Dr Graham Stevenson

Intimacy & Relationship Coach in Bristol, London and Online

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June 16, 2020 By Graham Stevenson

Why Does Sex go Wrong? (part one)

Most people will have a bad sex story and it will probably have been more than just an embarrassment.  Sex is such a core aspect of who we are that we can be very sensitive to negative feedback … better fake it than lose face or expose a loved one.

When sex is on the menu, whoever notices the wallpaper in the bedroom?

If we really understood how important the wallpaper was to our sexual enjoyment, it would be one of the first topics of conversation.  The wallpaper I’m talking about is the backdrop of our minds on sex.  It is the subtle but powerful array of influences that have been forming you and me from the day of our birth, if not before.

Culture

Culture is like water to a fish; the air we breathe from life’s first breath.  Each people group has a story that gives them understanding of the context in which they live.  It is handed down and reframed with each generation so that it still makes sense of the present in the context of the past.  In specifically sexual terms, it will define who they can touch, when, where and how.   

The method of making sure everyone keeps within cultural norms is the weapon of choice for social control – Shame.  Shame in this context tells you if you’re one of us or you’re on your own, excluded.

Culture is also the accumulated baggage of previous generations who were unable to work out their collective traumas.  The children of war and genocide will inherit tensions and anxieties that aren’t their own, except by virtue of an epigenetic inheritance.  Rape is deliberately employed as a weapon of war because it degrades so deeply.  The after-effects can be even worse, as the defiled victim becomes unacceptable to their own people and not one of us anymore.  Like other traumas, it will most probably affect subsequent generations.

Religion

Where culture speaks to us through the voice of our ancestors, religion goes one step further and speaks with the authority of God, the almighty, all-seeing and all-knowing One.  Accept ‘the Word’ or be condemned, because who do you turn to in an argument with God … who hasn’t already been judged?

When people try communally to represent a God of love, His/Her/Their unconditional acceptance often gets turned into law and judgement.  The grace-space is God’s special playpen in which to learn, and make mistakes without eternal repercussions, so that we can grow up spiritually.  Unfortunately, the freedom of expression that should encourage creativity and diversity ends up becoming more uniform and ordered, like a classroom.

Not all religions are hard on sex, of course, but it is those people who come from a conservative religious background who have the most problems.  It’s not just what you do, but also what you think, that you cannot hide from an all-seeing God.  If fear doesn’t keep you in line then there’s the other side of shame to deal with – Guilt.

Did patriarchy give rise to the three major world religions or vice versa?  In any event, these three religions have influenced many cultures in which men and women are restricted in discovering their true sexual selves.  Both genders have well defined roles and social positions in which men should be proactive and assertive and women compliant and submissive.  Similarly, men can be sexual but not emotional, except in anger, and women can be emotional, except in anger but not sexual.  Giving people permission to explore in the process of self-discovery is one of the most satisfying aspects of being a therapist. 

As people discern the difference between spirituality and religion, the public reverence that enabled the hypocrisy to be hidden falls away.  Spiritual leaders of all kinds are being outed for inconsistent and sometimes criminal behaviour.  The beneficial side-effect is that people are becoming more introspective and starting to access their own inner resources for their lives.  The realisation that we can have access to spiritual resources without any institutional middle-man is life-changing.  The realisation that we are all made in the divine image with a common spiritual destiny changes our view of ourselves and our relationship with all other humans.

Family

We are located in terms of culture and religion when we are born.  Our family nurtures us with food, ideas, experiences and values and these all go up on the walls of our minds.  The templates of how to be a man and how to be a woman will be enacted in front of our eyes by our nearest and dearest.  Our primary care-givers, like other authority figures, not only model behaviour but also embody values.  Before we can verbalise these values we construct avatars in our imaginations of the kind of people we aspire to be.  Then, like a distant North star, we unconsciously orientate ourselves in all our behaviour towards our intended future selves.

However, there aren’t such things as perfect parents, and families can also be the place where the worst of human behaviour is enacted.  From small ‘t,’ cumulative trauma, to big ‘T,’ incident trauma, many limp out of their childhoods with massive issues to resolve and big deficits of love and attention to make up for.  So often these get unconsciously projected onto others, and in intimate relationships they can play havoc.  When we become conscious of these undercurrents , we suddenly realise that we married our mother or father – our unfinished business.  This needn’t be a catastrophic mistake if we accept it as being our unconscious and wise choice for life and the freedom of mature love.

Education and Peers

Puberty comes to each child’s body at a different time, which can bring its own problems amongst peers.  Some cultures and families celebrate it, others cover it up or ignore it.  A rite of passage is helpful in making the transition in society, if it honours the body and the person within.  Circumcision only adds another trauma that will affect the body as important parts are mutilated or severed completely.

Most sex education curricula reflect the fears and anxieties of the parents and not the desires of the children for knowledge.  Some seem explicitly designed as a deterrent with minimal facts and only the bad news.  But pleasure-averse societies will not encourage their children to enjoy themselves.  Nor will it be easy for their loving and respectful children to enjoy themselves more than their parents.

With a deficit of knowledge and little available wisdom the door is left wide open for peers to find out for themselves.  Those wanting to know what to do, and how things work, will look to other sources such as pornography.  This is how acts such as oral and anal sex become almost mandatory for a relationship in certain age groups.

