Normal Sex?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Sex, normal sex, healthy sexual relationships …

On the one hand, people are typing a lot of sex-related queries on search engines, and discussions about sexual relations are very popular on the Internet. On the other hand, the topic of sex is still quite taboo and is mixed with shame and fear for many.

It's easier to discuss your sex life if everything is fine, stormy relationships, enchanting orgasms - there is something to brag about. What if sex isn't all right now? Then, alas, people often remain alone in their experiences, do not seek help.

Since it is impossible to fit into one article a discussion of all sexual problems, then in this article, we will discuss the experiences of the "abnormality" of their sex life:

- Is it normal that it turns me on?

- Is it normal that I … want?

- Is my sexual arousal normal?

- How many times a week is it normal to have sex?

And there are many more questions about sex life, which may sound different, but boil down to doubts that everything is in order.

Questions about sex can be answered in terms of the statistical norm. Someone will be supported by such an answer, someone will not. Therefore, the most important thing is not statistics, but why a person asks these questions, how the person himself deals with his sex life.

If we proceed from the life situation of a person and his relations, then the question of normality can be answered quite simply: if you can realize your sexual needs without physical and mental harm to yourself and others (that is, without violence), then everything is fine.

Much of sex is just a matter of preference (who likes what kind of sex and how much) and the ability to negotiate with a partner. A satisfying sex life is like a game, there is room for spontaneity and fantasy, and there are some agreements about how people play together.

If in your life there is a place for suppression of needs, the desire to hide your desires and to grow in yourself new ones that seem correct and decent, if instead of finding joy in sexual relationships, you acquire diseases … It seems that for some reason you do not realize your sexual desires, but canalize, direct your arousal in a different direction, thereby making yourself ill.

Another good tactic of answering the question about normality is to answer the question: "Why do you think about the normality of your sex life?" Because there is often shame behind the questions about normalcy. And most likely, you got this shame from someone. It is important to understand what criteria you use to assess your sexuality.

Answer these questions:

- Are these your criteria or someone else?

- Whose eyes do you look at your sex life with?

- Who put questions about normality or abnormality in your head?

Here are the main sources where a destructive message can come from:

Ashamed, blaming, or rejecting messages about their sexuality and sexuality can be received by a person from their family. Sometimes adults find it difficult to cope with their feelings, and they begin to shame out of their shame.

From peers in a teenage team, you can also get great rejection or humiliation. Adolescents who have not yet learned to deal with their arousal may react violently, for example, when they discover the otherness of the other.

A shameful or rejecting message can be “received” from a partner (current or former). As a rule, such messages are also given out of some unbearable feelings - shame, fear of rejection or humiliation.

Cultural prescriptions also influence, often not explicitly, but gradually. There is a post-Soviet sexual culture, colored with shame, pathologization, and “seasoned” with violence, and there is a modern one, with the influence of porn films, which, for example, show the speed of onset of sexual arousal in partners and the brightness of orgasms, which in life … happens less often than in the movies … This all also has an impact on how a person perceives their sex.

It is important to notice these messages. Conduct a kind of internal work to differentiate which ideas about sex you got from whom.

How to do it: You can take 2 sheets of paper, on the first one write worried questions and worrying beliefs about yourself and your sex life. On the second, draw 4 columns (family, peers, partner, culture) and write out your beliefs in the appropriate column, from whom you received them.

Read these beliefs, and listen to your feelings and sensations as you read them. You can choose whether to follow these beliefs or not.

Choose those beliefs that don't suit you. Reread them and say: "These statements more characterize the one who said, and not me, it does not suit me, this is not about me, this is not the way with me" … It is important to respond to the embarrassing message that you have embedded in yourself and which has become an "inner critic". Choose your own words that will be an adequate answer and strengthen the "inner protector". It doesn't always work the first time, so practice and repeat as much as necessary.

So gradually the critic's power will weaken, and the defender will strengthen, and the experience of shame and doubt in his normalcy will pass.

If you decide to contact a psychologist about your feelings about sex, but are afraid to meet the specialist's reaction that does not suit you, then remember that each client can choose a psychologist for himself according to his ethical views. It is important not to hesitate to ask about the attitude of a psychologist to various manifestations of human sexuality.