At the beginning of every couple, relationship is the insatiable desire for sexual union, for physical fusion with the other and, in the other, of skin to skin. If at that moment that climax does not occur, the couple becomes a friendship.
Sexuality is a basic and necessary ingredient for love to emerge after passion at the beginning of any love relationship. But, what happens if after the “they were happy and ate partridges” sexuality fades?
The beginning: Desire
Sexuality is something natural in human beings. At a moment of their vital development, our brains experience an activation of the sexual desire circuits in response to specific stimuli. For adolescents and men, this activation remains at a more or less constant level, if they are healthy people, until later in life, when testosterone declines, but even then, androgens help to keep sex on the mind of the child.
Adolescents and women experience something similar in the period leading up to the hormonal storm of first ovulation. Like boys, girls begin to fantasize sexually due to the hormones of puberty. However, while girls’ hormone levels rise and fall dramatically as their bodies prepare for pregnancy, they fantasize about sex, not as much as men, but with little difference. All this hormonal storm that occurs in puberty modifies our way of seeing the world and of relating to it.
Development: Unmet Expectations
Not infrequently I have heard in the consultation, especially divorced mature women say that it was all over the first night they were married, when they discovered things about their partner’s sexuality that caused the rejection and that, despite this, they had children and they had decades of sexually unhappy marriages. Logically, when they were strong and independent, they divorced from the people they had “affection,” but from whom they were totally out of love. These testimonies contrast with the conversations I have with women who are currently looking for a partner; the fact that the other satisfies them sexually is indispensable to start a relationship. If this does not happen, they decide to cut off before further formalizing the bond.
Given this circumstance, we can ask ourselves, Before a good sex life was not important to start a family, to be as a couple, and now it is?
The Resolution: Sex and Gender
There is a strong interaction between culture, genes, education, and our brain. To speak properly about the importance of sexuality in couples, we should compare sexual and romantic behavior between different sexual orientations, comparison between cultures, the impact that the internet is having or the development of sexuality during childhood and, on some of these issues, there are very few empirically-based studies.
The social and economic liberation of women in our culture has shaken the traditional roles within the couple. Now emancipated women choose travel companions, not men who support or guide them, and many of them do not have social prejudices when choosing that companion. Many of them choose younger men (something unthinkable in previous generations) where they find a more physical and sexual relationship, freer, more of enjoyment than of commitment … or also of commitment, valuing energy, the will to live, the illusion. It seems that a priori the simple fact of age can give it.
Sexuality, therefore, has been freed from marriage or the stable relationship of a couple, so if the match is formed, it is essential that it work. Unless for reasons of illness it is not possible, new couples give importance to the sexual connection, even in some cases, it is the main reason that the couple stays or that they decide to overcome their conflicts and give themselves a chance. It is not trivial that when a couple comes to my office, one of the first questions I ask is whether they have a satisfactory sexual life. If they answer yes, there is a good chance that they will overcome their obstacles or crises and become a stable and happy couple.