F*ck Feelings Read online

  Even those lucky ones who find compatible sexual partners and stable relationships are almost certain to run into problems eventually when aging, hormones, or stress affect the intensity of their sex drives. Of course, it never occurs at the same time for both partners, which is why the test of a good marriage is not sexual compatibility but what you do with sexual incompatibility when it arrives.

  So yes, sex is a major cause for sin if by sin we mean moral compromise, selfishness, and broken promises, and not just an abuse of social conventions from thousands of years ago. It’s hard to have strong needs, particularly ones that so directly involve other people, and still act like a good person. Sexual feelings take tons of management, and that’s not just a polite way of saying masturbation.

  If you’re sexually frustrated, don’t assume it speaks ill of your character; you may be a good person managing a time of little sexual opportunity. Likewise, if you’re sexually satisfied, don’t assume you’ve got it made, since you may have compromised more than you should or have formed a relationship that will not work out well.

  If you’re looking for good sex, you’re looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place; “good sex” is as absurd as the idea of using sex to sell burgers.

  Look instead for as much sexual satisfaction as you can find while standing by your values and, when sexual satisfaction is not possible, in remembering what’s more important than sex to your self-respect. Just because sex is awesome and everywhere doesn’t mean that it’s actually everything.

  Here are tools that sex therapists should be able to give you for a happy sex life, but can’t:

  • A certain look that, regardless of how long you’ve been stewing in silence about your partner’s neglect, criticism, and disrespect, will put both of you in the mood, smiling and ready to go

  • The key to exciting your partner and triggering orgasm, gleaned from years of patient study and ancient Mayan secrets, that works regardless of fatigue, tension, and medical disability

  • Special cataracts that prevent you or your partner from observing wrinkles, fat, or those moles that look like cancer

  • Universal, unlimited, constant child care

  Among the wishes people express are:

  • To figure out where their own or their partner’s mojo went and get it back

  • To stop wanting some kind of sexual pleasure that is bad for them or figure out why they want it

  • To figure out what they or their partner is doing to kill the mojo and keep it away

  • To make a partner understand that they want sexual satisfaction—before they start seeking it elsewhere

  Here are three examples:

  After three children and fifteen years of marriage, my sex drive has plummeted. Even though my husband is slightly older than me and has a much more stressful job, he still has the libido of a varsity high school football player, so the discrepancy has become a problem. He tried to be sympathetic to my needs (or lack thereof), but I know he’s frustrated, and I do feel guilty about not being able to satisfy him or maybe making him feel unattractive or undesirable. The bottom line, however, is that I’m not feeling it, for him or anyone else, period. My goal is to figure out how to get myself into the mood somehow or get my husband out of it.

  I feel bad about the fact that I’m not nearly as attracted to the guy I’m going to marry as I was to my former boyfriend. He was a jerk and our relationship was a train wreck, but I couldn’t get enough of him. My fiancé is a nice guy and I really respect him, but he’s not as attractive and the sex is nothing special. I wonder if I should be marrying someone I’m not more attracted to, and whether it’s fair to him. My goal is to feel more attracted or more sure about my choice of a partner.

  I’m a nice guy. I take care of myself and make an effort to look good, and I’m polite to girls and try to treat them right. But I can’t get any of the girls I meet, at school or at clubs, to give me the time of day. It pisses me off, because they always go home with total assholes, and won’t even give me a chance because I’m not super tall or a male model or something. I just want to shake these bitches and ask what’s wrong with them that they’ll fuck losers but not nice guys like me. My goal is to get girls to see that I’m a good guy, or at least good enough to sleep with.

  Since sex is seen as one of life’s natural functions, like sleeping or shitting, people often think there’s something wrong with them if they can’t feel desirable or attract sex. If they can just find the right makeover, guru, or carb-based diet to make them realize how beautiful they are, they will swell with confidence and finally be desired.

  The problem, of course, is that sex doesn’t come as naturally to some people as those other natural functions do (not that sleeping and shitting come easily to everyone, either, or there’d be no such thing as laxative yogurt or the Ambien empire).

  In real life, many people can’t be helped by a makeover, nothing makes them feel attractive, and their sexual feelings don’t jibe with the sexual opportunities they have. It shouldn’t be too much for them to expect to have sex, let alone happy sex or consistent sex, but it’s just not in the cards, and making a good sex life a goal just turns frustration into personal failure.

  Over a long marriage, it’s not unusual for one person’s sex drive to fade far below a partner’s, and treatment doesn’t necessarily provide a remedy. It’s certainly worthwhile to check out possibly curable medical ailments, like thyroid deficiency, and sex therapy can help you overcome the sexual inhibition and discouragement that often follow poor performance. Even after all that, however, a fundamental difference in levels of desire may still remain.

  If that’s the case after a reasonably thorough medical and mental health exam, don’t look too hard for further explanations or solutions, or you’ll exacerbate feelings of failure and frustration. Accept that such changes occur and answers don’t always exist.

