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Hi friends, I apologize for not updating this space recently. As of late all my writing has been posted on my Psychology Today blog, Underneath The Sheets. So while I have been writing, I have not posted them here. I will start cross posting. In the meantime, if you wish to see what I have written feel free to go here and look on the right side under "Recent Posts":
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/experts/diane-gleim-lmft You hear the phrase, “sex is natural," and variations of it quite a lot. This is a claim many people and institutions make. This argument is often used to justify certain sexual behavior—and its inverse, that a particular sexual behavior is "not natural,” is often used to condemn other sexual behavior. This is a confusing concept, clearly open to all sorts of interpretations, if my Google search results are any measure of the English-speaking human psyche.
When people say sex is natural or that certain types of sex are natural, I honestly do not understand what they are trying to communicate. What do they mean by “sex”? What do they mean by “natural”? Do they mean it is involuntary, like breathing? That we just inherently know about the birds and the bees? That we know how to have good sex and healthy sexual relationships? All this, you and I know, is not true. Whenever something changes in my clients’ sex lives that they do not want, do not like, or are not asking for, I often hear a statement like, “I didn’t sign up for this.”
It is fascinating to me when clients express the expectation that the aspect of their sex life that is changing would stay the same forever. There is this romantic idea of “growing old together” that many couples say they want and look forward to. I have heard something about “rocking chairs on the porch.” Sounds sweet. But nowhere in that idealistic notion are the realities of life. Things change in life and sometimes not for the better. Your health changes. Your body changes. Your stressors change. Relationships change us. Having kids changes us. Aging changes us. Loss changes us. How we think and talk about all things sex matters. What we call something has an impact and influences how we think and feel about it. This is what I frequently tell my clients: there is the sexual issue and then there is the story we tell ourselves about the sexual issue—and it is often the story we tell ourselves that is causing the most pain. So what if we worked on creating a different story?
Like fish swimming in water, we are swimming in sexual shame to the point where most of the time we are utterly oblivious to it. No one is immune from sexual shame, not even medical and mental health professionals, and it can even happen within or by institutions. Sometimes a person’s sexual shame is so ingrained and feels so much a part of their deepest self that they simply cannot imagine themselves without their shame. Sexual shame is so ubiquitous that when someone or something does not evoke sexual shame and is actually “sex positive”, it can be a shock to the system and cause reactivity like discomfort, anxiety or fear, judgment, anger, threats, and sometimes even violence. All of us have seen this before. It's a difficult topic for many. So let’s pause, take a breath, and look at shame more closely.
I am excited to announce that I am now an expert contributor on Psychology's Today's website. My blog, Underneath The Sheets, is now live. You see see my posts on that link. I will split my time writing for them and here. I hope you will check it out!
When you study human sexuality, you inevitably study human morality systems. How and why humans value what they value. And I think this is part of the reason why studying human sexuality is so threatening to some: if we examine something like sexuality (that is so laden with values and has been for centuries) then there is the possibility of separating out each piece of that puzzle, re-evaluating each piece, maybe hearing new information, deciding what to do with that new information (i.e. allow it to affect our value or not), then there’s the possibility of those new conclusions not being in alignment with our current life, and the cognitive dissonance that comes with that situation. Eeek, a scary prospect indeed.
I usually write about sex and relationships, but on this sunny spring day I’m going to veer off that a little bit and write about technology with a little bit of sex thrown in.
I cannot seem to find a person who doesn’t have a smartphone anymore. Now I realize I live in northern California, one of the more affluent places on the planet and a mere 100ish miles from Silicon Valley and 50ish miles from San Francisco. Technology is what my region is known for (and on a micro level wine and weed too, but that’s another conversation for another time). People say that technology, and specifically smartphones, have radically changed our lives and our norms. True. Fifteen years ago would you have imagined you might willingly pay to sleep in a stranger’s home while you are on vacation or pay to get a ride in a stranger’s car? I’m sitting in my office today and there’s a funeral happening in the church next door. (This happens regularly.) The church and my office building share a parking lot so the attendees’ cars have filled it up (the deceased person was clearly popular), the people are dressed up and wearing dark colors, there’s a couple of limousines, and of course there’s a hearse parked out front. Always stark imagery.
