The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and Amazon.com.

Oh, for goodness' sake, I'm a happily married man. Maris means the world to me, but just the other day, I kissed her for no reason whatsoever. I've got the pleasure today of talking with Dr. Judy Kuriansky. She's a clinical psychologist and a popular TV and radio personality. Dr. Kuriansky wrote the book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dating, and she is also the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to a Healthy Relationship. Those are very easy-to-read books. I want to welcome you to the show.

Thank you very much, Dr. Ken, it's a pleasure to be with you. I thought today we could talk about sex. You know, most people, when they're young, they can't wait to have a partner, a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and then when they're older, they don't want to hear about sex anymore, especially not with their partner. What goes wrong with sex? Why do people love it and hate it?

Well, it's so important to recognize that for a lot of people, when they give up that experience of sex, what they're giving up is pleasure, the pleasure of being intimate. So when I hear the word sex, to me, I think seduction. I think romance, I think pleasure and intimacy. If people redefine it that way, then they won't say, "Oh, I don't want to have sex," or "Oh, you're bothering me," or "Oh, it's going to mean I have to perform," or "Oh, I can't do it." The same as, "Oh, I'm busy." All those excuses come because people have in their mind an idea of what sex is. If they redefine it as something that is pleasurable and intimate, then I think people can enjoy it all through their life.

And you know, one of the problems I find with that — I love what you're saying — one of the problems I find with that is that, especially with women, I find it more with women than with men, they're not able to give themselves the right permission to enjoy their bodies, to enjoy the sensuality, to enjoy their partner. It's more that they feel like they have to serve them, and it's a duty, and it's something heavy. They get it over with, as on your checklist, you check it off, "Okay, serve the man, over, you know, done." How do you help them reframe that into a pleasure, rather than into a task?

There are several ways to do it. One of the first important foundations is to understand where those attitudes came from. People have grown up learning about them. It might be religious attitudes; they might have parental attitudes. They might have seen unpleasant relationships. They might have had a bad experience. There have been so many women, especially, who feel they've been used or abused in various ways, and in sex, that develops that kind of negativity and not a good association to it.

So getting over any negative attitudes, recognizing that you're entitled, as a second step, to pleasure — that life doesn't have to be so difficult. The third step is changing your brain. Turn any negative thought into a positive thought, so that every time you're saying to yourself, "This feels good," instead of, "Oh, I didn't like the way that was," or "That's too hard," or "That didn't feel right," or "Oh, my partner is expecting something of me," those thoughts. That's cognitive therapy; we call it changing the thoughts in your mind.

And then the fourth would be doing things, small things, that are pleasurable for yourself, where you build them up to being something that's sexual. Taking a bath is something pleasurable, going for a bike ride on a beautiful day, or even walking out in the rain and smiling. Those are little things that teach you that you're entitled to pleasure, and then ultimately, a sexual experience can become pleasurable.

So you build it up by small increments. You're helping retrain your mind that you have a right to enjoyment in life. You have a right to pleasure. You have a right to smell the roses, essentially. Exactly. Many times, people rob themselves of that because really, you're the only one that can fundamentally do it to yourself. To start opening that up for yourself, you take small steps. As you say, you can take a bath or a bubble bath, or a nice walk, or go out for some tea, or just buy yourself a new CD of music that you love, and give yourself permission to sit down and listen to it. That builds up to eventually feeling like you can be in a relationship and say, "Hey, this feels good when you do it to me; do it a little more."

Well, exactly. And what helps when you get to the sex part in a couple is to really give feedback and to let the partner know what you like and how you prefer to be touched.

Let me play devil's advocate for a minute, but it's too embarrassing. How can I talk about anything sexual? I mean, I can't even touch myself. How? What do I do with a partner?

Well, exactly; you've really pinpointed something right there, Dr. Kenner. That's really crucial, and that is that, hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is, The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at Amazon.com. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance? That is interesting. I can't even touch myself. How? What do I do with a partner?

Well, exactly; you've really pinpointed something right there, Dr. Kenner. That's really crucial, and that is that women and men, but women particularly need to know what pleases them first. This is the fundamental message that as sex therapists, we've been teaching women for years and years, and they still need to learn it, which is know what you like so that you can then teach your partner about it. That could be, if you're comfortable, either in words or just in movement.

There was something very important about what I said, though, and that is to say what you like. It's very important to avoid the criticisms or saying, "I don't like this," or "Don't touch me like that," because that intimidates men. That makes them very upset and focuses them on negative things. You know, this is a little generalization; men's egos are very sensitive and fragile. Ours are too, as women. But if you are training a child, for example, think about it with your partner. You wouldn't wake a child up in the morning and say, "Oh, you look terrible," or "Oh, you know today is going to be very stressful." I mean, so you need to say positive things to a kid, and you say positive things to your partner. When it comes to making love, you say, "I love it when you say those kinds of things to me," or "I love it when you put your hand here," or "It feels so good just when you hug me that way." Those feedbacks are crucial.

So to keep a dialog going or to just give some feedback, instead of having it totally silent, you can say, "What feels good?" What will you say? Don't say what doesn't feel good. Is there a polite way or a tactful way that you can say what doesn't feel good, in case the person is doing it and you really don't like it?

And always, Dr. Kenner, by doing one of two things: Either you take his hand and you move it somewhere where you do like it, and then you say, "This is how I really like it." Secondly, you say, "I prefer when you do..." and fill in the blanks. That way, the person sees what is positive, always moving towards the positive. Talk about it. If you're riding a bike, you know, if you're learning to ride a bike, you're learning to throw a ball, you're learning how to garden. Whatever it is you want to know, this is the way you put the seed in. This is how you cover the ground. I mean, those are things you want to hear.

Okay, so it's very different. If you're making love, and your partner is saying, "I hate it when you do that," or "That smells stupid. I don't like that," right? Not good, right? That's not good. What you're encouraging is, instead of doing that, where you may just end up closing off and stopping the communication completely — you don't want that to happen. Instead of doing that, you're saying to say, "I prefer when you do this," or to move the hand gently where you want it, and to give feedback as to what you like exactly.

And the point you raised before that, I'd like to emphasize, because it's so important, is to take responsibility for your own pleasure too.

He should know. Why do I have to tell him? If he loved me, he should know what feels good, exactly. I don't even know what feels good for me. You know, assuming it's someone who's been very repressed for a long time, okay, exactly.

Well, I hope you can. I hope we've encouraged people to experiment and enjoy their sex life. I'm talking with Dr. Judy Kuriansky, the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dating and *The Complete Idiot's Guide to a Healthy