Relationships: Talking about sex!

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Los Angeles, Beverly Hills – Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Counseling Therapy

Talking about sex is one of the most difficult and awkward conversations to have.  Most of us never learned how.  As a couples’ counselor, I see common themes that get in the way of talking about sex.

Ways to develop more comfort around sex:

1. Make an agreement that saying what you want or need doesn’t mean something is wrong, only a desire to improve your sexual connection.
2. Don’t let your sexual ego get in the way of being curious about your sexual partner’s specific needs. All people are completely different.  Each of us has different wants and needs.  Let go of thinking you universally know how to please and move toward the mystery of your partner’s body.
3. Make an agreement to talk about your sex life more often: Like most things, the more you do it the more comfortable it will become.  Talking about sex can lead to greater satisfaction and that is not so bad.
4. When differences in sexual desire exist pressure to have sex more often can create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The pressure of moving towards a partner can make that person want to go in the opposite direction.  To some degree there will always be someone who wants sex more often than the other.  In order to avoid creating more distance the partner who wants sex more needs to back off a bit, giving room for their partner to come forward.  Those in the position of feeling pressured need to mindfully come forward in response to the newfound space. Many times cuddling can be difficult, because it is seen as a way to get sex.  In these cases, make it clear that cuddling can just be cuddling when you want it that way.
5. If resentment or hurt is present in your relationship move towards resolving this.  There is a direct correlation between sexual desire and disharmony in a relationship. Sometimes you need to work on the emotional and trust issues before moving forward in your sex life.

By Sevin Philips, MFT

Video Transcription Advice – Couples Counseling Therapy

Hello, this is Sevin Philips. I’m here to talk about talking about sex, which is one of the most difficult things for couples to do.

As a couple’s counselor, there are a couple of themes that are worth noting and bringing to your attention. One of them is there’s this general idea that if we talk about our sex life, it means there’s something inherently wrong with our sex life. It doesn’t necessarily mean that.

What’s great to do is if two people can get together and just agree, “Hey, if we talk about our sex life, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong. It could mean that we just want to improve it.”

Another is sometimes when someone comes into a marriage and they have previous experience that they believe makes them naturally capable of pleasing their partner, what that does is it actually gets in the way of communication. We’ll call it a sexual ego. But what happens is the person on the other end is less likely to tell you what feels good or doesn’t feel good because they’re afraid of hurting your feelings. This really just cuts down on the communication.

The basic premise in changing this is everyone is different. Every human being. Everyone’s bodies are different. So whether you have sexual experience or not, it doesn’t matter because every human being is subtly different. And in some way, if both people can come at the relationship with that level of humility, there’s a sense of curiosity that can develop that is a much more open feel to really get to know one another. It opens the door to talking about sex much more freely.

Another issue that comes up is when two people get together, they have different sex drives. This is completely normal for people to have two different sex drives. But what can happen is this pressure gets built up that can actually make it worse. It’s kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A suggestion that I have to improve on that is if you can get together, talk about it, and mindfully agree for the person who’s coming forward frustrated to just back off a bit, which gives room for your partner to come forward a little bit. At the same time, the partner who is pulling back to mindfully come forward at the same time. Try to find a place to meet that perhaps maybe is more of your natural fit.

Another thing is in relationships, of course when you’re upset at each other, when you’re fighting and resentful, if there’s trust issues in a relationship, this is going to affect your sex life.

Sometimes we need to address the more emotional issues before we can really come back to improving or having a better sex life.

I’d love to hear from you guys. If you relate to some of this stuff, I’d love to hear what it’s like for you in your marriage or if there are some things that I didn’t even mention that are worth noting, I’d love it if you’d share it with us.

Los Angeles, Beverly Hills – Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Therapy
By: Sevin Philips, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist