The Guide to Getting It On (77 page)

Contrary to what you may have heard about the value of releasing anger, trying to resolve a conflict when you are still fuming at each other is not always productive. Sometimes it is best to wait until cooler heads prevail. Of course, some people will use this as an excuse to avoid confronting a partner altogether. Then nothing ever gets worked out.

The Good, Bad & Ugly

When you enter into a marriage or long-term relationship, the chances are good that you will discover hidden but wonderful aspects of your partner’s character. Cherish, respect and admire these. To deal with the less fortunate parts of your sweetheart’s character, consider the following:

Learn how to fight constructively. This means that no matter how nasty or unpleasant your fights might be, try to keep them issue-oriented so you can work your way toward a solution or compromise. This is different from fights that revert to name-calling or rehashing past hurts. These accomplish little, except to degrade whatever dignity you once may have had.

Fighting is preferable to indifference, unless you are getting violent.

Every once in a while, when you feel like wringing your partner’s neck, do something really nice for him or her. This could end up being far more satisfying than fighting, and it might even get you laid.

Instead of blaming your partner for things that are going wrong or wishing that he or she would somehow change, try to eliminate ways that you might be setting your partner up to be the bad guy. This doesn’t mean that you should stay in a relationship that’s no longer working, it just means that the things you control most in a relationship are those that you put into it. If your efforts to change yourself don’t inspire changes in your partner, then there’s not much more you can do.

Birds of a Feather Get Bored with Each Other

Long-term relationships can sometimes be a challenge to keep fresh and vital unless both partners make a constant effort to enjoy each other.

Think about all the extra things you did to impress each other when you first met; you probably even cut your toenails or trimmed your bikini line. Why would there be any less need for romance and wooing after you’ve known each other for what seems like forever? Mature relationships require more rather than less effort at romance and improvement—from cards, flowers and special dates to extra attempts at tenderness.

Single vs. Hitched

Being single makes it easier to maintain the illusion that you are a per-fect human being. Long-term relationships force you to confront parts of yourself that many of us would rather not. For instance, in a long-term relationship, your husband or wife will probably get fed up with your worst faults and remind you of them at least six times a day. If you are the rigid type who is incapable of change and compromise, then you might not be well-suited for marriage. On the other hand, a reader from San Francisco comments, “It could be just what you need.”

Sex after a Fight, aka “Make-Up Sex”

Fights leave most couples worn out or sad. However, some couples enjoy sex after a good fight, given how their neurotransmitters are already fired up and ready for action. On a biological level, the body might confuse a fight with sexual excitement, thus eliminating the need for tender preliminaries. Hopefully, the reasons for the fight have been resolved and the sex isn’t simply being used as a cover-up.

Your Partner’s Bad Moods

Like colds and flu, occasional bad moods are part of the human condition. In better-functioning relationships, the partner who is in the good mood is sometimes able to maintain a healthy perspective when confronted with a partner’s bad mood. He or she might even take steps that will help the other’s bad mood to go away. But in difficult relationships, all bets are off.

In a difficult relationship, the partner who is in a good mood experiences the other’s bad mood as a personal attack, even if it has nothing to do with him or her. Attempts to help are often filled with so much anxiety that they only make matters worse, and the partner in the bad mood might lash out at the other just for the heck of it. (Why not be nasty to the person who loves you? After all, no one else would put up with you.) Such couples usually do better if one spouse has a job that keeps him or her on the road for long periods of time.

Sex after the Baby Arrives

Our society doesn’t provide many role models for caring parents who are also sexual beings. We sometimes separate the two roles entirely, as though being a good mom or dad precludes your giving great head or loving the feel of your partner’s naked body next to your own. Just identifying as a parent may make you feel less sexual than you really are. Hopefully you will take the time to talk this over with your partner before having children, as well as after. There is no reason why you can’t be great parents and have great sex—although the latter won’t be as spontaneous as it was before the children arrived. A married reader comments: “We had lots of sex during nap time and Sesame Street.”

Also, never discount the extent to which exhaustion might erode the desire to have sex, and don’t expect to have sex if you aren’t doing your fair share of the child care and housework. While you’ve probably never considered vacuuming and taking the garbage out to be romantic acts, good luck getting laid without doing these sorts of things once the new baby arrives. One reader who is a prostitute adds, “And for heaven’s sake, hire someone to help with the cleaning or wash before you spend the money on a prostitute.”

