Enhancing Sexual Intimacy in Marriage and Navigating Desire Differences
— November 12, 2022—
Ty
I imagine that that's true for a lot of people because, for some reason, I don't know if it's just a Western thing or what, but we have a lot of anxiety, I think, around sexuality. When I was in fifth grade, somebody, one of the other kids in my class, asked me if I was a virgin. I didn't know what that was, and you don't want to be something that you don't even know what it is. And so, I was like, “No.” They’re like, “What?” And I was like, “Wait, wait, wait, tell me what it is.” And so, they… Anyway, I recovered, I think. In sixth grade, somebody asked me another word that I had also never heard, and I was not going to make that mistake again. And so, I went home and asked my mom what this thing was, and her eyes got really big. And my sister started laughing. And then, my dad came in the room and got mad because I asked them and not him. And I was like, “I'm done with all of this, I'm never talking to any of you ever again.” So, as a sixth grader, I determined that, whatever all these things were that had something to do with sex, I would never be talking to my family about them. So, I determined that through all of high school, and questions, and things like that, that I was going to bear that one alone. And then, through college, and graduated. Moved to DC for a couple of years, and that's why I decided to go back to school in family therapy. Got my master's in family therapy, become a licensed therapist, and working on my doctorate. And this is when Danielle and I met. And again, I had never had a single conversation with either of my parents post that conversation. And anyway, so my dad… I’m 32 when Danielle and I get married, and my dad still wanted to take that fatherly privilege to have ‘the talk,’ And I'm a practicing sex therapist by now. And my dad says… So, he goes to the, and he buys a book on sex, and mails it to me in Texas with a note he says, “I realized we never had the talk, I hope it's not too late.” And I was like, “Dad, you're like decades…” But I just thought, “That's really sweet and kind of sad at the same time,” because he just really, really wanted to be able to have a sex talk. And he still didn't, he just bought me a book that wasn't even that good, mind you. Didn't even feel comfortable using the S-word, it just kept talking about intimacy, which, as we talked about today, is a problem when we use that term euphemistically for sex when it's so much bigger than that. And so, we want to talk… So Heidi and I were, again, we're going to tag team a little bit. I want to just kind of do a deep dive because one of the things that I never really understood, especially with the way our media narratives talk about sex, or the messages, that it's just natural, and spontaneous, and explosive, and it's going to be that way for the rest of your life if you find the right person, are all fundamentally anti-science, not true, etc. And so, a lot of the stuff that Heidi and I are goint to talk about are based on the research of a gentleman named David Shnart. And one of the things that he said that I've always… I was at a workshop with him a few years ago, he's passed away now. But he said, “We use this term ‘sexual prime.’” And when you hear the term sexual prime, when we talk about a male sexual prime, or a female sexual prime, what are we talking about? It's not rhetorical. I'm curious to know, what do you hear when you hear those terms? When is a man's sexual prime? I didn’t hear what you said, what did you say?
Unknown Speaker
I said always.
Ty
Always. Late teens, early 20s. When is a woman's sexual prime? Yeah, like late 20s, early 30s. And he made the comment, he's like, “Especially for men, if the sexual prime is your late teens, early 20s, when we're really immature, and awkward, and graspy, and it's all downhill from there.” He's like, “That's a really miserable…” He's like “Sexuality is just like a cruel joke.” And he said physiological or genital prime might be when you're 19 or 20, or late teens, early to early… Early 20s, early 30s for women. But if you do sex right, your sexual prime can be when you're 90. And it sort kind of opened up this whole conversation around the possibilities of sex and sexual intimacy as a discipline of development, as a discipline of love, as a discipline, of nurturing, growth, and all of these things that our popular media narratives just don't really care a lot about and certainly don't communicate. And so, this is sort of the direction we want to take, but we're going to deep dive into this. So Richard Snart, the same… Or David Shnart, sorry, when he did a survey, an informal study, this wasn't a formal study, but he had a pretty large following for a number of years. And when he put it out, he eventually had about 60,000 respondents. And he just asked a number of questions. And my only lament about this is, when he reported the results, he didn't differentiate by stage of the relationship or by gender, just kind of general answers to a number of questions that I think paint a very interesting picture of the realities of what's happening in the sex lives of Western adults. And so, I'm just going to put this up, and I want you just to think. As I put the question up, what would you imagine the response to these being? And then, we're going to look at these and then we're going to dive into some ideas that I want to talk about and put on the table as part of a discussion because I realized that this is a topic that is kind of fraught. There are some of you who this is a real pain point in your relationship, and there's other people in the room for whom it's a non-issue, and a spectrum in between. And so, I'm sensitive that, A) That this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people. And 2) That there's a wide diversity even in this room. So, a lot of this is just about sort of realizing in the sense of making it real, disillusioning what is happening in the world, and kind of situating ourselves within that. So, “How often do you and your partner have sex on average?” And again, what's the right answer that you would hear? What do people say? And this is just, again, experiential along a spectrum. So, 9% said four or five times a week, 30% said once or twice a week, 32%; once or twice a month, 18%; several times a year, 11%; not in the last year. That's a pretty broad swath, especially, I think probably a dominant narrative out there is that you're supposed to be having sex several times a week, right? Or, at least, at a minimum, once a week or you're doing it wrong, that kind of thing. But again, none of this is to say what's right or wrong, it's just what's out there, what's happening. And I would suspect with a lot of these, and this is why I wish he had reported these based on, again, stage because, I think, of some of these questions, what's happening in the honeymoon stage, which on average is about the first two years of the relationship, the honeymoon stage, the passion stage, the infatuation stage, different models call it different things, but it's always, on average, about two years. And then, you have these different stages of marriage that things can look very differently in very different stages. And so, the next question: “What are the longest periods you have gone without having sex?” Actually, I have two couples that I'm working with right now, heterosexual couples who are… There's no sexual component, who one of them hasn't had sex in eight years, and one of them has not had sex in about 12 years for different reasons, but really long periods of time. The longest for 11%, and again, I think this is still probably the honeymoon phase, was a week, 21% had been two to three weeks, 28%; one to two months, 20%; three to six months, and then, 20%; seven months to a year or more. So, a fifth of couples, there have been pretty long periods in their relationship without going, without having sex. “Just how passionate and erotic is your sexual relationship?” 