Welcome to The Weekend Sexperiment! Each Friday, I alternate between The Weekend Sexperiment and Reader’s Request Fridays. In TWS posts, I offer a simple sex therapy homework assignment to try out over the weekend. Some experiments are geared towards couples, but others are suitable for single folks. As always, please feel free to contact me if you have a certain topic you’d like to see covered. If you’re interested in more Sexperiments, call (415) 658-5738 or visit my Appointments page to schedule a Sexploration Session.

After my Lifehacker Q&A on Monday, two things were abundantly clear: 1.) I need to do these kinds of live sessions again, and 2.) it’s extremely difficult for us to acknowledge how important sex is. Sex is practically everywhere we look; we’re bombarded by it on a daily basis. And yet for as exposed as we are to sex, most of us can’t allow ourselves to be honest about our sexual needs and desires.

I heard from a lot of people, both during and after the Q&A, who desperately wanted to change something about their sex lives. They were struggling with unwanted fantasies, uninterested partners, painful sex, body issues, and sexual insecurities. I answered their questions and doled out plenty of advice, but the response I heard most frequently was, “I’m not sure I could let myself actually do that.” So for example, “I hate that my husband never goes down on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him to do it.” I think that this hesitance comes from trying to downplay the importance of our sex lives.

We have a lot of different resistances to acknowledging and valuing our sexual needs. Some people think asserting their sexual needs would make them come off as “perverts”, “sluts”, or “sex addicts”. Others are afraid of hurting or being hurt by their partners. Many are fearful of rejection. “What if I ask for oral sex and my husband tells me that’s gross?” “What if I tell my girlfriend I miss having sex with her and she shuts down even more?”

There’s a sort of “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” dynamic that surfaces. We know the pain that already accompanies not getting what we need, but we don’t know what could happen if we went after what we actually wanted.

Resistance is a difficult thing to overcome, especially when it comes to a topic as sensitive as sex. But I think there’s one crucial question you can ask yourself here:

What would it be like if you continued living your entire life this way?

What would it be like if you spent your entire life hiding some aspect of your sexuality?
What would it be like if you spent your entire life feeling ashamed?
What would it be like if you spent your entire life having sex that was boring, infrequent, or unpleasurable?
What would it be like if you spent your entire life not having open conversations about sex?
What would it be like if you spent your entire life having sex only once a month or once a year?

Actually imagine yourself at the end of your life, looking back at decades of the same sexual dynamics playing out over and over and over again. What would it feel like to have a lifetime’s worth of regret, sadness, and pain?

So this weekend, your Sexperiment is to be bold and brave! Allow yourself to be truly and authentically honest about what you want and need when it comes to sex. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I need from myself when it comes to sex?
• What do I need from my partner when it comes to sex?
• What do I want my sex life to look like?
• What holds me back from being honest about my needs?
• What one step, no matter how small, can I take TODAY to help me move towards the sex life I so deeply and desperately desire?

If I can be of any help in taking that step, you know where to find me!