Who is sabotaging your sex life?
Updated: 2006-03-27 10:05
Sex provides some of life's most intoxicating moments -- and some of its
biggest downers. Whether your experience has weighed heavier on the ups or the
downs depends entirely on your "sexual blueprint." We all have one. It's our
brain's reference for how we feel and think about sex. Influenced by everything
we're presented with sexually, it starts forming in our subconscious on the day
we're born. If you've been exposed to positive and healthy people and events,
your blueprint will be positive, and your sex life will thrive. But if your sex
life isn't as fabulous as you'd like it to be, it's time to figure out why - and
break the pattern. It comes down to these four saboteurs.
Your Parents
The genes you inherit influence your personality, your relationships with
other people and your sex drive. If your mother or father had a high or low
libido, there's a good chance you do too. We're all products of the generation
before, and our parents' attitudes toward sex heavily influence our own. If you
grew up with strict, religious parents who shuddered at the sight of bare knees
and stuck to the stork story until you were 20, you will obviously have a
different sexual blueprint from someone whose parents walked around naked and
sent the kids off on dates with a wink and a condom. Even if you end up with
strongly opposing views - which often happens if parents' attitudes toward sex
were extreme - you're still reacting to their initial viewpoint. How your mother
and father relate to each other sexually also has an effect. We learn how men
treat women, how women treat men and how a sex life functions by the way our
parents behave toward each other.
Your Ex
Almost all of us have a significant ex hovering hauntingly in the back of our
mind. How this person made us feel about our body and sex often dictates how
good in bed we think we are. A loving, emotionally generous ex leaves us feeling
sexually secure, which means we'll most likely go on to other caring, satisfying
relationships. A manipulative ex who constantly criticized us sets us up for
more of the same.
Sometimes sex problems stem from an unhealthy obsession with an unfairly
intoxicating ex who seemed to steal our libido along with that favorite CD. Some
people still fantasize about an old lover months or years on (come on - no one's
that good), and all subsequent lovers come in a sad second place. Other exes
sabotage our sex lives by acting as substitute boyfriends, stopping us from
moving on. Sex with an ex is awfully tempting when you're both single, both
horny and - the clincher - you've done it before.
Your Favorite TV Stars
There are two types of sex: manufactured and real. Manufactured sex is what
you see dished up on TV and in the movies: sexual nirvana where everything and
everyone is perfect. Real sex is what real people do - and it's rarely, if ever,
perfect. But we never get to witness people having real sex, so our perceptions
are based on the fantasy celluloid version. Even though we intellectually know
life really isn't like Wisteria Lane, if we tune in to Desperate Housewives
often enough, our subconscious starts to believe it is. And we start feeling
flawed because everyone on telly seems flawless.
|