Sexual Intimacy in Relationships

 Usually when someone enters into a serious relationship things begin to get physical and the couple begins to take another step in their relationship. The couple begins to engage in sexual intimacy. In todays pop culture they tend portray sexual intimacy as the end goal to any relationship. It is the cherry on top as it were. While I believe sexual intimacy is important, it can also be a big adjustment in a relationship. Sexual intimacy is an expression of attraction and devotion, but it is easy sometimes to misunderstand such expressions and expectations. This is after all an act involving to people, while committed to each other, they are still different and unique individuals. A major difference, if we are talking about a heterosexual couple, would be each other's physical anatomy. Another issue can be the difference in expectations about Sexual intimacy. Lastly is being able to communicate those expectations and other things pertaining to sexual intimacy.

Sexual intimacy is a very physical expression in a relationship. It involves making yourself and your partner feel arousal and pleasure in the moment. This can be difficult considering your tastes and your partner's may be different and speaking if you are in a heterosexual relationship it can be harder due to the literal physical difference in anatomy. Specifically, a male will generally reach a sexual climax a lot earlier than a woman. Due to the difference in physiology there is can be a steep learning curve when learning about your partner's body and the things that can cause them arousal and pleasure. Not exploring these avenues can lead to you or your partner feeling dissatisfied in a relationship. Now a relationship isn't all about sexual intimacy, but it does plays a large part. Staying satisfied in a committed relationship can be difficult especially if people's expectations are different. 

 I think the main problem with expectations is trying to anticipate your partner's expectations. This can put a lot of pressure on a couple and even cause performance issues. Mismatched expectations can cause friction during and even after intercourse. Anticipation before intercourse can create anxiety as well. Trying to think about what your partner's expectations are without communicating with them is definitely stressful. The worst case would be thinking you know what your partner is expecting and finding out after that you did not. This makes it really important to be open about expectations, even if you're feeling a bit a trepidation over the fact. 

Being open about expectations is important. Not just when it comes to sexual intimacy. Communication is how you know you and your partner are on the same page. Everything I have brought up previously leads to this as the solution. Most issues in a relationship can be solved by this. If you talk to your partner about your expectations and your anxieties you can work together to resolve them. Talking can still be hard especially when sex is the topic. I was talking with a buddy of mine about this subject and he said something pretty profound. He said, "Talking with your partner about this is trading one moment of awkwardness to avoid a lifetime of discomfort and misunderstanding". It's a pretty good tradeoff; just say a few words and solve a lot of issues. Not talking can lead to everything you might be afraid of in a relationship occurring. My dad has never been the best communicator. I can think of many times he made a singular decision without consulting my mom. This was the spark for a lot of arguments in our household. Over time my dad has learned to communicate more effectively. Both of my parents are visibly happier and the household has benefitted from it. Communicating will always help you achieve your goals especially in intimate moments. It all just depends on what you want. 

New Marriage Adjustments

 While dating and courtship can be stressful a new marriage can be just as much so; if not more. There can be a bit of learning curve in the beginning due to cohabitation, difference in culture and other reasons that I may not be aware of.

In my family specifically difference of culture was easy to see. My dad is a white male born in the United States and my mother is a Filipina native. It was easy to see in most cases growing up that my Mom and Dad had a hard time understanding each other's way of thinking. However, not for lack of trying. My father and mother through a lot of painstaking effort turned our home into, in my opinion, the perfect blend of Philippine and American culture. It wasn't a fast change either it took time and effort. It fist started with the food my parents are both really good cooks and they would split the cooking responsibilities. Not only did this help them increase their partnership it also allowed them to share each of their cultures food with each other, my siblings and I. One compromise helped mediate two challenges that could have caused negative outcomes in the long term. It is communication like this that helps us to adjust to newly married life. While not married myself I am glad I have learned this as a preparation for the future. 

