What is most human about human sexuality is our unique capacity for
intimacy. It takes guts as well as gusto to get any of the glory.
One of the the great myths of American culture is the belief that
we achieved sexual liberation in the 1960s. That was the era we convinced
ourselves that sex is a natural function and gave ourselves permission to
like sex. The squeaky clean effectiveness of "the new sex therapy"
encouraged our technocratic society to believe we could break sex down
sex down into its component parts with the right technology, study it,
and subdue it. We were about to discover the secrets of eroticism the
same way we had cracked the atom.
Many people think it has already happened--that it happened way
back then. Not long ago, clinicians thought that sexual happiness was
inherent in sexual function and successful completion of the sexual
response cycle created as much pleasure as any sane person could want.
There are many today who still believe this.
The notion that sex is a natural function was actually a giant step
forward from the moral degeneracy view of sex that prevailed until that
time. It was so widely believed that masturbation led to moral and mental
decay that Kellogg's Corn Flakes was originally marketed as a
cure.
The trouble is, the belief that sex is a natural function
reinforced another widely held idea: the notion that good sex just
happens. We expect good sex to happen naturally, especially if we love
our partner. The idea that good sex just happens, like that of sex being
a natural function, is predicated on the notion that sexual response is
biologically programmed for all species.
But when good sex or good sexual function doesn't happen, some
couples conclude they must not love each other enough. Or they wonder if
there's something really screwed up because good sex supposedly happens
naturally in the absence of pathology. When the expected genital response
does not materialize, you're unwittingly predisposed to jump to conclude
that there is something wrong with you.
In my 16 years as a sex therapist I have found that the
"naturalized" view of sex is not so liberating as it once appeared. It
pressures people to have sexual desire and genital response while it
makes worrying about sexual performance seem inappropriate. And it
obscures what is quintessentially human about human sexuality: our
capacity for intimacy. The sex that comes naturally is reproductive sex.
Intimate sex, however, is a learned ability and an acquired taste.
I was trained in the conventional beliefs. Blinded by the
still-popular rationale that "natural" is naturally good, I never asked
myself whether the people I treated for sexual dysfunctions were actually
sexually happy. They got happier when their genitals worked. Then
problems of sexual desire came into focus.
The fact that some people whose genitals worked and who had orgasms
could have little desire for sex upset the entire field of sexual therapy
in the late 70s. Problems of sexual desire violated basic assumptions
about the way sex worked. But rather than change directions, sex
therapists made sexual desire "natural" too, comparing it to the desire
for food. Low sexual desire was thought of as "sexual anorexia," a kind
of illness.
In the 60s, approaching sex through a medical model legitimized it
for scientific study. But the price has been a limited focus on anything
more than just functional sex. The shining promise of the sex therapy of
the 1960s and 70s never materialized. We must now face the difficult
notion that what many of us regard as our "most meaningful sexual
experiences" are only a pale version of what we are really capable
of--profoundly transcendent communion with another human being.
We are likely to respond to such an assertion by defending our
personal experience of sex as reflecting all there is to it, and that's
understandable. Nobody gets a yardstick that measures "good sex," and no
one gets a manual outlining the limits of human sexual potential.
Society has never promulgated views about sexuality and intimacy to
help people get the best of what human sexuality can be. It has always
been a palliative for the masses, and as long as it works somewhat okay,
that is enough. As a result, we lack a language and concepts to guide us
through the long traverse to sexual bliss. For example, we use the words
intimacy and sex interchangeably, but they really do not mean the same
thing. In fact, we use one to avoid the other.
What our confusion of terms does, however, is make us think they
often occur together for most people. Actually, being profoundly intimate
during sex is one of the pinnacles of personal development, and a
stunning step for our species. Intimacy during sex is, as I shall later
discuss, the cutting edge of human evolution.
INTIMACY
Sex can express the best that humans can be and also be a powerful
vehicle for getting to that point of personal development. Sex can be
ecstatic, self-realizing, and self-transcendent all at once. The great
feelings of self-affirmation and declaration of our personhood can make
our most powerful genital sensations seem like mere trifles. Experienced
together, the physiological and the psychological make a very interesting
concoction.
Tags:
American culture,
component parts,
corn flakes,
eroticism,
giant step,
good sex,
human sexuality,
intimacy,
Kellogg,
mental decay,
new sex,
orgasm,
relationship,
right technology,
sane person,
sex,
sex down,
sexual function,
sexual happiness,
sexual liberation,
sexual response cycle,
technocratic society,
technology study