Thankfully, lessons on consent and boundaries, first developed in the BDSM community, are being more widely incorporated into educational establishments of every kind.  The aim is to clarify intimate interactions and the process asks us to feel our bodies’ responses.  Being aware of our body’s responses as well as our emotions helps us discern our real boundaries and able to make genuine choices.  Slowly and steadily, the wallpaper of our minds will change to reflect our choices and our tastes.

Filed Under: Relationship, Sex, Transformation Tagged With: culture, religion, sex education, sex therapy, spirituality

May 21, 2020 By Graham Stevenson

Why is Sex so Important?

exuberant sexuality

Sex is so important because it affects us in our bodies, our emotions, and relationships and can even expand our spirituality.

Let’s look at some aspects of the biology of sex.

Everyone came into being because two people had sex – our biological mother and father.  Sex is hardwired in our brains and without it we would die out as a species.  It’s hardwired into every form of life that reproduces in a myriad of fascinatingly different ways.  To live, reproduce and die is the most basic expression of life.  There’s no life without sex when you consider say, plant life or animal life.  It is the same energy working itself out in different life forms, either in a linear way (as in evolution) or in a cyclical way (as understood in re-incarnation).

The scientific evidence for the benefits of sex has been growing into a crescendo that needs to be actively paid some attention.  Even the financial advantages for healthier happier people should have governments and religious institutions actively promoting it.  Sadly, many cultures are still sex-negative and locked in ignorance and shame.  There is plenty of evidence that sex is good for:

  • your heart – reducing the likelihood of angina, heart disease and lowering blood pressure
  • your immune system – boosting the production of Immunoglobulin (IgA) by up to 30%
  • reducing stress by lowering ‘stress hormones’ like cortisol and epinephrine
  • improving digestion and lowering the risk of duodenal ulcers
  • improving brain function such as memory in older people
  • relief from pain such as headaches and menstrual cramps
  • strengthening core muscles and reducing the risk of incontinence and prolapse
  • reducing the risk of prostate cancer
  • heightening the sense of smell, improving dental health and skin lustre through increased DHEA production 
  • improving the quality of sleep
  • increasing libido and longevity of life.

Sex is one of the ways in which adults play.  As animals, our foreplay is about grooming, bonding and connecting.  This is how we down-regulate our survival instincts so that we can relax and enjoy each other.  Play then offers the space in which to explore roles and be creative, allowing hidden parts of ourselves to come into the open and connect. However, as groups of humans developed their cultures and societies, different views about sex arose.  Some were sex-negative and covered it with shame and embarrassment. Others were sex-positive and embraced it more openly exploring the subject further.  It seems that for the sex-negative, sex was a necessary evil for reproduction and they denied it. For the sex-positive, each person was affirmed as a sexual being who could also connect with the divine.

The emotional and relational benefits.

The biological systems that enable us to fight have to be shut down for good sex to happen and so we have to learn to relax. You can’t make love and war at the same time. The survival bias of our brains and bodies has to be pacified so that we can enjoy life rather than just keeping ourselves alive. In learning how to relax, we have to connect with our bodies, which enables us to access our innate embodied wisdom. This wisdom tells us about what we like and need, how to act and how to respond and how to find satisfaction in a healthy, natural way.  Great warriors seldom make great lovers as their skillsets don’t translate well to the bedroom; one is about taking life and the other about giving life … and celebrating it.  Sex itself is abused when it becomes a battleground in relationships and even more so when used as a weapon of war.

Whilst it is a primal urge that keeps the species going, sex doesn’t feature on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, although an updated version might include it.  Many disregard its importance because we can actually live without it, and many do, compared to say food and drink.  I personally think that although you might not die from being unable to have sex, something dies inside without it.  Like air, it’s not noticeably important until you’re deprived of it … then it becomes vital! 

Studies have shown that sex:

  • raises self-esteem and improves self-image
  • reduces insecurity
  • increases connection through the release of oxytocin, the bonding hormone
  • increases connection and intimacy in relationships
  • lowers the likelihood of divorce or separation
  • increases relationship satisfaction.

The spiritual benefits of sex

In those few sex-positive societies that openly celebrated sex and explored its possibilities, we have a rich treasure of knowledge, from art showing the human form in sexual poses, to advice on ways of experiencing the life force in us and meeting the divine such as Tantric yoga.  This storehouse has helped inform a diverse discipline of practitioners able to deal with sexual issues to dispel our ignorance and shame and heal all the harm it has done.

Our immature duality of thinking that mirrors the male/female gender binary is challenged by these pathways to enlightenment.  Right and wrong no longer serve any purpose and whatever was a binary polarity becomes a continuum with the freedom to play along the whole spectrum of gender, sex and relationship.  The sincere enquirer not only enjoys the thrills and spills of new experiences but the ability to become more present and to be aware beyond the confines of self and the physical body.  When our consciousness includes not just the physical, but also the spiritual, we can deal with the blockages that prevent us fulfilling that sexual urge to merge and experience oneness with each other and all life.

As a result of our cultural backgrounds, the families we were born into and the experiences of our early years, many of us are cut off from our bodies and experience our sexuality at arm’s length, under the shadow of shame.  We don’t feel fully alive, as if we have been robbed of something precious, and, all the while, time and opportunity is passing us by. The experience of fully connecting with our sexuality enables us to feel whole and at peace, with a newfound vitality. Sex is life, and life is about loving creatively.

Filed Under: Relationship, Sex, Transformation Tagged With: health, Relationship, Sex, spirituality

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