Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 202, “How to Nurture Your Sexual Intimacy and Connection in Relationship.” Before we get started, I want to take a moment and just ground with you. Perhaps taking a deep breath in and a deep breath out, just recognizing the purpose and the intention for tuning in to these conversations on the Empowered Relationship Podcast. As I put together the topics and guests, my whole goal is for you to feel better equipped, more educated, more informed in navigating the nuances of long-term intimacy.
I feel that there is so much to be considered and oftentimes we don’t have access to this research or these principles if we’re not self-studying. So I want to just offer this service up to you, for you to consider some of the principles, strategies and techniques shared on this show for you to develop yourself and your intimate relationship… All in the goal of having deeper levels of intimacy and connection that we continue to feel authentic in, and feel enlivened by.
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Let’s get started in today’s episode, again, 202, “How to Nurture Your Sexual Intimacy and Connection in Relationship.” Sharing sexual intimacy, making love with your significant other is such a prominent part of feeling love expressed, feeling the bond being nurtured, and yet how we do that can be very complex and nuanced. So today I’m going to talk about some of the ways we perhaps are misinformed or misguided. Also some real key understandings around how we can find our ground in all of this, and approaching lovemaking with more security, and also recognizing all the fears and anxieties that come up, and even how our attachment style can influence our approach as we enter into the space of sexual intimacy and lovemaking.
If you’ve been a long-term listener, or perhaps have listened to some of my earlier episodes, where I emphasize the development of relationship and also talking about the five stages of relationship and intimacy that every couple goes through, one of the ways that I introduced this topic is recognizing oftentimes we have expectations, we have fantasies about how love and relationship should look, and that when we’re confronted with difficulties, we often feel threatened. We don’t have the tools or the support to navigate those conflicts and use them as a curriculum. So that’s one of my main motivators for having this podcast, is helping people have a little bit more understanding of the lay of the land that this is an opportunity for growth.
So when I talk about expectations, oftentimes I mention mass media in the way of movies, TVs, magazines, books. I also talk about family and the different messages that we consciously or unconsciously receive around relationships. If you’re interested in those episodes, I want to encourage you to check them out. I will put the links on today’s show notes. I reference this because this is also true for the messages and expectations that we often are holding around sex and lovemaking.
In movies, we often see sex in scenes that are snapshots. Or we might get some indication of how that happens. But oftentimes, it’s not a full representation. It’s a slice of the picture. So what ends up happening sometimes is that we see these images depicted and we judge ourselves or we put expectations on ourselves that it should look like that. Or perhaps we even use it as education or information that guides us in how to be in our lovemaking and intimacy. Now I know this isn’t true for everyone, but I’m speaking in just general terms. So I just want to invite you to consider some of these points.
Recently, I was working with a couple who have really struggled in their lovemaking and sexual connection. The wife was describing how she has little interest in engaging in lovemaking with her husband. She referenced her friends, she referenced movies and TV, saying it’s a common thing that wives don’t want to make love with their husbands. Or perhaps that the heat and the spark and the fire wears off in a long-term relationship and marriage.
Now, knowing what I know about them, there is a whole pattern of difficulty in the way that they approach their lovemaking. I’m going to tell you a little bit more about that in a moment. But what I find interesting is she’s referencing some of these messages in mainstream media that support her position. Now, there are some elements that I’m going to touch on of truth with this around women’s arousal, and also the development of sexual intimacy that could look a little different. But that’s very different than not wanting to have sex with your significant other. So I was referencing with her that possibly, one of the things that’s happening in movies and media is that they’re taking an aspect of sexual intimacy and they’re exaggerating it for humor. I just wanted to invite some consideration around what we’re receiving as far as messages there.
Whereas with magazines, both men and women’s magazines perhaps emphasize techniques and performance around how we are engaging in sexual acts or positions or even the setup of it. Now, all of that can serve a place and a role. But if we just focus on that only, it tends to be limiting.
Similar with porn– I’m not going to go into great depth around porn, but porn tends to emphasize physical sensation, again, techniques and performance, which again, is legitimate. However, it doesn’t really give us the support for the fuller picture… Combined with the messages we received in our upbringing around sex in our family, perhaps our parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and the messages there.