Communication is the key to adjustment in a marriage. If a newly wed couple doesn't communicate for even the small things it can lead to heavy consequences. In the 7th Edition of the book, "The Newly Married: A Family without Children", they talk about one of the most important factors to communicate about in a new marriage saying, "One of the more important tasks is establishing a pattern of resolving conflicts." Resolving conflict is important in any relationship and establishing a way to resolve conflict early on is really important. The same book states later on saying, "the pattern you establish in the first year of marriage is likely to be the pattern you maintain throughout your marriage." This means that it is really important to hash out as many would be communication issues as quickly as possible. One example of conflict resolution that I have seen and really enjoyed was in a show called "How I Met Your Mother", in it there is a couple their names are Marshall and Lily and one thing that they do if they feel a conflict is getting to heated they will say, "Pause!" to put the argument on hold until they both cool down a little bit. I enjoyed the concept though it's success rate wasn't perfect it was a habit they established early on and they always made sure to come back to the argument and resolve it. The "Pause" effect came with two commitments, one to put an argument on hold if it was getting too heated and 2 to always make sure they resolved the argument. Honestly, this is one of my favorite methods for conflict resolution. It helps to give the couple a moment to cool down and still make sure the conflict gets resolved. It's two bird and one stone as it were. 

Now I'm not saying that this is the only way to resolve conflict. Finding a way to resolve conflict is a very personal matter between the couple but it doesn't mean you can't learn from the examples of other couples or even on screen couples. Figuring things out definitely takes trial and error. What really matters is how important is it to you to establish good habits early on in your marriage? What are you willing to do so you can get there? My best advice. Talk to your spouse and hash things out. Communication will always be the first step to a solution involving more than one person, especially in marriage.  

Love and Modern Dating

 Families are a phenomenal social unit they provide an environment for people to grow and improve in the best of situations however, the family unit can be very fragile and without proper support it can be difficult for families to stay together. This makes it important to realize for those of us looking to start families in the future. This also begs the question, "How do we find the right partner?"

This question leads me into the topic for this weeks post. In the U.S. the culture of letting ourselves be guided by our feelings takes precedence in most cases during daily life. This includes dating and relationships which makes modern dating that much more confusing. My personal opinion on relying solely on feelings to pick a partner is that it is grossly overrated. Finding a partner who makes you feel good is important however, feelings can be manipulated, fabricated, and misunderstood. The reason for this is because of certain chemicals that are present in our bodies. One of which is oxytocin. Oxytocin is the chemical in our bodies that affects our attachment, bonding, and trust with others. Immense amounts of oxytocin are released in a mother's body during childbirth, but this is not the only way oxytocin is released. Oxytocin can be released during very low stimulation exchanges such as touch or even kissing. These actions if done repeatedly can create the illusion of closeness due to the constant flow of oxytocin in the system. However, simply allowing ourselves to be thrown in every direction by a chemical that is easily released and stimulated into our system is utter fallacy. Oxytocin may affect our feelings to some extent, but that doesn't mean we lack reason. Reason is just as important in a relationship as our feelings. However, that is predicated on what we want out of a relationship. 

During a talk given by Scott Stanley titled "Sliding vs. Deciding" he(being Scott Stanley), often calls modern dating and relationship habits as "ambiguous", meaning that relationships remain vague without any clear labels or expectations. Stanley identifies the reason for this emotional ambiguity as a way to avoid risk. When things become clearer in a relationship it can invite certain fears about commitment and marriage which slowly turns into an aversion towards risk. Ambiguity is the "buffer" that "protects" a person from their fear of commitment. Really!? In what way does this help!? This is a clear invitation to a whole new set a reasons to feel anxious. How can you feel safe if you have no idea how to define a relationship with someone? I suppose this begs an even more important question. What do you want from a relationship? 

If you want a steady relationship it pays to be clear things up. It is also important to listen to reason. Happy feelings don't guarantee a happy relationship. It pays to know what you want; if you know what you want you can communicate that with people you like and see if that's what they want too. Ambiguity isn't fair. Not to the other party. I have a buddy who let themselves walk into what could only be described as an ambiguous relationship. This friend put a lot into their ambiguous relationship thinking that if they put enough effort in the relationship would become more secure. It did not and my friend ended really hurt. Pain comes no matter what. Ambiguity does not help and simply relying on how people make you feel to find a partner isn't reliable. I reinforce once again. What is it that you want? In a relationship and a partner. It's important to answer these questions for yourself before the oxytocin and other chemicals start to make you go crazy. If you can answer these questions you can go into relationships confident in what you want without feeling a need to compromise. That doesn't mean however, that you can't adjust what it is you want as time goes on. Take the time to figure out what you want. If you do you won't regret it. We all deserve the best possible partner and we all deserve to have our relationships defined to us clearly.  

