Advice: Fixing the Sex Drive

Hara Estroff Marano gives advice on letting go of an abusive past, dealing with evil stepdaughters, slowing a relationship on the fast track and making friends.

By Hara Estroff Marano, published on May 01, 2005 - last reviewed on September 09, 2005

Rejection hurts. There's no way around it. And it paves the path to depression. But here's a bit of vital information everyone should know that could save much anguish. Studies of children -- this is just as applicable to adults -- show that rebuffs are as much a fact of life for the socially popular as for those less well-liked. The difference is how they deal with rejection. The popular kids don't place blame on others or on something lacking in themselves. They pick themselves up, dust themselves off and turn a negative response into a counterproposal: "Well then, let's get together tomorrow." People who know that rebuffs are expectable and that failure is remediable -- that it results from lack of effort or situational factors and not personal inadequacy -- are not debilitated by setbacks. They focus on maintaining contact with peers. They persist, but not intrusively, and they generate alternative suggestions. So with this bit of knowledge to both cushion your experience and encourage you on, keep at it. Just make sure that your bids for companionship and for joining others do not make undue demands; position yourself in relation to others' needs and in keeping with the flow of general activity, rather than changing the direction of activity or imposing something of interest only to you.

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Is Asexuality Wrong?

The world seems to be obsessed with sex! People stress over who to have it with and whether or not to have it before marriage. What about whether or not to have it at all? I term myself asexual, but I've yet to see that choice on any survey or poll. Is asexuality a real orientation, or is there something wrong with me?

The world, at least our world, does seem obsessed with sex. Whole industries are devoted to making people think everyone else is having more, doing more, doing it better. It's a principle of Marketing 101 that anxiety about one's ultimate desirability as a mate is a great sales tool. You don't have to have a low sex drive to understand that the reality is not quite so florid. Human endowments, like sex drive, are generally distributed along the infamous bell-shaped curve; most people cluster in the middle. There are fewer people with high sex drive and similarly few who feel asexual. Culturally, we've acted as if everyone were at the high end. We're overdue for a correction and I sense it coming. Hang in there!