A Countercultural Four-Letter Word Secret to a Great Sex Life

I have a countercultural four-letter word secret to a great sex life to share with you.

Recently, I was asked to give a talk at an all day premarital preparation workshop on the topic of sexuality for couples about to be married in the Catholic Church. As a psychologist who has treated many couples over several decades and someone who taught an Intimate Relationships class at Stanford University for a decade that was turned into a book used for marital preparation (for details see http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1587212560/sr=1-4/qid=1156606465/ref=s…), I was invited to share the secret to a great sex life with about 25 couples about to be married.

What did I tell them?

I made four points that I think are important for couples to be aware of and reflect on.

First, our culture is pretty twisted when it comes to sex and sexual information. As we all know, sex is everywhere and it is how we try and sell products from beer to fast food to cars. Sexual imagery and what I would consider soft porn is everywhere even on prime time television, reality shows, television commercials, advertising billboards, and certainly all over the internet. All of these messages and images give us an unrealistic and distorted view of sex and sexuality. Furthermore, I have seen way too many men in my clinical practice who have become addicted to computer porn which has led to troubles at both home and work (and for some, troubles with the law). With porn being so easily available via the internet it is very hard for many to resist.

Second, certainly the religious world (and the Catholic world that I live in) is full of very high and often unrealistic expectations for sexual ethics. Sadly, the only thing that ever makes the news in the Catholic Church has something to do with sexual ethics and behavior. Homosexuality, divorce, premarital sex, contraception use, abortion, pedophile priests...a casual observer would likely think that all the Catholic Church is interested in is sexual behavior. Of course you never hear about the soup kitchens, the solidarity with and advocacy for those in need, Catholic Relief Services for the suffering, the actual faith, and so forth.

Third, although everyone seems interested in sex generally nobody ever really talks about. As a college professor you get used to having at least some students miss class and you tend to always have a handful of students skipping class on any given day. However, after teaching an Intimate Relationships class at Stanford University as well as the University of Kansas I learned that when it came to the sexuality lecture everyone would show up but nobody would say anything! The problem with not talking about sex and sexuality (especially among intimate partners) is that misconceptions, distortions, and troubles can easily emerge without adequate resolution. As you know, there are so many myths about sex and sexuality out there that don't get debunked if people remain silent.

Finally (and this is where my one word countercultural secret comes in) I think to manage a satisfying sexual relationship one has to have a particular frame of reference or perspective that your thinking and behavior always filters through. When it comes to sex and sexual satisfaction, it is all about the love, the connection, the intimacy, and in the words of St. Ignatius (the founder of the Jesuits), it's about the mutual exchange of gifts. So, the secret countercultural four letter word is ... (drum roll please) L-O-V-E. It's all about the love!

Now that might sound obvious and perhaps a real no brainer but when you think about it, the messages that we tend to get in our culture about sex is that it is all about me! My satisfaction, my needs, my fantasies, my pleasure. I would like to suggest that this is completely wrong! If we think about sex as a mutual exchange of gifts and that it is all about the love, then I think we will do the right thing when it comes to intimate relationships and sexual expression. At least we'll have a prayer that our sexuality will be nurtured, satisfying, and fulfilling to ourselves and our partner. When we disconnect sex from love we're in trouble...big trouble. Just ask Tiger Woods, Ben Roethlisberger, Gov. Elliot Spitzer, Congressman Mark Foley....the list goes on and on. It is like eating cotton candy...it might feel good in the moment but not so much afterwards and it is really not very fulfilling.

So, what do you think? Can we reconnect sex and love in our culture and in our relationships?