HiddenMysteries: Pseudo Sex and the Journey to Real Sex

An essay by Lisa Terrell

Today in America, there is an underlying idea that we are now more enlightened and open about sex. Indeed, depictions of sex and sexuality are everywhere. Getting sexy and having sex appeal is revealed as a collective value in our world by any type of media, our humor, clothes styles, and what we buy.

Sexuality increasingly shows up even in the attitudes, clothes, and values of our children. Yet, very little of our openness about sexuality shows that we support or understand the full multidimensional nature of real sex. It’s like we are walking around like the movie title, with our "Eyes Wide Shut". I believe we are missing the path to real sex. Along with that, we are missing the companionship and intimacy that real sex and sexuality provides. Pseudo sex is our collective default mode, and it contaminates our marriages, our singleness, our children, and our ability for intimacy.

What is Pseudo Sex?

Pseudo sex is sex and sexuality that is portrayed as being mostly about physical attributes, actions, and appeal. When the emotional and spiritual aspects are left out of sex, it is like a slide projector show compared to dinner theatre. Pseudo sex offers slide after slide of pictures on a white screen for our one-dimensional entertainment. But by being at the slide show, we are missing the delight of participating in the three dimensional drama of the dinner theatre.

The "Magic" Path

There are several dead end paths that pseudo sex leads us on. One such path is when pseudo sex tells us that sex has a magical and invincible power to make us do stuff we really don’t want to do, or shouldn’t do. This immature attitude claims that we might be the victims of sex, and therefore we could also be the victims of any woman or man who was sexually appealing. To grow from a child to an adult requires that we progressively learn how to take responsibility for our own actions and that most of life is what we make it. Pseudo sexuality bypasses personal responsibility and is a sign of stunted developmental growth.

Romantic intrigue and fantasy often show a slowly smoldering sexual passion that builds and then becomes so overwhelming that the person can not help themselves. Though it is quite true that the physiology of orgasm does work by the building of tension, it is not totally over powering unless we want it to be.

Two movies, among numerous examples, that dismally portray this mythical power of sex are The English Patient (Miramax Films, 1996) and Return to Paradise (PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, 1998). Both movies suggest that a marriage vow or death is less real than the sexual attraction between two people.

Is it really true that when someone is sexy enough you cannot help but have intercourse with them if the opportunity arises? I guess with our thought processes defaulting to pseudo sex, we might just be overcome. However, being "overcome" has pseudo sex written all over it.

The Sex equals love Path

Yet another lie offered by pseudo sex is that the sexual relationship is the same thing as love and companionship. Rare is the movie or song that doesn’t imply that to be sexually attracted to someone is love or that having sex is being in love. And watch out if two people are passionately drawn into a sexual situation, they are bound to live happily ever after no matter what! Not!

Pseudo sex is a flat facade that often covers loneliness and isolation. When sex is defined by the flat cardboard movie set like entity, then it can be torn down just as quickly. Behind the facade there is no "sense of meaning" plumbing or "spiritual" electricity. There is very little "emotional dimension" furniture like feelings of respect, love, and commitment. Real sex on the other hand is a real live inhabitable home with a beauty and design that grows more beautiful as the years go by.

Sexual addictions show the emptiness of "sex equals love". A sexual addiction takes one-dimensional sex to its ultimate limit. Orgasm and arousal become the alcohol of a sex addict’s life. Sex addicts are usually very lonely under their addiction, even though they may have inordinate amounts of human contact on the sexual level; they are not experiencing intimacy and relationship. Addiction to anything is isolating and sex addicts are some of the most lonely and miserable people in the world.

Even when you look at marriages built on the pseudo sex, a bond mostly about physical attributes and appeal, you will see it is a very lonely place to be.

The Men are more sexual path

The first two paths don’t take too long to prove dead-ends, but there is a path that is more deceptive and it may take longer to figure out that you can’t get anywhere- though you walk a long way. This most whopper deception is this idea that men are more interested in sex and more sexually charged than women.

Think about how many times you’ve heard things like, "That’s all men think about." "Men are so visually stimulated." ‘Women like chocolate better than sex." My response to statements like these is to echo a similar question that sex therapist David Schnarch often asks in his seminars on Passionate Marriage; Does that mean that candy is so much more wonderful than sex or does it mean that the sex we participate in is lousy?

