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.

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?

“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?

Yesterday's intercourse

I have become very interested in how couples therapists can better integrate sexuality into couples therapy. Sex is sometimes viewed by therapists as very separate from other elements of the relationship or else as a by-product of relationship rather than an important and complex sub-system of peoples relationship. I have been looking for professional writing about integrating sexuality and couples therapy and came across the work of the late researcher Harold Lief. That lead me to this gem. It feels both so far away and so familiar. I don’t know whether these folks are actors; they are so extraordinarily real seeming but they hit so many of the familiar points in this situation that it seems scripted. So much has changed since this video was recorded but so much has remained the same both in couples lives and couples therapy.

The paradox of the sexy guitar player

Clients often talk about finding their partner sexiest when that person is intensely engaged in something that they love; music, art, intense conversation. It makes sense. They are vital in those moments, they have a kind of intensity that is alluring, particularly if they are good at what they are doing. The musician is a great example. Is there anybody sexier than a rock musician?

This presents a problem. Interrupt the flow of the music to try to connect erotically and 1. the thing that made the other person sexy ceases and/or 2. the other person is deeply engaged with something and the interruption may feel very unsexy to them.

Another dimension to this paradox: Can I accept being the object of my partner’s desire? Amanda Luterman talks about Erotic Empathy; the ability to believe I am sexy to my partner. That can be a lot harder than it sounds. Is it easier for me to desire someone else when the focus of that intensity isn’t on me? Does someone else actively focusing on me erotically shut down my eroticism? If I find someone sexy while they are playing guitar but not when they are actively seducing me, how will I ever take yes for an answer?