Divorce & Your Children

Don’t assume that kids automatically do better if their parents stay together. While some children feel a terrible sadness when their parents get divorced, others feel relief. It usually depends on how bad the marriage was, how bad the divorce is, and whether the kid gets to live with his or her favorite parent, if there is one. The absolute worst arrangement for some children is spending half of a week or a month at one parent’s house, and half at the other. This can be the psychological equivalent of cutting the baby in two. On the other hand, it can work if it’s being done in the child’s best interest as opposed to simply placating two warring parents.

What often destroys kids more than the actual divorce is the parental lunacy for years before and years after. In an emotional sense, children of divorce often end up having no parents at all because their parents are sad, joyless, hateful or frightening to be with. If you are getting a divorce, do what you can to reach through your own pain, remembering that children need to see at least some form of hope reflected in their parents’ eyes. And remember that your child’s psychological health will in large part be determined by how amicably you and your former spouse are able to co-parent when divorced. It is not possible to emphasize this point too much.

Dear Paul,

Friends set me up with a wonderful woman and we’ve hit it off really well. We’ve had sex four times and are building a relationship. Then I went to her place for the first time last night. (Before that, we’d always gone to mine.) Her bathroom looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for a year, and some kind of alien life form was growing from the tile in her shower. She appears clean and neat, but this is another side of her that’s scary. Just so you’ll know, I’ve never been a neat freak, and don’t even buy antibacterial soap. What do I do? —Tyler in Jackson Hole

Dear Tyler,

Your letter would have gone straight into the wastebasket if you hadn’t mentioned the slimy ooze growing from the grout in your girlfriend’s shower. Let me tell you a story about Bill and Nancy, a couple whom I feel proud and honored to have known for more than fifteen years. Their house has always been immaculate—I’m talking serious sparkle. Even the litter box looks clean. One night a few years ago, we’d been having too much wine and I mentioned how impressed I was with Nancy’s ability to keep such a clean house. That’s when Bill started hyperventilating and nearly bled from the ears. He told me about the first time he went into Nancy’s bathroom when they were grad students at the University of Chicago. It took him hours of scrubbing and gallons of bleach before he could reach terra firma on her shower floor.

My point, Tyler, is the way your lover keeps her bathroom doesn’t need to be a deal breaker. What’s more important is the way you and she handle the situation. If you say nothing and continue to ignore her wanton disregard for disinfectants, then I’d say your relationship is in trouble. And if she is unable to handle your spending next Sunday scrubbing her bathroom, your relationship is in trouble. But if you clean her bathroom and don’t make her feel bad about it, and she returns the favor with the finest blowjob you’ve ever received in your entire life, then I think you’re onto something good.

Highly Recommended Resources:
Wanting Sex Again: How to Rediscover Your Desire and Heal a Sexless Marriage
by Laurie Watson, Penguin, 2012. Also, books by Michele Weiner-Davis can be helpful, such as:
Divorce Busting: A Step-by-Step Approach to Making Your Marriage Loving Again
and
The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido: A Couple’s Guide
. .

CHAPTER

37

Sex in the Military

I
t’s not like soldiers leave their sex drives in their home towns. However, providing helpful information about sexuality for new recruits is not always a top priority of the military. Since the military does not publish reports on the sexual practices of its members, we have put this information together based on clandestine reports from the field. Hopefully, our intelligence is better than that of some governmental agencies.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits displays of physical affection while you are in uniform. The defense that you were naked and not in uniform while having sex is probably not going to wash. The UCMJ prohibits sex in barracks and sex between people of different ranks. It also prohibits sodomy, which is defined to include oral sex. If that isn’t a recipe for “boring,” it’s hard to know what is.

It’s also worth noting that while there are some fascinating aspects to sex in the military, it is really just a cross-section of sex any place where Americans are gathered. So if you are looking for a bizarre expose, you’re in for some serious disappointment. On the other hand, there are some interesting dimensions to sex in the military, especially if you are a female G.I. who likes her men well armed and ready to engage.

For soldiers and the partners of soldiers who have been in combat, please see
Sex after Combat
at the end of this chapter.