Art and literature, not to mention advertising, all convince us that sex is one of our most important needs. Is it so? A collision with reality is fraught with some surprises …
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A simple experiment: we type the word “sex” in a search engine and look at the number of responses. The figure exceeds several tens of millions. Moreover, the first few pages will be occupied by links to pornography. But what about real sex? The latest data comes from a survey conducted by Mail.ru as part of the Health project in 2017, since then it seems that large-scale studies have not been conducted.
That year, one in eight Russians did not have sex at all, according to a survey of 15 people. Once a week, 40% had sex, several times a week – 42% of Russians. Daily sex – 5% of citizens. A third of the respondents were dissatisfied with the quality of their sex life, and more than half of the respondents were dissatisfied with the quantity.
At the same time, Russians’ views on sexual life are becoming more conservative. According to a poll by the Levada Center1, from 1998 to 2017, the proportion of Russians who unequivocally condemn the sexual relations of family people outside of marriage increased from 50 to 68%.
Image Issues
How important is sex to us? It seems that to a large extent – in any case, cinema and advertising products convince us of this. “Advertising images are not directly related to sex,” disagrees sexologist, specialist in psychosexual development Dmitry Isaev. – It’s more about the image in which sexuality is part of a positive social status: society is dominated by the idea that if I have sex, then I’m attractive, healthy, reproductive. In traditional patriarchal societies, the alpha male is an approved image.”
Therefore, many people like to imagine themselves as more sexy than they really are. “About five years ago, I was happy to brag about victories, including fictional ones,” recalls 29-year-old Nikita. – Not that he was lying, but he hinted that I was in great demand among the girls. Friends, maybe they didn’t believe, but they didn’t argue either. And in my eyes I was macho, it was nice. And now we talk more about work … “
One of the new trends is that girls are more open about their sexual encounters. “My friend keeps a list,” says 23-year-old Anastasia, “now it has almost 20 items: novels and one-time meetings. And I decided that I would only be with the one I want to marry. But both real sexual looseness and the desire to match the image of a seducer or a femme fatale are more characteristic of young townspeople than of the entire population. “Society is heterogeneous in relation to sexuality,” emphasizes Dmitry Isaev. “There are different groups, and sentiments range from radical conservative to revolutionary.”
A psychologist, a specialist in gender issues Olga Alexandrova notes that “erotic images of mass video production often reflect the dictatorship of the male view of how a woman should look in order to please a man. It’s not about sex, it’s about power. Submitting to it, women begin to look at themselves as an object intended to satisfy not their own, but other people’s desires. Paradox: when a person is reduced to a sexual function, then there is no place for sex. But what is sex then?
I want certainty
Surprisingly, there is no generally accepted definition. The word “sex” means “gender”. Before perestroika, derivatives of it were used: sexual relations, sexual intercourse. Intuitively, sex is associated with (but not equal to) biological reproduction, as well as physiological pleasure. “Although not every sexual intercourse will certainly deliver it,” says Dmitry Isaev. “You can even get a physiological discharge and not experience pleasure.”
Some experts believe that sex takes place when there is an interaction of the genitals. Others do not insist on it. So we have to give up precision and be content with intuitive understanding.
The second thing we will have to give up is the concept of “norm”: this behavior is purely individual, it is different for everyone, Olga Alexandrova emphasizes, but she clarifies: “There is a conditionally normal sexual behavior of an adult, based on voluntary consent, excluding exploitation. This behavior brings satisfaction and, in addition, strengthens self-esteem: I feel good, worthy. Everything that is connected with guilt, shame is neurotic forms of behavior.”
As for the physiological or “mathematical” definition of the norm, not psychological, but all our experts agree that there is nothing similar and cannot be.
Asking ourselves questions about normality (do I do this often enough, do I have the necessary skills?), we eventually begin to demand instructions, and then suffer from incompliance with them. “Everything is individual,” emphasizes Olga Alexandrova, “and the role of a sexologist is not to make the patient a giant of sex according to a fictitious norm, but to get rid of suffering and help find pleasure. If there is no suffering, then there is nothing to treat.” Sex can be compared to reading or a walk: this activity is pleasant, but its absence does not endanger our lives.
