It’s easier to have sex than to talk about it. Why?
Professor Zbigniew Lew-Starowicz has always advised couples: “From the very beginning, as soon as you meet, talk about sex. Later on, after years of being in a silent relationship, it will be too late.” That’s easy to say, but how do you do it?
It’s hard to talk about intimate things, that’s true. If you didn’t discuss topics in this area in your family home, you don’t have training in it – then it’s not easy to find the words to describe it when talking to a stranger. We downplay sexuality by not mentioning it in conversations with children or teens, and then people are surprised that they can’t talk about it. And it’s true: if you don’t talk about sex at the very beginning, it’s hard to start after a year or more.
Usually during that first conversation about sex, one side hears that the other is unhappy.
Yes, that’s true. There are couples where this is, for example, the first and last conversation about sex. It is so dramatic and hurtful to both sides that they are unable to recover from it and the relationship ends.
Behind the lack of communication in sex lies primarily the shame of being judged. “What if they think there is something wrong with me?” some think and hide their sexual secrets behind mysterious smiles.
I recently had an example of a couple: A 34-year-old met a 26-year-old and wanted to talk to her about sex. She was very outraged and shocked that he wanted to tell her about what was important to him in sex.
Why?
It’s very interesting. She regarded him solely in terms of sexual, perhaps disposable, entertainment, while he thought more seriously about a relationship with her. That being said, she didn’t feel the need to confide in him about her sexual preferences because that would be taking intimacy to another level – she didn’t feel it was necessary. And he conversely thought she should know. For him, sex was a sign that he was serious about his partner – he couldn’t imagine going to bed right away on the first date. The girl had a different approach to sex. To her he was an object to be consumed, purely physical, without mental intimacy. She felt frightened by his willingness to talk about the subject, because what was there to talk about? She was also probably afraid that this intimate conversation might be some kind of signal, “It’s getting serious, and I don’t want that.”
Interestingly, in “friends with benefits” relationships – those focused on physical pleasure – people talk about sex a lot. Perhaps because it’s clear from the start that: “We don’t have emotional expectations of each other, we take a looser approach to relationships, so we do not get tied up in any way.” If we treat a partner purely sexually and do not plan a family with them, the fear of being judged often disappears. Since the person is just a nice break from reality for me, I don’t worry that they will judge me, think I’m weird and won’t want to form a more lasting relationship with me. Often in such casual relationships, conversations about sex go on long into the night and are joyful and unpretentious.
And when it gets more serious, we start hiding behind those mysterious smiles, and inside there is fear and shame?
Ambivalence begins. On the one hand, we want an honest and open relationship in every way, and on the other hand, it blocks us a lot. We are afraid of how we will handle a possible assessment. Such fear is paralysing. How can we talk about fantasies when we’ve always thought about swinging or having threesomes? It’s quite risky from the point of view that we are about to enter into a more serious relationship. So we don’t talk, we don’t check how the other side will react, what they think about it. And that’s a mistake. You have to risk honesty sometimes to find out where you stand.
Is it easier for us to have sex than to talk about it?
Absolutely. Doing versus saying is harder. In the office in general it is quite difficult to get people to confide in you about what they like and don’t like about sex, what they are afraid of and what gives them pleasure. They completely fail to realise how important it is to talk in a relationship about what they like in bed. If they pretend at the very beginning: “it’s okay” (even though it’s not), then sooner or later it will come out that it’s not okay and that they don’t get along in this area. With the sexual sphere it’s like having a similar view of the world – it’s good to align yourself in that and have a common vision. Otherwise, there is a very high risk that it could fail.
Apps and pornography are profoundly vulgar. We have one extreme – starting dialogue with a sentence: “Hey baby, I’ve got a dick for you to suck.” The other extreme is keeping quiet about what you actually like about sex because of... shame. We flit between obscenity and not speaking. And all around us is an over-sexualised space that, as it turns out, does not at all facilitate intimate communication. How do you actually start it? From something like this: “I enjoyed the last time we had sex because you did exactly what I like...”?
Sure. It could be discussing the last time you had sex, but also talking about your fantasies. And it’s good to talk about sex in a non-sexual context, i.e. not lying in bed at all, but for example during breakfast or cooking together. Talking about sex contributes to building your trust in each other. Conversely, when we trust, we are more likely and willing to talk about sex.