I have a client who comes to mind and he describes so much pain and shame about his sexual desire, and how growing up it was really described as something inappropriate, and perhaps even got the message that it wasn’t okay, and dirty, and that it just was something he had a hard time really feeling safe to connect with. Another client talks about having heard her mother say it’s a wife’s duty to please her husband, and that it’s an obligation, and that if that doesn’t happen, then he will leave her. There’s just some real fear-based messaging around sex and what the role or the purpose is. More often than not, we receive negative messages around sex, or perhaps we have a real uncertainty, an unfamiliarity, an uncharted understanding around sexual intimacy and connection, because so often it was hidden or so private, or perhaps we just didn’t have access to any of this information or understanding.
One of the psychologists that I have referenced, Dr. David Schnarch, has done a lot to inform people about how stuck we get in a long term partnership around sex. He uses sex as a metaphor, that so often the sexual intimacy is reflecting the deeper patterns in relationships.
What he talks about is this concept of gridlock, that when we’re so attentive to our partner, their needs, their pleasure, we lose touch with ourselves. He talks about how important it is to be differentiated, so that we can feel our own two feet on the ground. He talks about self-validating, self-soothing, tolerating some of the discomfort of feeling like your partner might not approve of you, might reject you, all in service of being able to show and be more expressed in what’s authentic. He does work towards interdependence. I think he gets a bad rep because he does so heavily emphasize the differentiation, but I think one of the reasons why he does that is because when we’re gridlocked, we have lost touch of that sense of self.
When we can have two differentiated people engaging in interdependence, that’s where the erotic passion and some of the polarity exists, because we have two different needs, and we’re negotiating that space, but we’re really aware of our own desire and that deeper connection with ourselves, and that is such tricky terrain. He talks about most people don’t evolve into adulthood. This is part of the process of becoming an adult in relationship, is negotiating this differentiation process.
He explains that when two people are sensitive and focused on the other person in that gridlocked state, it dampens the passion. It perhaps gets them in this stuck, sexless place, because it’s almost as if we’re hiding out and we’re scared. We want the other person to go first, or we don’t approach the difficulties of this differentiating process that he emphasizes. The element of being connected to oneself and being able to express the authentic desire in relationship is critical. I have had the opportunity of supporting couples in feeling this liberation, feeling this rejuvenation of fire as they get out of this gridlock and take risks.
One of the things that is essential to talk about in this conversation is the safe container. I’m going to reference Dr. Susan Johnson and her work out of the book called, “Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships.” More specifically, the chapter called, “The Body.”
For your reference, Dr. Susan Johnson isn’t particularly a strong fan of Dr. David Schnarch’s work. However, both approaches have a lot of validity. In my own experience, the self-soothing, the self-validating, the tolerating some of that discomfort, fear of rejection has been so helpful for me. To cultivate a secure bond in relationship, we need to develop that security in relationship. Essentially, taking these emotional risks to reveal ourselves, supports the work of Dr. David Schnarch. However, it’s really difficult to do that without the safe container that Dr. Susan Johnson talks about.
I want to pivot towards that now, and I want to note, she is in agreement that sex is such a good indicator of the strength of the connection. In the book, “Love Sense,” the chapter, “The Body,” she talks about how the emotional bond and the sexual intimacy are circular, saying one reinforces or weakens the other. A strong emotional bond leads to good sex, which in turn leads to a stronger bond and so on. The reverse is true as well. A weak connection often leads to unfulfilling sex, which further weakens the connection.
She goes on to say that this may be why unhappy partners in established relationships are so quick to cite sex as the major cause of their misery. Distressed mates assign up to 40% of their misery to sexual problems, according to the sex educators Barry and Emily McCarthy of American University in Washington DC. By contrast, less than a quarter of contented partners credit a good sex life for their happiness. Sexual dissatisfaction is actually a bellwether, the most evident sign of what’s truly going on in the relationship; the unraveling of the emotional bond. Perhaps this is saying that when we are experiencing dissatisfaction in sexual connection and lovemaking, that this is an indicator that the emotional bond is weakened, or there’s something there that needs attention.