“This is a matter of personal preference, and there are many who refuse sex for a while or even forever,” notes Dmitry Isaev. “The reasons can be different: fatigue, sleep deprivation, stress… or beliefs.” The philosopher Immanuel Kant did not know women and did not regret it. Many saints, both men and women, remained virgins.
“Couples come to me after the birth of a child with a complaint that a woman has lost her desire,” says psychotherapist and sexologist Amina Nazaralieva. – I answer that this is natural and happens to many. With a high probability, the desire will return after 6 months or a year. But it may fade. The question is not how it “should” be, but that the partners learn to negotiate with each other.”
Source of pleasure
The answer to the question why we still have sex, if we can do without it, can probably be given in one word: pleasure. But getting there is sometimes difficult. “Women complain that they cannot fully relax because they think, for example, that their partner will see their “fat belly,” says Amina Nazaralieva.
In order to give way to our own enjoyment, we have to put aside the notion of propriety and worry about what impression we will make. “Sex is a meeting not only with a partner, but also with oneself,” says Olga Alexandrova. “Desire brings us to a point where everything we took for granted, tastes and beliefs are no longer immutable.
This is an area of freedom where we are not dominated by parental prescriptions, whether they belong to real figures of our past or generalized spokesmen for “public opinion”. And it’s not the habit that extinguishes the desire, but the fear of seeing and showing to another one’s unknown, disturbing sides.
Sometimes it’s easier to blame everything on a partner (“he doesn’t offer me anything”), on problems (“I have something with an erection”) or cling to the idea that love lasts for three years than to dare an experiment. It is not surprising that the area of the sexual can both expand to the knowledge of oneself and the other, and shrink to the simple satisfaction of a need.
Divide and Conquer
In the pre-Internet era, finding sex in both images and physical interactions was a daunting task. The only socially approved way to have sex was marriage. “Now the situation has changed radically,” notes Amina Nazaralieva. “Everyone who accumulates sexual desire can go on the Internet, find a ten-minute video and use it to get a discharge.
At the same time, the thirst for variety is easily satisfied: every time you can see new participants and new scenarios. At the same time, the person sitting in front of the screen does everything with himself, as he likes, and the result is guaranteed. In a real meeting, there are no such guarantees – even if both agree to have sex, a lot depends on the other, on the coincidence of desires, on the circumstances. In addition, many are hindered by an overly critical look at a partner and difficulties with their own openness.
All this leads to the fact that many refuse intimate relationships or hang out on dating sites for years, maintaining sluggish correspondence and not moving beyond the first date. And the need for communication is satisfied with friends, acquaintances, at work. Here the result is much more reliable: the more you invest, the more you get. And relationships always involve risk.
“If earlier everything went in a package — sex, family, life, service — now different needs can be satisfied independently of each other,” emphasizes Amina Nazaralieva. “There are new opportunities, we solve problems creatively, there are fewer unhappy and dissatisfied people and less violence.” But it is quite possible that those who searched and found a congenial person who is free and ready to have sex will become rare lucky ones in the very near future.
Remedy for neurosis
The first of Freud’s students, Wilhelm Reich, believed that sexual satisfaction was an antidote not only to personal neuroses, but also to what he called “emotional calamities” (human exploitation, voluntary slavery, religious dogma, sexual norms).
“Reich considered sexuality as an energy that encourages a person to go beyond himself, to do something, to meet others. In other words, to wish – in the broadest sense of the word, says psychoanalyst Joel Bernat, who has closely studied the legacy of Wilhelm Reich. – From his point of view, this energy is the basis of a person, it individualizes him.
As soon as he allows her to fully express himself in sex, he derives pleasure from her, which not only relieves him of tension, but also makes him more independent, giving him a feeling of power, which is hardly compatible with submission. It is this sharp pleasure, generated by true unity, the clash of man and man, that he calls orgasm.
We now better understand why sexuality, liberated from precepts (both from religious strictures and from pornographic models), is a means of liberation for those who find the yoke too tight.
1. Entered by the Ministry of Justice in the register of NPOs “performing the functions of a foreign agent”.