5%: If it got any hotter, the bed might catch on fire. And again, I think that's our honeymooners, probably, I would guess. 18%; sex is pretty steamy. 49%, almost half; sex if friendly, but predictable and uninspired, lacking in creativity and spontaneity. And then, 15%; sex is passionless, mechanical, and non-erotic. And then, 12%; sex is non-existent. Then, for whatever reason, I'm not exactly sure why, but the percentage of ‘we're not having sex’ changes a little bit, but it's usually somewhere between like nine and 12. “How much intimacy and emotional connection is present when you have sex?” 9%; sex is non existent. 13%; there is no joining, I spend most of my time fantasizing about other partners or thinking about other things. 31%; sex is mostly trading orgasms. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. 30%; sex is a little personal, but not much of who I really am, or who I am sexually never really shows up. And then, that was 30%. And then, 17%; sexes and intense meeting of minds and souls and not just our bodies. “Do you and your partner structure your relationship to avoid sex and intimacy?” I think this is an interesting one. 11%; we sleep in different bedrooms. 14%; we go to bed at different times to avoid having sex. 24%; we go to bed at the same time, but there's no physical or emotional connection between us. 31%; we go to bed at the same time and connect, but it rarely leads to sex. And then, finally, 21%; we go to bed at the same time and use it as a time to connect including sexually. “How often do you and your partner kiss during sex?” This was an amazing one to me. I'm like, “Do people do that?” I just didn't really think that was a thing, I mean, to not. My wife and I kiss occasionally. So, the answers. Again, 8%; we never have sex, 21%; we rarely kiss when we have sex. That is amazing to me. And then, 13%; we kiss at least once. 16%; we kiss at least once… Am I losing? And then, 43%; we kiss multiple times in almost every sexual encounter. But the fact that over half, it's not every time, I just think that's… What are you doing? That's just an interesting… This is an interesting one as well. “Do you and your partner ever have eyes open sex?” 8%; we never have sex. 20%; one or both of us keeps our eyes closed during sex. Just don't want to look at each other, can't look at each other. Don't want to be looked at during sex, that's too intimate, too vulnerable. 13%; we open our eyes but never make eye contact. We're now at almost half. And then, 42%; we sometimes make eye contact during sex. Almost half. And then, finally, 18%; I and or my partner sometimes have orgasms while looking into each other's eyes. “Do you or your partner have sexual dysfunctions, problems with lubrication, or erections, orgasms, things like that?” 7%; we never have sex. 23%; one or both of us frequently have difficulty with arousal and, or orgasms. That's a quarter of individuals, those are big numbers. 24, well, pretty close to that. Another quarter; one or both of us occasionally have difficulty with arousal, and, or orgasms. 18%; I am, and, or my partner is slow to arouse, but once we get started, we don't have any difficulties. And then, 27% -- so only about a quarter roughly -- neither of us have difficulty getting aroused or having orgasms. So, again, some of these things that we think of as normal or ideal are not the norm in relationships. There's actually an interesting book, this is a total aside, but Gabor Maté, who's just a really brilliant thinker on developmental trauma, and human development, developmental trauma. He just recently came out with a book called ‘The Myth of Normal.’ And it kind of explores this idea from a developmental standpoint. So much of what we think of as normal or attribute to normal that leads us into shame and further trauma is just fundamentally not true. And so, the more we understand the realities of human experience, the diversity of human experience complexity, the more we can sort of breathe into it life, recognizing that we're probably far more normal -- even if it is a myth -- we're far more normal than we think we are. “Do you or your partner struggle with low desire to have sex before you start?” So, there's going to be a separate question about do you struggle with low desire after you start. So, struggling with low desire for sex before we start. Again, 8%; we don't because we don't have sex. 12; rarely struggle with low desire. 25%; sometimes struggle with low desire. 24%, a quarter, we usually struggle with low desire. And 31%; we always struggle with low desire. “Do you or your partner have problems with lack of desire during sex?” 16% was never, 24%; rarely, 31%; sometimes, 14%; usually, and then, another 14%; almost always. So you have a good 28%, more than a quarter, usually or always struggle with low desire even during sex. And then, finally, no, this isn't the last one, I think there's two more. Nope, this is the last one. “Select the category that best fits you.” 11%; sex is dead. 25%, a quarter; sex is comatose and in danger of dying. 36%’ sex is asleep and needs a wake-up call. 19%; sex is alive and well. And then, 9%; you have a robust erotic and sexual relationship. So, think, just for a second, Danielle, would you mind bringing my water bottle, I'm curious to know if any of these that were most surprising to you? This isn't rhetorical, I'm curious if there were thoughts, ‘aha’ moments, just reflections on any of this. All of them were surprising? And why do you think? Most of it would have been similar with some minority variations. Thank you. Before, let's see, which one was before. So, almost, always or usually before sex was, what is that, 56%? Before you start. And then, “Do you have problems or struggle with arousal during sex?” Almost, always, or usually is 28%, is almost, always even during. Is that kind of what you were… Yeah, a third; almost always struggle with it before sex. And then, Emily. He doesn't differentiate. And he did a lot of work with LGBT couples, so this would be… He included same-sex couples. What percentage makes up the sample? I don't know. But h didn't differentiate by same-sex, opposite-sex, age, or gender, at least in the results he reported. Anyone else? Danielle. Yeah. Again, this is over 60,000 respondents. So, that's amazing.
Ty
Yeah. And there's lots of reasons why people don't. One of the couples that I'm working with, again, both of them are heterosexual, he's like, “I don't want to have sex with somebody who's criticizing me all the time.” That's a direct quote. And so, again, there's lots of different reasons. Yes?
Ty
Nobody's going to buy this. Nobody wants to tune into this. This is not going to get increased ratings, it's not going to increase viewership, you're not going to get more sponsors with stuff like this. Yeah?
