Antidepressants Blog

Sit down as a family and play the ‘ ‘Sex Contingencies” game. This exercise will allow you to review the material from all twelve chapters of this book and to share your feelings now that you have read and thought about super marital sex. Each person should take a turn responding to each of the following ten items.

1. WHAT do you consider to be a sexual act? Do you view sex in a different, more inclusive manner after reading this book?

2. WHO would be the best sexual partner for you? What would be the characteristics of someone you could love for life?

3. WHY would you have sex? Has your personal “model” of sexuality changed in the direction of the fourth perspective?

4. WHEN would you prefer to have sex? Do you relate your personal intimate relationship to the systems view that incorporates all phases of daily living, a sex beyond the limits of “nighttime”?

5. WHERE would you prefer to have sex? Have you thought about your own private, intimate place and about providing an intimate place for everyone in the family?

6. HOW do you prefer to have sex? Have you learned that the posture of the future is really a positioning for a new intimacy, a finding of a new perspective for sex in lasting relationships?

7. WHERE DOES SEX FIT IN YOUR LIFE? What priority do you assign to sexuality, and are you making the commitment necessary to match your own priority for sex?

8. HOW SECRET should sex be? Have you learned about making sexuality an open discussion of family life, to be discussed and examined together even as it is protected as the most personal and private of all life experiences?

9. HOW MUCH VARIETY do you feel you require in your sexuality? Have you learned that the comfort of sameness can exceed the challenge and pressures of newness, that super sex is not different sex?

10.    so WHAT? What does sex mean to you, to your family, to your marriage

now that you have read about another perspective on sexuality?

I hope that you find in these sample questions and in the material I have shared with you in this book a new challenge for a new sex for a new time. I hope you have made progress toward a super marital sex, a committed, enduring, comfortable intimacy that is “super” because it goes beyond the limits of the body to the potential of the merging of spirits.

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Man, I’m telling you, I think I almost threw my back out. We tried it on one of those water beds. We never got into the swing of the thing. The thing took control of us. It was like making love on a bucking bronco.

HUSBAND

In outfitting your clinic, pick a bed that is large, firm, and quiet while in motion. Test it out, at least a little, before you buy. Considering how much time you spend in bed, it is worth a major investment. If possible, dispense with a stand and place the mattress and springs directly on the floor. Doing so will add firmness and soundproofing. Forget water beds. Contrary to mythology, and except for variety, they are not the best environment for sex and certainly not for the posture of the future.

You will also need about ten large, firm pillows. Some wedge-shaped pillows will come in handy for the posture of the future. Bedding should be mutually appealing to both partners, but satin sheets, again contrary to popular myth, are not the best for sex. “I slip, he slips, the bed slips, the pillows disappear, and I almost get shot right out from underneath him. When I’m on top, I can’t get any traction,” reported one wife in the couples’ sample.

Make sure the colors in the room appeal to both of you. Both partners must be involved in the design and decorating of this clinic. It will take some time, but make this private place the best place for both of you to be free. Make sure the phone unplugs and anything distracting is removed. If you want mirrors, put them up. Nobody will see them if you keep this room locked.

If you have followed along to this point, stand back now and do an inspection of the construction. Any artwork should be mutually chosen, preferably enlarged pictures of both of you. No pictures of the kids, the dog, parents, or friends. This one private place should reflect a celebration of your marriage, your intimacy, and your sexuality. Add any last-minute details such as incense, candles, a new soft rug, space heater if it gets too cold, and air conditioner if it gets too hot. Make sure you have removed any and all excuses for why this room is not totally yours. Once you have done that, once you have prevented your bedroom from being a “bored” room, your clinic is ready for staffing.

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There is no research available documenting successful marital therapy. At best, researchers can identify “non-failures” in treatment programs. You will learn later how to treat your own sex and marital problems and how to select a professional helper if you need one. For now, do not go to a therapist who quotes “high success rates.” There is really no such thing. Therapists and therapy do not cure; people must heal their own relationships.

In spite of all marital advice available on television and from books, you are the only ones who know what you want and how to get it. There is probably too much communication in marriage, not too little, as therapists like to stress. We talk too much and sense too little. Therapists may tell you to talk more, listen more, use lotions, touch each other, or prescribe an array of supposedly “tested” techniques for improving sex in marriage. Unfortunately, these models are based on an incomplete perspective of the relationship between marriage and sex.

We are told that if we can find the right technique, if we can only “do something,” we can solve our problems. If I learned anything from observing these thousand “hardy” couples and the hundreds of others in my clinical experience, I have learned that marriage is first and foremost a system, the most complex of systems, and that it has been corrupted by the unquestioned acceptance of the “sex-perts” and their magic techniques for satisfaction.

The answer to any marital problem rests within, not without. It rests on understanding your unique system of interacting, independent of measures of vascular change, fluid discharge, orgasmic reflex, and communicational gimmicks. You will be learning a “super sex,” a way of interacting intimately that transcends the meeting of some historically imposed genital and orgasmic tradition.

Remember, if we chase a butterfly hard and fast, we will never eaten it. Perhaps if we learn to receive instead of achieve, we will be open to our own natural supersystem. The butterfly will light î our shoulder.

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