Quote: Generally, couples do not really want increased emotional contact during sex, not because their relationship matters too little to them, but because it matters too much...Even while complaining that they want more intimacy in their marriages, in reality they cannot tolerate the anxiety and pain of fully knowing themselves, let alone allowing their spouses really to see and hear them as they genuinely are--it is far too dangerous.
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This is, in effect, a common marriage roundelay--two mutually dependent and mutually suspicious spouses jockeying uneasily for the limited quantity of emotional security between them.
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Modern sex therapy illustrates how we've tried to subdue sexuality. Masters and Johnson's well-known "performance anxiety" concept assumes that reducing anxiety is the key to resolving sexual problems. In actuality, however, sexual repertoires grow by progressively mastering new anxieties. ...No one is anxiety free when growing sexually. People's (and couples') sexual repertoires grow by mastering anxiety about "unacceptable," "forbidden" or frightening acts. You can't "think about it" to the point you're relaxed--you have to do it while it still makes you nervous. ...
Yes, an anxiety-reduction approach can improve genital functioning. Modern sex therapy techniques have undoubtedly improved the capacity of many people to enjoy, much to their relief, the mediocre level of sexuality that this culture considers normal....
In reality, anxiety tolerance is the key to sexual growth. That's what differentiation is all about. It makes you able to tolerate (or introduce) sexual novelty, and keep sex alive. When you can't soothe your own anxieties, or maintain your own psychological "shape," you're dependent on "trusting" your partner (who can then stop you dead in your tracks by simply withholding validation).
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Spouses often believe that the mere existence of negative feelings about each other (encouraged by the self-help industry)--hatred, contempt, revulsion and sadism--proves not only that they are stuck in a bad marriage, but probably that they are seriously disturbed themselves. And yet the fights, the threats, the ultimatums, the yelling, the crying may actually signal the potential for a good and intimate relationship--they are signs that the difficult struggle within each spouse for individual differentiation is already going on. Acknowledging these feelings out loud before the other (and in the containing environment of therapy, with a therapist whose own level of differentiation allows him or her to tolerate the pain and anxiety), paves the way for a level of intimacy not possible until spouses can stop blaming their partners for their own feelings of hostility, disappointment, inadequacy and failure.
In the heat of the crucible, partners develop begrudging respect for each other.... They have had to give up the notion that the partner is a fused part of themselves, and learn to cope with the anxiety of recognizing the spouse as a separate individual, with competing preferences and agendas.
Finally, they have had to relinquish the infantile hope of being unconditionally loved by a totally gratifying partner--the ideal, perfect parent they never had.
Only when they can really see and respect the other as he or she really is will they be able to trust one another.
I think what he's saying is that we have to go ahead and reveal ourselves, have sex, open our eyes, speak the truth even if it "hurts" our partner or makes him/her mad-- we have to do these things IN SPITE OF being anxious. We can't wait until we aren't scared or anxious, or until we trust fully or have our partner's full trust. In the process of GOING AHEAD we develop the trust. We jump even if we're not sure there is a net... and we find out that, net or no net, we survived the leap. To share this leap with a willing partner when both of you are terrified out of your wits, not because you ALREADY trust each other, but BEFORE you fully trust-- THAT is intimacy. At least that's my interpretation of what he is saying.
