A healthy sex life, and consistently fulfilling and remarkable sex, is not something that just happens on accident. It would be like assuming an extremely muscular person just happened to end up that way. No, it was the result of a lot of work, planning, and most importantly, time spent honing their craft. That's the approach towards sex that we need to have, because expecting it to be great without working at it doesn't make much sense.
Remarkable sex is something to achieve: a goal, not something that is a natural given.
It seems like common sense, but it is common sense that is backed up by numerous research studies.
In “How Implicit Theories of Sexuality Shapes Sexual Well-Being,” Maxwell et al. demonstrated that there were essentially two types of people. There were people who had sexual growth beliefs, and there were people with sexual destiny beliefs.
What is the difference between the two? Those with a growth belief imagined sexual satisfaction to be honed a skill, which required hard work and a certain amount of time, and those with a destiny belief imagined sexual satisfaction to be capped and predestined with a certain partner, and that there was nothing they could do to improve it save getting a different partner.
Well, guess which group showed consistently higher satisfaction in their sex lives? The sexual growth belief group - those who saw sex as a task to master, and subsequently spent time to improve and master it. It shows that people who believe in the power of change will be motivated and have something to work towards, benefits their sex lives. They are rewarded by discovery, exploration, discussion, and communication, whereas those with the sexual destiny belief won engage in any of that.
They, on the other hand, will do nothing. They believe their sex life is as-is, and see a sexual problem, inadequacy, misunderstanding, or deficiency as a sign that they are with the wrong partner. Instead of trying to fix the problem, they see it as a black and white spectrum. If the sex is great, the relationship is right; if the sex is mediocre or bad, the relationship is wrong. Those with the sexual growth belief are more adaptable and compromising, and some might say more realistic and less idealistic and romantic.
Maxwell said, “Your sex life is like a garden, and it needs to be watered and nurtured to maintain it.” Indeed, the research agrees and people who are committed to the work instead of jumping ship at the slightest sign of mediocrity are rewarded with remarkable sex lives.
Bohns et al., in another study, articulated another wrinkle in how a good sex life was created. He found that people who believed that sexual attraction in itself could be cultivated and strengthened had better sex lives because it was a microcosm- as a series of problems to fix and work on, versus judgmental all-or-nothing thinking. If there was a problerv, solutions would be sought instead of suspecting that the entire relationship was at fault.
In a sense, it is like a house with broken plumbing. You can either invest the time and effort to fix the plumbing and live there happily, or find a new house altogether. However, there is no guarantee that the plumbing, electricity, or gas will work there either! It’s a case of the sexual grass being greener on the other side of the fence.
Let's suppose that Jonathan wants to indulge in more fantasies, but his partner Marcy is more self-conscious and doesn’t want to dress up as a zombie nurse. To each their own, but let's illustrate the two paths that Jonathan can take here. He can either accept that his fantasies will never be fulfilled and see it as a deal-breaker and move on from the relationship with a sexual destiny belief, or he can help Marcy through her confidence issues and discover creative ways to fulfill his fantasies, while also keeping her comfort able with a sexual growth belief.
The same can be said of relationships in general. Those who don’t have the expectation of perfection and absolute fulfillment without the work are consistently happier and more fulfilled with their partners because they have the right expectations.
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