Ty
Yeah. Thank you. Kind of the intention here was just to sort of just paint a picture, at least, to some degree, of what's happening out there. And now, what I want to do is now I want to go through and I want to just sort of define some terms because I think there's some ideas, some things we conflate that are problematic. I think there are some things that I think are important for us to reclaim that I think, to some degree, especially because of scriptural language, to some degree, we have demonized and that I think are… I understand what the scriptures mean, but I think we need to reclaim those terms in the right context. And we'll talk about those. So, there's some key concepts here. We talked a lot about intimacy, I want to spend a lot of time on that. But true intimacy is about seeing into me, about allowing ourselves to be seen and to experience relationship on a deeper, more authentic, and empathic level. That is the definition of true intimacy. The Latin root of the word ‘intimacy’ is initimus, which is just innermost. And that's to let people into my innermost parts. And the root of intimus is interus, which means to go deeper. So, the experience of intimacy is allowing people to see in deeper and deeper layers who I am, and choosing to see other people. D&C 76 is the church of the Firstborn Celestial Society is sort of defined there as a sociality where we see as we are seen, and we know as we are known, having received a fullness. And that's collective. God is calling us to experience deeper intimacy with each other, period, collectively. And there are lots of ways in which we do that. There are lots of different means to intimacy. I actually don't think there are different kinds of intimacy, I think there are qualities of intimacy. I think there's different means of getting there in different kinds of relationships. There's emotional intimacy, intellectual intimacy where I think if you've ever felt closer to someone after having an intellectually stimulating conversation. Aesthetic intimacy; sharing in the beauties of the world. Creative intimacy; sharing acts of creating together. Recreational intimacy; playing together, laughing together. Think of times you felt close to someone just laughing. Work intimacy; closeness in sharing common tasks. Conflict intimacy; facing and struggling with challenges and differences. Now the challenge here is that we often conflate conflict with contention. Conflict is not contention. Some of you may be familiar with this because I've talked about it before, but there's a researcher who is not LDS, accepted a position at Weaver State University teaching business administration classes. He was recorded. Not recorded, he was recruited. He'd been teaching business administration, in Business Administration Programs for 25 years. This was his thing. And as he moved to Utah, again, never taught in Utah, not LDS, not really familiar with LDS culture, he would do these assessments on communication styles and conflict resolution styles. And he noticed that students in Utah were scoring twice as high twice as often for a passive-aggressive communication style. And he's like, “This is amazing. I have never seen anything like it.” And he had some theories as to why that is. And so, he did some additional demographic assessments. And sure enough, Latter-Day Saints raised in Utah had the highest of passive-aggressive communication style. Those of you not raised in Utah, you're not getting too far from this because you were second. Students not raised in Utah where the second highest for passive-aggressive communication style. And then, non-Latter Day Saints raised in Utah, non-Latter Day Saints not raised in Utah, in that order. And he has some theories, because correlation is not causation, but he has some theories as to why that might be. And one of his theories is the idea of if we conflate conflict and contention… The Book of Mormon has some pretty strong words for contention, it's of the devil, if you didn't already know that. And if we conflate those, and so we try to avoid conflict because it's important to be nice all the time, and just smile, and nod, and agree, and do all the things. And they ask you to a call, and you never say no, but then you just still don't do it anyway. You’re just nice. And you can't be a healthy human being and avoid conflict because if my wife and I on our date night, she really has a hankering for Italian, and I want Mexican… Those are too close. If I want sushi, unless we're going to do both, which means neither of us are going to be very good, then we have a conflict. So, how do we address that conflict? Do we address that conflict in ways that we both feel seen, and heard, and valued, and validated, and collaboratively try to come to some kind of win-win solution? If we do conflict resolution well, it actually leads to deeper intimacy. Contention is hostile or dysfunctional conflict resolution process. And so, again, conflict can be a means through which we can experience deeper intimacy. And if you want to grow into this -- we're going to talk about this in a minute -- higher levels of differentiation, which has been really beautifully spoken to by both Megan, and David, and Travis, and Margaret. I’ll kind of frame some of their comments because it really kind of speaks to some really more things. We have to be willing to get into some deep conflict if we are going to grow in the ways that I believe that God is calling us into. And so, crisis intimacy; togetherness and coping with problems and pain. Spiritual intimacy; experiencing uniting and spirits. Now, this is where we're going to start to get closer to romantic relationships because, up to this point, what kinds of relationships can we experience these kinds of intimacy in? All relationships. Now, I would say, in physical intimacy, which also should not be used euphemistically for sex, there's sort of a sub A, sub B kind of thing, because I believe there are expressions of physical intimacy that can be purely platonic, and expressions of physical intimacy that can be, obviously, romantic. My son when he was, I don't know, you remember this, I think we talked about it, like probably 18 months old, just really young, we were still in Texas, and I would often just kind of stay up. He did not sleep well, so I would stay up often and just rock him to sleep. And, at one point, I was just looking in his eyes, and it was this moment of really beautiful connection. We just kind of made this… He's kind of an old soul. And we're just staring into each other's eyes, and he reaches up and strokes my face. So primal. This desire for physical connection, physical closeness, physical intimacy is such a core part of who we are. And that same son, again, touch is one of his love languages. We were at a wedding reception where someone in the community someone we know, never married, and he was there. And we were sitting at a table with him at this reception, and then we all kind of walked out together. And he was so sweet, maybe three or four. Do you remember this conversation? So sweet. He said, “Is he going home to his wife.” He's not married. He's like, “Is he going home to his mommy and daddy?” We’re like, “No, he lives by himself.” And he says, “Then who’s he going to cuddle with when he's watching a show?” It's just this really sweet… Because Gabriel, from the time he was born, some of his first words were, “Cuddle and watch a show, cuddle and watch a show.” So, our nightly ritual was cuddling and watching an episode of Daniel Tiger together. But again, this idea of like, “Who is he going to cuddle with when he's watching…” He just couldn't even imagine, like, who doesn't have people to cuddle with? But again, we need, we hunger for physical connection, including with same-sex individuals. There's a men studies writer, he's heterosexual, and he's written a lot on how the lack of physical connection among men is killing men. And again, he's heterosexual. This is coming at it from this human closeness that because of people, sort of, homophobia, “I don't want to be perceived as gay. I love you, bro, no homo,” we’re afraid of that physical closeness because of how it might be perceived. And he's like, “It is killing men.” We all need physical closeness and connection. And so, to use physical intimacy as a euphemism for sex I believe is a kind of cancer. We have to do better in the way that we think and talk about these things. And then, certainly, there