What Is 'Sex Stress'? Do You Have It?

Sexless couples are seen more and more in our society, and the reasons are mostly related to a modern 21st century lifestyle.

Career Stress

Careers going up steeply and sex life going down equally steeply is a common occurrence today. You may be giving all of yourself to achieve your career ambitions and to climb the ladder of success, but as the career graph goes up, you may find very little time, energy, enthusiasm and drive for sex.

The modern day man is constantly engaged in competitive strivings with stars in his eyes, aiming to achieve and sustain 'the good life' with more and more material comforts and luxuries, wanting to make it to the 'page 3', emulating super wealthy celebrity role models, and thus driven to have more, more and even more of the world. This ambition, inner demand and being driven to have more, causes stress hormones like adrenalin, noradrenalin and cortisol to be released in the body continuously, thus building pressure on the body-mind mechanism and affecting one's sex life.

Work Stress

Employers harping on productivity and profits, squeezing every ounce of your energy in return for huge pay packets, performance evaluations on the job, a high pressure job environment with so many colleagues clamouring for the same promotion, deadlines to be reached and targets to be achieved, with the fear of being laid off constantly hovering over one's head, is a huge stressor which takes a toll on one's sex life.

Most people today are finding it more and more difficult to maintain a work-life balance, not only because of career ambitions but because there is so much pressure and insecurity in a competitive work environment. Men are caught between performance evaluations at work and performance evaluations at home, when their work stress spills over to their sexual performance in bed.

Performance Anxiety

If you are aggressively demanding or fault finding with your partner about not being satisfied with your sex life, it could result in anxiety, nervousness and self consciousness, and thus performance anxiety and avoidance of sex.

Performance stress, or anxiety related to one's sexual performance, is responsible for psychological impotence in men. Men worry about whether they will get an erection and whether they will be able to sustain it to satisfy their partner. Other thoughts are whether she will be satisfied with the foreplay and be aroused enough to actively participate, or will he have to make all the effort with her adopting a passive approach in bed. All these thoughts are stressors which ultimately affect the sexual performance of the man. Moreover, if the woman is aggressively demanding and taunting him about the lack of sex, his anxiety levels and the subsequent psychogenic impotence only gets aggravated. Women often expect the man to fulfil them sexually, fantasising sex as seen in the movies, without realising that her active involvement in the act and proactively reaching her own orgasm is very much her own responsibility in the sexual act.

Financial Stress

Other stressors include the modern day evil of living beyond your means. Loan repayments, credit card debts, subscribing to 'enjoy now pay later' schemes, the explosion of consumerism and a growing need for instant gratification, are all a fallout of a modern, materialistic life. Owning the latest and most expensive gizmo 'now' without any financial planning, is bound to result in financial stress. When the credit card companies knock on your door and banks ask for loan repayments, when those who are financially dependent on you ask you to show them the cash by hook or by crook and to infinitely provide for their needs, comforts and luxuries without question, when you feel overwhelmed in the mad rush of living 'the good life' that you forget how to live 'the sensible life', when financial doom stares you in the face, then sex is obviously the last thing on your mind.

Life Stress

Life, even without the pressures of work, career-building, and finances, brings its own set of stressors that can take a toll on one's sex life. If there is unresolved anger and resentment between the couple, if the man feels caught between family squabbles e.g. a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law strain, if the health of parents or children is a matter of concern, and this takes up your mental and emotional space, it leaves little or no space for sexual feelings to arise.

Biological Stress

Other physical stressors like chronic illnesses, obesity, fatigue, insomnia, excessive drinking and smoking, a general lack of fitness etc. also have an adverse effect on one's sex life. The modern day man who resorts to fast food, packaged food, and who is a part of the 'eating out' and 'drinking' culture, and for whom smoking is a part of life, is depositing all the junk he is ingesting in the form of bad cholesterol, on the inner lining of his nicotine-damaged arteries, thus clogging them and restricting the blood flow to his sex organs, which affects sexual performance.

Fantasy Stress

Another modern evil is pornography resulting in a fantasy sex life. Those who engage in fantasy sex, which takes place in the controlled conditions of your mind, find reality extremely disappointing, and this disillusionment turns into a stressor, with the inability to enjoy sex with a real person. Real sex does not measure up to the over stimulated pornographic version of the mind, and therefore, one is stressed out with the thought of engaging in real but unfulfilling intimacy, resulting in abstinence from sex.

YOLO and FOMO Stress

With the explosion of social media, people are privy to uploads (true, exaggerated or even false claims) of pictures and posts proclaiming fun and joy. The voyeurism very soon turns to jealousy, envy, competitiveness, feelings of inadequacy and the need to prove how 'my life is better than yours'. Promotional hashtags like #wanderlust, #happiness, #lovemylife, #doingwhatilove, #lovingwhatido #lavie etc. by people who are enslaved by the syndromes.

YOLO ( You Only Live Once ) and FOMO ( Fear Of Missing Out ), go out of the way to create holidays and engage in activities with the sole purpose of Facebook and Instagram uploads. Sadly, it takes away exactly what they set out to achieve. They miss out on 'life' and do not 'live' but are merely 'putting on an act of living'. They are never truly in the 'here and now'. In the midst of all this life performance, true intimacy and fulfilling sex gets set aside as one becomes more and more 'outer-directed'.

In conclusion, it can be said that, since sexual intimacy requires the body-mind to be in the 'here and now' and in harmony, it is imperative to take adequate care of both. The body requires an appropriate diet, rest and fitness regime, the mind needs to be relaxed, without anxieties, fears, and other preoccupations that occupy the mind-space, so that loving and intimate feelings can naturally and spontaneously arise, leading to fulfilling intimacy for both. A work-life balance, a healthy time-structuring of various daily activities, nurturing and cherishing your 'real' relationship and your fantasy world, and keeping communication healthy at all times, so that there is no accumulation of unresolved issues that impede intimacy. Sex is between the two ears and not between the two legs, and therefore nurturing emotional intimacy with your partner, and lots of emotional foreplay, will go a long way in enhancing your sexual intimacy.

Dr. Minnu Bhonsle Ph.D. is a Senior Consulting Psychotherapist and Relationship Counsellor at the Heart to Heart Counselling Centre, Mumbai, and has been working with couples for the last three decades.