The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

(this is raw unedited text transcribed directly from the audio)

Dr. Kenner:      Here is a question from Kelly. It’s a question about sexuality and see what your gut response is. “Hi Dr. Kenner. I find it difficult to be sexually intimate with men I am serious about. This has stopped me from being able to form relationships because I push them away. I can cuddle up to them. I can hold hands. I can kiss them without it being a problem. But when it comes to having sex, I can’t do it. I become embarrassed. However, I have no problem having sex on a one-night-stand basis, or with someone whom I’m not in a relationship with. It would be great if you could enlighten me on what the problem may be. Thank you, Kelly.”

I can hear the problem – why are you pushing away men that you are attracted to? Men that you want to have a long-term relationship with? Potential lifetime partners? And why do you respond so freely with men on one-night-stands, men that you don’t value as much? You had a key word in there, why do you feel embarrassed? Obviously the only person, Kelly, who can answer these questions accurately is yourself by asking them to yourself. Just taking those questions, writing them down and journaling. However, I am going to give you some leads, some things you can think about. Some of these may be way off base. Some of these may be right in the middle of the target.

Why would anybody act like that? Why do you push away a guy you’re attracted to and really want a seriously relationship with? I think the number one suspect, the number one killer is selflessness. Meaning you’re not valuing yourself enough. You’re not valuing yourself enough to feel connected with a really good person, a person whose character you admire, rather than someone’s character you don’t admire as much. And so if you don’t feel good about yourself, you want to ask yourself, “What is it that would make me feel more secure, better with this person?” If you’re feeling that this person is really important to you, then sex is very different, the sex you would have with that type of a person is very different than mechanical sex or fantasy sex that you might have with a person you don’t know at all. Because basically it’s whatever you bring into the picture. If you’re with someone who is closer to a soul mate, it’s an expression of yourself when you make love. In body and in spirit. And if you feel inadequate, you may not want to feel psychologically naked, psychologically exposed. That’s one possibility.

Another, damage done by selflessness. The technical term is altruism, otherism. That you would feel the need, you can feel liberated with someone you don’t care about, but man, if you really value the person, then you have to make sure that they are happy and you put so much attention on the man that you don’t please yourself. You lose your own sensuality. This is extremely common, especially in longer-term relationships. Women typically – and of course I’m not speaking for all women – but as a trend, women typically focus on pleasing the man and they forget their own sensuality and then sex very quickly becomes a four-letter word. You can guess it, a duty. D-U-T-Y. It’s no longer any fun.

Another possibility is you talked about sex and being embarrassed, being naked with a person you love. So many of us, even in this day and age, pick up ideas that sex is dirty and so maybe with someone you don’t value, you can have sex with easily, but if you really value someone, how can you do something dirty with someone you love, right? You may have that idea that, well, it’s okay to love the one you’re with, kind of indiscriminate love, but you don’t ever have sex with someone you genuinely love. If you’ve got those type of ideas bouncing around in your head, man, Kelly, you want to challenge those. You want to be able to have sex with the one you love and feel aroused and feel sensual and your partner feels sensual. To a man, that’s a win-win, and it’s hard to achieve but it’s certainly possible.

Another possibility of why you could make love with one-night-stands, but not someone you are really attracted to is you may be afraid of commitment. Maybe your parents had a bad divorce and you fear the same or maybe they’re in a sexless marriage and you’re very unhappy and you’re afraid of going that route.

These are things you can introspect about. You do run the risk, when you have sex, hook up or whatever with these one-night-stands, you really lose the specialness of sex with a partner because sex gets degraded in your mind. It’s associated with one-night-stands, so I hope that you can retrieve your sexuality with a partner that you love and value yourself and get some of that wonderful selfishness back for yourself.