The Blowfish Blog

Couple’s Couch: You Said, I Heard, But You Meant . . .

Even when we try our best to understand our partner’s point of view on things, our minds must make up some of the murky details to get a full panoramic picture. These imagined details may seem unimportant in the grand scheme of a relationship, but in fact they hold the key to many a couple’s “unsuccessful” communication styles.

Over time, these unintentional lapses of understanding build up to the point where we flat-out make assumptions about the meaning behind our partner’s words. This pattern will manifest itself just about anywhere. As an illustrative example, a lover might say something as innocuous as, “You’re late.” Such a simple statement, just two words that detail one specific fact.

The thing is, the words, “You’re late” don’t simply mean, “Hey there lovely, I just looked up and noticed that you are late. Doesn’t matter, just wanted to point that out.” No, indeedy.

What the late person might hear, in addition to the statement, is some form of meta-communication from their partner. They might hear, “You always fuck up when I am counting on you.” They might hear, “Just where the hell have you been?” and “I don’t trust you” and “If you are fucking around on me I’ll kick you out.” They might hear any number of things that may or may not be an accurate representation of what the speaker intended.

The speaker holds their own separate intentions around their words. They, too, must filter actions through a lens (the lateness) to arrive at some sort of emotional conclusion about what to make of it (the feeling). The conclusion will trigger some sort of emotional response that will color their words (the meaning). Still with me here?

So, the speaker might mean any number of things by their comment about lateness. For example, they could feel that if the late person cared more about them, s/he would have shown up on time. The words, “You’re late” are therefore really intended to communicate, “I feel like you don’t love me enough.”

The partner who has been left waiting is reaching out for reassurance while simultaneously the late partner is running from the attack. There can be no resolution in the middle because each person is having his or her own experience and they zing past one another on a private trip to their own assumptions.

Where does this leave us?
Rejected. Confused. Abandoned.

This type of miscommunication is imbedded into all relationships. I would argue that nearly all fights in relationships can be boiled down to misunderstood signals. We do the best we can to get what our partners our “telling” us by filling in the rest of the details ourselves.

I want to be sure not to dismiss the fact that the rest of these details are largely constructed from the messages we’ve internalized from our families of origin and past relationships. That said, we have the responsibility to move beyond those patterns to form our own way of “doing” relationships that are healthier and more fulfilling.

How do we do that?

I’ll warn you in advance that the homework involved with this lesson sounds incredibly easy but is, in fact, terribly challenging to practice. That said, all good communicators use their personalized version of a “process comment.”

What is this magical tool?

A process comment is a simple noticing of what is going on between the arguing parties with the content of the disagreement removed. It is a remark upon the intensity of emotion, what is going on in the room, someone’s body posture, or a stab at the covert content in the word-laden exchange.

Using our example of the late lover from above, a great process comment could have been made by either party by checking in with, “You seem more angry/disappointed than I expected. Can we take a step back together and figure this out together?” Process comments are best used in the context of a working alliance where everyone involved agrees to stick around and to strive towards resolution.

Sound cheesy? I’ll give you that. But process comments allow a couple in the heat of the moment to use their emotions as information to what is really going on. The language can be adapted in any number of ways so that it can be used in a meaningful manner. It won’t do if the words feel forced. Someone has to be fully committed to wondering about where the communication veered off in some direction, who might have gotten the wrong message, or what vulnerabilities are at stake behind the veil of any particular argument.

Ideally checking in with one another could happen mid-event, but this takes quite a lot of self-control to step aside from your own point of view and hurt feelings to be objective. It’s a skill that can get better at with practice but we have to be willing to risk open communication and being vulnerable with one another, and with ourselves, in order to make it work.

Speaking about being open (but on a much different note), I want to be the first to inform you that this is my last installment (at least for now) of the Blowfish Couple’s Couch. It has been a pleasure working through this material with you and reading your comments has been enlightening every step of the way. Perhaps I will pop my blowfishie head out of some other funhouse door in the future. I have a feeling the Blowfish Tank will always be home for me.

