MIND MOVES:Couples find it hard to express their desires, writes TONY BATES
BEFORE The Late Late Show, sex was rarely spoken about in Ireland, except perhaps with embarrassment in the silence of the confessional. Some would say sex didn’t even exist prior to this weekly institution. Now everywhere we turn we hear words that were once synonymous with sin. Casual banter about sex gives the impression we have shaken off generations of shame about this subject. But I wonder.
I suspect that while inhibitions may be less evident, there has been very little shift in our comfort level in talking honestly and personally about sex. Jokes may be fun to share, even if sometimes a little crude but real sexual intimacy is hard to talk about. Particularly when our experiences fall short of the heavenly heights that our screen stars achieve effortlessly.
We may have found ourselves a new language for sex, but the story is still the same. Behind our bravado and liberated vocabulary lie the same difficulties that made sex a taboo subject for our ancestors.
Most of us find it hard to put an “I” into any conversation about sex. Even men and women who have been partners for a long time may find it impossible to say what helps or hurts them when it comes to being intimate.
But we don’t find it easy to own up to this. We find it easier to crudify sex, to default to fantasies or illusions of divine bliss. We yearn for intimacy that will nourish us, yet pretend that all we want is someone who will meet our immediate needs, ask nothing of us and walk away. We go to the wrong places in search of the right person, and wonder why we inevitably arrive home frustrated and alone.
We may have a partner but still find it hard to be open with them about sex. Whenever we try to talk about what may not be working, we collide with each other. A man can be highly reactive to a woman’s gaze and likely to interpret any ambiguity in her look as evidence that he is doing something wrong. We become mute in the face of rejection, whether real or imagined. Even if we want to say something, we are often hopelessly unable to find the words. Particularly when it comes to talking about sex.
Women do seem to have the upper hand when it comes to mapping intimacy, but even they may be hesitant to speak when they feel things are not how they should or could be. A woman may have the words but lack the confidence to say what’s troubling her or to ask for what she needs.
This is not to suggest that the needs of men and women are that different. They are much more alike than different when is comes to our need to be close and to feel loved by another; we each long to wake up beside someone who sees us for who we are and who still accepts us; someone with whom we can feel both completely vulnerable and safe.
True intimacy is a deeply human, very fragile and sometimes messy business. It is much more real, and much more engaging than its many idealised portrayals. It is a place, unlike any other, where we meet someone in an incredibly human way. In being intimate, we risk everything. Our hearts are as naked as our bodies. We lay open our dreams, our desires and our frailties before another. We trust them to be a witness to who we are, in a way that others never will.
Little wonder we find it hard to talk about the ups and downs of sexual intimacy. Best leave it to those whose gifts allow them to capture in poetry and music the depths we reveal to one another, when we invite another to wrap their arms around our soul.
“Somewhere I have never travelled,
gladly beyond any experience,
your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things, which enclose me . . . your slightest look easily will unclose me
though I have closed myself as fingers,
you open always
petal by petal
myself
as spring opens (touching skilfully, mysteriously)
her first rose.”
– EE Cummings
Tony Bates is founding director of Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (headstrong.ie)