By Chris Wright

04/18/2011 Why Couples Don't Have Sex More Often

"Physical sex, however arousing and gratifying, alone is not the love that we crave."

By Chris Wright, M.A.
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist

In your committed relationship, how often do you have sex together? Now ask yourself, why don't you have sex more often? What is it about the experience you share together that could cause either of you to pull back? Was it different at the beginning?
There is a new, more natural approach to lovemaking being taught around the world that provides useful insight into these phenomena. The orientation evolved from the work of Barry Long in Australia. The Lovemaking Process® provides a process of lovemaking that is completely unique, unlike any system or approach to intimacy you've encountered, eastern or western. And yet you will recognize it as what has been missing that would make your experience most fulfilling. It feels like the most natural expression of sex together as a couple. And the results of this shared experience are far-reaching, creating a relationship of closeness and fulfillment together that is greater than you could imagine.

The LoveMaking Process® is designed to facilitate greater emotional attunement together, opening each of you to more vulnerable states of being and loving. Physical sex is transformed into an experience where the focus is on connecting together at a deeper, more heartfelt and ecstatic level. Couples find the process incredibly enlivening and fulfilling -- physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As a result, they tend to make true love more often, as the process nourishes their relationship, and their souls.

Our Two Energies Create Wholeness

In this new tradition, the process of making love is of far greater significance than sexual gratification of the man or woman. The reason for this is that something magical happens in true lovemaking. When two people share intimate sexual union in conscious lovemaking they expand, purify and complete their souls. They open into, and share in, a divine love that is greater than them selves.

The basis for this fulfillment is the mystical uniting of the two energy poles within man and woman, the masculine and feminine, the yin and the yang. The whole purpose of lovemaking is to consciously unify these fundamental life force energies together, and within ourselves. For this full, conscious connection or union between the masculine and feminine poles of the Universe produces the experience of spiritual wholeness within us. That is why individually the masculine and the feminine are so compellingly drawn to each other, to being in love, to feeling fully connected together. When we surrender our hearts in the spiritual union of sexual love these energies can fully connect, opening us up into a completeness within our selves.

Physical sex alone, however, rarely provides the vehicle for spiritual mergence. And that's the problem. Our focus and conditioning in this culture tends to be completely on sex -- sexual gratification and orgasm. The primitive sexual urges for propagation and sexual excitement have dominated our instincts, and our sexual focus. Physical sex, however arousing and gratifying, is not the love or union that we all crave.

This new tradition teaches that woman in her natural feminine energy is the embodiment of love. Love is her true nature, underneath all the emotions and tendencies of her personality. As the font of love, she is the passive attracting feminine principle -- an irresistible, living magnet to man. He yearns for this feminine energetic connection. For the woman, the fulfillment of her love is when she can surrender her heart and body, take him completely into her, take everything he is, while in return releasing every bit of herself in sweet surrender to love. Woman's total sexual motivation is to make this wholesome connection with man and release these heartfelt energies. In so doing, man assimilates into his body, into his being, her spiritual female energies and finds balance and wholeness within himself.

Men and women who regularly experience their hearts open and vulnerable together in sex, who know how to access these natural, deep-seated energies, discover a sacred love that is beyond sex. When shared often, woman's whole biological and emotional system flows freely. She experiences a fulfillment in her being, and radiates a divine fragrance and glow that is apparent to all. Man also finds his wholeness. Her energies balance him, integrating his masculine and feminine poles. He connects to his heart and relaxes into his Center. For man and woman all possible fulfillment together lies in this one yoga, or union.

Many have shared this richer experience of lovemaking when they first were in-love. Where their hearts were so open and expanded together in love, where the life force energies unleashed are so powerful, that the slightest touch was ecstatic. Where both partners transcended all sense of separation -- within their selves, and with each other. Even if just for a moment, where they felt fully alive and a real sense of wholeness inside their being. That is why religious traditions around the world teach of the holiness/wholeness inherent in true lovemaking. Souls uniting in lovemaking then is a spiritual practice -- a path to sacred wholeness.

What Destroys Conscious LoveMaking?

This mystical, all-fulfilling sexual union is based upon mutual love and surrender in their hearts. Sex without love, however, cannot gain access to these finest, innermost feelings or unleash these incredible life-force energies. It becomes just physical or erotic sex. Over time with the partner, just sex alone tends to lose its charm and potency. Where it becomes routine, maybe even a duty. Eventually many couples start pulling back, and share in sex less often. Excuses like being too busy or too tired or not "in the mood" start to show up. Lacking the shared richness of this nourishing emotional connection together and not knowing how to attune to these powerful fundamental energies, the relationship grows apart.