Keep on talking it out, loving one another, and, as always, Happy Playing!

— Rebekah Skoor, MA

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Couple’s Couch: Am I Codependent? -or- What I Learned from Teaching Teens, Part 3

I feel like “codependent” is the new relationship buzzword.

More often than not, the happiest couples that come my way will inevitably joke that they are “codependent” on one another. I suppose this is meant to convey the message that these people just love spending time with one another to the point that no one else blinks on their radars.

“Co-de” (pronounced like the name Cody) has replaced “whipped” in my college-aged brother’s vocabulary as someone who puts their partner above their friends. This is, of course, looked down upon by the bros and smiled upon by the young ladies.

The girls I work with at “the hall” don’t seem to have a slang term for codependent, but they can label their friends as codependent from a mile away just as soon someone else in the group starts talking about the person they were last dating. These ladies, just like every other person I know, seem to have incredible insight into one another’s relationship patterns but relatively awful insight into their own.

So if we’re all talking about it and many of us are, in fact, enacting some codependent patterns in our romantic relationships, what in fact are they? And, perhaps even more importantly, is being “co-de” so bad?

Codependent relationship patterns originate when an individual, or often both individuals in a partnership, have interactional styles that frequently depend upon systematic Compliance, Denial, Control, or Self-Effacing messages. The more we rely on these four styles or techniques to guide and structure our interactions, the more our relationships become entrenched with inhibiting messages.

Co-dependent’s Anonymous (CoDA or codependents.org), a non-profit organization designed to help people who suffer from codependent relationship patterns, have outlined statements commonly made by people who identify as codependent. Some of these are listed below.

Compliance Patterns:

• I compromise my personal values and integrity to avoid rejection or other’s anger.
• I am loyal to the point of remaining in situations that are bad for me far longer than I should.
• I routinely put my needs aside to meet those of others, even when I am not invested in the lives of those other people and I know that would not do the same for me.
• I never say “no” even when saying “yes” will significantly and negatively affect me.

Denial Patterns:

• I suppress my feelings, especially frustration, only to explode later in anger.
• I am often unsure of what I am feeling, what I want, and defer to others to tell me or decide for me.
• I perceive myself as completely unselfish and present myself to others as willing to do anything with a gracious smile.

Control Patterns:

• I attempt to convince others of what they “should” think or decode what they “truly” feel and inform them.
• I feel that the behavior and appearance of my loved ones is a direct reflection of me.
• I have to be “needed” in order to feel good about my relationships.
• I freely offer advice or directions without being asked.
• I lavish gifts, favors, or sex on people I care about to gain approval and love.

Self-Effacing Patterns:

• I judge most things I think, say, or do harshly and often feel I am never good enough
• I value other’s approval of my thinking, behavior, or feelings more than my own
• My best feelings stem from receiving approval from others or being liked
• I do not think of myself as lovable or worth someone else’s effort.
• I accept sex when I want love.

These statements are offered as tools for self-evaluation, not as specific criteria or a diagnostic tool to decode our true natures. However, I believe we can take something powerful from this as we think about the kinds of relationships we maintain and the way we think about the people who are most important in our lives.

When I read through this list, I’m a little surprised how many of these statements are true of me. And what’s more, some of these patterns are akin to my most prized relationship values. For instance, I learned from my parents that feeling needed is the highest form of praise and love. Doesn’t everyone offer advice without being asked? And what was that last one about sex and love? Jeez!

Does anyone have a relationship without some small degree of codependency?

My guess is no. The very nature of sharing lives with people we love requires exchanges of affection, love, and control. We are dependent on each other in a very tangible, real way.

Could that dependency be more honest, though? Could it be less about proving our dedication to one another and more about giving each other permission to be independent? Could we learn to put our faith in people who are actually trustworthy while believing that we deserve nothing less?

