A young adult woman recently shared with us her embarrassment at reaching maturity without knowing how to cook — at all. Here she was, already a successful businesswoman, about to buy her first home, but coming to the realization that eating out all the time was not only expensive, but inefficient. And yet, her ability to actually feed herself from food she purchased and then prepared, was severely lacking. But, being the kind of driven woman she was, she rolled up her sleeves — literally — and went to work.
She found every cooking show available and watched as they sliced, diced, used ingredients with names likes “saffron” and “shallots” and imagined herself as chef extraordinaire. She went to the store the next day, bought said ingredients, and came home ready to make the most amazing gourmet dish. And it was going to be incredible. She just knew it.
You can probably guess how this idealistic experiment went, so we’ll spare her further embarrassment and leave out the sordid details.
One very important thing she realized upon reflection was that she had tried “advanced cooking” before understanding some very basic but crucial concepts such as; the difference between a rolling or a hard boil, the definitions of “dice,” “fold,” “pinch,” “blanch,” and so on, and understanding the time it would take to complete various portions of her cooking project. So, she turned off the cooking shows, found a Cooking 101 class, and began again.
At her class, her teacher discussed the importance of understanding the fundamentals of cooking. He said that once you have truly mastered the art of boiling water (she didn’t even realize there was an art to boiling water), reading a recipe, have a working knowledge of simple spices, and a greater understanding of how the various elements come together, you can then start to play around with the aforementioned elements to explore, create and perfect.
If you’re wondering what this all has to do with sex, here you go:
A lot of couples seek us out looking for ways to “spice up” their sex life. They have become bored, uninterested or have this general feeling “something’s not working,” but aren’t necessarily sure why. Usually the conclusion these couples reach is that if they just tried “x” then everything will get better, not really understanding what “x” even is.
So, one of our first questions is, “What do you know about sex?” Which is usually answered with a look of either disgust that they would even be asked that question, or slight embarrassment. Then the question gets asked again, “What do you know about sex?” Or, in other words, what do you understand about the basics? Do you truly understand your own anatomy and that of your partner’s? Do you know how to engage with your own body and that of your partner’s? Do you know what turns you on and/or what turns your partner on? Do you know how to create a context that fosters intimacy and connection? What do you know about the emotional aspects (ingredients) that go into a wonderful sexual experience? What about the mental aspects? Have you ever considered the spiritual components?
Back to our original story, we don’t judge the woman who didn’t just “know” how to cook. Just as we know you were most likely giving her all sorts of grace thinking thoughts like, “Well of course she didn’t just know how to cook, it takes practice and understanding and more practice through trial and error.” And that, everyone, is just like sex. Sex, too, is a skill and none of us should be approaching it as though we should have received some magical download of information and a master skill set. This is great news because it means no matter where we all are in learning, there’s always room to learn, even if that means going back to the basics.
Moving away from merely the behavioral aspects.
In our book, Real Intimacy, A couple’s guide to real, genuine intimacy we have an entire chapter dedicated to the concept of “how intimacy is like dining” in which we give you even more ways to explore the analogy of cooking and apply it to your situation.
Most of us enter our sexual relationships woefully unprepared, just as our friend found herself regarding cooking. And, like our young friend, many of us find ourselves in a situation in which our idea of how our sex life would be is quite different from the reality. But, unlike our friend, due to the cultural taboos surrounding sexuality, instead of acknowledging our need for a comprehensive class in the basics, we decide we’re “failures” at sex, or something’s wrong with our partner, or ourselves, and try adding in “this” or “that” without really understanding what this or that even is.
It would be like trying to make spaghetti sauce with just tomato sauce. You’d taste it, quickly understand it doesn’t taste right, but, have no idea what to add to make it taste like actual spaghetti sauce. And then deciding to just opening the spice cupboard, randomly choose something, and dump it in, hoping it will work because reading a recipe or taking a class is “taboo.”
Most of us never got the basic lessons in our own sexuality let alone lessons about how to now merge our sexuality with another person’s. We never got the 101 courses, but somewhere along the line, there was an assumption that on our honeymoon and beyond, we should be at a master’s level. Apply this to other areas of life where this is the expectation. Playing an instrument. Mountain biking. Learning Excel. Growing in a new calling. With all of these we would never expect anyone to be proficient in all aspects of these things. We would anticipate learning curves — some faster and slower than others. It would make sense that there would be trainings, conversations and basic skills which would have to be learned before moving on to a more challenging aspect. And so it is with sex and intimacy.
Some 101 courses you may consider revisiting:
- Understanding your body: Anatomy 101
- Understanding your partner’s body: Anatomy 202
- Talking about sex: Communication 101
- Increasing the connection: Relationships & Intimacy 101
If you see this list and think, “I should know this stuff!” we are going to say to you that there is no reason why you should know this stuff. Why? Because 98% of us didn’t grow up in a home or a culture where this was taught to us, modeled for us and in a space where it was encouraged to learn about.
We encourage you to really think about the questions posed above, or go through the questions in our book, get a different book, take a class, listen to a podcast, or whatever, but throw away the notion that satisfying sex is just something that is supposed to happen “magically” and without any sort of learning. You wouldn’t do that with cooking, so why do that with something so fundamental to a success of a relationship?
As always, we write this with love.
XOXO,
Kristin and Alisha
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Wondering who we are? Our names are Kristin and Alisha and we are known as “The Sex Girls.” We are Co-Authors newly published book, “Real Intimacy: A Couple’sGuide to Genuine, Healthy Sexuality” and working on our second book, “YES! You can talk to your kids about sex.” Kristin is a Certified Sex Therapist and Alisha is a Sex Educator and Intimacy Coach where they practice at The Healing Group in Salt Lake City.
The best part about what we do is we are sisters, and not just sisters in the gospel, but literal sisters. Our goal and mission is to start having real conversations about sex and intimacy in our culture so we can have healthier and happier relationships. Intimacy is a part of that. We accomplish this in a variety of ways through workshops, therapy, coaching, radio and television but we also answer real questions from real people who feel stuck or wondering. Watch for our new website, SexMadeSimple.com, for online classes, workshops and more!