What, then, jump-starts sex when you are not opening up into these love energies? Interestingly, when there is not enough presence of love, man and woman must fall back on their imagination. They use erotic and fantasy substitutes to stimulate pleasurably-charged feelings. Sex is now generated in their head, rather than in their hearts. The focus is on doing things that stimulate erotically charged memories -- what we call "turn on's." For many men, sexual cues like lingerie, fixating on woman's erogenous zones, videos, or certain acts can stimulate highly aroused, imprinted memories and fantasies. Women tend to seek to elicit romantic images or fantasies of feeling close or that she is loved. The raw sexual act, in and of itself, is not enough to fulfill most women. That's why women seem to need some semblance of a love connection to have sex with men. Or at least be able to project her fantasy bond of intimacy and caring affection into the act.

Since childhood all of the pleasurable and painful experiences around sex, intimacy and love have been registered in the emotional brain centers. These potent imprints are easily re-stimulated. Certain visual images, sex talk, even the thought of sex can elicit pleasurable or unpleasant feelings, depending on the person's imprints. When they are stimulated, they take you out of the present with your partner. You are no longer truly present in the innocent connection, where love is being made.

You readily see this effect if you trigger someone's painful, traumatic, or scary memories that have been imprinted around sex growing up. The strong aversive feelings that emerge take the person over. He or she is no longer purely innocent or present in the experience together. The experience is being generated from the past, and the person is no longer in the now. The same binding effect, however, happens when you elicit "turn on's." When you have sex without the richness and intensity of love energies to direct the experience, your focus shifts to get each other "turned on" to generate sexual pleasure. Though stimulated by your partner, it's all really occurring within you. A sort of private euphoria, where you are literally using your partner to connect you to pleasurably-charged images within yourself, within your own mind. Your partner, in essence, now becomes an object. And the act becomes two separate people getting off sexually with each other.

This is why people will say that the quality of sex is all "in your head." That may be true if you are looking for just physical or erotic sexual gratification. Erotic imagery and intimacy fantasies can generate strong, pleasurable feelings. But that is not love. Nor is there a spiritual connection unfolding. Being immersed into your past, the fount of all your highly-charged fantasies, you have overshadowed your conscious being in the present. And therefore unable to attune to and unleash the deeper, more heartfelt life energies that are so much richer and more fulfilling.

Certainly, you've experienced this within yourself, and with your partner. Times when you notice that your partner is off in his or her private world of erotic or emotional revelry. He or she is no longer present in the experience with you. They have lost themselves in highly charged imagery in dreamland. In truth, more fantasy is being made than love. In effect, you have both borrowed the other's body to make love to your own sexualized images and emotional archetypes. Such an insulated encounter actually prevents the conscious, timeless union of the male and female energies in true lovemaking.

Ask yourself: Why does a man or woman need to stimulate their imagination for sexual lovemaking? To get in the mood? To get an erection? If there is not enough presence of love, they may need erotic or fantasy substitutes. However, when you know how to open up to these profound loving energies, you don't need your imagination to make love, because you are with the real thing. The actual living man or woman in love gives you the most delicious, pleasurable, fulfilling sensation that you can have. In the flesh, and not in the mind. In your heart and into your soul, in the now.

Surrendering Your Heart Brings Forth Presence in Ecstasy

In this new teaching you learn to make love together in the present. Where the focus is in connecting together to these deeper, more sublime love energies. Where you attune to each other, feel each other, in celebrating together, being together. With practice, as you free yourself from the past conditioning, the process restores your innocence. The man learns how to approach his partner, make love to her, blend into her natural rhythm, and make it safe for her to surrender into her vulnerability, into her heart and body. The woman learns how to truly relax in her being, let go into the moment-by-moment unfolding experience. Where she becomes truly responsive to him, fully alive in her passion. She is able to take in and feel the fullness of his love, as she surrenders her heartfelt, feminine, sacred energies into him in the process. The two find themselves moving deeper into their hearts, their bodies, and their souls, where ecstatic intimacy can emerge.

