In movies sex is always spontaneous and highly charged. Both people feel powerful desire and are turned-on before touching occurs. The sex is short and intense, and everyone has multiple orgasms. Of course, it's always a new couple or an extra-marital affair - marital sex is almost never depicted in the movies. Married couples are not supposed to be "hot."
In movies sex is always spontaneous and highly charged. Both people feel powerful desire and are turned-on before touching occurs. The sex is short and intense, and everyone has multiple orgasms. Of course, it's always a new couple or an extra-marital affair - marital sex is almost never depicted in the movies. Married couples are not supposed to be "hot."
What is the scientific and clinical reality? Married couples have both more sex and more satisfying sex. Sexuality plays a 15-20% positive role in marriage. It allows the couple to share pleasure, enhance intimacy, and sex serves as a wonderful tension reducer to deal with the hassles of life and marriage. The essence of healthy sexuality is to energize the marital bond and enhance feelings of desire and desirability.
The paradox of sexuality is that dysfunctional, conflictual, or a non-sexual relationship has a negative impact on marriage than the positive role of healthy sexuality. Sexual problems drain intimacy and threaten marital stability, especially in the first two years of marriage (whether it's a first or second marriage). In this blog, I want to focus on primary prevention: How to build a strong, resilient intimacy/pleasuring/eroticism bond.
Mental health professionals and the public believe that intimacy is the core element in successful marriage. The "common sense" view is you can never have too much intimacy and the more intimate the marriage, the better the sex. This myth has caused widespread damage, especially for women. Intimacy is core in terms of feeling safe, connected, and securely bonded. However, the key to healthy marital sexuality is to find a mutually comfortable level of intimacy while allowing space and freedom to experience sexual desire and eroticism. The challenge for couples is to find the balance of intimacy and eroticism which enhances their couple sexual style.
The second core component in healthy marital sexuality is both spouses value the five dimensions of touch: affectionate, sensual, playful, erotic, and intercourse. This allows them to be free from the traditional power struggle trap of "intercourse or nothing." The normal frequency of intercourse sex is between once every other week and three times a week, with the typical couple having intercourse 1-2 times a week. However, couples who approach sensual, playful, and /or erotic non-intercourse touch as valuable in themselves as well as a bridge to sexual desire will enjoy more pleasure and more intercourse.
Eroticism is perhaps the most misunderstood component of marital sex. Eroticism is associated with "dirty, but exciting" sex. People fear that eroticism will cause one or both partners to act out and destabilize the marriage. People trust intimate sex, but not erotic sex. Erotic sex within a committed relationship is quite different than porn sex, affair sex, or high-risk sex. The essence of erotic sex is playfulness, creativity, mystery, and unpredictability which are integrated into your intimate marriage. Eroticism promotes feeling turned-on and experiencing erotic flow and orgasm.
Marital sexuality by its nature is variable and flexible in terms of desire, pleasure, and satisfaction. Especially with the aging of the partners and the marriage, couple sex becomes more human and genuine. You need each other more as intimate, erotic friends than you did early in the marriage. The man can be an intimate partner, and the woman can value erotic scenarios and techniques. This integration is the heart of deeply intimate, erotic marital sexuality. The more broadly based and resilient your couple sexual style-with an emphasis on sharing intimacy, pleasuring, and eroticism-the more likely you will continue to enjoy satisfying couple sexuality.
Barry W. McCarthy, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at American University, a certified marital and sex therapist, and recipient of the 2009 Smart Marriages Impact Award. McCarthy and his wife Emily have collaborated on 11 books which have sold more than a million copies, including Rekindling Desire, Getting it Right the First Time, Getting It Right This Time and Men's Sexual Health. Their most recent book is Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style (Routledge, February 2009).
