As we learned from Betsy and Warren Talbot, being honest about your feelings and thoughts with your partner is hard enough. But about sex? That will send even the chattiest of couples into an awkward silence.
Yet a satisfying sexual relationship is so crucial to our overall wellbeing, not to mention the wellbeing of our relationship. Why can’t we talk about sex? And how could we learn to?
Zhana Vrangalova is doing a PhD at Cornell University, focusing on casual sex and a group called “mostly straights.” A native of Macedonia, she’s the author of the book The Mystery of Sexual Orientation: Contemporary Concepts and Macedonian Perspectives. It was a progressive book for the country, where homosexual behaviors were illegal in the recent past.
Below, Vrangalova explains the research on honesty around sex and how we can overcome some of the reservations that hold us back.
Honesty Experiment: Has there been research about how honest communication affects sex life?
Zhana Vrangalova: The research has definitely shown that being more open with your partner improves your sexual satisfaction and your relationship satisfaction. There are some models that posit that it’s because of two different things. One, you get this instrumental value because when you tell your partner what you like or don’t like sexually, they get to know what you like or don’t like and you get what you want. In that sense, you directly benefit from this more open sexual communication, to have a more satisfying sexual life.
But there’s also what they call the expressive pathway, or the expressive benefit – which is, you’re simply increasing the intimacy and the closeness with your partner by sharing such very deep, intimate, private information. And that in and of itself, regardless of what the topic is – it doesn’t have to be about sex, but sex is a particularly private area of our lives – really brings you closer. And that intimacy that is created then impacts your levels of intimacy and general relationship satisfaction and functioning in positive ways.
Honesty Experiment: Why are we so hesitant to be honest about our sexual desires?
Vrangalova: It’s a taboo topic in many ways. We’re not really taught to talk about it with anyone. So people often don’t have the vocabulary to talk about it; they feel uncomfortable.
Also, there is some level of risk to opening up. You are placing yourself in a vulnerable position. You’re disclosing something very personal that – because there are all these negative, stereotypical, judgmental views around sex, especially if your desires fall outside that box of what is normal and acceptable – then you are placing yourself in a position of maybe being judged or humiliated or not accepted by your partner for your desires. So there’s always that risk, and sometimes that could happen. You tell your partner, “Oh, I’m really into some heavy bondage,” and they’re like, “Yeah, no, that’s weird.”
Honesty Experiment: What factors influence how comfortable someone feels about talking about sex?
Vrangalova: There’s a lot of individual characteristics that influence that: obviously, how comfortable with your sexuality you are, and that can be influenced by a lot of different things, like religiosity. Religious people and people who grew up with conservative backgrounds are less comfortable talking about sexual issues. Also, people who worry a lot, people who are high on anxiety – they are a little more likely to feel more afraid about what’s going to happen, of the consequences of sharing.
Honesty Experiment: Is part of the problem that people don’t understand themselves?
Vrangalova: Sure. We live in a society that teaches us to not be very sexual, especially if you listen to schools and parents and churches. All we’re supposed to do about sex is say no to it until we get to a certain age, and then all of the sudden we’re supposed to be sexual mavericks who know everything about sex and are able to satisfy our partners and be great about it.
It doesn’t work that way. It’s a process of development that people need to go through, of discovering their bodies and what feels good and what doesn’t feel good, and what kind of partners work for them and don’t work. And some people just haven’t gone through that.
I think it’s especially hard on women to figure it out, which is why we often see and hear that women’s sexual awakening doesn’t happen until their 30s or late 20s, because they need more time to shake away all the social baggage that says you can’t be sexual just for the purpose of being sexual.
So not knowing what people want sexually is a big part of it, and being ashamed to talk about it for the fear of being rejected [is another].
Honesty Experiment: How can people communicate better around sex?
Vrangalova: Everyone has to decide when is the best time to do that and how. But there are just so many ways you could go about it. Often you could be very explicit – you could sit down your partner and say, “This is what I want. This is what I don’t want.” And often you could express your desires very clearly during the sexual act without saying much: just move the hand to the part of the body that you like touched without writing an essay about it.
The general advice is be open. That also shows trust in your partner, and that is something that you want to nurture in a relationship.
Honesty Experiment: Are there ways society could encourage more honest communication around sex?
Vrangalova: Yeah, but it would require major changes in how society views sexuality to begin with. I think we still live in a society that’s very ambivalent about sex. On one hand we do have all this crazy porn that’s easily available, and on the other hand we have conservatives trying to restrict access to birth control and abortion, to stop comprehensive sex education in schools. Slut shaming is alive and well in many pockets of America.
So it would really require a major shift to accepting sexuality as something that is a normal, natural part of who we are as human beings – and not only normal and natural, but something that can be a very positive force and not something to be ashamed of or humiliated about. So any way that media or a blog or a project of any kind can be a sex-positive influence in people’s lives would lead to people feeling more comfortable opening up with their partners and friends and families.
I think we’re slowly improving. We’ll see how far we get.
The Honesty Experiment 