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Relationships
Eight Eye-Openers You Don't Know About Sex and Love
Our motives and drives, often hidden from us, affect who we want or love.
Posted June 18, 2019 Reviewed by Devon Frye
Only those who are young, inexperienced, or overconfident believe they know everything there is to learn about love, sexuality, and human relationships. Most of us add to our knowledge the hard way, by living, loving, and trying to form pleasing relationships that last a long time.
You can also learn a lot by consulting professionals, or by reading what experts have figured out. A new book, aimed at a wide audience but especially at anyone studying or working in the field of human sexual relationships, has a lot to teach us. At the very least, it will make you stop and think about why you do what you do when you connect—or try to connect—with potential love interests.
Sex and Belonging: On the Psychology of Sexual Relationships by clinical psychologist Tony Schneider explores and brings alive both the biological underpinnings of our sexual choices and behaviors, as well as the subjective drives that are complicit in our craving for connection. Schneider's theories, models, and conclusions are clearly laid out and accessible. His explanations will be of practical use to anyone who wants to be more mindful of their own not-always-obvious motives.
8 Eye-Openers About Sex and Love
Here, then, are a few of the book's insights that made me stop reading, nod, and smile:
1. A mix of numerous drives prompts us to express sexual behavior, with the mix varying between people and over time in the same person. Is your interest in a quickie, or do you crave a more lasting relationship that will make you feel "at home" with this person? Your drives may conflict with one another or combine in ways that lead you closer to what you believe you want, or in another direction. Best if you become aware of them.
2. Hormones and neurobiology, as well as childhood and lifelong conditioning, are governed by natural laws. But ideas motivate us at least as much. Schneider explains how ideas, beliefs, meanings, memories, values, perceptions, and decisions make us who we are, and thus very much affect how we act in society. They especially sway our efforts to connect with those to whom we are attracted.
3. We interpret another person's behavior based on the meanings we associate with those behaviors, whether those associations are accurate or not. How you feel when you meet someone also affects how you attribute their actions. In my own research, I've found that typically, assuming good will on the part of someone with whom you are close provides the best outcomes. At times you will not be able to react positively if the other person pushes certain of your buttons.
4. We become aroused by what aroused us in the past. As horrible as it sounds, a man who had been convicted of molesting his young daughter and was in court-ordered therapy for that, told me in an interview that his behavior was not complicated: "You will want to have relations with a tree if you got sexual satisfaction from that tree before." Much more commonly, thankfully, most people begin to form their patterns of desire and arousal based on more appropriate experiences related to reward and pleasure.
5. Society changes, and so do the social needs that drive us. We mostly expect "a fair market exchange" when hunting for a mate. That means we want to get as much as we are prepared to offer. The higher you measure your own value (your appearance, your status or wealth, your intelligence, etc.), the more you believe you deserve to get from a mate. As I've dipped into dating online, one of the more startling profiles I noticed was that of a man who bragged about the specific large number of his financial assets. Yet, someone who may be a lovely match for you may not seem good enough if you over-rate your market value.
6. If you have a history of secure attachment, you tend to want to create an intimate adult relationship that satisfies that same need to belong. You likely feel a need to share your body and your most vulnerable self with another, to be fully known. Similarly, if your childhood was fraught with loneliness and disconnection, you may be driven to escape that painful state the rest of your life.
7. There is a tension between attraction to the familiar, leading to comfort and emotional intimacy, and the drive to curiosity and discovery, more compatible with sexual desire. Many books have been written about how to balance those competing drives and keep the erotic charge in a long-term relationship. Perhaps by becoming more mindful of your inner drives, you will both be more likely to determine the most suitable compromises among competing motives.
8. Socio-cultural scripts dictate a lot of our relationship expectations. The secular Western sexual script focuses on personal freedom. In such a script, we negotiate roles rather than accept traditional expectations. You fall in love, you marry, and when you stop experiencing that same depth of passionate love, you may choose to end the relationship. The Western script says to keep our options open, and once an individual has been on what might be called the losing side (having been betrayed or left for another), distrust and self-protectiveness often result. And that affects future efforts to connect fully. If you understand that, you may be able to react in ways that do not hinder starting afresh.
NOTE: Sex and Belonging contains 45 pages devoted to extensive chapter notes that add to the depth and credibility of the assertions within.
Copyright (c) 2019 by Susan K. Perry, author of Loving in Flow