can be romantic expressions of physical connection and intimacy. And then, sexual intimacy, this is the one that's going to be unique to marriage. So, while I think all of us can do a lot to nurture intimacy in our marriages in a lot of ways, this is the one that's unique. And I believe that that's why there's an especial value there. Even when there's struggle, that there is good in nurturing. So, I realize every… It's been said today, lots of couples are different. And I think there's not one right way to do this. Also, I don't want to be misheard or misunderstood, but I do believe it would also be good to look at why if we're not, at least, working on this aspect of our relationship, what's keeping us from that. Is it anxiety, or fear, or is it just, “Both of us have low libido and we just really loved being physical, and it never really showed up that way.” There can be really normative things, but then, for a lot of people, it's a real pain point. There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of insecurity, there's a lot of wound. And I think the possibility of marriage invites us to transcend those things. So, some additional… Just check something real quickly. We gave a little bit more time for this particular one because of how potentially challenging it can be. Again, to differentiate some of these topics. So, again, with intimacy, Timothy Keller said this, I think some of you have heard me quote this one before because it's one of my favorite quotes, “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God, it's what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, it humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” I have a couple that I’m working with. Again, both of them are heterosexual. And they're just a really sweet couple in a lot of ways and very matured in a lot of ways. And one of the things he was expressing to her, he's like, “I feel like…” We're going to talk in a minute about fantasy, we're not going to spend a lot of time on fantasy, but I want to reclaim that fantasy as a virtue and one of our greatest teachers. But he said, “There's times where I feel like…” He's like, “I'm afraid of sharing with you what my fantasies are.” And he's like, “There's a part of me that just wants you.” He's like, “ I don't need you to be a part of any of these if there's anything in there that feels uncomfortable, but I want to feel like you can know them and love me.” Again, we want to be known. This is a couple that's been married… They're empty nesters, so probably 35-plus years. I just want to be known. And this is one of those things that just brings up anxiety, we're afraid of it. And, as we talk about it here in a second from a developmental standpoint, as we move into deeper levels of different differentiation, as we belong more to ourselves, we can belong more to each other. I can hold space for me, I can hold more space for you without being threatened by you. I can know you, and I want to know you, all of you, and I can handle you, that is intimacy. And so, in this way, again, she was like, “I can totally do that with you.” But again, with the caveat, she's like, “I don't want ever want to feel like I have to do something I don't want to do. But if it's just about hearing you, and listening, and witnessing you, I want that.” And it was really beautiful. So, we started with this quote and the previous one. And so, I’m not going to spend time here, but again, this idea of true love is manifest. Synergistic, energy-producing relationships rather than energy-consuming relationships come when two people each connected with their deepest self unite. We love, not because we need love, but the other needs love because love overflows our cup and we must share. When we're deeply connected to ourselves, we can offer more to others without needing anything necessarily reciprocated. So here, I want to give you guys a high-level frame, we’re not going to spend a ton of time here. But Jennifer and I, for a while, we were working on a project together, sort of looking at the integration of sexuality and spirituality, and what does that look like across the lifespan? Because in younger kind of teen years, we just tend to be a little bit more dualistic about everything. Everything's good, black, white, good. Black, white, good, bad, right, wrong. It's all these kinds of polars. As we get into higher levels of development, especially as we get into mid-20s, and we start to have greater neurological capacity for complexity, and nuance, and ambiguity, and these sorts of things, as we develop, we can begin to hold all those things together. All truth, even truths that seem like they're in opposition exists together. In the words of Joseph Smith, “All truth can be circumscribed into one great hole.” And so, sexuality and spirituality, as we evolve, we cannot conceive of sexuality without spirituality. And we cannot conceive of spirituality without fully ingraining or integrating our sexuality. There's a Christian writer who wrote a book that I love called ‘Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.’ And the subtitle was something like, ‘Why it's impossible to be spiritually healthy while remaining emotionally unhealthy.’ But we kind of compartmentalize. I give you this spiritual superstar while just being passive-aggressive to everybody in my relationships. We, as whole beings, we cannot be… There can be a little bit of fragmentation, or a little bit of kind of… Sometimes we can be more involved in one area than another, but there's not going to be huge gaps. So, to be really emotionally unhealthy, you can't be really spiritually healthy. And you can't be really spiritually healthy while being really emotionally unhealthy, or sexually non-integrated. And so, to really grow into the fullness of who we are, we're spiritual beings, emotional beings, intellectual beings, sexual beings, and to be whole requires us integrating and owning all parts of us. And owning all parts of me doesn't mean I have to be having sex, this can be even single people can really move into this deeper integration. And it's more about how they hold their sexuality than how they express it because there's a lot of people having a lot of sex who are not integrated or healthy, especially in hookup cultures and things like that. So, to give you a sense, kind of a developmental framework as we are kind of looking at some of this, there's a number of different stages and models. And I'm mixing a little bit here, but there's a lot of overlap between them too in terms of what they focus on. I'm borrowing some language from some other models, but a lot of this is drawn from Keegan, who's a Harvard psychologist and looks at stages of cognitive development. But he has like kind of pre-personal early stages of early childhood. But then, egocentric kind of tends to be three to seven. I mentioned our sweet boy, Asher, who when he's really happy, he loves us, we’re the best family, best parents in the world. And when he's mad at us, he wants to kill us, or either he's going to die, or we're going to die. But his emotions define the world, his truth defines all truth, does that make sense? And that's very normal, that's mature for a three to seven-year-old. It's not mature for a 37-year-old. And so, as we talk about each of these stages, it's important to note that there are stage-appropriate expressions of these, but there's also an expectation that we should be able to move beyond them. And often, when we don't, it's either because there's trauma, dysfunctional family systems, there can be any number of reasons why people don't fully develop past. But again, I'm going to talk about each of these. Then there's the social stage. And the big one, the gap is going to be between. And what we've talked about a lot more implicitly today is the gap between the social stage and what we call the self-authoring stage, where we're more highly differentiated. I have a strong sense of self, and I can hold that self in relationship to the people I love around me, especially the people who bring out the greatest vulnerabilities in me. And then, finally, there's a self-transforming stage. So, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this one because there's only about 1% of people who get here according to Keegan. But the egocentric stage, about 6% of adults never grow past this stage. And some people even have theorized that it's as high as 20% get stuck to some degree. So, depending on