Performance Anxiety (Yes, We're Talking Sex)
How wisdom from couples' therapy can help you talk about sex with your partner.
As a couples’ therapist, I discuss sexual issues on pretty much a daily basis. Sex is a common reason couples seek therapy, after all. But writing about sex? That’s where I struggle with performance anxiety.
I have lots of worries about writing about sex. People expect articles on this topic to be exciting. Or funny. Or impressively informative. Or transformative. And I can’t help but compare myself to top notch journalists and brilliant writers like sex educator Emily Nagoski, who writes in relatable and often funny ways in her bestselling books . Then there’s intriguing and charismatic author and speaker, Esther Perel. She shares provocative ideas about sex in committed relationships and affairs and I’d go so far as to call her presence electrifying.
When I set myself to write about sex, my mind thinks about these high expectations and the incredible writers and thinkers who exist in this space. Then, it tells me I have no business pretending to add to the conversation. That I will fall short of reader expectations, be judged, and end up feeling crappy about myself. As a result, I lose motivation to share about the kind of work I do in the therapy room. I punt on releasing a newsletter about sex and convince myself I’ll get back to it when I feel more confident, have done more training, or have a funnier sex joke to tell.
This description is all true1, but hopefully you get where I’m going with it. Such anxieties are an analogy for what happens in many relationships when it comes to discussing sex. We get anxious, we avoid, and our anxiety only grows. And all the while, we don’t get better at the thing we are anxious about—we stay stagnant or get worse.
This avoidance isn’t a problem if the thing you’re avoiding isn’t that important. But many, though not all, couples want see sex as an important part of a romantic partnership2. Sex represents an element of romantic partnerships that differentiates them from longstanding friendships. Sex can be loving, playful, serious, and connecting. It’s a way to express ourselves. And it can feel really, really good. We want a lot from sex. And avoiding discussing issues means we aren’t likely to get much of what we want.
Yet talking about sex can be about as overwhelming as doing sex. So, it’s no surprise that shutting the entire enterprise down feels like the wiser choice—especially if an attempted conversation has led to blaming, diagnosing, and feeling totally hopeless.
Here’s where therapy can help. And in the absence of therapy, therapeutic wisdom can serve us pretty well, too. So, how do therapists help couples talk about sex?
Therapists can get anxious talking about sex, too.
One of the very first clients I worked with was seeking therapy for erectile dysfunction. But it took months before I was clued into this fact. While couples’ therapists typically ask directly about sexual functioning, this man had come in alone to work on problems with alcohol use. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask about sexual issues, even though he was in a relationship. And he hadn’t felt comfortable telling me3.
I remember feeling a little startled when he uttered the words “erectile dysfunction.” I had long known I wanted to become a couples’ therapist and knew sex would be a part of doing this kind of therapy4, but I wasn’t yet well-versed in how to talk about sex in the therapy room.
Still, despite the “yikes” moment, it wasn’t as awkward as you’d think. Thoughts or issues that are private or considered unacceptable to discuss openly are fair game for discussion in the therapy room. In fact, part of being a therapist is helping people feel more comfortable with their most unacceptable thoughts and experiences. And many therapists discover is that finding ease in the conversation, yourself, helps others feel more comfortable, too.
I discovered recently that even the great humanist psychologist Carl Rogers struggled early on to talk about sex, including with his wife. And he learned through his own experience that the antidote is… to talk about it. An story from his biography describes how Rogers showed up for a research study on young married men. The researcher…
questioned so calmly and easily about every aspect of my sexual development and life, that I gradually found myself answering with almost equal ease. One thing I came to realize was that I just didn’t know whether my wife had ever had an orgasm. She often seemed to enjoy our relationship, so I assumed I knew the answer. But the most important thing I learned was that the things in one’s private life which cannot possibly be talked about, can be talked about, easily and freely.
Shelving talking about sex keeps us from growing greater comfort and knowing important information that can help us thrive more in our sexual intimacy. To be sure, taking it down from the shelf is scary, uncomfortable, and there are no guarantees it’ll get better. But leaving it on the shelf guarantees it won’t.
When talking about sex, remember it’s a journey and not a destination.
You can’t solve sex through a single conversation because, as it turns out, sex is not an equation or problem to be solved. Sex is a relational process, something that unfolds and evolves over time. It’s complicated and ever-changing, with biological, cognitive, and emotional factors coming in from all partners involved.
This brings me to another important point. We too often think about sex as an activity that is destination: orgasm. But if sex is a dynamic process, than reducing it to its destination means you are prone to miss out on the richness of the journey. Not to mention, you can have great sex even without getting to orgasm. Sexual intimacy can encompass cuddling, kissing, talking, and non-genital touching. It can be playful or serious, predictable or adventurous. Broaden what you think of as sex, and approach it as something you do together. And the doing process has a lot to do with the meaning you assign to it.
One area that few couples think about discussing is what they want their sex life to mean for their relationship. But once you start down this path, you’ll realize it’s an obvious area to hone in on. Get curious together with your partner about whether you want your sex life to reflect. For instance, do you want to see it as a practice to deepen connection, grow playfulness or adventurousness, express lovingness, or something else? Focusing on the meaning helps you step away from blaming and diagnosis and into curiosity and collaboration.
How to start talking.
It’s hard to talk about sex with strangers, but sometimes it’s even harder to start that conversation with your partner. So consider some background music from Salt-N-Pepa to make it seem like a totally random conversation you haven’t been thinking about.
I’m kidding.
The real advice is to, again, remember that awkward conversations often get less awkward through the process of having them. Treat the start of the conversation like the first step in a journey. You can’t fail that first step so long as you take it. Bonus points for inviting your partner to take that first step with you.
Second, focus on meaning. Ask yourself and your partner questions like: What does sex mean in the context of your relationship? Is it a way to connect, to have fun, to gratify each other, to be adventurous, to explore yourselves? How much do you overlap and how much do you differ?
And remember, too, to expand what you define as “sex.” Begin to include all sorts of intimate behaviors as part of this part of your relationship and consider where they fit and what kind of meaning they can embody for you.
Finally, because it’s sometimes hard to know what words to use, here is a script to try: “I’ve been thinking about our sex life and how we struggle to talk about it. But this part of our relationship feels important to me. Would it be ok if we talk about sex? Can we talk about what it means to each of us?”
Ok, I started the journey of being a therapist who not only talks about sex in the therapy room, but also writes about it. I even sent you what I wrote. First steps taken! I thank you for being on this journey together with me. And now a question: How was it for you?
1 My writing collaborators can attest to this, having seen a few drafts of a post about sex).
2 Not all couples want to prioritize sex in their committed relationship. Even couples who come in for therapy describe being A-ok with not having sexual intimacy as a part of their relational lives.
3 I was a first-year therapist. I doubt I exuded the kind of competence that would have set this poor fellow at ease, and I’m just grateful he trusted me enough to stick with me.
4 I had, for decades, seen Dr. Ruth, the famous German-American sex therapist as my professional model. That woman was boss.
I love this! Great article!!