I want to back up and give some context to what Dr. Susan Johnson is naming around sexual intimacy and lovemaking. She writes “To researchers like me, adult love has three elements – sexuality, caregiving, which is a blend of attentiveness and empathy, and attachment.” She continues to say, “The level of these with closeness and the degree of safety we feel with our partner translates into different kinds of sex, each with its own practices and goals, and even directs our sexual fantasies. We can have sex that centers on physical sensation, is walled off from our heart or emotional life, and we can have sex that’s mainly emotional constellation, focused on comfort and relieving our fears. Or we can have sex that is synchronous, intimate and integrated with our deepest emotional needs.”
What she’s referencing here is the three different attachment styles. The walled-off or sealed-off sex, which she references as more of the avoidant tendencies, which focus on the physical sensation and the lack of empathy and emotional attunement. Or the anxious attachment tendency focuses on what she calls, “solace sex,” which is more about soothing and comforting fears and getting reassurance. The last represents a more secure bond in what that sexual intimacy looks like.
Dr. Susan Johnson highly references the metaphor of a reciprocal dance for lovemaking. As she describes the way attachment informs how we approach sexual intimacy, again, with this metaphor of dance– and she does practice Argentine Tango. She was talking about this experience, having looked at different couples that could represent these three different types of attachment styles. One being this beautiful couple that was dressed to the nines and had their technique dialed in. By any means, it was a stellar performance. However, she said that’s exactly what it was. It was a performance, focused on the physicality, the technique, and the performance.
Another couple, she described, was relatively new to town and perhaps relatively new to the dance in general, because the way that they were moving together was hesitant, unsure, perhaps even insecure, that she could read the awkwardness in their interaction in this sense of “Is this okay? Is that okay?”
Then the last couple she references is a couple that she knew and also was not particularly dressed in any flashy, attractive clothing, and perhaps their even physicality wasn’t necessarily super impressive, however the attunement and the chemistry and the connection and the flow and the relaxed, focused nuance that was exchanged between them, the creativity, the play of the sensuality, the presencing, and that it was invigorating and so beautiful to watch. She was like, “It feels like they’re playing.”
The idea of play is something that I want to bring our attention to in a moment. But first, I want to just give a couple more notes about attachment style and our tendencies around approaching sexual intimacy. I’m not going to go into great depth. If you’re interested in this, I encourage you to check out the book and read more about it. She talks about the more avoidant tendencies to be more focused on one’s own sensations. Sex is self-centered and self-affirming. A performance aimed at achieving climax and confirming one’s own sexual skill. Technique is prized; openness and vulnerability shunned. Because oftentimes there’s an uncomfortability with emotional closeness and dependence on others.
She says, “Because pleasure without emotional engagement is shallow and fleeting, this kind of sex needs continual boosting to be thrilling. This is through techniques, new partners, and experimentation. Sealed off sex is one-dimensional and leaves both partners dissociated. It undermines emotional bonds. It’s also in the end, less satisfying. Whereas people who are a little more anxiously attached tend to have, again, this “solace sex”, which is to use sex as proof of how much they are loved. There is emotional engagement, but the chief feeling is anxiety. For such people who are highly vigilant and sensitive to even a hint of rejection, sex serves as reassurance that they are valued and desired.”
She says, “If we have to constantly monitor our partners level of love for us, we are distracted from the attunement and responsiveness that good sex requires. We can’t be flexible and coordinate our responses, we lose the ability to lead and follow.”
I want to note that for research, we tend to have really clear categories. I believe that perhaps there’s a little more gray in the way that we experience these tendencies. So you might have a combination, you might have times where you feel more anxious or you might feel a little more avoidant… So I just want to invite you to consider what the common theme is for you as you approach your sexual intimacy with your significant other.