where people are like with narcissism, you have people that just are kind of narcissistic all the way on a spectrum to narcissistic personality disorder. But people where it's just all about me, and the problem is everybody else, it's never me, just kind of true, classic or clinical narcissists, they're kind of stuck here in the egocentric stage. And again, that's 6%, to 20%, depending on who's speculating, estimating, get sort of stuck in that stage. I'm going to spend a lot of time there. The big one is here because this is where the greatest potential is in terms of the sexual relationship, and what this can look like, and how it manifests, but also, again, where the potential is. Social stage, again, about another 58% of adults, kick-in estimates, never develop beyond the social stage. Now, in developmental terms, that's seven to 17, maybe early 20s. But ideally, as we get into early to mid-20s, we're really starting to differentiate, to hold a stronger sense of self. And 58% of all adults never move beyond the stage. And one of the reasons I want to talk about this, and I think it's as important, is, a lot of times people don't really even know that they should, again, because it's this sort of normative experience. I think when we have a vision, where there is no vision, the people perish, right? As we have a vision for what's possible, we can start to really work consciously and intentionally stretch into it. And then, self-authoring stage, only about 35% of adults really sort of move into and kind of live in this more highly differentiated self-authoring stage. And again, we'll talk about how this plays out in relationship. So, egocentric; normal stage development, when we're young, we have no choice but to be self-preoccupied. Again, my kids love us when we let them give them electronics time, they hate us when we don't. We cannot know the world in any other way except from our own experience. Developmentally, neurologically, this is just how it is. And it's healthy within that stage. Here, we are primarily concerned with our own feelings, needs, and feelings, impulses, and perceptions of our needs. Relationships with others tend to have a self-object or “I,” “it,” if you're familiar with orientation. We tend to see people and relate to people primarily from the lens of their utility that they offer us. I care about you for the value that you are to me in my life, not because I love you. And, as you stop offering the utility, I'm going to stop being in relationship to you. We relate to others from the perspective of how they impact us. We need adults and authority figures to keep us safe from our own impulses. Some of our kids, if we ask them, we can sort of coach empathy, “How would you feel if you were the only person not invited to the party?” Or, “How would you feel if Sila stole your thing?” We can kind of coach them into it, but it's not natural, it's not spontaneous, not in the way that we want it to be as an adult. Where we get stuck, again, most people stay in the socially responsible. However, again, a significant percentage of the population doesn't, anywhere between 6 to 20. And then, again, typically, people who do get stuck here grew up in negligent, abusive, kind of rigid authoritarian homes, or they've experienced other forms of trauma that, again, kind of keep them stuck here. Social stage. This is going to seem familiar, this is going to sound familiar with some of the experiences that you've heard today. And, again, the potential of moving beyond this. So, the social stage; normal developmental stage development, 7 to 17. Adolescence, the primary kind of role of adolescence is identity development. And this is going to be important because, often, when we talk, we use the word codependent. It's something you have. You're a codependent. or you have codependency. The same Gabor Maté that I mentioned earlier, he defined codependence as the disease of the lost self. And I would say, probably more accurately, it's the disease of the undeveloped self. To the degree that we really should kind of be beyond that developmental stage, but we're not, because it's really normal. How other people are in relationships with other people really define us, that's normal within this kind of 7 to 17 stage, but then, ideally, we start to grow beyond that and have a stronger sense of self that we can hold regardless of how other people think about us. And again, some of the conversations that David and Meghan talked about, and Travis, and Margaret really modeled beautifully what highly differentiated people can do for each other, how they can hold space for each other, even if it's hard. “I realize how important this is, this is important to you. And I don't want you to just be with me for my sake, if you're going to be with me, I want you to want it. And you can't say yes unless you're allowed to say no.” Yes, is never really a yes if you're not allowed to say no. I can't emphasize that enough. And we really want you to say yes, but you're also not allowed to say no, but it has to be a yes. And we just kind of keep each other trapped in… Hold each other kind of hostage to some of our own expectations. So, instead of becoming preoccupied with only our own needs, feelings, and impulses, we also begin to become concerned with ourselves in relationship to others, we see that there are rules, and we really want to be accepted. Danielle made a comment to Gabriel the other day where she said, “I heard that there are girls who like you at school.” And he's like, “Who said that?” And then, our nine-year-old pipes in, and she's like, “I want someone to like me.” And he's like, “Eva, I work hard for it. I'm literally nice to everybody and I wear all the clothes people like, like sick hoodies.” And so, he's understanding the rules. Like, if you want people to like you, you have the best hoodies, which I just think is awesome. But he’s like, “I'm literally nice to everybody.” But it's like we start to learn these rules, and we start operating. But a lot of it's kind of role oriented because we want to be accepted. We want acceptance, we want to belong, we want to feel needed and valued. And in this desire, we learn what the rules of belonging and cooperating are, our sense of self exists within the group, we look to others to tell us who we are. Heidi is going to talk a little bit more about what Shnart differentiates as what's called a reflected sense of self. Like, my understanding of me really is a reflection of my relationships around me, I don't own it, it's not mine, versus a solid sense of self that's going to be more of this kind of authoring stage. And that's the language that Shnart uses. But we look to others to tell us what is right and wrong. We need others to be okay with us in order for us to be okay with ourselves. I can't be happy unless you're happy. A sense of self that is dependent upon others' validation and approval. Relationships at this stage focus on roles and needing to be needed. We find our self through being important and needed by others. My value is contingent upon you seeing me as valuable. Here that reflected sense of self. And to the degree that we stay stuck here is the degree to which our sense of self will always be held hostage to what we perceive others think about us and around us. And again, normal for a 7 to 17-year-old, Arrested development for a 70-year-old, or even like… We want to be developing beyond it. Again, people typically merry here, our early merry years. You make me so happy, and you meet my needs, and all these sorts of things. You had me at hello, you complete me. All the beautiful, romantic things that we just love to hear so much. But I ultimately believe that relationships, true, we say things like are… “My better half.” I truly believe that, in marriage, it's not addition, it's a multiplication. You take two half-healthy people and you have a quarter of a healthy relationship. If you want to have a whole healthy relationship, you need to have two whole healthy people. Does that make sense? And so, there's no better half, it's two wholes coming together in synergism. So, many people, again, perhaps, even a majority never really move out of this stage. And again, the degree to which we engage marriage from a rule-governed way is… There always are going to be roles. The church can only function to the degree that we fulfill our callings, but we also need to be able to see people beyond the utility of the callings that they