Counseling, Therapy & Life Coaching
@ Sacred Practice

During the periods of World War I and World War II, a revolution occurred in the relationship between men and women. Women learned that they could do almost anything men could do-as well as, and in many instances better. It was realized that women live longer, are healthier, have a higher threshold of pain than men, and can successfully compete with men scholastically.

This realization offered to women a new spectrum of satisfactions and opportunities, based in large measure on an improved self-image, which had long been denied them. For them it indicated the end of the primarily male-dominated and male-structured society. The modem woman in the first half of the twentieth century desired equality in every way, beginning with sex and the vote.

At about the same time, contraceptive devices were perfected.

Now woman could be man’s equal not only in society, in business, and in scholarship, but also in sexual convenience; the sex act could be enjoyed by both without the woman’s having to fear an unwanted pregnancy.

In past centuries in Western society, it has been considered important for a bride to be a virgin, whereas this condition seldom was required of the male, or even considered desirable. Today, though people may pay lip service to the idea of the virgin bride, in practice it is not generally considered important. Evidence from Kinsey and other authorities indicates that during the past thirty years women have practiced premarital sexual relations at an increasing rate.

Probably promiscuity has always been common in certain lower socio-economic groups, but in the upper middle class it was considered relatively rare until twenty years ago; at least it was not as obvious. The desire for extramarital intercourse has been increased by the advent of mass-communication media, particularly television and advertising. These have tended to make sex both in and out of marriage-appear to be the most important thing in the lives of most Americans. The effect of the growing sex emphasis is shown, for example, in the fact that in the year 1962 in California 57,000 babies were born to "child mothers" twelve to eighteen years old.

Thousands of high-school students are being married annually.

In California, one third of these are in the ninth and tenth grades. A great many of these couples marry not because they wish to, but because the girl is pregnant. The frequency of premarital intercourse among these California high-school students has considerable Significance because it indicates a corresponding trend among adults-a trend less clearly reflected in statistics concerning adult women, despite their greater opportunities for sexual activity, because they have easy access to contraceptives and sexual information usually unavailable to their teen-age counterparts.

Two forces remain to be considered in this survey of the history of marriage. The first is religion: When the Holy Roman Empire was at its peak, the Church exerted control over all facets of human life in Western Europe by means of canonical law. The most stringent canonical laws concerned marriage. For many ages marriage laws and customs had been civil, but then the Church moved in and took control. The first step was to make marriage a Holy Sacrament, for in the New Testament there is no proviso for this.

The hold of the Church for many centuries was so complete throughout Western Europe that almost everyone believed and accepted anything (religious or nonreligious) which came from Rome. One breach occurred in the sixteenth century with the discoveries of Copernicus. His declaration that the planets, including the earth, revolve about the sun, that the earth is not the center of the universe, as the Church maintained, was heard throughout Europe. More and more, men of learning doubted some of the edicts which came from Rome. Also, with the emergence of the Protestant Churches, Roman Catholic control over many aspects of life was reduced. It became possible for the elite to divorce without having the Pope’s permission.

The growing disbelief in the Church’s infallibility also resulted in time in the rejection of the Church’s definition of male and female characteristics, including the evil nature of woman and the natural superiority of man.

Another force which influences marriage is economics. Until the nineteenth century, the European family was a unit of economic survival. Most people lived on the land or maintained family industries. The larger the family, the more hands there were to work at home. This arrangement may have been hard on the wife, but no one seemed to care about that in the male dominated society.

We can change our whole life and the attitude of people around us simply by changing ourselves. But we must be emphatic; such a statement is not theoretical, it has very practical implications. Change is not easy. Improvement is possible only when the necessity to start with oneself is recognized-and admitted. Too many persons try to educate and change the partner. How many even enter marriage with the idea of changing the other one! In living together we do influence and change each other but not by insisting upon a change of the partner. Only by our own behavior can we influence those with whom we live.

