Marty Klein - Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex and How to Get It

OTHER BOOKS BY MARTY KLEIN

Your Sexual Secrets:

When to Keep Them, When and How to Tell

Ask Me Anything:

Dr. Klein Answers the Sex Questions Youd Love to Ask

Let Me Count the Ways:

Discovering Great Sex Without Intercourse

Beyond Orgasm:

Dare to Be Honest About the Sex You Really Want

Americas War on Sex:

The Attack on Law, Lust and Liberty

Sexual
Intelligence

What We Really Want from Sex
and How to Get It

Marty Klein, Ph.D.

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

Contents

Endless conversations and thinking about sex: this may sound like the ideal life, and maybe it is. But its also very hard work. Understanding one of the most bedeviling and beguiling topics in all of human experience is difficult enough. Attempting to shape that understanding into recognizable ideas, and to communicate those ideas in compelling, new, and helpful waysnow that is frustrating, often overwhelming, very hard work. It may be the ideal life, but dont romanticize the work.

Fortunately, I dont have to do it alone. I have generous partners for those endless conversations, smart and experienced professionals who eagerly consider my latest thoughts. This book is informed by dozens and dozens and dozens of late-night, early-morning, and creative what if conversations. And so I thank my partners-in-thought: Vena Blanchard, Doug Braun-Henry, Larry Hedges, Dagmar Herzog, Paul Joannides, and Charles Moser.

And while we dont talk often enough, I always learn something when I discuss the intersections of culture and sexuality with my pals Ellyn Bader, Mickey Diamond, Bill Fisher, Melissa Fritchle, Meg Kaplan, Dick Krueger, Janet Lever, Deb Levine, Peter Pearson, Pepper Schwartz, Bill Taverner, and Carol Tavris. Megan Andelloux made helpful comments on an early draft.

Susan Boyd has generously helped me understand the relevance of my work in the new world of social media. Looking at my work through her insightful, worldly eyes has taught me a great deal.

Veronica Randall has once again shaped my thinking, and therefore my writing. In the early stages of this book, she succeeded in showing me what wouldnt work. As always, she did it as gently as youd handle a squirmy lamb.

Michael Castleman is a special friend and colleague (and a great writer). I know he doesnt exactly mean to, but hes constantly demanding that I clarify what I want, what Im trying to say, and why. The constancy of his affection and respect regardless of my answers makes his questions all the more powerful. Hes also done more to ease me into the post-print world of writing than anyone else.

Doug Kirby and Jack Morin are highly accomplished and dear friends. Their confidence in my ability has helped me through more than one bout of wondering what, exactly, was the point of writing yet another book. For decades we have been investigating both sexuality and life together. As a result, I am a better sexologist and a better man.

Eric Brandt brought the book to HarperOne. During his tenure with me, his hand was warm and valuable.

I very much appreciate my editor, Cindy DiTiberio. With enthusiasm and insight, she did something that all editors attempt and few accomplishshe made this book better.

If I wore a hat, Id gratefully tip it to my agent, Will Lippincott. Will is an old-fashioned gentleman, with a thoroughly modern sensibility. On my behalf, he elegantly navigates the worlds most arcane industry with an uncanny understanding of both it and me. We are a distinctly odd coupleand he generously, graciously, makes it work for both of us.

And my wife? My patient, insightful, literate, loving wife? Aw, dont get me started; that would take a whole other book. All Ill say is, if you knew her, youd envy me.

True or False?

You can now buy vibrators, handcuffs, dildos, and anal beads on Amazon.com.

Eighty-six percent of American adults say they masturbate.

Although millions of men get a prescription for Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra every year, the number of men who renew their prescription is very low.

People into S/Mspanking, whipping, blindfolding, etc.are no more likely to come from abusive backgrounds than non-S/Mers.

Many men of all ages dont ejaculate every time they have sexand many women consider themselves a failure when this happens.

In 2010, only 20 percent of a university student sample said that oral sex is sex.

More money was spent on pornography in the United States last year than on tickets for all professional baseball, football, basketball, and hockey games combined.

More than one million Americans went to a swingers club last year.

Half of all mass market paperbacks sold in the United States are romance novels. Last year half of all American adults read at least one romance novel. The average reader of romance novels reads fifty per year.

Most school sex education programs in the United States are not allowed to use the words clitoris or pleasure.

Sex isnt just an activityits an idea.

Our ideas about sex are so complicated that we make the activity complicated. Im here to make both your ideas and your sexual activity less complicated. In my thirty-plus years as a sex therapist and marriage counselor, this almost always makes sex easier and more enjoyable. In many cases, more frequent, too.

When were young, sexual desire is driven by hormones, lust, hunger, novelty, and an urge to prove ourselves. Most of us are soooooo horny. We desire the most profoundand primitivefusion with our lust object. If only we could unzip our torso and he or she could climb right in!

Were told that eventually, desire will be driven, not by hormones, but by love. We plan to feel, one day, Youre so great, so perfect for me, I want you.

And eventually most of us do fall in love. We idealize our partner. And typically, were horny for him or her.

As the relationship continues to evolve, both partners finally get to know each other. Routine sets in. If we want novelty, we must create ita weekend in the country, new furniture, new fantasies. And we stop idealizing our partner. Once we do, love no longer triggers desire reliably, because the rest of life interferes.

Sex becomes less frequent. Or more routine. Or both.

When a relationship is new and the sex is exotic and enjoyable, the start-up cost of each sexual encounter is low. Were not nervous about hearing no, and were usually not nervous about hearing yes. But as sex becomes less frequent, we feel increasingly awkward. Starting up each sexual encounter becomes more complex, more time-consuming, more fraught with anxiety.

The hassle of initiating sex starts to outweigh the perceived advantages of having it. If a couple gets along, they have other, dependable ways to enjoy themselves: a walk, cooking together, watching TV, napping, photographing their kids, playing Scrabble. When a couple has limited free time together and they know they can reliably have fun doing other things, choosing to have sex that they imagine might involve self-consciousness, disappointment, criticism, and emotional distance is simply irrational.

So long-term couples who like each other do the most obvious thing: they have sex less often, and instead do other things they enjoy more easily.

If you and your partner want sex to be part of your lives after the first few years, you cant rely on feeling hormonal lust, you cant rely on feeling overwhelmed by being in love, and you cant rely on feeling theres nothing better to do. The two of you have to do something fundamentally irrationalpropose something thats less enjoyable and more emotionally expensive than practically any other leisure activity available.