What’s "Normal" Between The Sheets?
RE Blogged from askmen.com
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Here’s what’s “normal”: adults have sex primarily when
they’re tired. This shapes the quality, content, and frequency of the
experience. Most adults save their “prime time” for things that
are either more important (raising their kids, working after hours,
maintaining their health, handling crises) or more reliably satisfying
(watching TV, going out, sharing hobbies, playing around on Facebook).
Not having much energy is one aspect of “normal sex” that
most people don’t want. But many adults seem to believe
that most sex will inevitably take place when they’re not at their
best, without considering the consequences of this kind of sex life — that
it may become routine, not involve much time, lose its playfulness,
and that using contraception or a lubricant may seem like too much
trouble.If we think of “normal” as common,
typical, and accepted as “the way things are,” this is what
“normal sex” actually looks like:• Awkwardness
and self-consciousness are common.• Communication is
limited.• Neither partner laughs or smiles much.• One or both partners are obsessively concerned about
performance.• One or both are unsure what their
partner likes.• One or both tolerate what they dislike, hoping
that it will stop soon.• Masturbation is kept
secret.• There’s difficulty using birth control without
embarrassment or conflict.• Desire requires a perfect
environment.• Sex is sometimes physically painful.• He believes that “her orgasm problem reflects on me.”• She believes that “his erection problem reflects on
me.”Also, whether young or old, gay or straight, male or
female, when American adults have sex, they frequently:• Are self-conscious or self-critical about their body• Don’t feel as close to their partner as they’d like• Don’t feel confident that they’re going to have a good
time (which is why they don’t do it more frequently)• Are concerned about performance — either their own or their
partner’s• Feel inhibited about communicating what they
want, don’t want, feel, or don’t feelHealth problems are also frequently part of “normal” sex — because
normal people have health problems.So,
are you starting to look pretty “normal”? Are you starting to
realize this might not be the right goal?I want to change
things for you — and not by improving your “sexual function.”
This book isn’t literary Viagra. It’s more like literary brain
surgery (sorry, no tummy tuck, boob job, or hair implants, just brain
surgery).The awkwardness and emotional isolation
described above are what most people get when they try to have
“normal” sex. And that’s why your vision of sex
matters. So let’s spend the rest of the chapter exploring why
it’s not important to be sexually “normal” and why, in
fact, pursuing “normal” sex is often destructive.Of course, by “normal” sex most people don’t mean
the reality I’ve just described, but a romanticized vision of perfect
performance, perfect environment, and nothing too novel or
psychologically challenging. The only thing normal about that kind
of sex is the fact that so many people aspire to it, and so few
people have it. (And here’s a secret every sex therapist
knows: even when people get this kind of sex, they’re not
necessarily satisfied with it.)So if, like so many
other people, you’ve been pursuing the wrongthing
(“normal” sex), you need a new way to think about sex. Although
most people assume it’s logical to have a performance
orientation (how many times per week, how many minutes beforeorgasm), that’s only one way to look at sex. And it’s exactly
thewrong way.Excerpted from SEXUAL
INTELLIGENCE: What We Really Want from Sex and How to Get It by Marty Klein,
reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.