Why this path is a Dead End

You may be quick to point out that men are physiologically wired differently. On first glance, this seems credible. Yes, testosterone does affect how sexually aggressive we are and there differences between men and women. Research shows that women who are given testosterone become more sexually assertive and aggressive and some women are even treated with testosterone for lack of sexual desire or menopause. Reference 1. This argument is not the whole picture because it does not take into account how emotions and spirituality interact with the whole situation. It again puts most of its focus on the physical dimension all but leaving the spiritual and emotional meaning out of the picture. The other two dimensions of emotions and spirituality have much to add to the physical and physiological aspects of sex to make a complete package.

Mutuality

Another thing against this popular idea that men are more sexual than women is that a vigorous, healthy sexual relationship that happens in real sex depends on mutuality. Couples who have a passionate real sex sexual relationship tend to have an equalness of sexual desire. Passion quickly fades when just one person is bringing all the heat to bed.

Hot Women

In my work as a marriage and sex therapist I consistently find that when women move out of the stereotype of "not being as interested in sex", that it is usually discovered that they desire sex a lot more than shows, and sometimes to the surprise of their husbands they show more desire than the husbands themselves.

Erotic thoughts and feelings

Though the physiology is different, both men and women can instantly have an erotic feeling about someone. A friend of mine related how she got a jolt of awe and emotion when she saw her naked college age daughter for the first time as a woman. She described it as a feeling of knowing her daughter was ripe for picking and a desire that some young man know the beauty of her daughter. Was this a homosexual or incestuous feeling? I think not. It was from the context of real sex, in that the aroused feelings were part of a spiritual meaning of life and the emotions of parental love and pride.

Think too of the arousing awe that a newborn infant’s body inspires. This is an experience of beauty and magic that is similar to that experienced with sculpture, painting or a music piece. Having a real sex, "erotic" awe experience of arousal is different than a pseudo sex "erotic" turn on-arousal because of the context. We can change an erotic encounter (turn on) by changing our context. I think we should handle beautifully sexy people like we handle the awe we get from children or works of art and music. We can do this by being very aware of the emotional climate and spiritual meaning of our lives.

We should admire beautiful people with a respectful "wow", like we do music or a work of art. Music or art allows us to transcend our normal self and open our minds to other dimensions in life. To see the sexual artwork of a beautiful person and say "wow!" can be used to take that passion back to our committed sexual relationship. Sexual artwork whether alive or created can spur us to more passionate interaction with our spouse. Sexual artwork can inspire us whether single or married to seek passion in a real, full relationship.

Subjectiveness of attractiveness

One of the basic problems with a focus on only the physical attributes of human beings, genitalia, mannerisms, and sexual appeal is that it can be so subjective. In today’s culture, women’s breasts are way on top of the list of sexy parts of the body. Yet, there have been periods in history when the feet and legs of a woman were thought sinfully sexual, while the bosoms of very virtuous women were allowed to pop out all over the place. Male breasts can be erotic in lovemaking, yet men seldom get the same objectification as women. It is in this that we can see that this reaction to breasts is more a product of our cultural preference, than an actual reality.

How this deception is perpetuated

Our culture from popular opinion to media encourages woman to take the lesser role in sexuality by toting men’s needs. Yet it’s not just the worldly media that encourages woman to be lesser sexual beings. Churches of every shape and size can be seen practicing a form of misogyny that is based on this idea that men are more sexually charged than women and therefore dress and behavior codes are set up for women. These are aimed at controlling women’s behavior, not addressing the issue of why this would be a problem for the man in the first place. This belief serves to give men more power in a given culture, but it does nothing for the health of marriage or for the sexual health of single people.

Though our marriages suffer, this male vs. female myth is perpetuated because we don’t confront it. Women are particularly at risk to fall into patterns of literally years of faking an enjoyable experience, even orgasm, because we have a belief that men are the ones that need sex and need it more than women.

It is risky in marriage for either spouse to minimize the importance of a great sexual experience. Sex can be considered a mirror to your complete relationship. When you see a non-intimate, non-passionate, lopsided sexual experience in marriage, you will inevitably find the same thing reflected in the emotional and spiritual (meaning) aspects of the marriage.

Where this path leads

Numerous marriages suffer from this idea of heightened male sexuality. That is because when we buy that men and women are from different planets, as John Gray’s bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (1996, New York:HarperCollins) suggests, we don’t get to the real picture of our marriage. Reference 2. Sexual problems and lousy or mediocre sex are kept in an endless loop by attributing them to the supposed disparity between men and women of interest in sex, rather than pointing to areas of growth for the relationship.

