, go to see family for holiday dinners with, that is sexually adventurous.

Netflix and chill: Watching together, joint attention, couples and sex

When i ask couples about what they do together they will often talk about watching a show together. Sometimes they really enjoy this and sometimes they find it alienating and lonely. I wrote here about the ways in which couples attend jointly to something. The netflix example is a good one; are we watching jointly or are we watching the same show separately, each having our own experience? The two things can look alike. (Streaming services never show people looking disconnected by their experience but usually emphatically together).

Do you talk about what you are watching, during or afterwards? Do you notice one another’s reactions? When you see things differently in a show, how does that feel, are you hurt that your partner thinks Game of Thrones is great even though you don’t like it or do you talk about what you like and what you don’t so that you are both attending to something shared even though your experience of it is different? Does one person have to concede to the other’s view or are you able to move back and forth? Or perhaps your perspectives are so similar as to be indistinguishable?

My interest in shared attention comes from thinking and reading I have been doing about sex in long-term couples, particularly where people put their attention regarding sex; are they focusing on pleasure and desire or are they focusing on performance, their partner’s failings, the frequency (or infrequency) of sex? How do people in couples come to focus on these things and to what degree do they do this as a couple and to what degree do they do it as individuals? I have come to think that a couple’s sex life is largely an expression of attention. Dr Lori Brotto’s book is part of what has me thinking about this and it is well worth a read

Do you talk about what you are doing, during or afterwards? Do you notice one another’s reactions? When you see things differently in a sexual encounter, how does that feel, are you hurt that your partner thinks Game of Thrones role-play is great even though you don’t like it or do you talk about what you like and what you don’t so that you are both attending to something shared even though your experience of it is different? Does one person have to concede to the other’s view or are you able to move back and forth? Or perhaps your perspectives are so similar as to be indistinguishable?

What couples pay attention to

A new parent watches their child’s gaze, waiting for the moment the child sees them. The infant also learns to watch their parent’s gaze and pretty soon they begin to track one another’s gaze; what do you see? What is that thing? Who came into the room? It is one of the earliest games a parent and infant play. There is a powerful satisfaction in attending together with a loved one. This is a developmental process but one that is developed dyadically, in great intimacy. I have written here about how intense our responses to a loved one’s face and in particular, their eyes, can be. But I have been thinking recently about the degree to which shared attention is a part of the life of a couple.

As well as being a meditation on identity and writing, D.T. Max’s piece, Magic Realism, in this week’s New Yorker is an amazing portrait of a marriage. After the writer H. G Carrillo died in 2020, his husband, Dennis vanEngelsdorp discovered that, except for his birth date and that he had four siblings, everything that his husband had told him about his life growing up was a lie. Carrillo was a fabulist or - less kindly - a compulsive liar.

But in Max’s telling vanEngelsdorp isn’t angry or even very hurt by his late husband’s lies.

He recalled that Carrillo had once told him he’d sold a vase they’d bought together for a big profit, but never produced the money. Shortly afterward, vanEngelsdorp found the vase in a dresser drawer. He described the terror on his husband’s face when he saw him making this discovery: “It was just so clear. There was panic in his eyes.” He decided then that he could tolerate some myths. “If you need me to believe that you sold the vase - I mean, why wouldn’t I give that to you?”

Every relationship involves some degree of selective attention. What is this vase doing here? Why wouldn’t I look away? A successful relationship involves some degree of mutuality in regards to attention; see in me (and in the world) what I want to be seen by you and see it the way I want you to see it, or at least don’t see it in a way that is injurious to me.
Lies particularly create the possibility to be the focus of negative attention, but most people who have been in a long-term relationship, even those who aren’t prone to lying, know the feeling of terror that they are about to be revealed to their partner as ugly, disgusting, contemptible. Many of us know the feeling of relief and gratitude when our partner tastefully looks at something, anything, else. That isn’t so different from the times in early courtship when we show our new love something we delight in and find that they too are interested (or at least willing to play along).

“How often can I ask for a blowjob before I am just being an asshole?”

A client wants his female partner to perform oral sex more often. He has asked her many times over the course of their relationship and she has said that she really doesn’t like to do it. She finds it dirty (and not in a good way). It is a big turn off for her. He isn’t willing to leave the relationship over it but it really bothers him. And no, she doesn’t want to go to couples therapy. He asks the therapist, “How often can I ask for a blowjob before I am just being an asshole?”

