When Sex "Self-Help" is Part of the Problem
When it comes to sex, most self-help books offer more "self" than "help. People keep buying them--when they stop, so will the publishers--and they keep feeling disappointed. Many readers wonder what's wrong with them when they don't achieve the greatest sex in the history of the world.
When these books don't deliver the ultimate sex, it's generally not the reader's fault. It's because most self-help books are limited in what they can actually offer. And they leave out some very important facts that help shape our sexual experience. Let's look at a few:
* Desire:
There are two good reasons many people don't want sex: 1) they don't expect to enjoy it, or 2) they're not getting along with their partner. When one or both of these are true, low desire is healthy, not something to fix.
Our romantic culture declares that desire is supposed to be driven by love, but our own experience tells us this isn't necessarily true: most people have desired someone they didn't love (and maybe even disliked), and most people in long-term relationships watch their desire decline with the very person they love most.
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Having great, even good sex depends on the level of communication and friendship between partners. Therefore those in a healthy long term relationship can build there sex lives together for years, which will take you beyond what the professionals call your sexual peak. I agree, books that claim to show you the new best sex positions etc are bogus, and I have found anything that depicts the model perfect couple is highly suspecious. However, there are good books and videos out there that address the whole of a relationship and show you steps to learn more about one anothers bodies, improve your communication, and even offer a wider view of what orgasm beyond climaxing can be. Desire - it has been repressed by societies rules, especially for women, it is hard to even know what it feels like let alone how to cultivate it. There are people who know precisely what can keep sex "hot" between partners for many years and have made this information available in yes, books, and videos and even courses and they have been doing it for years. One example is the Welcomed Consensus - yes their focus is female orgasm, and yes they do offer a technique called Deliberate Orgasm, but the biggest part of this is about the relationship, making it a prority, being friends and talking honestly, approving of one another, and having a sex life together that builds and gets better over time, and having fun. My partner and I have used their videos, taken their courses and know this to be true.
Thank you for this, Dr Klein.
I feel the same way about "parenting" books as you do about "sex help" books. While everyone may need a little help now again, my experience has found they tend to frustrate readers unless the book is very specifically dealing with a person's individual problem.