Both men and women tend to not grow or be open about their sexuality after the honeymoon years by taking time to learn and be open to all the many ways that our sexuality happens. But when women buy this lesser sexual person idea, they tend to stagnate in their sexuality. A key element to a marriage growing to a real sex relationship is for women to deliberately move out of this lesser sexual being role.

Fortunately, when women who are interested in moving out of this stereotype and begin to learn about their bodies again and become more sexually aware they are often able to go neck and neck with their husbands in pursuit of passion. The pursuit of real sex passion is a great equalizer for issues of who desires sex more.

Objects and Wimps

When we say that men have more of a sex drive than women do, it turns women into objects and men into emotional wimps. In a way, it says that an erect penis (or an erect mind) is the "tell all" gauge of good sexual potential, both for the man and a woman. In reality, the penis has no clue about the intimacy or passion potential of either the self of the man or of the sexy woman.

Lasting passion and intimacy requires a progressive journey to maturity under the constraint of mutual exclusivity and commitment between two people. It also takes 2 people consistently presenting vulnerable and real snapshots of self to each other over a long period of time. So it would not be that likely that an instant attraction to the physical dimension of person would be an accurate read of the whole situation. That’s because the whole situation would include whether either the man or the woman is spiritually capable to commit as much of self as the person is aware of to the guts and courage it’s going to take to experience passionate sex, especially over the long haul.

And that is how you get to great sex-- over the long term. The greatest sex actually happens over a long-term commitment and is truly about "knowing" one another. So though it is really nice to be attracted to someone, especially when they are life partner potential, you can’t tell if it will work purely by attraction.

Though it is an easy default setting for men to take the "hot animal" role, this role contributes to being closed emotionally and spiritually to their spouse or women in general. When women passively settle for sex that is centered on the male’s sexual desires, they miss out on large parts of their own sexuality. Either way, man or woman, this shows an adult type of immaturity- a lack of personal growth- that is part of the reason that our divorce statistics are so dismally high.

The Cost of Pseudo Sex

Marriage loses

When we don’t nurture the long-term physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy, all vital aspects of real sex, we have marriages that shrivel and die. When we view marriage in a non-developmental way, we miss how trouble and crises in marriage can help it develop into a strong and thriving marriage.

Woman lose

Women lose when they contrast themselves to the men as being the lessor sexual gender. Women are much more than their beauty or their sex appeal. We can be beautiful, exciting, smart, wise, and every bit as capable as a man. We can help our daughters develop their whole womanhood by encouraging and introducing a variety of interests and activities in their lives including those that are typically male dominated.

Men lose

Men lose out on emotional and spiritual connectedness when they view sex mainly from a physical need, and that need just being a guy thing.

Children Lose

Our children lose when they are exposed to the pseudo sexual world of clothes, mannerism, language, sexual words, openly sexual acts and lust in general without the reality of what really makes a lasting relationship. We need to balance their exposure to these inevitable parts of our society by teaching and modeling relational skills, and an aware and searching spirituality, by teaching them from a young age what meaning life has to offer.

Singles lose

Singles lose because they accept living together and premarital sex as not only okay, but required in order to get some sex experience. Premarital sex is by its lack of covenant promise to stick it through- pseudo sex. The lack of commitment to sticking with the relationship as it develops and matures inhibits the development of the relationship.

Singles lose because they wait for sexual intercourse to complete them, to give them self-esteem and to feel attractive.

Journey to Real Sex

So what is Real Sex?

Real sex is "3D" sex. It has 3 dimensions that are intertwined, and interactive. Emotional and spiritual orgasm are just as important as physical orgasms, and both are key to helping couples overcome pseudo sex relationships, sexual impasse, and relationship crisis that inevitable occur in married life. Reference 3.

When you have an euphorically, passionate three-dimensional orgasm, the effects spill out into your everyday life and your life long commitment. It is a process to come to this three-dimensional way of experiencing sex but you benefit from every step you take in your daily life as you strive for real sex.

Emotional Orgasm

An emotional orgasm is when you become so flooded with positive emotional feelings for the other person that your emotions overwhelm you. When this occurs with a physical orgasm, then you achieve the heightened sexual experience of a real sex orgasm. Emotional orgasm is built little by little on a daily basis and is a culmination of the daily emotional build up of positive regard, respect, trust, and love.

Spiritual Orgasm

Spiritual orgasm must occur as well for a robust real sex experience. Spirituality is finding the meaning for your life. This may be the hardest aspect of real sex to achieve because many of us are spiritually empty or we are not intellectually awake enough to have spiritual orgasm. I think this is because we rarely stop to think about what our lives mean and when we do, we are not at peace with the answers.

