Two hundred and thirty seven – that’s how many reasons there are for having sex, according to a study published a year ago.
Ranging from ‘establishing intimacy’ to ‘making somebody else feel bad’ to ‘relieving tension’, they fit every motivation under the sun, and then some.
But a new behavioural study has shown that there are really only four reasons for getting intimate – and tracking which ones motivate you most often can reveal what’s really happening in your bedroom.
The way the system works? There are two main focuses – behaviour focussed on yourself, and behaviour focussed on your partner. The first is ‘I want to eat this ice cream because it will make me feel good’. The second is ‘I want to buy this ice cream because my partner loves it’.
Following? Ok. Now divide each of these into two sections: Avoidance and Approach.
These sound abstract and technical, but really they’re simple terms for pretty ordinary behaviour – actions to mend or foster intimacy (‘approach’) and actions to avoid or delay negative outcomes (‘avoidance’).
So the four types are: self-focussed approach, partner-focussed approach, self-focussed avoidance and partner-focussed avoidance.
This is beginning to sound like a therapist’s party game, but some of these are, obviously, healthier than others.
Self-focussed approach is getting intimate because you want pleasure, while partner-focussed approach is doing it because you want that for your partner. Self-focussed avoidance is trickier, but it’s avoiding feeling as if you’re a bad person for not feeling up to it; partner-focussed avoidance is wanting to avoid making them feel bad or angry.
There are other reasons – to get revenge, get over an ex or keep up with your friends – but generally speaking, any motivation that’s not actually focussed on you or your partner ain’t a good one.
The key thing about these four reasons? They seriously affect the kind of result you get in the bedroom. They’ve been shown to correlate to pleasure levels, orgasm and all-over enjoyment.
Approaches are better for everybody’s satisfaction because they bring good feelings to the table, the study says. Avoidance, however, is typically brought up in divorce cases. Case closed.
If you’re unsure about how your current partnership is going, keep a diary of your motivations every time you get busy for a while- and be honest. If you sense a difficult pattern – avoiding conflict, wanting not to feel guilty, feeling bad that you’re depriving them – it’s time to address it.
Ideally, the best connection should be both self- and partner-focussed approaches, where you want their pleasure as much as your own. Work towards that, and you’ll have something truly solid between the sheets.
Lady Friday xx
Taking the pillow talk out of the bedroom, every Friday…