Sources: 

Uvnäs-Moberg, Kerstin, et al. “Self-Soothing Behaviors with Particular Reference to Oxytocin Release Induced by Non-Noxious Sensory Stimulation.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 1 Jan. 1AD, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01529/full#:~:text=Oxytocin%20is%20released%20in%20response,stroking%2C%20warm%20temperature%2C%20etc.

Stanley, Scott. “Scott Stanley – Sliding vs. Deciding: How Life before ‘I Do’ Impacts Lasting Love.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 Feb. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzZ-1nGNCZM&t=2277s&ab_channel=LoveandFidelityNetwork.

Gender Normative Preferences in Infants Without Self-Awareness and Accepting and Understanding Differences

Children's views are important. How they see the world is how the future will be shaped, because children are the ones that will be in charge of the future. This makes it important understand children and understand how we want to influence them. The most important thing is that children just like anyone else have their own opinions. 

Some of their opinions are more stereotypical than others. Like, for instance, preferences based on gender. Where I'm from in Washington it's pretty common thinking to view gender preferences as something influenced by society and normative parenting influences. Due to these reasons preferences and behavior based on gender influence by "society" was a bad thing. This begs the question are these gender-typical opinions influenced by outside influence? Or is it an inborn preference?

In an article called "Sex Differences in Infants’ Visual Interest in Toys", they took two toys, a doll and a truck, and showed them to infants between 5-6 months old. Before an infant could have the self-awareness to recognize gender identity. The result showed the majority of the female infants were more focused on the doll than to toy truck, but the male infants of attention was relatively split between the two toys slightly favoring the doll, but according to the article they described it saying, "the effect was not significant." The male infants also favored the truck more than the female infants by comparison. This does show that males and females have distinct preferences even before they are aware of gender identity. More female infants fixated on the doll than the males did and more male infants focused on the trucks than the females. Of course one test doesn't determine absolute fact. 

An interesting article that I found was a similar test as the one previous, but it was done on nonhuman primates. This study is called "Sex differences in response to children's toys in nonhuman primates", in the article it says, "males had greater contact time with the “masculine” toy set" and "females compared to males had higher percent contact with the “feminine” toys." Gender preferences literally span species! It is absolutely normal for there to be normal gender-typical behavior. Nevertheless, it is up to us how we want to influence these behaviors. 

I think by understanding gender differences and gender-typical behavior we can better teach the future generation. We're all going to have our own opinions, but it is how we shape the next generation that we shape the future. I think embracing differences is good and acknowledging they exist and not for any particularly clear reason is good. If everyone is different then everyone has something to learn about each other. The more we learn from about and from our families, the more we can help each other. It's not just about being different it's about learning about what makes us different and trying to understand what makes everyone else different.

No one in my family is the same. We may have the same quirks, but hobbies, pet peeves, and even looks have distinct differences. I was never very good with trying to understand my family. So, I was in conflict a lot. By trying to understand my family and learning to accept our differences as well as understand them, my relationship with my family especially my younger sister has improved a lot. I talk to my sister more frequently, I've bonded with my brothers and gotten over all of my angsty issues with my parents. I've learned to love them all to death. If you're having difficulties with your family whether you be a child or a parent, ask yourself, "What can I do to understand them better?" I guarantee that if you do your best things will get better. 

Sources: Alexander, G.M., Wilcox, T. & Woods, R. Sex Differences in Infants’ Visual Interest in Toys. Arch Sex Behav 38, 427–433 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9430-1;

Gerianne M Alexander, Melissa Hines,

Sex differences in response to children's toys in nonhuman primates (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus)

Evolution and Human Behavior,

Volume 23, Issue 6,

2002,

Pages 467-479,

ISSN 1090-5138,

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00107-1.

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513802001071);