  It doesn’t mean your feelings for each other are less sincere or matter less or that your relationship is weaker. It just means that sex will require good-hearted negotiation and a willingness to do what seems best. It might not feel as great as it used to, but if marital peace is at stake, then lying back and thinking of England seems like a worthy sacrifice.

  Discuss sex as a potentially positive force for maintaining a relationship, even when one person enjoys it more than the other. Seek agreement on the benefit of having sex, unless it’s painful. If you’re no longer interested, take credit in the giving of a gift. If you’re in the mood and miss being able to excite your partner, take pride in the gift you’ve been given.

  It’s also not unusual to feel strong sexual feelings for someone who may not be good for you, and less than intense feelings for someone who definitely is. Obviously, if you put more emphasis on your sexual needs than your assessment of someone’s character, strengths, and reliability, you’re asking for trouble (and maybe orgasms, but mostly trouble).

  Yes, there may be a guilty, accusatory voice in your head that wants hot sex and feels guilty for finding your nice-guy boyfriend not as hot as a bad boy. Remember, however, you’re the one who decides on the qualifications you require from a partner, and some level of attractiveness is a necessity.

  Don’t compare him to Mr. Sexy. Measure him against all the qualifications you see as necessary. Then do what’s best for you, because that’s your job. The problem with the Mr. Sexys out there is that they rarely double as Mr. Decent Partner, or, sometimes, even as Mr. Decent Human Being. Congratulate yourself for choosing a gentleman over a jerk, even if you sacrifice a degree of sexual pleasure.

  Sometimes frustrated sex is as dangerous as fulfilled sex, particularly for men who experience sex as a hunger that women have the power to excite and then refuse to satisfy. In reality, women are not responsible for your male sexual chemistry or frustration, so treating them as if they are responsible and owe you some satisfaction is a good way of turning yourself into an overbearing jerk in the grip of sexual road rage.


  As noted in the beginning of this section, humans are not objects, so women are not food; you might feel hungry for them, but they did not necessarily sign up to be your meal. They can, in fact, make their own choices, and they don’t owe you anything. To further explore the fast-food-for-sex metaphor, they are not Burger Kings; you cannot have it your way.

  Your goal in such situations is not to get sexist or angry, let alone get laid, because that won’t improve your attitude for very long, and it certainly won’t improve your standing with the opposite sex. Your goal is to accept that sexual opportunity isn’t something owed. It’s like luck. It just happens, like the weather.

  Unfortunately, sometimes your luck is bad, and sexual hunger is hard to bear. In that case, get a therapist or coach to help you keep the negative thoughts under control and respect yourself for doing it with dignity.

  Whether or not you’re happy with your sex life, sexual hunger and the need to feel attractive create endless moral dilemmas and the potential for fatefully wrong partnership choices. Never give priority to satisfying your sexual needs before thinking through what you actually control and what you believe is good for you.

  Then, when you get laid, you’ll feel comfortable with yourself and your choices the next morning (since you’re also totally regular and had a great night’s sleep).

  Quick Diagnosis

  Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:

  • Reliably great, mutual, satisfying, earth-moving whatevers

  • The secure knowledge that it is always as good for them as it is for you

  • A consistent answer to the call of the wild that you can count on

  Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:

  • An ability to turn down sex when you know it will hurt someone, including yourself

  • An ability to think ahead and remember the past when there’s nothing but sex on your mind

  • Values that put little merit on attractiveness and sexual success

  • Respect that is unaffected by sexual nonperformance or frustration

  Here’s how you can do it:

  • Learn to spot real vulnerability (yours and/or hers) to possible damage caused by so-called casual hookups

  • Avoid sex if it endangers your heart

  • Draw on your past love/sex experience to list essential personal qualities and run-the-other-way red flags for candidates

  • Make sure partners score a ten for character before you let their sex-appeal rating take over

  • Take your time before jumping into bed, marriage, a nightmare, etc.

  • List your standards of personal conduct and review whether you’ve lived up to them

  Your Script

  Here’s what to say about sexual opportunity and desire.

  Dear [Self/Possible Partner],

  I feel more confident and alive when I have [eye contact/conversation/sexy naked times] with someone [antonym for Next-Level-Disgusting] who’s attracted to me, but unfortunately, when I get involved with such a person, my [brain turns off/clothes fly off/life goes off the rails]. I will prepare for this state of brainlessness by [studying sexual ethics/avoiding STDs/conducting FBI-level background checks]. If I can’t get sex, I get [irritable/suicidal/the shakes] but I will try to take [cold showers/many breaks to jerk off/an inventory of my life and find other things that are at least as important]. If I don’t feel like sex, I feel [irritable/ugly/freakish], but I know I have the power to give sexual pleasure when it matters.

  Hurtful vs. Harmless Ways to Tell Your Partner You’d Rather Not

  Ouch

  Okay

  I have a headache. No, seriously.

  I love you, too, but let’s find another time when I’m not so tired.