I’m not wholly convinced that relationships free of dependency are necessarily better than those in which people enact some of these patterns. I am convinced, however, that we always have the opportunity to become better partners in spite of how we have conducted ourselves in the past. To do so requires some work, some time, and some honest communication with those that we hold most dear. And it requires forgiving ourselves a little for the mistakes we’ve made and will continue to make throughout the rest of our relationship.

— Rebekah Skoor, MA

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Couple’s Couch: Relationship Values or What I learned From Teaching Teens, Part 2

“How do we know we’re ready to have sex with someone?” I posited to the group. There was much rolling of the eyes at this question, but eventually most of the girls got into the discussion.

It helped that I had brought a list handed to me (without citations) entitled, “Top Ten Things To Do Before You Have Sex: a list for teenagers.” We had fun pointing out that #7: Meeting Your Partner’s Parents might not be a good idea in the slightest if anyone wants to actually get laid, and so on and so forth before getting down to number one on the list, the real crowd pleaser.

#1: Be Able to Give Yourself an Orgasm

If you’ve never had the pleasure of talking to teens about orgasms, I suggest you try. Fraught with giggles and extreme rolling of the eyes, it’s a good reminder of how forbiddingly exuberant speaking about sex used to be when we pretended to be innocent.

These girls are anything but innocent. Most of them have had more sexual partners before the age of 15 than I’ve had in my lifetime (admittedly not nearly as high as one might imagine being in my line of work). They’ve cheated on partners, been cheated on, slept around with other ladies in Juvenile Hall. They’ve been pimped out, pimped out their friends, survived some serious sexual trauma, and some have even assaulted other people. And yet, I say the word “masturbate” in their presence and the room falls apart into giggles.

How can such sexually experienced people lose their gangster cool over talking about orgasms? Or about being naked with the lights on? Or about putting someone else’s condom on to his hard cock?

Fearlessness can so easily be felled by the hint of sexual vulnerability.

Never has this been so potent to me as it was when watching a room full of bravado quelled into nervous uncertainty. Suddenly the ringleaders of ferocious cliques were bemoaning their stretch marks and discomfort around buying lube like everyone else I’ve ever known. Sex is the great equalizer.

When I was coming of age in the bedroom, I was allowed to talk about fucking. I could talk about blow jobs, about techniques, about fancy underwear, condoms, the pill, but I could not talk about getting myself off. That was a major faux pas.

Nothing has changed, apparently. My clients will talk about sex, about wanting it and how to do it, down to the gritty details, but they’ll never mention their own pleasure. It’s as if their orgasm is not as important as the fact that they are indeed having sex. Perhaps why #1 on the list was so controversial.

I wonder how many sexually active adults had orgasms before having sex with lovers. My guess is that most men, with their sexual equipment ever at the ready, are well versed in orgasm before ever laying hands on another. But women?

My partner is pretty up front with the fact that she was almost out of college and eight sexual partners into life before masturbating to orgasm for the first time. Other friends of ours took just as long, if not longer, to figure out how to make jilling-off feel good. I wonder what first sexual experiences would look like for people if everyone who engaged with another already knew how to come. I’d like to live in that world. A world, perhaps, with a whole lot fewer secrets around pleasure.

So imagine my surprise when the giggling died down and one of the ladies asked me point blank, “So how do I make it happen?” She meant orgasm, as in, could I please describe for her how to achieve orgasm. I wanted to floor to open up and swallow me right then and there.

Lame, Rebekah. So uncool. You, a sex-educator of all people, should be able to help a room full of uncomfortable, questioning teens discover the mysteries of their bodies. But I didn’t. I did what all adults do and I turned their questions back on them. I avoided answering because I got scared that they would think about me masturbating, that they would know. I would have to expose myself and be seen. I couldn’t get myself to do it.

Not that they showed any sort of disappointment, mind you. Right after the question was asked, the girl who asked it looked as if she herself would rather be swallowed up by the floor than have me answer. I was afraid to tell, she was afraid to ask. She did the braver thing, being that her peers were in the room. As for me, I hid, just like all the adults that came before me when I asked them my own personal questions.