Dr. Susan Johnson writes, “Sexual satisfaction for both the anxiously attached and the avoidant is constricted. The anxious partner is preoccupied with being loved, and the avoidant partner is determined to stay detached. Worry and distraction do not make for expansive, fulfilling sex. Sealed off sex tends to be erotic, but empty. While solace sex is soothing, but unerotic. The most satisfying and orgasmic sex, what I call ‘synchrony sex’, occurs when partners are securely attached. A secure bond is characterized by emotional openness and responsiveness in the bedroom, as well as out. That leads to better communication and engagement, focused attention, which in turn leads to greater arousal, pleasure, and satisfaction. That is sex at its most rewarding.”
I want to pause here for a moment, because as we look at the context of this, recognizing our attachment tendencies that inform perhaps how we approach and navigate sexual intimacy, but also our expectations… Again, in mainstream media sex just appears effortless. It just happens and everybody is easily orgasmic. There’s very little tension or hurdles or difficulties. So when we expect our lovemaking to look a particular way, and we are approaching lovemaking with these attachment strategies that might be limiting or constricting, can impact the quality of our interacting– again, referencing those different types of dance… Or the idea of how we approach ‘play’.
If I even think about the times in my life where I’ve really enjoyed ‘play’, a lot of us can maybe recall memories of growing up. Who are the people that you had the most fun with? Typically, it’s not going to be the person that was like, “I’ll do whatever you want to do.” Or, “I’ll just follow whatever you suggest, and I don’t have anything to offer.” Or the person that’s like, “It’s my way. I want to do it this way and you’ve got to follow me.” Perhaps it was more of that give and take. The co-creative process of like, “What about this? Oh, yeah. How about that?” It’s just this synergistic process of building something together that feels mutually supportive and honoring.
I can tell you when I feel that play – it was particularly with my husband – I am more relaxed; I am more in my body, and the play happens spontaneously between us. It’s something we’re both available for and contributing to. It just brings, again, this sense of aliveness and joy.
In a similar theme of this, I was at a gathering last night with a bunch of girlfriends, and two of them are taking an improv class. One of them was describing just the experience. She said, “We play these games. Sometimes it’s a rhyming game. Other times, it’s like you’re supposed to say just two words or three words.” She said, “Initially, I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, they do such a good job of creating safety. So if you feel like you don’t know what to do, they’re encouraging; they offer ideas, are supportive, but you do get to engage. With that safety, you get to show up and experiment.” Improv is unscripted. It’s an expression; you’re using your creativity, there’s a form of play… And she’s saying how all of this was made possible by that safe container.
I bring up this analogy of play because I think we can access it a little more directly. Because again, when we think about sex, there are so many messages, there are so many associations, there are so many past experiences that we’re managing, and it makes it difficult to come to that open, playful space.
I mentioned how I have a client who talks about feeling really obligated. I have another client that talks about, “I’m afraid he only just wants to orgasm. Almost as if he wants to use me, and I don’t feel like he loves me.” Granted, there’s again a lot of patterns in history that go around this, but she’s like, “When I engage with him sexually, I feel I’m doing him a favor. I don’t actually have the experience that he cares about me.”
Recently, a client was describing her significant other and his tendency to be more of a people pleaser. She said, while he is so generous and kind and supportive, she often feels at a loss of really where he stands, his preferences, his desire, and really feeling the essence of him, the shape of him. She talked about how this has an impact on their intimacy, both sexually and emotionally. She wants to feel him, rather than him accommodating her. As I referenced earlier on in the show that Dr. David Schnarch talks about the difficulty of being in that people-pleasing, accommodating way that can get couples into a gridlocked, stuck place… So she was really just expressing her frustration and difficulty in wanting to really feel him.
Other times we can be very performance-based. Again, that’s goal-oriented. I do think in Western culture, we tend to be achievement-driven and not future-focused, and having an orgasm tends to be the goal. Some of the ways that we approach that goal is through tension. It’s wanting that orgasm. So we tighten to enhance that physical arousal. However, we’re missing the emotional attunement, the relaxed reciprocity of play and presencing.
I have another client who has been dating and really feeling challenged as it relates to entering into intercourse. They do a lot of sexual interaction in other ways, however, he notices a lot of hesitancy, because he’s afraid that he’s going to be judged, that his arousal or erection is going to be taken personally. So how much he’s aroused or appears to be aroused is going to be a direct correlation to his feelings for her, and that she would feel insecure. This has been a pattern in many ways in their relationship, and notably, just in everyday circumstances where this is where she tends to go. So there’s a lot of anxiety there and hesitancy for him to feel safe, to express his desire and his arousal and not feel judged.
