Is the frequency of sex negotiable?

is-the-frequency-of-sex-negotiable

Love is the answer to all questions? Not quite. She also represents quite a few. Again, psychologist and couple therapist Oskar Holzberg cares about an exciting question again.

But always! And again and again! Because, counter question: Why should not sex be negotiable?

Because not only sex is a matter of negotiation

Here again, in all clarity: Our relationships are a matter of negotiation. In it’s entirety. We can spend our whole marriage in the role play “Mistress and Slave”, we can never put a loud word together or argue 24/7. We can have any form of relationship with each other. Nothing is given. We can – yes, we have to – negotiate everything. Of course, this includes our sexuality.

We question the negotiability of sexuality in the first place because we regard it more as a power of fate. We can experience sex as overwhelming and almost magical. We have no control over our excitement, they do not obey our will. So what should we negotiate if our sexuality does what it wants? On the contrary, our understanding of sex is that pleasure comes over us and then we give in to it.

Portrait of Oskar Holzberg
Oskar Holzberg, 64, has been advising couples in his Hamburg practice for more than 20 years and repeatedly gets relationship questions. His current book is called “New Key Phrases of Love” (242 p., 20 euros, Dumont).

And besides, whisks in the question of how to negotiate because the frequency of sex, still the gender fairy tale aunt in the background. She whispers that the man always wants, can always, and – worse – always has to, and becomes obnoxious when he is not allowed to. Why, when the gender fairy tale aunt had not yet been exposed as such, sexuality was by no means always negotiated. The pastor raised his forefinger and called for compliance with marital duties.

As journalist Daniel Bergner writes in his book The Hidden Lust of Women, it took years for the primate researchers, who watched a baboon herd every day, finally realized that it was not the males that initiated sex, but the females. Before, they had not noticed because the gender fairy tale had clouded their brains. Do not we know from the behavioral researchers also long ago that a flirtation with us humans emanates also from the woman? But it’s hard for us to say goodbye to the man-males being the horny, sex-driven half of the world.

Sex is not just negotiable. Sex is always a matter of negotiation. #MeToo is the exclamation point. And in good, long-term relationships, there is always a negotiation for “sex worth wanting” (sex worth wishing).

Pay attention to your feelings

We open ourselves to the erotic needs of others as long as our own needs are respected. We can engage in sex, get aroused and seduced. We can consciously choose to have sex in the hope that we will approach each other again. We can even arrange that we always have sex as soon as one of us feels like it. But at the latest, if he lets us sit with the children for three weekends in a row, this deal will burst. Yes, sex is negotiable, even in its frequency. But not by shaking our iPads and entrusting our lawyer with ever designing a contract. Sex is negotiated emotionally. Because sexuality can not be separated from our feelings.

And that’s why sex is not negotiated as well as the holiday budget, but forever like the first kiss. You remember?