I’m not proud, but I am curious about my reaction. Even as I work to put an end to sexual shame, I reenact mine upon others. And because of this, I learn how to do it better next time.

— Rebekah Skoor, MA

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Couple’s Couch: Relationship Values or What I learned From Teaching Teens, Part 1

I’m not just a sex writer. It’d be nice if writing were my full-time post, but on the off hours I earn the “big bucks” as an intern therapist.

Glamorous is not the word I would use to describe my current position providing counseling services for adolescent girls in the juvenile justice system. These ladies are some tough cookies. What I didn’t glean about their way of going about the world from their probation records (all participants in the program have multiple offenses), I inferred from their ferocious desire to keep me at arms length. Teens are a tough crowd and these teens in particular and far less than “warm.”

So what am I to teach these girls about relationships that they will stay in the room and tolerate?

I know very little about what it must have looked like to grow up in homes with little to no security (emotionally, physically, financially, etc). While having taken some courses on “cultural competency,” I am a far cry from understanding them as cultural beings or what it may mean for them to be 15 and imprisoned and away from lovers and siblings, their pimps and dealers, their friends and/or their babies. By any kind of measure I am a skinny, young, wealthy Caucasian woman from “the city” and I can only imagine what it must be like to have me help them think about their own relationships.

And yet, these young women are teaching me more about my own way of interacting with the world than I could hope to assist in illuminating for them. I’m inspired by what they go through to define themselves and how they must fight for every bit of love they can get their hands on, even when it comes with violence.

As they build new understanding of their relationships with others and learn about sex, love, abuse, and the core of relationships, I’m finding that I was never explicitly taught about these constructs when I was growing up. Relationships just were, whether on not I chose to think about them.

But what I am learning is that learning about them might make for stronger, better, more actualized relationships. For the next few weeks, I’d like to bring some conceptual models of relationships to the table and see what we think of them. As these girls learn about their choices, maybe we can learn more about our own. It’s never too late, after all.

Lesson One: Relationship Values

I often think about the way that I go about intimate relationships. Ruminating is what I do best. But I don’t often consider where I got the relationship values that I hold most dear, nor what I understand intimate relationships to consist of on some deep, unconscious level.

While leading a group with the girls last week entitled “My Relationship Role Models,” I asked the group to think about the very first intimate relationship they spent time around as a young person. The focus of the group was looking carefully at what we learned about relationships from the important people in our lives and seeing how they have affected, or continue to affect, the way we build our relationships now.

Together we considered our options for this first, formative relationship model. Many people chose their parents, although some selected their sibling’s relationship, their grandparents, the leaders of their group home, or some other coupling.

(I encourage you to play along this exercise with me as I run through it now. Maybe we will learn something together . . .).

After selecting a couple to examine, we privately answered the following questions:

1. When I think about the relationship between _____ and _____, the first words that come to mind are _____, _____, _____ and _____.
2. This relationship gave me the impression that men are _____. This relationship gave me the impression that women are _____.
3. The best things I saw about this relationship were _____.
4. The worst things I saw about this relationship were _____.
5. Most of the time, being around this relationship makes/made me feel _____.
6. These are some of the ways this relationship has affected me individually: _____.
7. These are some of the ways this relationship has affected my own relationships: _____.
   (note: question two implies a heterosexual dynamic between relationship partners. It is my belief however, that even non-hetero couples can still teach us messages about gender roles which if why I left it written this way.)

Even though I was the facilitator of the group, I took a worksheet and dutifully began filling it out along with the rest of the room. As I moved through the questions, I found that thinking about my parent’s relationship dynamic was something not something that I had done before, but strangely felt familiar regardless.

I asked the group if anyone walked to talk about what they had written and, after a long pause and eight pairs of averted eyes, one of the more outspoken cleared her throat and read from her list. She used words like “absent” and “angry,” reported feeling that being around her parents made her feel like she wanted to “run away” and that she was “tired of having to parent them” when they fought. She had a lot to say about the negative and somewhat idealized concepts of the positive, but overall we got a terrific read on how her parents related to one another, and to their children.