Other fears and insecurities that come up for us around sex tend to be in the ballpark of, “Am I good enough? Do you accept me? Are you going to reject me? Do you judge me?” Or perhaps, “I need to look or be a certain way for me to feel loved.” In other circumstances, there might be old pain and trauma. Or as I mentioned earlier, shame around sex.
Perhaps some of us have health issues that are informing our libido and our hormones, and then add stress to the mix. Many of us have such busy, full schedules, it’s hard to make time and space for sex. Now again, if I invite you to think of play as the metaphor, we are so stressed and occupied that we are not making time and space for play with our significant other.
Now when I say that I feel my heart just clench, because this is the very essence of what we typically want to be feeling in relationships. Again, it’s this synchronistic quality of being in each other’s energy, sharing love and responding to each other and feeling our connection. How that gets expressed could look in many different ways… But again, that we’re making time and space for this quality of connection.
I name all of these insecurities, fears, old wounding, shame and difficulties that we’re up against to really empathize with how dynamic and rich this space is. How oftentimes we feel perplexed and tightened, and again, constricted around how to work with all of this material. So my invitation here is just to turn towards it. Perhaps get some support in working with what’s alive in you. Because if we look again at the metaphor of play, what’s getting in the way of us showing up to that space where we can arrive and we can feel relaxed and we can feel present and we can feel available to attuning to our partner and responding and connecting and playing… So there might be some work that needs to happen to arrive to that space, but there also will be a lot of– potentially, a lot of history that makes this complicated in the relationship and the disconnect patterns that have been in existence.
I feel so sad when couples come to me and they’ve been in these disconnect patterns for so long. So much so that, maybe one or both partners have really started turning away from the relationship, perhaps even having an affair, and how they have basically tried to cope with the disconnect in their relationship. Then sometimes it’s really difficult to repair and get back into connection.
One couple comes to mind. Recently, they reached out and they were describing the initial stages where this disconnect occurred. They had a big stressor in their life. They both felt it, but had difficulty knowing how to support each other. They made attempts. However, those attempts sounded as criticisms, which then they turned away. So this did really show up in their sexual intimacy, where she wanted to feel his affection, his comforting, his empathy for what she was feeling. When she didn’t get that, she didn’t feel available for sex. Then he was doing all of these things to provide and show up for the family, and when she would reject him or turn away, he felt not good enough. Fast-forward eight to ten years, there’s a lot of pain there, and it’s difficult to overcome… Especially when we have turned away from the relationship and have sought other ways to deal with the pain.
In the chapter, “The Body”, again, out of Love Sense by Dr. Susan Johnson, she writes, “The truth is that we stray and have affairs not because we are naturally inclined to have multiple mates, but because our bond with our partner is either inherently weak or has deteriorated so far that we are unbearably lonely.”
Another note on expectations… So often the research has used male arousal as a form of understanding female arousal. As we’ve gained more research, there are new understandings of how a woman’s arousal is different than a man’s. For men, arousal tends to be a direct process, oftentimes from a visual cue. Perhaps seeing their significant other in the shape of them in a particular light, or perhaps some clinging clothing that they’re wearing, and feel the physiological arousal and then be interested in sex. Whereas for women, it’s a much more nuanced, complex, emotional/physical experience.
Dr. Susan Johnson cites a research study that looks at the brain processing of arousal. Only in the woman’s brain does the arousal process include the prefrontal cortex and other regions of the brain that involve making judgments and decision-making. Much more so than men’s, women’s sexuality appears to depend on the quality of the relationship, rather than the intensity of the sensations in their skin.
She cites a psychiatrist that has developed a new model of female sexuality to replace the old linear genital model that’s been in existence. She says, “It’s a feedback loop that includes such factors as relationship satisfaction, emotional intimacy, and previous sexual activity, all of which influence sexual response.” She says, “For men, this means overhauling their view of female sexuality and adjusting their verbal physical approaches to make it apparent that there is the desire for the person, not just for orgasm. This offers women reassurance.”