When the woman's body feels secure, relaxed, rightly loved, the man can readily tell. Her energy and inner sanctum becomes yielding, soft, welcoming, fully lubricated and easy to penetrate, undemanding, very sensitive and responsive, open and alive. For the woman, the lovemaking becomes sweeter and more deeply fulfilling. It feels effortless and natural to her nature as it moves her into her core. In this process, the man gains a sense of command, feeling centered, strong, potent, yet open, sensitive and loving. He gets out of his head and into vulnerable being. They make sublime, ecstatic love. As their consciousness expands, the sensations in love are so heightened that the pleasure can seem almost unendurable. There is no limit to the expanse of being and joy you can share in.

In this process of lovemaking there is nowhere to get to. The goal is not singularly focused on getting to a narrow orgasm. There are no expectations, no routines, no pressures that would interfere with the innocence unfolding moment by moment. For men, they feel relaxed, open, fully aware of each sensation. The innocence of this process frees him of the fear of premature ejaculation or impotence. And neither partner experiences any performance anxiety. In fact, there is no performance or goal to work towards at all. It starts in love, continues in love, and feels complete in love at every moment. It is more a celebration, an enlivenment, and expression of your love and connection together. At times the Eros is sublime, meaningful, and at times passionate, but always connecting and nourishing in some deep mysterious way.

For the woman, where before she might resist having to satisfy his carnal desires, in this process the inner motivation for uniting together is not based on erotic need, or duty. It is about being drawn together at an innocent, intimate level. The woman feels desired, but not consumed, loved but not invaded, sensual and sexual but not an object. The vulnerability this orientation provides assures her, even enables her, to open more deeply. In connecting to her self, she discovers her core, her love. And his.

LoveMaking in this way is more than just a pleasurable experience together. More fundamentally it serves to balance each other's energies and well-being. The process melts away, cleanses from your spirit tiredness, boredom, discord, emotional distance from your spirit. Uniting the male-female energies in this way is naturally enlivening, nourishing, healing, and revitalizing. So when you feel tired, you come together in this innocent way to freshen and restore your energy levels. When you are feeling anxious or stressed-out from too many pressures in your day -- this fundamental connection brings you back into your body, deeply relaxes you, and enhances your emotional well-being. It is a wonderful tool for couples to use regularly for promoting health and balance within themselves.

It also serves to deepen and revitalize the couple's relationship and connection together. This process of LoveMaking connects you together in a far more intimate and fulfilling way than other shared pleasurable activities or expressions of love. You finally have a way to let your guard down together, move out of your head and all of your isolating roles and responsibilities. In so doing you innocently re-connect to your original feelings of love and appreciation. It enables you to continually re-discover the magic and love that brought you together in the first place. Even deepen it. So the whole fabric of the relationship is strengthened.

In the beginning days of the relationship, experiences of lovemaking may have happened naturally for some couples. But over time, they realize that they don't know how to facilitate it or sustain it together. So learning the process of making love becomes one of the most important things a couple can learn for deepening the fulfillment of their union together. To find yourselves not taking advantage of this wonderful, wholesome opportunity in your relationship is to miss an important gift of being together.

What about those couples who have built up years of pain, neglect, and distance? If they value the relationship, this process becomes even more important for them. Learning how to create safety for the walls to come down and the underlying vulnerability to emerge allows the necessary healing process to begin. Couples originally come together as a source of pleasure for each other's lives. But for the marriage to sustain that intimacy and grow together, they need to continually nourish each other physically, emotionally, spiritually. Couples who have lost that trust and intimacy, it is vital that they find a safe structure for restoring the connection and begin nourishing each other in this more profound way, again.

This process is also particularly important for those affected by premature ejaculation, impotence, frigidity, lubrication problems, past sexual abuse, emotional distance, sexual numbness, inactivity, or boredom.

Because this process is about connecting together, as couples restore their innocence they tend to make love in this new way more often. As a way to be close and nourish each other at the deepest level. There may have been resistance before when it was just "sex" -- a big performance that took a lot of energy just to get "turned on." With this new, innocent LoveMaking approach, there is no resistance to sharing in an affectionate, loving, safe connection in your hearts and bodies together. Naturally. Your relationship is transformed in this radiating light of loving energies together. And we all can tell. Fortunate you are to have this union.

If your sexual relationship is not as fulfilling, or if there are difficulties, call for a free telephone consultation.

(703) 560-1520

Read more details on a conscious relationship at www.pulsarnet.com/cw

Chris Wright is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in the Washington, D.C. area. He also teaches these skills in workshops and in private sessions around the country and in telephone counseling. He was previously Director at The Human Relations Institute in Houston and at PAIRS relationship training programs.

ª Couples Counseling ª Telephone Counseling ª Evening Seminars ª Workshops