It wasn’t until a few more people had read their lists that this first girl blurted out, “I do the same shit with my asshole boyfriend. I see myself do the same shit and ask myself why I can’t stop right as I keep going back and doing it.”

I found this realization quite profound.

We often behave the way we’ve seen our loved ones do and wonder why it doesn’t turn out any better for us. We are affected by the relationships that came before us in ways that we may have not seen or considered before.

While many people carry on the patterns they learned before them, we don’t necessarily have to. I believe that illuminating what we have learned from our relationship models will bring about the opportunity to make decisions about which lessons we wish to live by and which we choose to reject. We have the ability to make our values conscious and live by those that we decide we want, not just those that were handed to us.

The girls seem skeptical about this and I get why they feel that way. Perhaps they aren’t at a place to feel empowered enough to choose their life values. Maybe some of us will never feel that directly empowered. But whether or not change comes from seeing one’s past, seeing one’s present clearly will give us the tools to make it better.

— Rebekah Skoor, MA

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Couple’s Couch: Left the SuperBowl to Do It

It wasn’t planned. We had intended to stay for the duration of the game at the neighborhood pub. We were drinking $2 Bud Lights and eating hot wings and cheering on the Giants’ dismal opening game thinking of nothing but the moment, the beer, the company, and how many hot lesbians were packed into one, 12′ x 12′ bar in the Castro.

And then, fate betook us in the form of a Victoria’s Secret commercial.

Now, I’m not much a fan of Vickie’s bras or panties, they tend to ride up on my skinny frame, but something about watching one of the angels spin a football between her index fingers with a “couldn’t give a damn about the game” look made me throw down a handful of bills to settle the tab and drag my own little lady out of the bar and into our bed with less than two minutes on the clock.

What is a Victoria’s Secret commercial doing in the middle of the freaking Superbowl anyways?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not football purist. When it gets right on down to it, I really couldn’t give a crap who wins the game in the end anyhow. I go to Superbowl parties for the pretty girls in pigtails trying to look sporty, the copious booze, and the hot wings. I love hot wings. As one of the 100 some-odd “fans” that were supposedly “watching” the game from the Castro, I can say with confidence that if we’d intended to stay up to date with the score, we would have stayed home.

What’s with watching sports if not to glean some sort of vicarious sexual energy, anyhow? We know that the only reason you even pause the remote over national-level gymnastics events is to watch those impossibly tight tushies clench for dear life as those tiny women fly through the air. Same goes for watching runners do track events. Round and round and round is just not that interesting unless the runners are in their skivvies.

There is way too much ass slapping and skin-tight tights in the majority of “boys” sports to discount the fact that most of us could bypass the game action in favor for some up close and personal glimpses at taught flesh.

I admit it; I’m guilty. Guilty for objectifying star athletes, guilty for using sports as some arbitrary way of getting by blood pumping, guilty for turning on light a light bulb when Jasmine (or whoever she was) blinked her sultry, shadow-plied lids at me while wearing the latest version of the push-up bra.

I’m guilty for gathering in a sport’s space with no desire to actually partake in the sport that these athletes have spent their lives working for.

I watch sports for the potential nookie that may come as an afterthought to the game after we’ve all gotten hyped up cheering for a winner and stealing glances at the cheerleaders. Adrenaline is a powerful thing and I believe we should take it when we get it. Take it and run like a banshee home and into bed with it. We left in the 4th quarter for some touchdowns that were way better than what the Giants handed out in the last minute-thirty of the game. Somehow Victoria’s Secret knew this (genius marketing agent bastards) and capitalized.

And why shouldn’t they have? It certainly had some effect on a bar full of lesbians. Even the dykes were cheering the demi-cup princess’ coy attempts to steal our attention. Is there anything wrong with this? Shouldn’t I care more about the things that matter like the state of the world or the elections?

Then again, in the middle of an election year where Fox News refers to its delegate coverage as the “Ballot Bowl” to encourage viewers to stick around, going even as far as selling us the information that one of the Bush family members is really into football as “Breaking News,” I suppose we must admit that American’s truly want their grunts before their government.