Whatever happens in a marital relationship expresses the interaction of both spouses. Instead of the general demand, "If only he would change, I’d be glad to act differently," we should recognize the truth that "If I change my behavior, he cannot continue his." Even the slightest changes in attitude of one are immediately reflected in the behavior of the other. Without realizing it, we possess uncanny sensibility and remarkable powers of coordination. Unfortunately, we know much better how to fight and how to hurt than how to please. Therefore, we are more efficient and successful in warfare and fighting. It generally takes more time and effort to provoke pleasant reactions, especially when warfare has already begun. In the marriage relationship, a certain amount of fight, of competition, of hostility and distrust, exists often from the beginning; and it takes deliberate effort to establish an atmosphere of genuine trust and kindness.

Not that most people are bad or malicious. All possibilities for good or bad exist in almost every human being. Husband and wife have the power of arousing the good or bad in each other. But what do they know of each other? They live together in one room, they eat at the same table, they share the same bed, their whole life is intimately fused by mutual activity-yet how little they understand one another! Each knows the other’s habits (mostly annoying), peculiarities, preferences, and irritabilities. What has all this to do with the deeper personality, with expectations and fears, with conceptions of life and of one’s self, with all that which makes people act and behave in a definite way? Husband and wife recognize symptoms, but not the forces behind them. And if they are disappointed, they wish to eliminate the symptoms without being willing to gratify the needs in each other.

Curiously enough, too often after two individuals have separated, they understand each other better than before. Friction, mutual fear, the fight for prestige, had blinded them. In blaming each other, they sought to excuse their own maladjustments. Ignoring or riding roughshod over the partner’s fundamental needs made it easier to continue fighting for one’s own ends. What each says about the other is generally right, although statements seem to contradict each other. But it is not important who is right and who is wrong. Each is right from his own point of view, and wrong from the other’s. The point is that if we love someone, we do not ask if he is right or wrong. That is why love is called blind. But love is not necessarily blind. Love says, "I love you, although you are not perfect. I love you and accept you as you are." But later, when our self-esteem and prestige are threatened, we do not take each other as we are. In fighting for our own superiority we find faults in our partner and use them as good reasons for stopping our own cooperation. For happiness, the question of rightness and wrongness is unimportant. But to accept the other’s faults and virtues-that is important.

We must start at this point when discord and disappointment threaten the very existence of a marriage–or, in minor degrees, just make it less comfortable and satisfactory. The first step, the first condition for any improvement, means accepting the situation, however unpleasant, as it is; it is futile to wish it were different. To face the problem squarely and courageously is the prerequisite for finding the ways and means out of a predicament. It is not always easy, as we are timid. But running away never pays; no problem is solved in that way. When we have decided to face the issue, when we muster our courage and try to think in terms of ‘What can I do to improve the situation?" -then we are on the right track. Having abandoned the illusion that we may succeed by fighting and forcing the issue, having overcome our feeling of inadequacy, having admitted that the other one suffers too, we discover solutions. Perhaps slowly, perhaps inadequately at first, but with growing courage as our insight increases and our growing self-confidence makes us less vulnerable and more effective.

We must recognize that human sex can be used for various purposes. First, it serves as a basis for procreation. Lust is the inducement of nature to lure every being into the service of maintaining and preserving the species. Religious and state laws regard this as the only permissible purpose of sex, any sexual activity outside of wedlock and any artificial prevention and interruption of pregnancy being prohibited or frowned on.

Second, sex can be used as a tool for personal gratification, mainly as a vehicle of pleasure. As man learned to escape nature’s compulsion, he made sex independent of the process of procreation. Today, the two functions, namely fertilization and sex experience as pleasure, are for most people completely unrelated, the percentage of sexual acts which lead to pregnancy being rather small. But pleasure implies many sensations, some of which have completely different and sometimes contradictory meanings and significance. Pleasure can imply superficial and rather incidental gratification or deep emotions which involve the whole personality. The kind of gratification sought determines the role sex plays in the lives of different persons. There are those who consider pleasure of any kind as the only reason for living; to such persons, sex is merely an inexhaustible source-perhaps the only source-of enjoyment. Their hedonism or "pleasure hunger" as Wexberg calls it, makes them grasp any opportunity for pleasure, with little or no regard to the price or consequences. Hedonists are usually disappointed and cynical people and, therefore, shortsighted in regard to life as a whole. They do not believe in their own future and happiness and, therefore, do not care what will happen later. For them, pleasure has to compensate for their feeling of being a failure. In the same category belong those who use sex for the purpose of gaining power, prestige, social status, or personal superiority.