fulfill, or the roles that we play out in relationship. House has to function. Our house would be chaos if Danielle didn't do all the things that she's kind of taken on, and if I didn't do the things, but we still need to be able to see each other and relate to each other from real core self. And again, codependence is really just the idea of people who don't have a strong sense of self beyond what is ideally would have kind of grown out of this stage. I'm going to skip that for the sake of time. So, self-authoring divide in human development. This is where human beings move from an external reference to an internal frame of reference. We move from external authority to internal authority, I care not just what others think, but what do I think about this, and do my beliefs, feelings matter? External validation and approval to internal validation and approval. I don't need you to tell me I'm beautiful all the time for me to feel beautiful, or tell me how wonderful I am for me to feel wonderful. I can self-validate, not just what others desire, but what do I desire. And we take ownership for our own beliefs, our own lives, our own growth, and our own progression. And again, other comments today kind of model this really beautifully, this deeper shift into holding greater space for ourselves, and greater space for each other. So, as we begin to differentiate from others, we have a stronger sense of self, a solid sense of self that we can hold. The mantra here is ‘self’ in relation. To what degree can I hold me in relationship to you, especially when it's vulnerable, or especially when you're mad at me, or especially when you have feelings. I have one couple, again, he's 60 years old, and he just is so mired in shame in his own life that he can't handle his own feelings, so he certainly can't handle his wive’s. At one point, she just said something, “It really hurts me when you dah, dah, dah.” And it was just really kind of gentle the way she said it. She was trying to be just expressing, and he just shut down. Couldn't handle any of her difficult emotions because he couldn't handle his. And so, to be able to hold space for each other, we need to be able to express ourselves. We're willing to show up more in marriage with our spouses and seek to co-create related relationships that honor both of us for who we are, not just our roles. So, I'm going to skip this for the sake of time. I'm going to skip a number of these things for the sake of time because I want to…
Speaker 1
Sure can. Yes. So, something's here... Actually, you know what? I'm not going to do that, but I'm going to get to move through faster. As we talk about, especially with sexuality and sexual identity, we often collapse and conflate sexuality with identity, this is “I feel, therefore, I am,” and they're not wanting the same. Again, identity is the narratives through which we interpret our experience. So, there's kind of a four-tiered framework for understanding this. We have attraction with different domains of attraction; sexual, romantic, affectional, aesthetic, social, and spiritual. You've got each of these domains for both the opposite and same sex. And obviously, erotic and romantic are self-definitional. But these others; affectional, aesthetic, social, and spiritual, we can also experience those domains experience, we can experience that kind of attraction purely platonically for both others of the same and opposite sex. With my students, I'll say, “Why are you attracted to your friends?” I'm going to use that term because it really is a kind of attraction. And they'll say, “Because we have really interesting meaningful conversations,” or, “They're there for me when I need them.” There's just a lot of reasons that we're attracted to other people. And these are important, they are genuine domains of attraction. And I think, especially for individuals in mixed sexuality relationships, attraction is important. But our culture has put so much weight on these two, were really, attraction net-net should be… Again, they’re net-net, there should be attraction, but it's kind of a net positive incorporating all of those domains. And different kinds of attraction might weigh differently for different people. I have a heterosexual friend who his spouse, for whom he just really felt guided, he's like, “I'm not particularly sexually attracted to her,” even though he's sexually… But like, “I love her, and I felt really guided to be in this relationship.” Again, a heterosexual individual. We just think, again, some of our conceptions about what is most important all the time can be really misguided. So anyway, all of these are there. But then, there are going to be some patterns of attraction. Some qualities of attraction are situational, and some are going to be more orientational. The way we even use the word orientation is problematic. But if we mean by orientation the patterns of attraction that tend to be more persistent over time, that's what really orientation is going to mean. But there can be lots of exceptions to those. And the other important thing here too is that romantic attraction is not… Romantic attraction is governed by a different part of the brain. There's no orientation for romantic attraction in the same way that there is for more erotic attraction. They're governed by different parts of the brain. Romantic attraction is a secondary adaptation of parent-child caregiver stuff. So, a lot of where we find ourselves emotionally or romantically drawn is going to be much more tied to our relationships with our parents than it is genes. And that's really important, and that's why a lot of people in mixed-orientation relationships will say that they fell in love with someone… Who was it, was it you guys? Stewart's? The piece that you read, Margaret? That this woman who had fallen in love with this man. They might fall in love with someone to whom doesn't fall within their general pattern of attraction. That happens more often with women than with men, but I came across an article once written by… It was by a guy who said why two straight men are in a gay relationship. And he and this heterosexual friend of his just… He was really sick, and his friend came in, and he was really vulnerable. And he's like, “Having feelings that I've never had before for a guy.” And they just decided to pursue a relationship together, but they both identify as straight. So, there are times where there can be situational attractions that are really normative, or that may be outside of that general pattern. And that behavior, what are we choosing? Identity. And then we've got kind of complex factors that influence this, and this is much more subject to agency. As far as what influences attraction, only about 25%, we have this idea that people are born that way, of 2019. The last study came out, the big study came out with about a half a million people that put the last nail in that coffin; sexual orientation is not determined, it's not chosen. That's also important. But not chosen does not mean determined by genes or biology. That there is a very… No, they said there could be some predisposition, certainly, but what the study came out, based on the Human Genome Project, 500,000 participants, the most the genes could be attributed to in terms of development of sexual orientation is about 25%. And so, you have 75% -- this is just is just drawing from a bunch of research -- all the things that influence attraction. You've got physical build, temperament, familial relationships, age. When we’re in sixth grade attracted to another sixth-grader, we think that's cute. If you're 60 attracted to a sixth-grader, we think something's wrong with that. And so, there's going to be some fluidity across the lifespan. So, age has a very… Attachment style, smell, personality, education, aesthetics, openness, mood, emotions, emotional connection, culture, psychological, just psychology, location, mystery, intelligence, income, scarcity, trust, social status, values, similarity. These are all different things that influence attraction in different people at different times. And that's important. So, other things, again, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because I'm going to… Libido is not the same thing. We differentiate desire, because libido is just as a reproductive B. A man, his body's got to flush sperm so it can create more sperm. That's what reproductive beings do, and women are going to ovulate. And so, libido is just