Things I learned in Sex Therapy: Part 1 - Bad advice is everywhere and it's worse than no advice

I frequently get asked what I learned in Couple's Sex Therapy with my husband. So I thought, why not make a series of posts instead of having to repeat myself.

Just before my first child was born I stopped working and became a stay at home mom and house wife. This lasted until we came back to the US and I got a new job. During that time I became the target demographic for what I later learned was the "Toxic self help" industry.

These people flood the TV, Book store and online sources with generally bad advice that gets repeated over and over again until it is considered to be good advice... We see it every day, we repeat it, and we don't even think about it.

Our first session with the sex therapist was spent just talking about what we wanted to get out of therapy. If your therapist doesn't spend a couple of sessions getting to know you, then they probably aren't going to be able to help you.... Anyway unconsciously I was using the Dr. Quack lingo that I had been fed for a couple of years. She picked up on it right away.

At the end of the first session, my first homework assignment was to take a list of authors home. Find any media by those authors and throw them out, delete any recordings on the PVR, remove any bookmarks, etc. I was quite surprised, because I hadn't mentioned having any materials from these authors. The biggest offender, for me, was Dr. Phil the TV guy...

My first lesson was this:

These people profit off of your marriage having difficulties. The more issues you have, the more money they make. Dr. Quack doesn't want your marriage to be better, he wants to sell more books, more DVDs and get you to tune in. That's how he pays himself $200 million a year.

I watched the Dr. Phil show religiously for several years. Looking back now, with a critical eye I can see the dysfunction that he was pushing. In every segment, if the woman was complaining about the man in the relationship, it was always what the man needed to do to, what the man needed to change, and how he should be better for the woman. In every segment if the man was complaining, he was vilified. He was told that what he wanted didn't matter, it was what she was willing to give. In Australia the shows often got aired out of order. One show there was a guy complaining that his wife wouldn't give him a blowjob. He told the man that she was going to resent him and that he needed to just drop it and take what was offered. The very same week there was a woman complaining that her husband wouldn't allow her to give him oral sex. He berated the guy and said that he needed to step up and do what he needed to do to satisfy his wife.

This advice gets repeated all the time. We tell men that they should never ask their girlfriend or wife for anything they don't want to do. Everyone is nodding their heads in agreement.... except... bullshit.

We women ask men for things they don't want to do all the time. When I met my husband he would pile his dirty clothes in a pile in the corner, then take them to the washing machine every Saturday morning. When we got married I told him I wanted a hamper in the laundry room, and I wanted him to take his clothes there every night. I was asking him to do something that he didn't want to do. I expected him to do that for me. When he didn't do it... I nagged the ever living crap out of him until he changed what he was doing to be what I wanted. And when he did, I appreciated it.

Now, that is just one example. But rather it's clothes in the hamper, or a blow job, we are still asking someone to do something they don't want to do all the time. And yes I can hear people saying "But that's not sexual..." I have sexual examples as well. Things that my husband doesn't want to do, things that he doesn't like doing... but he does them because he knows that it meets my needs, it makes me feel good and I appreciate.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't have boundaries. And that's a whole different topic... and probably the next one I will write about. But preferences are not boundaries. Boundaries keep us safe, physically, mentally and emotionally. "I'd prefer not to do something" is not a boundary, that is a preference. Preferences should be taken into account, but that also need to be negotiated and flexible. Boundaries can never happen because crossing a boundary causes harm. There is a difference.

The problem with Dr. Quack advice is that it is horribly unbalanced and it's designed to suck you in and create problems that don't exist. You watch a show, there is enough there that you start seeing some similarities to your life. Dr. Quack tells you that this is a problem, and it must be right? Because Dr. Quack says so. Your husband then comes home and you hit him with Dr. Quack says you need to do this... or you need to stop doing this. The next day... another problem. Repeat. The problem is you are constantly asking your husband to give up more and more, and reinforcing that your husband should never ask for you to give anything in return. You are telling your husband that Dr. Quack is more a part of this relationship than he is. You are creating an ever narrowing scope of the relationship, and that is not a good thing.

I had a book about sexual relationships, it wasn't written by Dr. Phil, but rather another female Dr. Quack. The author basically said that you should work on reducing sex to as little as possible scoped around your needs. Not exactly those words, but that was the gist. She was literally saying the key to a great sexual relationship is to reduce it to just what YOU need... lowest common denominator sex.

Funny thing, you keep following this bad advise, and things never get better, they only get worse, and the way to fix things... send the same people another $29.95 for their new book... that digs the hole even deeper.

The condition for my therapist to continue working with us was I was to never follow any Dr. Quack advice again. And you know what, that was the moment that things started getting better.