Sports and sex prevail in this country, and I keep buying into the same old line just like everybody else.

— Rebekah Skoor, MA

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Couple’s Couch: Having vs. Wanting

I’ve been thinking about sex a lot lately. To be more precise, I’ve been thinking about what happens to my body when a regular moment somehow magically becomes one that holds the whispered promise that sex is near. My pulse quickens. Blood swirls into my temples and warms my ears, down into my belly, and deep into my clit. My mind starts racing with the possibilities of what is to come.

Will the sex feel as good as it did last time—or the first time? When I come, what will my lover be doing? Saying? What toys will we use? Will I be able to hold myself back from spending the whole evening consumed in the moment?

In The House at Pooh Corner, the author A.A. Milne penned that for Winnie the Pooh, “Although eating honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.”

I do. That moment is called “desire.” It is called the “moment of wanting.” What Pooh Bear knew for certain and we all know intrinsically from experience is that the anticipation of the most gratifying moments is almost always better than the moment itself.

With sex, the wanting is arguably the least celebrated aspect of the interaction. And yet, the wanting is often the most powerful. Consider what thoughts race through your mind when you see a lover’s tongue about to make contact with your nipple. Savor that awareness for a moment. Think about moments where the anticipation of touch was so strong that your body actually trembled, a moment where you felt your body become aroused. Potent stuff.

If you take a minute to remember what happened after those moments of anticipation, you may find that the burning hot memories get a little bit fuzzy once the sex has gotten underway. We remember the chase of a lover, the first kiss, the initial taste, the very moment where our bodies come together as if the whole dance around sexuality was more about the build up than the actual act.

But, what am I saying? That the wanting is more important than the having?

This isn’t a trick. I’m not trying to talk you out of having the sex that you crave any more than I want to diminish your moments of wanting in any other areas of life.

When we think about the act of wanting, however, it begs the question what we are wanting for? In the case of sex, I’m sure many would agree that we want the pleasure that comes from contact. But what else do we want? To feel adored? Fulfilled? To have orgasms? To feel pushed and pulled beyond ourselves? Do we not also want to feel as if we, ourselves, are wanted?

I’m not suggesting that feeling wanted will eliminate our desire for sex. We ain’t that easy! But I wonder what it would be like if we allowed ourselves to feel the depth of our wanting for what it is. It would take a radical form of self-acceptance to look into our desire and ask ourselves what it is that we are truly aching for.

I think the difficulty in digging into desire is fear of what we might find underneath. When I look into my “need” to have sex an X-number of times a week, I come eye to eye with the truth that the sex itself is not what I am asking for. If I needed the orgasms, I’m deadly certain that I can take care of that on my own, thank you very much. If it was the closeness or intensity, I’m getting that all week long in other forms. The same goes for nudity, for caressing, and for connection. What is it that I mean when I say I want sex, then?

I, personally, want to feel like someone wants me enough to take me out of my analytical, over-worked brain and force me to pay attention to my inner body. I want to relinquish control over myself and feel taken and swept-up and free. This is what wanting sex is for me. When I feel aroused, this is the feeling that fuels me.

But why go through the trouble of finding out what is “behind our desire” at all? Well, given the increasing levels of marital and relationship discord often centered around issues of sex, I believe we need to face up to the fact that we do not always get what we want. Not even close.

If we are willing to concede that what we really want from our lovers goes far beyond the ins and outs of sex, then we do not have to stand around in skimpy panties getting cold waiting for fulfillment to fall into our laps. We could then go about the business of finding ways to think about those feelings, to act upon them in some other way, or to talk about them with ours lover and take care of our relationship instead of feeling weighed down by the elements that we cannot change.

We are used to focusing on the getting, the having. What if we were able to shift our focus back to our core, back to our desire, and really question what is inside of our wanting. If Pooh is right, and I believe that he is, the wanting in and of itself can be even sweeter than the reward.