Of course, when talking about fantasies, you don’t necessarily have to act them out, but it’s always interesting to share such images. Sometimes in a relationship, someone is more sexually talkative and someone is less so. Then the former person should be more likely to sense if and when they are outside their partner’s comfort zone. My advice is not to push, not to force “sexual confessions”, not to charge into things, rather to respect someone else’s boundaries. And emphasise the fact that we care about satisfying sex.
And if we’re already willing to discuss our sexual encounters over breakfast, it’s also good to be ready to hear that, if we’re dealing with a person who doesn’t tell us anything during sex, we may hear, “It wasn’t as fun as I expected it to be.” And as the person initiating the conversation about sex, you have to be prepared for such a potential bucket of ice cold water as well. Because conversations about sex don’t always have to be nice and delightful, and it’s a good thing they’re not. Then we’re honest with each other and don’t make mistakes.
Well yes, but then we can ask the partner to signal during sex that something is definitely wrong?
Sure. And then there will be a real benefit from such an uncomfortable but real conversation.
How can you not feel hurt if you did everything “right” and the other person didn’t like it?
This is what women who fake orgasm think about: how to make your partner feel unaffected. I understand that they want it to be nice, but in the long run that’s completely missing the point. It should be pleasurable for both sides. Of course, you know this can be more difficult with women. But I am encountering more and more men focused heavily on their partner’s pleasure. It would be sad not to take advantage of that. Men can’t stand fake female orgasms, so they want to know their partner’s preferences. That’s why I also believe that even during one-time sex, you can communicate in such a way that both parties get satisfaction from it.
How can you – when thinking about your partner seriously – loosen up in the area of sex. Or is it not possible?
If we build a relationship, we build mutual trust on all levels. Any topic over time should be a topic for the couple that they are able to talk about. About different difficult topics, because it’s not only about sex, but about expressing emotions in general. Of course, it’s not easy for us to talk to another person about fear, about anger, about grief. If sexual issues are added to this – it gets extra difficult and stuffy. Communication about sex is part of an important lesson about talking about your emotions, talking and confronting.
If a couple begins their acquaintance by talking about sex, how should they continue and sustain this loving dialogue? So that it’s just right and you don’t talk too much about it?
Just as a relationship needs to be worked on, so do love dialogues. It’s good to make a habit of talking about it, for example, once a week in the evening over a bottle of wine. You can write each other sexy letters. As a therapist, I’m very happy for the couples who come to our intervention centres and want to get tested for HIV.
They say: we just started dating, we want to have intercourse, we’ve had other partners before, we want to get tested. I see people like that as proof of mutual respect for each other, and I’m glad they have that awareness and care for each other. I think to myself then that this is a pretty good omen for such a new-found relationship. I think it’s quite an emotional challenge: to get yourself to have an honest conversation with your partner, to propose such a solution and to go together. Since from the beginning there is sincerity between them, awareness and desire to be fair to the other person – one can only congratulate them. There are not many of these couples, more often than not it is women who propose it, but men – by agreeing to it – are aware and want to maintain the relationship.
Speaking of men, do they feel ashamed the same way women do in terms of talking about sex? Judgement?
There are men who are ashamed of their bodies, they have insecurities. The standard assumption is that they are tougher and don’t care, they don’t give a damn about women’s judgement. Men grow up in an atmosphere of showing off what they’ve done when it comes to sex. If they have no experience, and they hear bed stories from their friends – it can be really hard for them to just talk about sex. In fact, it can make them believe that if they haven’t satisfied hundreds of partners in bed, then maybe there’s something wrong with them. That if they don’t like rough sex – then maybe they are not suitable and it is better not to mention it at all. It’s difficult to expect an intimate confession from such a person. It’s good to just talk about it honestly, even about the fear of exposing yourself. It can also be liberating.
Natalia Juszczak, a therapist from the Splot Institute of Psychotherapy and Sexological Therapy
Author: Krystyna Romanowska
Zdjęcie: unsplash.com
The text was published on wysokie obcasy.pl on 6 November 2021