sort of the reproductive biological experience that we have. “I’m having an itch, would you mind helping me scratch it?” Kind of thing. So, a lot of people that are having mechanical sex, that's kind of what's happening. They've got a libido still, but they're just not desiring because they're governed by different laws. Versus arousal, a lot of people can be aroused by something that they don't desire. This is going to sound a little weird, but it's in the research, and I'm a nerd. But they did a study on women watching bonobo sex. And they were measuring physiological arousal by watching monkeys have sex. And these women experienced some arousal, but there's not desire. Again, the researcher who did this, there were people who made fun of her right, but it was really interesting research. But we can be aroused by lots of things that we never desire, that we wouldn't want. Does that make sense? Anyway, we have to differentiate that. And then, there's desire. Why do we want what we want? Spontaneous desire, this is going to be important as we talk about mixed… This differentiation is going to be important as we talk about mixed-orientation relationships. Spontaneous desire; I just want it. Responsive desire; this defines me and Danielle's entertainment life. She hates going to concerts, I love going to concerts like dance concerts and park concerts. And I'm like, “Will you please just go with me?” And she's like, “You know I hate this.” She's like, “I hate this stuff.” And I was like, “Just come with me, please.” And then we go, and I think, without fail, 12 years into our marriage, she's like, “That was really fun, I'm so glad we went.” And then, the next time, “Do you want to go to this concert with me?” “Oh, I hate this stuff.” And then we come, and at the end, she's like, “That was so fun, I'm glad we went.” That's responsive desire. I can go and have a good time, but I don't necessarily… It's not my natural idea of a good time. And that's okay because, generally speaking, in 20% of marriages, women are more of the responsive… Well, in about 20% of marriages, women are the spontaneous or higher desired partner, and men are 80. But then, as far as lower or more cultivated responsive desire, in about 20% of marriages total, men are the lower desire, cultivated responsive desire partner. It's kind of stereotypically, that's women. But, in generally speaking, that's how things kind of add up there. Now, in mixed-orientation relationships, this is what a natural male, female, typical female typical arousal cycle looks like. And I had to pay somebody to create these for me, so I hope you appreciate this. So, we've got this kind of cycle. You have this from excitement, to plateau, to orgasm. You're going to like the next one even better. But this is what a normal kind of female arousal cycle looks like, it kind of takes a while to get there. Where men are like, “Lup, lup, lup.” So, stereotypically, you have this idea that men are kind of done before women are getting started, which is why you have books like ‘She Comes First,’ and things like that where the focus really needs to be on women first before men really even start taking themselves too seriously in the experience. But what I've noticed, and this is totally anecdotal because there's not… I think my theory is right, so you can tell me if you agree with me. But I started to notice this sort of pattern that in mixed sexuality relationships, the same-sex oriented partner, their arousal cycle, especially for men, looks more female-typical than male-typical, in the opposite sex relationship. In same-sex relationships, it might look more male-typical. But in opposite-sex relationships, it’s more female-typical. So, it kind of looks, it's going to track a little bit. I don't even know if you can see that because it's so faint, but it looks more like a female-typical, lower. Just cultivated desire kind of thing. It doesn't mean that it can't be good and it can be meaningful, but it tends to be less spontaneous, more responsive. And that's important because, if we could just normalize that, and allow that to be what it is, then what do we do with that? And so, this is where I brought my… Some of you know Laura Brotherson, she's my colleague. And she has this rocket diagram, which I really like the ideas, but whoever she had do the graphic design was horrible, so I hired somebody else to do it better. I told her that, so I'm not saying anything I wouldn’t say to her. But what does it mean? How do you fuel desire in a lower desire or responsive desire partner? And if you're both lower desire, responsive desire, then it requires a lot of intentionality to go there. Anyway, she has this rocket, shaded out. And so, context that we're not just going to… If we don't already feel a capacity to choose, and a relationship climb of trust, safety, connection, emotionally, a lot of women, most women don't want to have sex unless they feel connected first. And a lot of men stereotypically, like, we don't have to feel connected, this will help us to feel connected, she's like, “I don't want that.” So you kind of have this power struggle that shows up a lot. Again, men in mixed-rotation relationships, it tends to be the same, again, more responsive desire, there needs to be more emotional context for it. Then, for a lower-desire partner, sex is a decision, “I need to want to go there, I need to choose to want it or choose to be willing to go there.” It's a decision, we sort of flip a metal switch there, and then we decide, then we connect. It's more kind of emotional, so to speak. We want to be intentional, and connect, and talk, and feel more emotional intimacy together then. So, maybe some physical connection, nurture that through any number of things, that could just be, “Give me a massage,” or there's a number of ways we can do that. But then, finally, now we were getting closer to actually wanting it, “I'm here, I feel really good, I want to go there with you.” But it's okay to cultivate this, we just need to know what the rules are the govern that so that we can work on that kind of larger context in relationships in order to nurture a healthier, more thriving marriage. I’m going to just pass this. So, sexual desire, romantic attraction, sensuality. Sensuality is just the reality of our senses. I understand what the Book of Mormon had to say about this, but I… I understand, and I agree in the context, and I disagree. I agree with what I think thy were going to say, what I think it's missing is that I think resurrected beings are going to be highly sensual because, if we understand what sensuality is, is it's being highly attuned to all of our senses, experiencing both the inner and outer world through our senses. I taught a guy in my mission who was Jehovah's Witness, and he was blind. And when we were teaching him, he pulls out the Bible in Braille, which is like this huge four big volumes, we're going to Isaiah, he just opens it up and he starts reading Isaiah. And I'm like, “How in the world did you get that out of these little bumps?” It’s such a finely attuned sense of touch. That is sensuality, taste, hearing, smell, all of that is sensuality. And so, our inner world and outer world, this sense of attunement, I believe, we're growing into, I'm going to write a piece on this to make my case at some point, but we need to reclaim sensuality. And fantasy can be a very powerful healer. This one researcher writer, he wrote a book called ‘Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies.’ And this is what he said. He said, “Our sexual and romantic fantasies are the ways in which our subconscious mind seeks to disconfirm pathogenic or problematic beliefs. In essence, our fantasies are the royal road to healing. If I don't see myself as desirable, my fantasies are largely going to be around people desiring me. If I feel powerless, my fantasies are likely often going to be about being in a position of power.” Does that make sense? And fantasies can be some of our greatest healers and teachers. So, rather than having a prickly or fearful relationship with our fantasies, the more we have a compassionate relationship with our fantasies, the more quickly we can really understand where our needs and wounds are, and do the healing work that will take us there. And then, finally, Esther Perel says, “Tell me how you were loved, and I will tell you how you make love.” That how we experience sexuality is very much drawn on a larger context.
