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As a sex educator and author, my job – my purpose in life – is teaching women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. My latest book, Come Together, is all about the science (and art!) of sex in long term relationships.
Since I published the book, one of the biggest topics I’m asked about in email and at events is sexual incompatibility. Here’s what I think people should know.
Is there an ideal or aim when it comes to sexual compatibility?
The only standard I use is that everybody involved needs to be glad to be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences (including no emotional consequences, such as “Aw, c’mon, you said you would!”), plus no unwanted pain.
If there’s an “ideal”, it’s that everyone turns toward whatever’s happening with curiosity, compassion and a sense of play. That means, for example, however long orgasm takes, everyone feels curious and playful about that time, rather than judgmental or worried. If erection isn’t happening, everyone feels curious and playful about it, rather than judgmental or worried. Most of what we call “incompatibility” is actually two people having scripts in their head about how sex is supposed to work and those scripts being different. Most of the time, it’s the scripts that are incompatible, not the actual humans trying to connect with each other.
There is such a thing as genuine incompatibility, where one partner really wants to explore something that another partner, after curious, playful, compassionate consideration, feels is just not for them. In that case, partners move on to discussing whether that first partner is fine just fantasizing about the thing or if the second partner feels comfortable with the first partner exploring with other people. There’s no right or wrong – beyond everyone being glad to be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences – there’s just what works for this couple, in this season of their lives.
This incompatibility might be happening in a relationship where people are not just sex partners, they’re householding partners or co-parents. Most sexual incompatibilities are far less important in people’s lives than those other collaborations, so it’s rare for sex to be the reason an otherwise strong relationship ends.
In my opinion, the only exception is if the “incompatibility” is something as significant as “Oh wow, I have just now realized that I’m gay and, since we’re in a straight relationship, I’m never going to love or desire you the way I was raised to believe I was supposed to. Turns out the reason our sex life isn’t what we both thought it would be is that I’m attracted to people who aren’t your gender.” I have absolutely met married couples where one partner realized they were gay and they were really trying to make it work anyway, and honestly it’s heartbreaking to watch the damage that does to both partners.
What if only one partner feels there is an incompatibility?
If one partner feels there’s an incompatibility, there is an incompatibility, right? One person’s interests or desires are not being integrated into the sexual connection and that person feels the lack.
What do you do? The same thing you do when you feel a disconnection in any other domain of any relationship: talk about it. If a partner really wants to quit their job but feels like they can’t because of the money, or if one person wants to go back to work but feels they can’t because of childcare issues, or one partner really wants to spend less time cleaning and cooking but needs their partner’s help to make that happen … these are all common situations where one person’s interests or desires are not being integrated into the relationship. What would you do in that situation? Talk about it, right? Assuming both partners have decent communication skills, you would talk about it without blame or judgment, but rather with kindness and compassion and a mutual interest in helping each other feel as fulfilled as possible, given the resources available to you at the time.
In any of those examples, if one partner says: “I’m experiencing this sense of disconnection and I’d like to create a change,” there’s no situation where the other person can just say, “No, everything is fine – your sense of disconnection is an illusion.” People feel what they feel, and our partners don’t get to tell us whether or not we feel something.
Of course, people get into these situations because they struggle to communicate about sex. That’s no surprise – how many of us ever have the opportunity to LEARN how to talk about sex? Which brings us to ...
What if I am too embarrassed to discuss sexual incompatibility?
It’s common for people to feel more comfortable having sex with someone than they feel talking about sex with that same someone. The two most common barriers people face when they want to talk to a partner about their shared sex life are (a) they’re worried they might say something that will shock and horrify their partner or (b) they’re worried they might hurt their partner’s feelings. The goal of this kind of conversation is to invite greater connection, and these worries are accidentally creating more distance.
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The shortcut to learning to talk about sex is to have a few sessions with a sex therapist, whose job is to model and teach effective communication around these sensitive issues. The slightly longer approach is to read all the high quality, evidence-informed sexuality books you can get your hands on and talk about them together. A new book I highly recommend – apart from my own books of course [confident hair flip] – is Good Sex by Candice Nicole Hargons.
What if there is sexual incompatibility due to a physical change like menopause?
One of the gifts of a long term relationship is we get to be with our partner as their body changes, and they get to be with us as our body changes! These changes are entirely predictable, if we have the good fortune of living long enough to experience them. Hormonal changes, body changes, illness, disability: these are guaranteed parts of aging. I won’t go so far as to suggest that we celebrate these changes, necessarily – there’s a lot of inconvenience and discomfort that comes from the basic process of aging, and pain and grief often goes with illness and disability. But all bodies deserve and are capable of pleasure. And pleasure is the ultimate measure of sexual wellbeing. Explore ways to share pleasure together, regardless of whether or not you’re doing sex the way a random stranger would say you’re “supposed” to be having sex.
If you got into a long term relationship expecting your body or your partner’s body and energy levels would stay the same forever, I don’t know what to tell you. Aging is not a sign of poor discipline – it’s the inevitable consequence of the passage of time.
You love each other, right? And you value the connection you share, right? Great! Share pleasure together! The flip side of “everyone is glad to be there and free to leave, with no unwanted consequences, plus no unwanted pain” is: you are allowed to do literally anything everyone is glad to do. You want to hump your partner’s armpit? Go for it. They want to lick the back of your knee or the instep of your foot? Amazing. You want to cover both your bodies in almond oil and roll around like puppies wrestling? Super. There are no rules, there is no script, there is just your bodies and minds and all the ways you can find to share pleasure.
The couples who sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term are not necessarily couples who have sex often or have many orgasms or have wildly adventurous sex. They have three characteristics:
1. They are friends who admire and trust each other.
2. They prioritize sex because they feel it contributes something valuable to their relationship, so when their erotic connection ebbs, they’re motivated to find their way back to each other and that special thing they feel sex contributes.
3. They recognize they’ve been following somebody else’s rules for who they’re supposed to be as sexual people and how they’re supposed to conduct a sexual relationship. They then decide to stop following those rules and start really exploring what’s true for themselves, what’s true about their partner, and what’s right for their sexual connection in this season of their lives.
I’m not saying that’s always easy – that last one in particular is a life-long project – but it is the path that gets you to the kind of sex that turns the universe into rainbows, and worth having as a shared hobby in your relationship.
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Emily Nagoski PhD is a bestselling author and has been a sex educator for more than 25 years
