Schnarch expands on the theme I discussed yesterday:
[Wha]t part of you do you use to touch -- meaning make contact
with -- your partner? Do you touch your partner from the best in you?
Or do you reach out from the part that feels inadequate or wants to
hide? If you do it from that part, you'll drop the emotional connection
and resort to [just] touching each other's genitals to try to get
something going.
Part of Schnarch's thesis is married sex is often an
impersonal act. Yes, really. He thinks that couples tend to hold
themselves away from each other even in the so-called "act of love,"
because participating fully can be too scary.
It seems to me that
so-called "frigid" women do this from the front end, literally holding
off their desire. If they don't feel like having sex, they won't have to
expose their inner selves to their husbands -- or have to see and acknowledge his distance in the act. Men who are holding
themselves back from their wives, on the other hand, tend to become
fixated on fantasy or the physical acts and sensations they want in order to avoid personal exposure or
deeper disappointments. (Their wives intuit their distance and feel
"used" as a result: "He doesn't love me, he just wants to get his thing in me.")
Schnarch believes that our culture induces us to believe some things
about relationships that just aren't true, that cause couples to create
false expectations for their marriages (my emphasis).
For example, we've taken one kind of intimacy -- the type in which
our partner accepts and validates us -- and convinced ourselves this is
what intimacy is per se. Thus, we assume that intimacy hinges on
acceptance and validation from our partner. Likewise we've confused
"good communication" with being understood the way we want and getting
the response we expect. ...
We're driven by something that makes us look like we crave intimacy,
but in fact we're after something else: we want someone else to make us
feel acceptable and worthwhile. We've assigned the label "intimacy" to
what we want (validation and reciprocal disclosure) and developed pop
psychologies that give it to us -- while keeping true intimacy away.
We've distorted what intimacy is, how it feels, how much we really want
it, and how best to get it. Once we realize that intimacy is not always
soothing and often makes us feel insecure, it is clear why we back away
from it.
Another thing that screws us up, Schnarch holds, is our truncated view
of sex as a simple biological drive, just like our need for food. This
is why some therapists view a lack of desire as "sexual anorexia," sort
of an erotic "eating disorder." That idea also holds the hope that we
can or will soon be able to medicate the problem away.
Superficially, the common idea that sex is a natural biological drive
seems reasonable. After all, isn't sex drive a function of hormones?
Isn't sex encoded in all animals? If sex drive weren't "normal,"
wouldn't our species die out?
While there's some truth to these notions, they limit our perspective
on human sexuality and interfere with sexual satisfaction. We don't
realize that seeing sex as a "drive" makes us focus on relieving sexual
tensions rather than wanting our partner. It may be true that the more
tension ("horny") people feel, the more they tend to seek relief -- but
if that's the only reason you think your partner wants to be with you
it tends to kill sex....
This strictly biological approach is also the reason why so many common
kinds of sex therapy don't work. Most of them involve training yourself
to be detached from the total experience of sex with your partner,
either in your mind or in your body. For example, in the "squeeze"
method of treating premature ejaculation, a man has to concentrate on
his reactions -- and not let his partner "get" to him -- in order to be
able to withdraw his penis and clamp down on it to prevent his orgasm
(a procedure Schnarch calls a "sexual Heimlich maneuver"). Needless to
say, this ruins the continuity of the experience for both partners.
I can just imagine the poor wife being tuned to only one internal
channel while she's having sex with her husband under this treatment
regimen: "He's getting too excited...I better not let myself go too
much, it might make him come...is he going to whip it out NOW? or maybe
NOW? or NOW?
Talk about Distraction!
These "re-training" approaches can actually make things worse between a
couple than they were before therapy, because all the emphasis is on
the mechanics of sexual activity (positions, procedures, performances).
And as with any endeavor that emphasizes Doing Things Right, anxiety always
follows.
Our near-sightedness blinds us to the ways our incomplete views of sex
make us feel inadequate: once you adopt the seemingly sex-positive view
that "sex is a natural function," the only way to explain sexual
dysfunction or disinterest is to look for pathological explanations.
When something goes wrong sexually we're set up to ask ourselves, "If
sexual response and interest are natural, then why am I not responding
or even wanting to respond?" ...
In the midst of marital discord few of us have the courage to consider
that the beliefs and practices we share with many couples are the
source of our misery. We usually think problems with sex and intimacy
are caused by how we're uniquely screwed up. I propose, instead, that
they're often caused by being normal. If you're well-adjusted to
ill-fitting beliefs that permeate society, you're going to have trouble.
Notice that Schnarch used the word "courage"? More on that later.
Next: My childhood made me do it?
Passionate Marriage Discussion: 1 2 3 4
2:31:25 PM 
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