In case you didn’t know, my office is located in a building that used to be a Catholic school. After the school shut down, it sat empty for years. Then it was renovated I think about 30(?) years ago and converted into professional offices. It’s a majority of therapists in the building now. The church still owns the building (and I like to joke that I make my rent check out to “God” - because hey, don’t we all?) and it even still has a cross on the top it. I say this often in my office. In fact, I said it just the other day to a client. I really believe people know this on some level. They understand that porn is meant for entertainment purposes, the majority of it with the male gaze in mind, and that like the rest of Hollywood it has all kinds of movie-making secrets and techniques to trick the viewer into believing what they are watching is really, authentically happening between the actors.
Yet in the absence of comprehensive sex education in our country, coupled with the inherent curiosity everyone seems to have about sex, I think it’s inevitable that some people look to porn to answer the questions they have about sex. Examples of those questions and curiosities can be: In a recent session, a client was struggling to accept and get on board with her husband’s ideas of what is sexy. According to her, he even went so far as to say he doesn’t find her sexy because she doesn’t look or act like the women he sees in porn and he finds those women sexy. (This is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t tell our partners everything we think and feel.) She then told me how she’s been trying, albeit with a lot of anger and resentment if she’s being honest with herself, to be more like the women her husband sees in porn but as a result of that resentment it’s been a half-hearted attempt and ultimately unfulfilling because that’s just not who she is. She’s come to see me to examine her husband’s ideas about what is sexy, how those impact her and their sexual relationship, and how she’s come to feel very un-sexy over the years. I interrupted her and said, “You don’t think you’re sexy?” She said no earnestly. And I said, “I see a smart and feisty woman who, after decades of conforming to her husband’s ideas about all things sex, is finally giving a shit about her own sexual experience and her own sexual pleasure. And THAT is sexy!”
On my way to work this morning (Valentine's Day 2019), I heard an internationally-known psychologist and expert on relationships be interviewed. In the course of the conversation about marriage and relationships, the interviewer asked “Some people say you need to work on the relationship while others say if you need to work on the relationship then something’s wrong. What is your take on that?” And the expert replied, “Well, I hate to break it to you, but you need to work on your relationship.”
NO NO NO NO NO. My profession’s marketing department has gotten this all wrong. Last year my friend’s husband died suddenly and like when all young and thriving people pass unexpectedly it was and still is a huge loss for our group. A few months after he died, my friend asked if she could talk to me since, as she said, “You’re a sex therapist and all.” She told me about a specific pain and heartache she feels regarding the death of her husband. They had a monogamous relationship and with his abrupt death she also lost her partnered sex life that same awful day. She told me that sure she misses the sex, but what she is realizing in her grief is that she is also missing the laughing, the cuddling, the caressing, the hugging, the holding each other, the looking into each other’s eyes, the silly moments, the awkward moments, and yes even the disappointing moments. While masturbation scratched an itch, she said with partnered sex she had exactly that: a partner and intimate friend with whom she could share all those things. It was the 'sharing with' that felt particularly special for her, and is something she profoundly misses now. I was, and still am, deeply moved by her experience and her description of her experience. And with her permission, I share it here as a way in to discuss how partnered sex is different than solo sex.
I often talk with my clients about “solo sex” and “partnered sex.” If you Google “solo sex”, you’ll see that in the majority of the articles where the phrase is used, it’s referring to masturbating by yourself and that seems to be how most of my clients understand the term. OK sure, that’s fine — another phrase for masturbating — but don’t we have enough of those already? Ask any 14 year old adolescent male or Adult Swim viewer how many terms for masturbating he/she/they can think of in 10 seconds and you’ll see what I mean. Instead, I want you to expand your conceptualization of the term “solo sexuality” to include SO MUCH MORE. I think that if you do, your sex life will improve.
One of the genuinely heartbreaking aspects of my work is how little cisgendered and heterosexual women know about their own bodies. In particular, how little they know about what I call the anatomy of pleasure. Now that being said, most, if not all, of these women have some knowledge about the clitoris. That when I say the phrase “sexual pleasure”, many of them tell me they immediately think of this one organ.
“Yes, the clitoris!” I say with excitement. "Talking about the clitoris a great place to start. Have you found its four legs on your own body with your own hand or a vibrator perhaps?” I ask. Most of these women give me a confused look or a blank stare. Then I often hear one of the following responses: |
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