Unknown Speaker
Okay. So, Ty's covered a ton of material. And there's not a ton of time left, and I don't want to take too much. So, I'm just going to highlight just a few things that have been helpful. I will say I had… So, I don't know that I've shared our story with everyone. But my husband came out to me about two years ago. And I think one of the impacts of that was I had an experience where I essentially received a testimony of mixed-orientation marriages before I knew I was in a mixed-orientation marriage. And that happened from following a prompting to go to school, from diving into LGBTQ stuff, and just praying a lot. And I just gained a testimony of that. And that was, essentially, a very huge gift to me when my husband came out. But the interesting thing is, even though I had a testimony of it, once he came out to me, there was this feeling of, “My marriage doesn't have the same potential as other marriages.” I don't know if others of you have felt that, but it felt like, all of a sudden, there were limits. And I realize now that that was cultural narratives and things like that, but the gift that I had of going to grad school in a marriage and family therapy program, all throughout that process of processing through what that meant to us was that I got first-hand knowledge of how relationships work. And the more I learned about how relationships work, the more I realized my relationship has the same potential as any other marriage, and that includes sexually. And that was very eye-opening for me. And I hope that you guys feel that. Sexual relationships take work, they take time, they take effort. David Shnart says, “Sexual desire problems make us grow.” Essentially, he says, every relationship, you are going to get to a point where you will experience sexual problems. It is part of the developmental system of relationships, and they are to tell you that you have to grow individually. And so, he said, “Instead of feeling abnormal, take your place among countless generations who preceded you, pay your dues. There's a good chance you'll experience one of the greatest and simplest sexual pleasures being self-aware in the presence of another self-aware person, aware of but not prisoner to the fact that he or she is aware of you.” All those things that we've been talking about about that strong sense of self, they're super duper important in a sexual relationship. It's really hard to talk about deeply personal intimate things when you feel insecure. We all feel insecure in different areas, but I think it is especially difficult in the bedroom. And especially difficult in a mixed-orientation marriage in the bedroom. And it's really easy to attribute problems to one spouse experiencing same-sex attraction. It's very easy to do. But Esther Perel and I, and I am going to show this video because I think her accent is way better than mine, like way better, so she's much more interesting to listen to. So, I'm just going to play this clip, but I want you to be thinking about what you notice about what creates desire in long-term relationships. Hopefully, I can figure out how to play it. Ty, I might need your help. Is there a play button here? Okay, so while we wait for Esther, we'll just talk about some of the things that create desire early on in relationships. It's a sense of newness, it's a novelty. It's like wondering if that person who likes you, or who you are interested in likes you back. It's also having someone reflect a positive sense of self back to us. So there's something about liking someone and having them like you back that it makes us feel good about ourselves. It's that reflected sense of self. And so, initially, it feels really great. And then, later on, when the marriage gets more normal, and things calm down, and, all of a sudden, you guys don't agree on things. And they're not reflecting that same thing back to you anymore, you treat each other differently. You realize you have different opinions and different views, and you have to work through them. Forbiddeness and novelty. Well, if you're in any monogamous relationship, there's not a lot of forbiddeness and novelty in it anymore. Okay. So, since I don't have Esther working, I'm going to have to skip a little bit. But the other thing that I really realized is how much our narratives, and Ty touched on this, our narratives that we hear as individuals that impact our ability to be sexual with someone else. So, there are messages we get as males and females, and those messages can be really destructive to our intimate relationships, well, our sexual relationships -- I want to use the correct word -- with our partner. And, you guys, I use stories. So, this might be a bit TMI, but I'm going to share because I think personal stories are important. When we were early married. And nearly enough that we had, I think, probably three kids. When you have babies, like that's the one time that I was like, “Polygamy is okay. Bring it. Give me a second wife,” because seriously, no desire. I'm taking care of a nursing baby, there's no desire for sex at all. And I really was like, “You know what? Bring in that second wife, and she can take care of you tonight.” But I remember being with a couple of friends and hearing their discussion. And one of them just said… Because I think one of the messages that men get is that, essentially, their sexual desire is destructive. Oh, look, Esther's trying to appear when I don't need her anymore. So, essentially, they get a message that, “This is destructive to you.” Instead of being this God-given gift that you get to choose how to use, there's this message that like, “No, this is really bad, and it's destructive.” So, I didn't really understand that until these friends were chatting. And one of them was saying, “ I'm just really sick of this. Every time I sit on the couch, I get this thing poking in my back.” I apologize for the crudeness, but she's like, “There's just this thing poking on my back, and I just hate it so much.” And this other friend was like… No, she referred to our other friend, and she's like, “Do you know, she has never turned her husband down? Never.” And that friend was like, “We have enough to fight about, and I just really don't want to make this one of those things.” And she's like, “I just show up like I'm all that.” And I really was like… In that moment, I kind of saw myself in the friend who was complaining, and I realized how derogatory it was to my husband to be thinking in those terms, that there was something wrong with that. And I really was like, “Is that the person I want to be in our sexual relationship?” And I didn't realize this, now I have more vocabulary surrounding this. But really, what I did was I took ownership of my sexuality. I decided, “Who do I want to be here?” Again, back to like what we were talking about previously, who do I want to be? How do I want to own this? How do I want to show up? And it wasn't that like I couldn't say no, it was more that I was like, “You know what? I care about this relationship with my partner. I love him dearly. And this is important to him, and it's important to meet to make it work.” And so I started reading, I think… Has anyone read, ‘Sheet Music’ by… What's his name? Yes, Lehman, Kevin Lehman, or whatever. Yes. It was a great book and a good starter for me. It's a Christian book on sexuality. I started reading that, that really helped. Anyway, you decide. Again, you get to decide, “Who do I want to be here?” You also need to be the kind of partner your partner wants to give to. If you are uncertain in your marriage, if you're not sure if you want to be there… I was talking to a fellow therapist the other day, and she was telling me, she was talking about a relationship and how things were such a struggle, and she's in a heteronormative relationship. And she was like, “I don't really see what my part is in our problems. We have all these problems, I'm just not attracted to him anymore.” And she had had an affair, but it was over. And she's like, “I just can't decide if I want to be in this relationship or not. I don't know if I should put the time and effort in.” And I very bluntly looked at her and I said, “That is your part.” That's your part. If you don't know if you want to be there, and you are half in, you will never know what's possible until you step in with two feet. Until you really decide like, “I'm going to give my all to this relationship,” you will never know what's possible. And I think it's only fair, like, it's not fair to a partner to always, essentially, have to be propping you up. There's something about keeping your partner… If you are uncertain about being in a relationship that keeps your partner wandering and having to chase you, and that feels really good, to some extent, but it's not very kind, and it's not very conducive to a good sexual relationship because, essentially, you have to be the kind of person that it's not bad judgment to give themselves to you sexually, if that makes sense. Ty gave you all the important stuff anyway. So okay. I thought this was such a good illustration of marriage. There's a lot of similarities, right? In the in the stocks and in the yoke. And your perception of your marriage and what it is to you is going to make a really big difference here. If this is something you feel trapped in, that you have no way out of, that is not going to be conducive to desire. And I even think, with the yoke, even that can feel restrictive to us sometimes. So, I think the difference between the yoke on oxen is the ability to choose. We get to choose if we're going to be yoked to our partner. We get to choose if we're going to be yoked with Christ. And I love what Jonathan Sandburg said yesterday about how the burden isn't lighter, you're just bearing it together. There is a sense of unity. There's something that is so unique to marriage relationships, and I would say between a man and a woman. it's really up to you, that issue of choice is really important. But the potential. Don’t limit your potential just because other people do. You have the same potential as any other marriage. Last slide. I love this quote by David Shnart, “You can get in bed as the person you know yourself to be, or as who you'd like to be. That doesn't necessarily mean you're not being yourself. The process of becoming can lead you to act in ways that still exceed the limits of your self image. In doing what we aspire to be, we become that person, but you decide.” And that's it.