Sex, however, can have a third function, that of unification. It is a tool which can unite two persons more closely than anything else. Through sex two may become one, physically and spiritually. This unifying function of sex also provides pleasure, of course. But it is a fundamentally different pleasure from the previously described pleasure. Its gratification is deeper and lasting. It implies giving oneself, while hedonism implies mainly taking advantage of another. While hedonistic excitement seeks variation and depends upon the spur of the moment, the desire for unification looks for stability and future happiness.

The subjective feeling of love may employ all three types of sexual functions. The first and the third, however, involve a long-range program, while the second, the tendency to seek mere gratification, is likely to neglect human and social values.

It seems that in our time sex has lost to a great extent its first, primary function, but people have not yet found the third, the fulfillment of unification. The concept of sex as being useful only for pleasure is prevalent and deprives people of deeper gratification, of lasting love, faithfulness, and devotion.

In marriage striving for being gratified is unfortunately very common, and is the source of much friction and disappointment. Few recognize the sexual satisfaction which lies in satisfying. Not that they do not intend to satisfy, but they do not live in each other-only in themselves. What matters is their own feeling, their own ability, their own being hurt or rejected. They do not get away from themselves. Gratifying love means experiencing and feeling the other lover, unreservedly, unconditionally. As soon as one experiences a feeling of demand, the mind withdraws from the other and centers around one’s self.

The same is true if the feeling of obligation or of threat to one’s prestige develops. Although one seems to be interested in fulfilling his duty, this feeling of obligation-this interest in whether one will be capable or not-is incompatible with fully sensing the partner. Any interest beside mutual enjoyment and gratification distracts and kills the emotion. Impotence and frigidity are the consequences of emotional withdrawal. They are neurotic mechanisms and conceal the true intentions, as any neurotic symptoms do. While one seems consciously concerned with gratifying and gratification, one is actually more interested in one’s own prestige or failure and other problems of defense. It is resentment toward their feminine role that makes many women hesitant to play their feminine part in the communion, and this resentment creates frigidity. Often women are not even aware that they are frigid, for they love their husbands and even feel sexually stimulated. But they lack the final emotional climax which indicates complete surrender. Others vainly expect certain stimulation because they don’t realize that they themselves hinder the development of their emotions to full capacity. Masculine impotency is similar. Impotence means either a desire to keep aloof, to keep distance, or it reflects a profound doubt of being a «real man." Lack of sexual stimulation or insufficient depth of emotion always mean withholding and desire for distance, often originated by marital discontent and disagreement in other spheres of life.

It is necessary to consider the physiological difference between masculine and feminine rhythm of sexual sensations, which has been discussed so much recently. What is generally overlooked is the fact that men and women must under any circumstances adjust themselves to each other, because no two persons have the same training. The danger in the sexual relationship is the tendency to make demands upon each other. He or she should act and respond differently, slowly or more quickly, gently or violently, adding or omitting certain actions. Unquestionably we educate each other, but never by demanding. A demand only irritates and creates discord and opposition.

If mutual gratification is not obtained automatically, one must start the process of adjustment by oneself. Women are more easily disappointed than men. It is a question whether their retarded reaction is of physiological origin or an expression of their general hesitant attitude toward sexual fulfillment, apparently demanded by social convention. This training of passivity makes women more inclined to demand and to be disappointed, expecting solutions from their partner. Then a vicious circle leads to resentment and profound disturbance of the sexual relationship.