Carrie tells me in a therapy session, “I can’t get over it. All those sexual technique manuals I read, what a waste of time. She likes me to talk to her. I hate to be corny, but sharing my feelings seems to turn her on. Amazing! I used to keep asking her, ‘Do you want to mess around?’ I didn’t get what a turnoff it was for her. I wanted to show her all this passion right off the bat. Now I understand she wants to be held, whispered to and then for me to come on to her slowly. It works.” His wife, Jill, murmurs, “Of course,” and smiles.”
Recently, I was working with a couple who has had a tremendous amount of pain in their dynamic… Particularly this, where her husband, even in their honeymoon – it’s been happening for 18 years, this dynamic where she hasn’t felt his love for her, his care for her in the sexual space, and that perhaps he’s more interested in achieving that orgasm. Which of course, it’s true that he wants that, but he also wants to feel that connection with her.
So one of the things that I was encouraging them to consider was creating some time and space where they could be in an expression of love and share physical affection, and perhaps be connected to that and attuned to that. and maybe not so worried about orgasm or sex or not sex; to just give some attention to that space and then see what happens. But really being that, again, presencing where both people are connected to themselves and what feels good and in that moment. Again, the creativity. Less of all the pressure and expectation around what sex is supposed to look like or be like.
This idea of play, creativity, reciprocal responding and attunement– and this is perhaps going to be a learning curve, so give yourself some gentleness. Because again, all that we’re talking about, that can be painful and difficult, and the invitation towards that, and the vulnerability of that – there’s a lot here. Yet, if we can focus on the intention, the intention being to show up to a space where we can play together in physical sexual intimacy and be attuned to that… Rather than the pressure, the performance, the expectation, or what sex is going to alleviate in the way of fears, if we can just shift the focus to that expression of love and what feels good in the way of being in connection together.
At the end of the chapter, “The Body,” out of the book Love Sense by Dr. Susan Johnson, she offers two experiments to work with. One experiment that she invites is imagining yourself feeling secure, trusting the bond and the safety of the connection. She does this by inviting us to sit quietly and bring up images of two or three moments where you felt really loved by others. Then imagine yourself in a sexual situation where you feel entirely safe, cherished and accepted. Then ask yourself, “Feeling this way, what would I do or ask for that is different from my usual response or routine in sex?” Another way to think about this is to ask, “If I could be emotionally, as well as physically naked in bed with my lover, what would I do that is different?” State this discovery in a clear, short sentence and share it with your lover.” This could be a great opportunity to start the dialogue and begin to turn towards all that’s involved and really work at creating this safe space to more fully arrive.
Again, if you want to access more of the material talked about in this episode, I encourage you to get the book Love Sense by Dr. Susan Johnson. I’ll make sure to have the link for that book on today’s show notes, which can be found on my website, which is drjessicahiggins.com. Click on Podcast and you can find today’s episode, 202, “How to Nurture Your Sexual Intimacy and Connection in Relationship.”
Earlier in the show I mentioned how criticism can show up in this sexual intimacy and connection space. If you have noticed yourself feeling criticized or perhaps you notice that you have requested or attempted to engage your partner and your partner gets defensive, it’s possible that you may be utilizing a critical tendency or a critical approach.
Oftentimes, people who use criticism don’t intend to criticize, rather they’re trying to bring attention to a need, and have difficulty doing that in a way that helps our partner understand their feelings and deeper needs, and perhaps even fears. This is what’s going to help your partner turn towards you, rather than getting defensive. If you’re looking for support in how to shift out of these critical tendencies, I want to encourage you to download the free guide, “Shifting Criticism Into Connected Communication.” Then you’ll also have access to a series of emails, and then, if you want to go deeper to enroll in the Shifting Criticism Into Connected Communication course. So many people are getting much value out of this material. Again, you can find that on today’s show notes which can be found on the website drjessicahiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find all the episodes listed there. Again, episode 202, “How to Nurture Your Sexual Intimacy and Connection in Relationship.”
Thank you for listening. Until next time, I hope you take great care.
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