Part 1: What do you mean when you say sex is mandatory?
This week, we’re pulling from the field. As relationship coaches, this is a question that we get from nearly every one of our clients who we coach.
First, let’s start by defining the term “sex,” so we’re all on the same page here. We’re referring to sex as any sexually intimate act that you have with your partner, and not limited to just intercourse.
Unfortunately, couples all over the world relate to sex with their partners as optional. What’s even more interesting is how many people expect strict monogamy from their partner, would divorce their partner for cheating — and still don’t make sure that they are doing their part to make their sexual relationship with their partner is anything but great.
We believe that sex is the most important part of any intimate relationship, and the reasons for this are manifold. Even in relationships where both partners are naturally asexual, that doesn’t mean that physical touch and the intimacy that it creates is not paramount, even if intercourse isn’t. Let’s unpack the first two reasons in today’s article, and we can unpack more in the coming weeks.
It’s what makes you two different from everybody else in your life!
Monogamy, for better or for worse, is still the default setting for most couples in the western world. If you are in a monogamous relationship, the only thing that separates your partner from everybody else is the fact that you have sex with them. Yes, your partner may be funny, but so are your friends or the TV comedy you are currently watching. Yes, your partner may have an amazing mind, but so do your co-workers or other people in your life. Sex is not the only reason you are with your partner — shared interests, values and many other factors are important reasons to be with somebody, but the one thing that you share exclusively with your partner and nobody else is the fact that you have sex with them. So if this baseline foundation of what separates the two of you from everybody else in the world is not great, then your relationship is in real trouble.
“The only restaurant in town!”
Sex is not just about the act of sex. Sex is about everything surrounding it, the “pomp and circumstance; the romance, intimacy, seduction, pleasure, adventure, thrill, the entire erotic realm.” In Jack Morin’s book, “the Erotic Mind,” Morin describes the erotic within all of us as an alchemist that lives inside of us. A part of ourselves that turns the base metal of our past traumas into the gold of pleasure. The importance of this cannot be understated because it means that our eroticism lives in the deepest realms of our psyche and our sexual needs and desires are not only integral parts of our human experience, but also immutable in terms of the necessity of their exploration. In other words, for many, sex is a need. Will you die if you don’t have sex like you will if you don’t have water? Obviously not, but you very well might wither and your relationship’s long-term survivability may decline. So if you are in a monogamous relationship, you and your partner are, metaphorically, the only restaurant in town.You are the only place either of you can go to experience the alchemy of the erotic, at least as it relates to experiencing that realm with another person. How right or fair is it then for either of you to close the restaurant, willy nilly? You are literally denying your partner a fundamental aspect of being human, let alone why they chose to be with you — and only you — in the first place.
So what is there to do about all this? We have a golden rule that we live by and teach all of our monogamous couple clients, and the rule is: Never say no to sex. It’s purposely reductive, because in order to live by this rule, you must deal with everything that makes you a “no” to sex currently. The rule is not designed to get people to just say yes and have mediocre sex out of duty or without consent. It’s designed to get you to deal with all of the reasons that you are a “no” to sex, so that you can powerfully get to a consistent yes. So ask yourself, do you get triggered by this rule? Why? What is in the way of you being a consistent yes to your partner? Tell us and we can help unpack them in the coming weeks!
One parting thought: It’s important to highlight that in this specific article, we are talking about couples that practice strict monogamy. Sex is just as important for ethically non-monogamous couples, however the issues that monogamous couples face are more easily mitigated in couples that practice ethical non-monogamy. As a general rule, ethically non-monogamous couples tend to rate the quality of their sex lives higher than monogamous couples, but that is an article for another time.