When your spouse’s value to you is the most precious worldly thing in this life, the thought of this can overwhelm your senses. Sadly, the meaning of our connection to our partner may not hit us until a death or separation.

A spiritual orgasm moment is an "outside- looking-in" vision of yourself that allows you to experience as awe of the meaning that joining with this person has. Some experience spiritual orgasm as a realization that though life is fragile they have been blessed to share this closeness with another person who grows dearer all the time.

The importance of understanding the multiple dimensions of sex show in dealing with sexual problems that married couples encounter. Most problems that a married couple encounters their sexual relationship are about the emotional TV they play in their heads while they are having sex. Some examples would be the anger channel, the refusal to grow or change (immaturity) channel, or even the lights are on-but no one’s home channel.

However, when you are experiencing physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, and spiritual meaning all at the same time, you will have a very passionate, intimate moment whether or not you have a physical orgasm. This offers much hope for people with medically caused sexual difficulties, and it offers hope to anyone pursuing passion in their lives.

Real Sex is married sex

Real sex starts with an emotional and spiritual commitment that comes from a very sure place in a person’s heart, a promise. Most people make a committed promise when they wed, but a lot of people back out of their promise with the inevitable crises that come into any marriage. It’s a promise that you need to build upon and recommit to hundreds of times. It’s this promise that is a thread that sews and binds together the fabric of a great relationship with real sex. Marriage vows promise to take a journey of committedness together.

The good news about real sex

Sex can get better the longer you stick with someone and keep having sex! Honeymooners have passion and delicious sex, but it takes some aging to experience vintage, three-dimensional sex. To embrace real sex is much more hopeful. Because the truth of sex is that it is far more rich than physical attractiveness and young hard bodies. Just as an infant grows and develops, and learns about challenges and rewards a marriage matures and becomes more seasoned. It’s about an experience you create together that no one else could create except you two, with your joined lives and sharing. We will not have great, passionate sex lives unless we engage ourselves in all the real sex dimensions.

Good News about aging

This may all seem unreal and very conservative to you if you are around 26 years old and reading this. But instead of discouraging you or challenging your vanity let it be good hope and news to you. Because you may be at the peak of your physical sexual appeal right now, but life has a way of sending extra pounds, and delayed fashion statements, and kids and jobs wear you out, and money constraints; and most horrible of all is when you wake up and figure out that you actually think the latest advertised fashion that you see 20 somethings' wearing, looks ridiculous and horrid to you. In other words, we age. Ask celebrities or athletes what there greatest challenge is, invariable they will mention the how aging impacts their lives.

Real Sex is developmental. Therefore, it is actually less likely that young honeymooners are going to have as passionate of lovemaking as a maturely developed marriage of 25 or more years that has developed their sexuality in all three areas. Developmental Marital therapists have begun to define developmental stages that a long-term covenant relationship goes through. Reference 4. Obtaining a real sex relationship is a process. You can embrace a real sex attitude right away and immediately see a difference in how your relationship works, but it may take years before people learn how to be whole and healthy people in the context of the intimate marriage relationship.

Faithfulness factor

To participate in a 3 dimensional sex—or real sex is a very important key to remaining faithful to your spouse. Both men and women who have their sex ideas set on embracing all 3 dimensions of sex, have a different outlook and reaction to sex appeal. They can look at another sexually attractive person and take the erotic energy that generates, back to bed with their spouse. This type of encounter can motivate them to strive for sexiness in their sacred covenant relationship. People can say "Wow!" And not even be the slightest bit tempted to cheat. Real sex causes us to be mentally awake to the people and life around us. The meaning of life is anchored by a life commitment to another human being that adds to the sexiness of the sex they enjoy. It turns the marriage relationship into a hot and sexy relationship that has nothing to fear from someone greener on the other side of the fence.

People who are tempted to cheat aren’t tempted because of the overwhelming sexual pull. It’s because the relationship is starving at home. You can be sure that the spiritual meaning and emotional interactions are also suffering for both spouses when an affair is even considered as an option.

Real Sex actually changes our physiology

We have a chemical reaction to a pattern of interacting with someone intimately. Reference 5. There is an initial chemical rush for meeting someone we are attracted too, but as with all stimulants our bodies adjust and a new more soothing chemical takes its place. Long term relationships trigger the release of chemicals that enhance a feeling of well being when a person spends time with their beloved. This is why some spouses actually go through a physical and chemical withdrawal when their spouse dies.

Real Sex gives us help with some thorny Issues

The exclusivity of real sex has some answers for promiscuity, pornography, sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s), premarital sex, teen pregnancy, sexual addictions, and empty casual sex.

