Pressure Hooker
Posted by fxckfeelings on June 3, 2013
No one controls the nature of their sexual needs, including their strength, timing, and target, but we all have reason to control what we do with them. That’s why “I couldn’t help it” is never a convincing alibi, for either sexual indiscretion or disinterest, because even the most impulsive and passive people can manage their impulses with enough effort. Sooner or later, the difference between getting sexual satisfaction and being a good partner creates a conflict that tests your ability to remember and act on your values, regardless of where your needs want to take you. That’s when you need to find the strength to “help it,” whether it is your needs, your relationship, and/or yourself.
–Dr. Lastname
The last thing I want to do is hurt my wife, but I’ve always had a taste for sex with prostitutes, even though it costs more money than I can afford, and getting married two years ago didn’t made a difference to my bad habits. My wife works hard and we pool our incomes, so she hasn’t noticed that we have less money than might be expected from the salary I make. I hate myself when I do it, and I don’t much enjoy it, so I can’t figure out why I haven’t been able to stop. I guess I’m an impulsive person, because there are corners I cut at work that might get me fired and I haven’t been able to stop that either. I must have a deep desire to get myself into trouble. My goal is to figure out what’s wrong with me and be more normal.
The biggest reason not to waste your time trying to figure out why you can’t stop spending money you don’t have on prostitutes is that you’ve already got your answer; you’re an impulsive guy, always have been, even when it fucked up your self-interest and ran against your moral values. You’re like Columbo, knowing who the perp is all along (but that makes you the guilty party, as well).
Being called impulsive isn’t meant as criticism, just a description of a big problem that usually remains a mystery when anyone tries to explain it, or understand why one person has it and another doesn’t. The question isn’t why–the answer to that is the same as to the answer to “why are whores so pricey?,” because life’s unfair–but what to do about it.
An obvious way to begin is to assess the trouble your bad habits are causing now and in the future and then remind yourself regularly of that assessment. Put an exact figure on how much money prostitutes cost you a month and try to figure out what will happen to your marriage if your wife discovers it. While you’re at it, be realistic about the risk of losing your job because of other bad habits. Then, after doing the financial and moral accounting, decide for yourself whether it’s worth making a big effort to improve your control.
Remember, you’re not just fighting your habits, but all the tricky ways you’ve developed over the years for ignoring and discounting them; you have ways of being inattentive to consequences that have wormed their way into your character, put your conscience to sleep, and warped your personality by losing the fight to stop doing things that you believe are wrong. On the other hand, your goal isn’t just to stop doing bad things; it’s to strengthen your character to the point that you can trust and respect yourself.
If you’re still with me, the next step is to buy a calendar and keep an exact daily record of your behavior regarding any of the habits you’ve decided to change, leaving no room for qualitative comments like “I just slipped for a few minutes.” Before beginning, define what you’re going to record in exact, factual terms that are black and white, yes or no, did it or didn’t. Forcing yourself to keep track of your behavior is like calorie counting, except you’re forcing yourself to confront overdoing it with hookers instead of cake.
Finally, find a coach or coaches, professional or otherwise, with whom you can describe your mission and share your accomplishments and setbacks. Twelve-step groups are great if you can find one that focuses on sexual addiction, ditto for a therapist. Then make it your goal to control whatever habits you consider bad and dangerous, and get going.
You will never find the answer to where your impulses come from, but you may well discover the strength to manage them, meet your own standards, and become a man whom you and your wife can trust. Start by confronting reality, not your mind’s skewed version of the truth, and you’ll be on the way to hanging up your trench coat in no time.
STATEMENT:
“I often feel like there’s nothing wrong with me other than a few impulsive slips that no one seems to notice, but I know, rationally, that those slips are harmful and dangerous to my staying married and employed. They sure don’t make me like myself. I’m determined to make a major, lifelong investment in managing and changing them.”
I’ve got a wonderful relationship with my boyfriend and I expect we’ll get married someday, but meanwhile our sex life sucks and it’s my fault. I’m just not interested in having sex with him. I thought it might be because I’m a very anxious person and I was drinking too much, but I was able to stop drinking and now I’m even more anxious and feel even less like sex. It’s not that I lack a sex drive—I continue to be a fairly highly sexed guy when I think about anyone else—but I never feel like having sex with him. He’s very understanding, but I feel sorry that we don’t have a better sex life, given that we’re young, otherwise horny, and very compatible. My goal is to get my mojo back, particularly with him.
What matters in a committed sexual relationship is the commitment, not the sex; being committed to someone means promising not to have sex with anyone else, not promising to have sex with that someone with any regularity. If this relationship wasn’t working, it would’ve ended long ago, but you’ve stuck with your partner in spite of not finding him hot, and he’s stuck with you in spite of his unmet sexual needs. That lets you know you’ve got the right kind of interpersonal glue for a real-deal long-term relationship that won’t be easily derailed by a wandering eye, let alone a flaccid penis.
Like the guy in the case above, trying to figure out the source of your impulses is not a mystery you or any shrink is likely to solve, at least not in a way that will give you the passion you want when you want it (or where you want it, anatomically).
So the question is what to do about the problem when you know that it won’t solve itself. The good news is that your strong love protects you from having to worry about losing your partnership. The bad news is that not having to worry about losing your partnership allows you to tolerate the status quo indefinitely, to the relationship’s peril.
After auditing the give-and-take of your relationship, decide whether it’s meaningful for you, as a good partner, to give him some sexual satisfaction even when you don’t feel like it. Forget about all the magazine articles you’ve read about your right to sexual pleasure, because that’s nowhere in the Bill of Rights, the Bible, or your cell phone contract. Instead, accept your sad lot and decide whether living up to your commitment as a partner requires you to do the deed on some kind of regular basis, even if doing so requires you to close your eyes and think of Queen Victoria (or a more contemporary queen, like Sharon Needles).
If you decide that giving him sexual pleasure is important and meaningful, regardless of whether you enjoy it, then it’s time to try. As in the case above, you’ll probably discover you’ve developed habits for side-stepping and avoiding what you don’t like doing, so you’ll need to be very concrete and literal with yourself if you want to make sex happen. Set yourself a weekly goal and see whether you can meet your quota. If not, you will need the same habit-building strategies described above.
At least for now, spontaneous sexual attraction is probably not an option. There’s nothing stopping you, however, from giving pleasure to someone you love and meeting your own standards for being a good partner. With a little luck, once you get over avoiding it you might actually start enjoying it, or at least enjoying fulfilling a commitment to someone you love.
STATEMENT:
“I feel perplexed by the paradoxical disappearance of my sex drive with the one person I care about most, but it’s a mystery I doubt I’ll ever solve. My job now is to figure out my own definition of partnership and live up to it.”
