Living An Orgasmic Life. Xanet Pailet

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       Chapter 3

       Women are Programmed to Say “No” to Sex

      The sexual revolution started over fifty years ago with the groundbreaking work of Alfred Kinsey in The Kinsey Reports.1 Only in the last few decades, however, have we really had open communication about sex in the popular culture. From the affable and outrageous Dr. Ruth, who hosted the first radio show on sex in the 1980s, to the current multitude of sexperts like Emily Morse, whose Sex with Emily podcast has millions of fans, we both love and hate to talk about sex. Getting sex education and information from the Internet is easy, but talking about problems in our sex life is challenging. When I started my business, The Power of Pleasure, five years ago, one of my objectives was to normalize the conversation around sex. But the discomfort and shame around sex is so deep and insidious that it’s even shameful to talk about our shame. No wonder clients so often comment on how valuable it was “just to have someone who I can talk to about this” after our very first session.

      Sadly, most of us don’t have anyone we can talk to about our sex life, our sexual problems, our sexual desires, our fetishes, and our fantasies. Talking to your partner can be highly charged and not without repercussions. Many couples fear that even bringing up the subject will open up a Pandora’s box they will never be able to close. People often worry about bruising their partner’s ego, or fear the conversation will quickly revert to blame and shame. Better not to bring it up and just put up with a bad sex life. This was certainly my experience. Every single time my ex and I tried to talk about sex, I ended up feeling guiltier, and even more broken, angry, and disconnected from him.

      Some women talk to their girlfriends about their sex life or lack of one, but rarely in great detail. Most OB/GYNs and urologists are ill-equipped to provide useful advice about how to make our sex lives pain-free, better, and more pleasurable. Even couples’ therapists are often extremely uncomfortable talking with clients about their sex life on any level of detail that could actually be useful. This came to me as quite a surprise initially, but in time I realized that most therapists haven’t dealt with their own shame around sex.

      An Oversexed, Sex-Starved Culture

      The irony is that sex is talked about frankly and broadcast blatantly in popular culture. We find it everywhere…in books, movies, TV, advertising. The maxim that “Sex Sells” is true! Just take one look at a magazine advertisement for practically any lifestyle product, from sexy, sleek new cars to deodorant and lipstick. Sex entices us and is also the forbidden fruit driving our desires and wallets.

      You would think we’d be sexually open in a society that constantly throws sex in our face. In fact, the opposite is true. The United States is a sex-negative and sex-starved nation. The latest statistics about the lack of sex in this country are horrifying. According to “The National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior” (2010), the average married couple has sex about once a week. Twenty percent of couples are only having sex once a month, which is considered a sexless marriage. I suspect those numbers are significantly underreported. This study does not account for the large number of men and women who stay in their marriage for financial reasons and/or “for the children,” but have completely unsatisfying sex lives. Sex workers report that the vast majority of men who see them for sensual massage or escort services are happily married men living in virtually sexless marriages.

      Sexless Marriage vs. Upsetting the Apple Cart

      I asked myself many times why I chose to stay in my marriage. In my thirties, when I still had a libido, I toyed with having an affair with a work colleague, but we both chickened out. That should have been a clear signal that my marriage was in trouble, but I ignored it. We had small kids, a good family life, and we were constantly trading up to nicer cars and homes. Why upset the apple cart? Even when my kids were older, and we weren’t having sex or sleeping in the same room, I had a hard time calling it quits. At one point, I created a five-year plan to leave my marriage that I shared with one of my best friends, who was also contemplating divorce.

      Sexless marriages are so pervasive in our society that there seems to be an attempt in some sectors to “normalize” the fact that couples stop having sex, especially when they get into their fifties and beyond. Recently the Huffington Post, which is arguably the most sex-positive mainstream media outlet in the US, published an article titled, “Over 50 and in a Sexless Marriage: Don’t Despair.” Essentially, the author’s position was that people could thrive in a sexless marriage. But there was something missing in the article that I feel is important to take into account. It’s true: couples often decide not to engage in sex. However, the majority of the time, the decision is forced on one of the partners. In fact, a common scenario is that one partner loses interest, becomes unresponsive, and starts to avoid anything to do with sex. The still-desirous party keeps trying for a while, then gets tired of rejection and simply gives up. Often this unfolds with no discussion at all, much less a conscious decision.

      Where Did My Libido Go?

      Unfortunately, for 90 percent of the clients that I’ve worked with, it is the woman who loses her desire to have sex. While each situation is unique, there are some common causes:

      •Women are socialized to say “no” to sex

      •We hold shame and fear around fully sexually expressing ourselves

      •Motherhood transforms us from sexual beings to maternal beings

      •Sex becomes boring and rote

      •We are not sufficiently aroused and don’t experience enough pleasure

      •Women are often not connected to their sexuality

      In these and many other ways, we women are essentially programmed to say “no” to sex. In contrast, men literally wear their sexual arousal equipment on the outside of their body. As teenage boys, they were constantly getting aroused and getting erections, often at inconvenient times, but it made their sexuality front and center. Men also receive many more positive messages around sex. “Always use protection” and “don’t get her pregnant,” while you “go out and sow your wild oats.” High-fives in the locker room after “scoring” the night before are part and parcel of male culture. Teenage boys grow up with porn, which turns women into sex objects and creates unrealistic expectations about body parts and what sex really is like.

      Given this socialization, there is no surprise that when I ask men how often they think about wanting to have sex, the most common answer is, “Multiple times a day.” Women, on the other hand, typically say that they think about sex at most once or twice a month! Why are we so disconnected from our desire?

      “Keep Your Legs Shut!”

      First of all, Mother Nature designed our sexual parts to be less visible and accessible. While we have a vast and complex arousal network, it is almost entirely on the inside of our body, with the exception of our nipples. Even a woman’s clitoris is 75 percent internal—the only parts that are exposed (the head and shaft) are covered by a hood. Women need lots of warm-up and touch to get aroused, whereas a man is likely to become easily aroused if he has any physical stimulation on his cock.

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