Quick: What is your answer?

How did you formulate your answer?

How might it be different if the topic wasn’t sex? Or if instead of oral sex he wanted her to kiss him? Or to have anal sex?

How might your answer be different if the genders were different?

Does it make a difference if they have been together for six weeks, six months or six years?

When does advocating for something that is important to us turn into badgering or coercion? This question comes up in lots of parts of the life or a couple but it can be particularly provocative in the context of sex because power, gender and shame are so close to the surface. We also as a culture have a sense that the potential harm to a person and/or a relationship of being coerced about sex is greater than being coerced about other things. As therapists, we often encourage clients to assert their needs and wants, particularly in the context of romantic relationships. And of we think of ourselves as sex-positive therapists, we encourage people to do that in regards to sex. We also encourage people to set limits. The yin to the yang of the first question is “How bad does it have to be before I say, ‘Stop?’”

We can tell clients to ‘tune into their feelings’ but often people have conflicting feelings about another’s sexual requests/demands; I’m scared I’ll feel dirty later, I want to be accommodating of my partner, I want to be sexually adventurous, I resent that they are asking for what they want, I worry that my own hang-ups may be getting in the way of our shared fun etc. If our clients’ feelings were clear they would either say “stop” or “go.”

When clients are unclear about where assertiveness becomes coercion, or where accommodation becomes capitulation, therapists may apply a “I know it when I see it” approach, explicitly or implicitly applying their own standards (if you are tempted to tell a client “What your partner is doing is inappropriate” ask yourself if that might be a way of saying that you don’t like it). Or they may resort to tautologies; ‘well-differentiated people are assertive but poorly differentiated people are coercive.’

I think it is a misapprehension that there is a clear, bright line between these things. We can all agree on cases at one end or another but there is a lot of room for the therapists’s own subjective, value-laden ideas to come in in the middle. I find it one of the areas where I most struggle with how much or how little to bring my own values into therapy, because these questions “Am I just being an asshole?” and “How bad does it have to be?” are values questions.

Fun, not toys

Sometimes I hear from couples that they bought a sex toy in the hopes of reinvigorating their sex lives. Many of them find that the toys quickly end up in a nest of of tangled charger cables in the night-table drawer. Once upon a time, vibrators and dildos were called “marital aids” then they got restyled as sex toys in an attempt to connect them with play, enjoyment, fun. Play is a great intention to have for sex. Sex 'toys' may help to achieve that and if they do, that is fantastic, but they may not and sometimes they can hinder fun.

Orgasm isn't the goal of good sex

Sex toys such dildos, vibrators, butt plugs, cock rings, prostate massagers work by stimulating whatever part or the body they touch; usually the genitals or nearby, increasing and or changing physical stimulation. This can be good if a person's genitals need more or different stimulation in order to have a good time during sex. But that isn't the big missing ingredient to having more fun in bed for most people I work with. They want their sex lives to be more... more passionate, more dangerous, more sexy, more loving, more playful, more sensual, more rough, more something. Dan Savage once talked about being on a panel with the late Shirley Glass, a researcher and couples therapist. She said that the brain is the biggest and most important sex organ in a human is between the ears. Dan Savage asked, “But how do I put my dick in it?”. This is a deep sexual koan. People want a vibrator that will stimulate their sexual heart/soul/mind/brain. Stimulating the genitals is a very indirect way to “put your dick in it”. 

Play

Toys and play have a complex and fleeting relationship. Many parents can attest to buying a toy which is neglected by their kid in favour of the box it came in. Imagination, flexibility in thinking and feeling, presence, a sense of capability and possibility are characteristics of play. That's also a pretty good headspace for a gratifying sexual experience. Stimulating the genitals or anus may cause more arousal or change or even intensify the quality of an orgasm but becoming hyper-focused on genital sensation is not the same thing as having a good time in bed. In fact, sometimes the former is the death of the latter. Intensifying physical sensation can cause a person to lose track of other things. That can be wonderful in the case of being swept away in a sexual experience. It can also be a distraction from other satisfactions that a wider kind of attention can bring. Many couples become like the hiker who is so focused on the map that they are not seeing the terrain, hyper focused on arousal and orgasm and unable to attend to emotional connection or play or desire, the less physiological but equally important parts of sex. This tendency isn't helped by the focus of modern sexological interventions.

