Let’s talk about sex. Even though… 

It’s difficult, tricky, to talk about without being either vulgar or overly delicate or indirect. It’s hard, without being too sappy or scientific or dry. Couples in longterm relationships don’t usually discuss their sex lives openly, and understandably so. I WOULD SAY IT IS THE SINGLE MOST PRIVATE, (AND TO MANY) MOST INDECENT AND TABOO OF DISCUSSABLE TOPICS. If it is openly discussed, then likely it is through a political, religious, cultural or medical lens. But, here, my fellow disciples of Love, is a hopeful attempt, to do so with frankness, dignity and elegance.

Once Upon A Time, there were two young, fiery and impetuous lovers. Now, ever-hurried and -harried, you might say they are still lovers, but lovers at heart. 

Years in a relationship will bring shifts in our intimacy—and that is a fact. The relationship accumulates layers of experiences and responsibilities and deep familiarity over the years. For many, the bond becomes the cornerstone of their most intimate family unit. And yet, somehow, after all the years of sharing an entire spectrum of emotions and experiences with each other, they might catch themselves feeling shy, strangely nervous, reserved and/or inhibited around the moment of sex. Like, feeling this way is what one would expect to feel with a stranger. 

Strange? 

The naked truth of the matter is pure irony: the more familiar the pair, the stranger their naked affair, and vice versa. It may not be immediately logical or always the case, but deep familiarity and sexual intimacy seem to somehow cancel each other out. In other words, knowing someone so intimately can easily extinguish that titillating desire two former strangers may once have felt.

Sigmund Freud, to no surprise, psychoanalyzed this phenomenon in his 1912 essay, On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love. Here, he reveals a fascinating observation and conclusion: “Where they love, they have no desire, and where they desire, they cannot love.” The more an intimate relationship resembles the closeness of a family bond, the more awkward and vulnerable it feels to be loose, cool, naked, lustful, and sexually free. There it is. The couple’s incest taboo.

Freud’s explanation touches upon several of his well-known ideas: that our early childhood experiences with our parents or caretakers mold not only our psychological but sexual makeup as adults; that a taboo develops around having any sexual feelings towards them, since we love and are so deeply interconnected with them; and that we may unconsciously seek to recreate familiarity as adults, choosing intimate partners whose personas resemble those very parental figures we had as children.

Apropos, I might mention that when my daughter Sofia tries to kiss me on the mouth, I get nervous. Evidently, nature has intentionally made sure that our incest taboo is innately engrained in our being, for the obvious reasons of inbred dangers. But I wonder, does the couple hearing their child address “papá” or “mommy” reinforce a subconscious incest taboo between the two in the couple? Or does raising one or more children rob the couple of time and energy for less imperative “deeds”? I wonder too whether innocent ears and a toy-filled home may not also be inauspicious to naughtiness and dirty talk? And finally, the cherry topping: since we age and accumulate more responsibilities (gaaaaa)—getting tireder and achier, more irritable, and less patient—do we not literally get more turned off rather than turned on? Energy once directed towards desires of the flesh and the vigors of our youth is now necessarily being deployed elsewhere. 

A psychotherapist once told me: “The intimate code is a blessing in a couple. It requires effort, good will, and desire to make it grow.”

The word “code” caught my attention. And now I know why.

When we are young, sex is spontaneous. We are more curious; we experiment; we put sexual life in an important place. But once we are in a couple—once it becomes long-term and complacent—this initial type of intimate connection cannot be sustained (we’re being honest, right?). It becomes challenging—it calls for time and energy—to (tacitly) define and discover what that intimate “code” really is. 

Let’s do some decoding then. 

I state the obvious, that being married long-term—especially married with children—is not as simple as it may have been in its first phases. Accumulated onion layers in a couple require new and more principles and guidelines in what we may call the couple’s intimate “coding.” But as I contemplate my own couple’s programming, one crucial code stands out. And yet it (still) seems to be the hardest to crack: surrender.

To surrender to what is. This doesn’t mean to succumb to the other’s power, but to come to a genuine acceptance and appreciation of what is (oblivious of whether that is liked or not—yes, there IS a distinction between appreciation and liking). Surrender means making it work—for each in the couple as for the couple itself. It means no longer taking so much note of what the other isn’t doing right. And knowing that always focusing on the wrong does a greater disservice to the couple than we may realize. Surrender to what’s wrong then? 

Well, it so happens the act of sex is all about surrender. Surrender to fantasy, control, physical and emotional desires of one’s own and one’s partner. Which is… a lot to surrender to. To surrender completely means giving up trying to control the relationship, while managing our multitude of responsibilities and our ego. 

Lovers, near and far, I offer a possible solution. Ironically, it lies in intellectualizing the instinctual physicality of our sexual lives. We might reason that we have many facets to our being. We might keep in mind that a part of us yearns to desire and be desired and yet another part of us wants to maintain tight control. We might remind ourselves to be kind and empathic, not only to our tired and achy selves but to the one who shares our bed. 

Or, perhaps it is our very minds working completely against us. We often let ourselves be too easily critical, intolerant, and overly self-absorbed. Maybe, this may be what is keeping us from concentrating on what we can do to bring some spicey spicey to the table? Maybe, turning off our vicious critic may be a way to “turn on” our desirous hearts.

As for shyness under the sheets, I go back to “code surrender.” To letting go of trying to control. To surrendering body, mind, and heart, and finally and  relievingly succumbing to what is.