Sexual Schizophrenia—Unrealized Expectations

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In my Human Sexuality text, The Sexual Person, I covered the mechanics of sex, but not the dynamics, the equipment but not how to use it effectively. Sexual intimacy is a far more complex subject than can be covered in a lecture or two. It is really too complex to do it justice in a blog. But I'll try.

Human sexuality is the field of human behavior that was my primary interest and therefore focus during my academic career. My particular area of research was the adult film industry, especially its evolution during the eight decades from 1920 to 1990, from 8 mm and 16 mm black and white 15 to 20 minute shorts to 35 mm+ feature length and studio quality films in color to be shown in first run theaters, and finally through the advent of video productions.

American culture is sexually schizophrenic. Movies began pushing the envelope of explicit sex in wide-audience films in the 1970s; Last Tango in Paris is an example. TV began to show sanitized sexual coupling in the mid 1980s but did not reach a similar but more limited degree of the explicitness of movies until the new century.

Granted most of my viewing was of soft and hard-core pornography but I have also watched a few mainstream movies and recent TV shows for standards of comparison. Without having to look very far, today's mainstream moviegoer and TV watcher can see scenes of partial nudity (rarely full nudity) and partially revealed sexual behavior. Unfortunately all of the samples I've watched of general audience productions and pornography, sexual response and pleasure are idealized, creating expectations that are foreign to the experience of too many couples and contribute to the frustration or dissatisfaction that one or both feel about their sexual relationship. I know that some sex therapists recommend that the couple watch adult videos to enhance desire but there are only a few productions especially made for couples. The majority are made for men, a small number for women, only a very few show effective communication and suggest ways of mutual pleasuring. They are produced by sex therapists expressly for sex therapy. These are the only ones I recommend. Tomorrow: Children and Sex

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