Actually, men and women are more alike than materialistic physiologists are ready to believe. Two individuals united in wholehearted mutual acceptance have the remarkable ability to assimilate. Then, whatever occurs in one is shared by the other. It remains one of the human miracles how human beings are capable of transmitting feelings and even thoughts to each other through the barrier of their own confining bodies. As long as they do not interfere, with their fears and apprehensions, as long as they remain receptive in full relaxation, every emotional impulse of either one affects both alike. Under such conditions, any excitement and gratification occurs simultaneously, regardless of the act or its tempo. The extent of mutual adjustment is practically unlimited. It all depends on unqualified willingness to accept each other, without demand and resentment, without complaint and discomfort. Everything is right so long as both like it. If one-sided, sexual satisfaction is always a misuse of the partner, not much different from rape." Love is a mutual task; sex a mutual understanding.

Why are males and females different in their communication styles. Some reasons are obvious. Others are less apparent. To date, there is great controversy concerning these differences. Are they biological, environmental, or a combination of both? Are we different because of the way we are raised or because of our biology, neurochemistry, or hormones?

For centuries biologists, neurologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists have searched for one definitive answer. The only consensus is that a combination of all these variables contributes to differences between the sexes.

Several researchers have discovered that hormones are responsible for "masculinizing" or "feminizing" the developing brain in utero, which allows little boys and little girls to experience the world differently as they mature.

This may be why men and women do not handle such behaviors as stress or aggression in the same way. For instance, men may become more physically agitated than women during stressful situations because of an increase in their testosterone level.

Women, on the other hand, become more emotional and have more memory loss when there is a lack of the female hormone estrogen. According to Beverly Hills gynecologist and reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Gil Mileikowsky, an increase in estrogen leads to more water retention which thereby causes the irritability familiar in Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS).

Other aspects of behavior are not hormone related. A woman’s ability to nurture, for instance, has not been connected scientifically to estrogen levels. Studies show that "nurturing" behavior is mostly a learned phenomenon. After all, adoptive mothers do not have biological hormonal elevations as they haven’t physically birthed the child. Yet, they usually do a superb job nurturing their infants. Researcher Harry Harlow’s experiments with female monkeys at the University of Wisconsin also confirm that "nurturing" is a learned behavior instead of a hormonally influenced one. He found that those female monkeys raised in isolation were not very effective at nurturing their young, despite their increased hormonal component.

In essence, hormonal influences do seem to have some influence on the behavior of the different sexes, but it is not this influence alone which can affect male and female behavioral patterns.

One out of every two marriages ends in divorce.

Several studies have shown that the divorce rate in this country is high because people seem more willing to leave a relationship than to get to the root of the problem through "honest and open" communication. One of today’s biggest fears is the fear of intimate communication.

Extramarital affairs among married men and married women are at a peak.

Oftentimes couples will not leave a marriage but instead have extramarital affairs. As studies have shown, it is not the "sex-act" that couples are longing for, but rather the closeness of someone who will "listen" to them, who will understand them, and who will "talk" to them. If couples would learn how to better communicate with one another by using what I call the Sex Talk Rules-the do’s and don’ts of how to communicate with the opposite sex-there would be virtually no need to look for someone else.

Sexual dysfunction in on a dramatic rise.

The rate of sexual dysfunction for both men and women has increased dramatically over the last five years. Psychologists feel that poor communication skills are to blame for this.

Understanding and incorporating Sex Talk can enhance intimacy between couples.

Most marriage and sex counselors believe that the major cause of impotence in males and frigidity in women results from not knowing how to communicate desires openly and honestly. Oftentimes both words and tone of voice alienate people, causing emptiness, and sometimes hostility. By learning how to utilize talk sex, couples can sidestep or eliminate these problems.

The fact that many men and women continue to communicate in sexual stereotypes perpetuates these problems in our society today.

The way in which both men and women have been raised, conditioned, and socialized has created genuine and sometimes even insurmountable communication problems for both sexes. We take for granted that the opposite sex understands us, yet it has been clearly proven that men and women do not communicate in similar ways.