  Really? Didn’t we just do this, like, in the current fiscal year?

  I’m flattered that you’re attracted, but I don’t recover my sexual energy as quickly as you do.

  Very funny. Get off me.

  I wish I felt as interested in sex as you do right now. I just need some rest and a little more time.

  Maybe. If you showered first. And did something about your eyebrows.

  Why don’t we just shower together? If you let me wash the stink off you, I’ll let you polish my boobs. But that’s it; I’m exhausted.

  Maybe you could just wait until I’m asleep so I won’t notice?

  Let’s go ahead, but I enjoy it because I feel close to you, orgasm or no.

  Salvaging Lost Love

  When love fails after seeming to get off to a good start, you feel like you’ve entered an evil, alternate dimension, and if you could only get back to where you were before someone meddled with space and time, you could get your relationship back, or at least keep things from turning ugly.

  Maybe most people have a less nerdy take on the situation, but the urge to reset a relationship gone wrong is universal.

  After all, if you felt wonderful before, you should be able to feel great again. The two of you just need communication, understanding, and maybe some sessions with a couples therapist and a trip somewhere warm with massage tables. Unfortunately, there are reasons that later-stage love goes sour that you can’t undo, even with a four-star resort or a time machine, and many of them are foreseeable from the beginning.

  For example, love doesn’t usually survive a poor work ethic unless the person doing more than their share is unusually needy or unable to recognize the value of their own contribution. Love doesn’t tend to last when the lazy partner is an addict, self-involved, or unable to understand the needs of others.

  If you have the chance to do a dirty job with someone before deciding to date—helping her move, nursing her through a flu, going with her on a trip to a no-star motel after twenty hours of driving—you might well spot this later-stage marriage land mine before triggering it. With simple detective work, you can also tell who is likely to fall out of love with you because that’s what she’s done with previous partners.

  If it’s too late now, and your love is doomed by something about your partner’s character or values that isn’t going to change, trying too hard to salvage it can make you forget your own strengths and what you stand for. Failing to accept broken love is what makes failure personal and interminable, rather than just a natural and painful mistake.

  Do your best to hold on to love, but when you know you’ve done your best to save it and it’s not working, do what’s necessary and let go. Ask yourself whether the problem is bigger than you are, and whether solving it is within your power. If it isn’t, the best way to restore love to your life is to clear the relationship and reset your schedule. Then figure out what went wrong, and apply your wisdom to doing better next time, but in Akron, not Acapulco.

  Here’s what you’d like to find to save your love, but can’t:

  • What you did wrong, so you can confess, repent, and never do it again

  • Loving words, maybe from a song or poem, that will go well with flowers and begging

  • A couples therapist who can get you to see the other person’s point of view, and vice versa, without triggering the usual fight

  • A love potion and a nonlove potion, to be taken as needed by whomever you prescribe it to, including yourself

  Among the wishes people with breaking relationships express are:

  • To find a way to feel the same, or make the other person feel the same, as before

  • To figure out why they were so stupid

  • To get the other person to see what they have and why it’s worth saving

  • To get the other person to see what they don’t have and why it’s worth walking away

  Here are three examples:

  I think my ex-girlfriend was sexually abused, and needed to know that she could trust me. I was very gentle with her, and I never loved anyone the way I loved her. What I can’t understand is why we were very close one day, and the next day she stopped talking to me and said we needed to take a break. I spend all my t
ime trying to figure her out, and how I can get her to see how much I love her. Obviously, she needs more reassurance, but I don’t know how to do it. My goal is to understand how to make her feel loved and win her back.

  I always had a good relationship with my husband, so it destroyed me when I found messages on his cell phone and discovered he was having an affair. He was very remorseful and says there was no issue, but that just makes me more mistrustful. I don’t think I can trust him again until I know why he did it. My goal is for us to get to the root of the problem.

  When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend three months ago after a year of dating, I tried to be very clear, but not unkind; we had a good time together, but I didn’t see a future for us, so I wanted to move on. He was devastated and tried to convince me I was wrong for a few days, but I held firm, and he finally seemed to get it. The problem is that he now wants to “be friends,” but it turns out his definition of being friends is a lot like dating. He calls me all the time, keeps trying to make plans, and as guilty as I feel about saying no, I feel guiltier about saying yes because I’m just leading him on. My goal is to get my ex to understand that it’s over without having to really hurt him.

  Because relationships can have a competitive element (e.g., who will win control of the TV, the right not to take out the garbage, custody of the kids, etc.), they’re often compared to sports, particularly baseball. That might work when you’re comparing sex to home base and rejection to striking out, but overall, the metaphor doesn’t totally work.

  That’s because in baseball, when a team loses, there’s always the next game, and when the season’s over, there’s always next year. Hope springs eternal in America’s pastime.

  On the other hand, when a relationship is in big trouble and not getting better—as in, all strategies have been tried and Hail Marys have failed—then there is no hope. You can’t improve or have a rematch the next day; you can only accept things as they are and decide what to do.