— Rebekah Skoor, MA

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Couple’s Couch: “Male” Enhancement and Other Fallacies

The last few times I’ve turned on the television in the middle of the day I’ve been confronted with advertisements for ED. Charming men gaze flirtatiously out from my 25″ monitor while holding steaming mugs of something, green tea perhaps, letting me know that they used to loathe themselves but now they are better! Cured! Real men once again! Gratitude for their pills, for their erections, steeps through their smoldering eyes and hits me somewhere smack in the middle of my gag reflex.

I hate everything about notion of “Erectile Dysfunction” down to and including the name. Dysfunction? Really? Somehow we’ve internalized the expectation that the penises in our lives should be under our command and willing to work at our beckoned call. Stand tall, soldier! Stand proud and proclaim your master’s masculinity across these bed sheets and beyond!

Real penises don’t work that way.

We put a lot of pressure on the penis. It has to be up when we want it to be up, hard enough when we need it to be hard. It has to stay down when slow dancing with sexy strangers and while presenting at business meetings, has to refrain from shooting too early when confronted with extreme pleasure, it has to be the right length, the right width, the right color, and sure not to bend too much in any direction. Managing a penis sounds like a full-time job. So much more, then, the struggle for guys who can’t keep theirs under control.

I get the feeling that having “Erectile Dysfunction” is synonymous with being utterly emasculated. It’s as if men that can’t keep it up long enough or keep it hard enough are worthless as males. It’s no wonder then that the promise of a magic pill would make guys pull out their wallets. If my femininity hinged on how wet I got when my husband brought me flowers, I’d plunk down some cash to remedy any shred of doubt, too. (More on why vaginas are not synonymous with femininity next week, perhaps.)

I’m not buying the TV-quoted statistic that some 15-30 million American suffer from ED. I do believe, however, that millions of men feel that their sexual prowess doesn’t measure up in some way, that their “manhood” is not representing their personhood fairly.

Am I being too simplistic with this interpretation? Too literal? Because all that comes to mind when I see these television advertisements for “male enhancement” is that we aren’t talking about erectile enhancement, we are telling guys that they are only as masculine, as meaningful, as their erections are stiff.

I’m also not buying that the current media boom surrounding male enhancement medication is a positive sign of some curtain of silence being lifted. If there is anything positive coming out of the medicalization of male sexuality, it is the consciousness that the penis is not infallible.

I believe we do damage to ourselves and to one another when we expect perfection from our inherently flawed bodies. When we begin to count on our cocks to get hard when they are sucked, when we expect our cunts to get moist when we are fondled, when we expect our bodies to perform and impress every single blasted time, we are bound to be disappointed.

And beyond the pressure we place upon ourselves to perform, what of the destructive demands we thrust upon one another? It isn’t any fairer to expect flawless sexual performance from our lovers any more than it is to expect it of ourselves. After all, who wants to have their legs spread open in the air and simultaneously negotiate how not to disappoint their lover while grasping for their own pleasure?

I have a dream that one day some husband and wife will be sitting on their sofa somewhere out there in the wide expanse of the country and they will see some terrible commercial about vaginal douching followed by another terrible commercial for ED medication and they will laugh at the idiocy of it all and cry at the injustices we do to our bodies with such exaggerated expectations of perfection. I dream that this couple will hold onto one another and roll to the floor and make sweet love in whatever way they have negotiated that feels good for them, imperfections and all. In reality though, I have little hope that this scenario will ever play out.

Given the culture of fear we have around sexual dissatisfaction and erotic shame, I’m rather amazed that so many people are able to take pleasure out of sexual exchanges at all.

I’m curious what we would think if we saw commercials that depicted an attractive man sipping green tea, flirtatiously telling us that, while finding it difficult to have intercourse with his wife one evening, he actually brought her to multiple orgasms with oral sex. Could we stand for such honest portrayals of human sexuality? And if we could watch such ads and assuming we were able to take away the larger message that we are allowed to be imperfect and human, I wonder what other ways we might to learn to forgive and accept ourselves.

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