It’s Never About Sex

By Daniel Peeks, MA, LMFT

“It’s never about sex.”  Just remember that.  Regardless of what the context is, be it conversations or conflict or compulsions.  Sex might be the focus, but when somebody focuses on sex, “it’s never about sex.”  Sex is a vehicle, but the destination is the real source of desire.  What does sex give me/you?  What does it mean to me/you?  These are the questions to be asking and in order to have a healthy conversation about sex, regardless of the context, these questions need to be answered.  But they are hard questions to answer because sex, well, is sex.  What more need I say?

If sex is, in part, a vehicle, what are some examples of destinations it may be taking us to?  Sex, is relational in nature so start there.  What do you feel when you don’t get sex, either with your loved one or on your own?  If you’re by yourself, it is still relational, and for those who insist that it is just a release (of tension or pressure or blue balls), then you’re looking at sex in a self-serving way.  Sex was not designed to be a coping strategy for stress or anxiety or depression or any physical malady.  It has become a coping strategy because it is easy.

Start asking yourself these questions.  Think about sex on a deeper level.  If you assess that you might be focused too much on sex, whatever that means to you, then sit in the sexual urge and allow yourself to feel those feelings that maybe you try to avoid through sex.  Abstain for a time, if you can, and see what that feels like.  If you can’t make it through that time, ponder that, and remember, it’s never about sex.