Real Sex is a gift to Singles

When participating in sex holds a sacred, protected place and is saved for the lifetime commitment of openness and respect and love, it offers the single person more opportunity to work towards real sex and to choose their life partner in a better way.

You can work at a real sex attitude while you are still single by using all your relationships to learn about yourself and learn how to make commitments. You can use this time to wake up spiritually; to find meaning for your life right now. You can become a whole person before you marry, by concentrating on finding wholeness and health, and "growing up". You don’t need to wait for marriage to do this. The more whole and grown up you are as a single, the better start you will have when you choose your lifetime partner. This is because the real sex experience is built by 2 people growing to wholeness and growing up together, great marriage is dependent on each person being a whole person in the relationship. Singles don’t have to wait to get married to be a complete person. Singles aren’t lesser sexually because they are not participating in sexual intercourse.

Singles who pursue hot and sexy relationships in the hopes of having long term pizzazz in their sex life are not moving towards a passionately sexy future. Studies show that couples who live together or have active sexual relationships have a very dismal record of successful marriage. It is better for singles to hold off on the physical sex and contemplate the potential partner’s ability for emotional and spiritual interaction. Reference 6.

If you are lonely, let that loneliness spur you to a deeper understanding of yourself, your life, and your spiritual self. Loneliness and sexual cravings do not magically disappear when you marry, or start having sexual intercourse. Marriage or a non-intimate sexual encounter each in their own way can be very lonely places to be.

Singles who embrace a real sex lifestyle build a protective barrier around themselves that make singleness not an unfortunate place, or a place lesser than marriage, or of shame. But a wonderful place of opportunity, even in aloneness, to grow to wholeness.

Singles have a freedom from commitments to spouse or children to spend energy on travel, art, beauty, and a passion for the meaning in their lives that married people don’t have.

In addition, waiting till marriage to open yourself up sexually is a huge gift to your future spouse.

Real Sex enriches our spirituality

People with a passionate marriage and sex life aren’t people who have a lot of doubts about their being a loving God or higher power. Single people who embrace real sex are more fulfilled in their singleness because they aren’t waiting in impasse with their lives. They realize that the life they have and build while single will enrich their future marriage or future singleness. Married people who embrace real sex are able to break out of the inevitable flat spots of intimacy and times of loneliness that occur and move to a growing and sexy marriage.

People with real sex attitudes have a deep and growing spiritual life because an awareness of how struggle helps strengthen and develop our personality and lives. This deeper awareness helps us to contemplate and seek to make dreams come true even out of inevitable shattered dreams and crisis of whatever life hands you. So the crisis of conflictual impasse of marriage or the crisis of painful loneliness in singleness can each in its own way be a way of helping each person become more fully adult, more fully who they really want to be.

Ending

Whether you are single or married the quest for real sex is a journey that must be traveled over the years while you travel the emotional and spiritual journey of growing up and developing as an adult.

Whether married or single, real sex is the path to developing into mature adulthood for intimacy and satisfying relationship with others. Pseudo sex isn’t even a temptation to those who grasp the rewards of being connected body, soul, and mind with another human. It would be like going to rent an economy model car from Avis, when all the while sitting in your garage is a custom Cadillac you have completely paid off. The answer to pseudo sex is walking towards real sex.

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References

Time Course of Effects of Testosterone Administration on Sexual Arousal in Women.
JAMA The journal of the American Medical Association May 17, 2000 V283; 19 p2504
Mars and Venus: Unequal Planets, Zimmerman, Haddock, & McGeorge.
Journal of Marital and Family Therapy January 2001, Vol.27, No.1, 55-68.
Passionate Marriage, Norton 1997, David Schnarch.
See these developmental therapists:
Patrick J. McDonald & Claudette M. McDonald
The Soul of a Marriage, Paulist Press 1995.

David Schnarch
Passionate Marriage, Norton 1997.

Sheila A. Sharpe
The Ways We Love, Guilford, 2000.

Mel Schwartz
The Art of Intimacy, The Pleasure of Passion, Quantum 1999.

5 Beverly and Thomas Rodgers give an excellent summary on the chemistry of falling in love in their book, Soul-Healing Love. Chapter 6 the section "The biology of Love" Resource Publications, 1998.

6 See the recent study in Psychology Today Nov 2000 v33; 6, p16. "Live-In and Learn".

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Pseudo Sex and the Journey to Real Sex

Saturday, January 20 2007 @ 07:16 PM CST