Genital response has been the be-all-and-end-all of sex research for a long time. That is because it is relatively easy for researchers to measure erections or vaginal lubrication or ejaculations or orgasms, easier than measuring things like fun, sexy, adventurous, scary-in-a-good-way, dirty-in-a-good-way, whatever it is that two (or more) people are looking for in sex. Arousal and/or orgasm may be a part of that, even a big part but it does not have to be the goal of sex any more than reproduction has to be. The idea that the physical manifestations of arousal and orgasm are essential in sex is very ingrained in us despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. I have worked with plenty of couples where both partners have orgasms and they don't particularly like their sex lives. I have also seen lots of couples where one or both partners have very gratifying sexual experiences without having much vaginal wetness, or an erection or an orgasm. 

The couples I see who want to work on their sex lives generally aren't having difficulty with the mechanics of arousal or orgasm. That is why I have never prescribed a vibrator for a couple to improve their sex life, nor do I prescribe particular sexual techniques. If I thought that might be needed I would refer the couple to a sex therapist or pelvic floor physio-therapist.

Prescriptions

People have a lot of 'shoulds' in their minds about sex: “I should lose weight to enjoy sex more”; “I should relax more”; “I should be more assertive”; “I should be less assertive”; “I should have an orgasm/give my partner an orgasm, a bigger orgasm, a better erection, a wetter vagina”. It makes it tough to be playful when you are ticking off boxes. Attending to a partner's pleasure is a good thing overall but it can definitely get in the way of play, like any other 'should'. On top of a lot of sexual obligation, many couples have a lot of other shoulds relating to kids, family, work. I don't want to add to a couples' feeling of sex as a bunch of things on a long list of hard-to-meet expectations and constraints. I use prescriptions cautiously in regards to sex, and always with the hope of creatingmorepsychological and emotional flexibility, more presence, more feeling of capability. Sometimes I prescribe a week or two of no-orgasm sex to see what they can come up with that feels like sex when they aren't oriented to genital stimulation. Sometimes, I get them to reminisce about times they felt sexy together or to actively fantasize about one another and to identify what they find sexy as a way to start to think and talk about what they want out of sex now. Sometimes I prescribe reflecting on how they would act if they viewed their sex lives as super resilient. Sometimes I prescribe a set time for sex, with sex defined very broadly as 'whatever feels sexy.' All of this with the caveat that they treat with curiosity whatever internal or interactional things come up that make it difficult to be sexual. 

In short, we focus on fun, not on toys.

"He's now, he's then, he's every f*&king when." Roy Kent, asynchronous lover

We have all learned a lot over COVID about 'asynchronous' learning, pre-recorded lessons as part of training or a class as well as mixed, synchronous/asynchronous learning. In the show Ted Lasso, Roy Kent the crusty newly-retired footballer finds his girlfriend Keeley masturbating to a video on her phone. The audience is primed to see an argument, but Roy takes it in fun and doesn't shame her but he is curious. He is surprised to find that what she is wanking to is the press conference where he announced his retirement from football at which he uncharacteristically sobbed uncontrollably. She finds his emotional vulnerability hot. Later, Roy hands Keeley her phone and headphones, cues up the video and goes down on her while she watches him cry.

Roy accepts that Keeley finds something about him hot that he disdains. He knows it will be hard for him to offer her that synchronously so he gives it to her asynchronously. What's more he joins in the fun synchronously. Keeley for her part doesn't view this as a cop-out. She is grateful and views his act as generous. She jumps into the moment with enthusiasm.

To my knowledge this is the first pop-culture depiction of a positive, monogamous mixed synchronous/asynchronous sexual/emotional encounter.

Ted Lasso takes place in a universe similar to our own in which people default to behaving kindly and generously with one another.

What if we could cue up the moment when our partners found us hottest and deliver it to them in a spirit of generosity? What if we could accept that our partners finds things hot about us that we don't particularly find sexy. What if we viewed that as wonderful rather than feeling unseen?

What if we leveraged asynchrony in relationships for connection rather than let awareness of our differences turn us off from one another?