THE ESSENCE of any relationship is communication and I am constantly amazed that people find it so difficult to communicate in relationships. We are a nation of communicators with a great tradition of storytelling, writing and creativity and yet each new set of statistics that is released by counselling services lists lack of communication as the number one presenting problem.
Women have developed a very good facility for communicating with each other. This begins in childhood and was made very apparent at a son's birthday party where we invited the entire pre school group. After the regulatory presents had been opened all the boys dashed outside for a quick game of football before the food.
The girls remained indoors and were in a little group examining and commenting on cards, presents, the food and the general contents of the room. Nobody had told either the boys or girls what to do. It seemed perfectly natural to both groups.
Communication between women is of course helped by the fact that almost every woman has a best friend in whom she confides who will be non judgmental, there for her in times of sorrow and joy, and with whom she will be able to discuss everything including feelings. Men also have close friends but male friends' conversations are kept at a much more superficial level and "safe" topics like politics, sport, current affairs or whatever are discussed at length. They have very little or no practice in discussing feelings.
Women therefore have the vocabulary but not the experience when talking at an emotional level with the opposite sex: men often have neither.
If couples find it difficult to communicate emotionally then how much more difficult it must be to communicate sexually.
If you were asked to turn to your neighbour and tell him or her three things about yourself, you probably wouldn't have any difficulty. If asked to talk about three different emotional experiences you've had recently it would be a little more difficult. If however you were asked to tell your neighbour in detail about your last sexual experience - with whom (or alone), how long ago, where, explicit details and so on, my guess is that you would find it practically impossible.
We have so little practice at speaking sexually. How much more difficult to speak, then, it we are experiencing difficulties because not alone are we embarrassed but we also have to admit failure.
The number one presenting problem to sex therapists in Ireland in women is vaginismus where a woman cannot allow penetration, often cannot use tampons and can not allow a gynaecological examination.
These women tell me what a huge sense of failure they experience, how they look around them in a pub or restaurant and feel that everybody else in the room is able to do it - and they are not.
Imagine how distressing it must be for such a woman to be asked if there is "any news" as regards a pregnancy when she knows she cannot have intercourse.
Similarly a man experiencing erectile difficulties or some other dysfunction will feel that same sense of failure and very often the natural reaction is to withdraw from sexual activity altogether rather than be faced with failure and the need for discussion with their partner. There is usually tremendous relief in the therapist's room when they feel that they are actually doing something about their problem. Then they wish they'd sought help earlier.
I'M EXCITED about the new radio show I am now involved in and what it may achieve. At the beginning listeners only wanted comments read out on air. Now they have no difficulty going on air and are gradually moving from discussing only relationship problems - to talking about sexual difficulties.
The mailbag is also being used. I feel that the more people get used to hearing relationship problems and sexual difficulties being spoken about, the more their confidence grows and the better the lines of communication become between the sexes.
When we are ill we go to the doctor. It is becoming more and more acceptable for people to talk about going for counselling for their relationships. Given its extremely high success rate, I think it should be equally acceptable for people to talk about going for sex therapy. That would be real communication.