Why is sex not happening?



Why is sex not happening?

Have you been married for a while and you are wondering what happened to your sex life? Are you dating and your sex life isn’t happening? Are you wondering how does sex happen? Are you wondering why you don’t have these feelings of desire for sex? Are you just lacking complete motivation or interest in sex and wondering why it is not happening for you or perhaps your partner?

 

The idea that sex happens is often what leads people into sexual dysfunction. Even the idea that there is sexual dysfunction creates sexual dysfunction. People have these unrealistic and uneducated ideas that sex happens. Meaning, something other than them is going to produce a feeling in them that is going to drive them and make them want to have sex.

 

Often, people are growing up with this idea or perhaps even their first several sexual experiences, when they were young, were what they thought were produced from intense sexual desire or strong feelings that came from another person or outside of them. This idea that you do not have to do any work, that a feeling will motivate you to have sex is often what underpins what people call sexual dysfunction.

 

A different way to look at sexual dysfunction is lack of realistic expectations for sex and a very good understanding of what grown up sex looks like. Many times people have such unrealistic ideas about sex and they have no idea that grown up sex requires planning, work to turn yourself on, coordinating and talking with your partner, that they do not know that they need to do these things.

 

Some men or women are just sitting around waiting for something other than them, perhaps their partner, perhaps a mysterious process, that will magically produce a feeling in them without them having to do anything. When this doesn’t happen, they declare this and frame it as sexual dysfunction. This way of thinking about it traps them into a pattern of passivity, of blaming their partner, of feeling hopeless and withdrawing and disconnecting.

 

To summarise, sex doesn’t happen. To have grown up sex you actually have to put work and effort in to making it happen. People need to learn that sex is a vehicle to produce a feeling. You have to have self-awareness and self-reflection of what kind of feeling you want to have from sex, and then the awareness to know what kind of doing would be required to produce that feeling. You need to have the skills to be able to communicate, discuss and negotiate that with your partner.

 

Most people who are having sexual problems or sexual dysfunction, as they like to refer to it, lack all of these skills and education. They often resist the idea that they should have to do anything to turn themselves on or they resist the idea that sex requires effort. This resistance really locks them into a negative pattern of no sex or incredibly unsatisfying sex.

If you would like to learn more about how sex therapy can help you, contact Tammy Fontana, lead therapist and expat English speaking therapist at All In The Family Counselling Center Pt. Ltd., at +65 9030 7239 to learn how therapy can help you individually or as a couple.

 

All In The Family Counselling has been providing therapy for just under two decades. We specialise in sex and intimacy therapy, relationship therapy and individual therapy. We can handle all of the mental health issues that are impacting you and preventing you from having the life that you want. Contact us now!