"Love is watching someone else’s boring show on T.V." - Charles M. Schulz, in a 1979 copy of Love is…Walking Hand-in-Hand

I’m not big on TV so for me, this one has definitely been true! I have sat through so many TV shows… and all because I loved the person I was with. Sometimes I even learned to like the tv shows.

It is true that there is a gray area between sharing activities together and giving up part of yourself. Some people find that they take on too much of what their partner enjoys doing and never really get to explore what they, themselves, really enjoy or would like to do. Personally, and through my work with individuals and couples (note: I am not a therapist, however), it seems that it is important for individuals to have a sense of self-awareness about what they truly enjoy. You don’t have to like all of the same things to be a great couple. It is okay to have differnet opinions, interests and likes and it is also okay to cultivate interests away from each other. Just make sure that you come together on enough issues or interests to still feel like you’re "together".

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This book is making quite a splash - in some circles, for its chapter on sex. In others, for its admission of starts and stops. My Unwritten Books amounts to seven essays on seven books that author and scholar George Steiner intended to write, or considered writing, but never really did. The Guardian focused on the sex chapter, and on Steiner’s often explicit descriptions of being fluent in four languages and making love in all of them. If you ever took French, you may find this quote of interest:

"Gloriously astride me, my first teacher in the arts of orgasm … bade me ‘Come, come now and deep.’ But did so using the formal vous."

The LA Times, on the other hand, focused more on the fact that, in the end, this respected scholar - like so many people who are gifted in an area - are at their heart, uncertain whether they can do what everyone else thinks that person can do so easily. Here, a quote from their review that made me pause to think:

In the end, Steiner suffers a crisis of faith in his chosen medium: words. (It is the fate of the intellectual — worse, the punishment for having the hubris to try to know it all — to be forever excluded from faith.)

Learn more about the book on Amazon.com.

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Reader JH recently left a comment in response to our NPR/Kinsey Confidential podcast that I’d like to respond to here on the blog. First, I agree that much of men’s penis anxiety surrounds the fact that at some point when they choose to become sexual with a partner, they have to kind of "reveal themselves" and that can be very scary for men. Men who are average or small may worry that they are too small. Men who are quite big often worry whether their partner will accept or reject them. In other words, an awful lot of men worry about rejection or disappointment in regard to their penis.

Women, I think, worry about their pubic hair or, at times, their labia. Some women write to me and are very concerned about the size of their labia. Others are worried that they will choose the right hair "style" for their genitals and try to balance what they want or find comfortable versus what they feel like their partner might want. Women also worry a bit about smell and taste and generally whether their genitals will be "attractive enough". That’s a lot of pressure for parts typically only seen by a partner or healthcare provider.

Because most of us have or are or will deal with genital anxieties, I think it’s important to help make our partners feel good about their bodies - including their genitals. People really do say things like "wow, you’re so beautiful" to women when they are going down on them or "I love your penis!" These are okay things to say, if that’s what you’re feeling. Even if your partner is momentarily embarrassed (after all, not everyone has experience hearing their genitals talked about!), they may think back later and feel good about themselves. I’d avoid making comments that are conditional (e.g., "it looks so good when it’s shaved/groomed" or "it looks much bigger when you’re in shape, like you are now!") because that puts a condition, or an if/then, on your appreciation of your partner’s parts. Rather than saying "I love your parts all the time, just how you are" it’s like saying "I like your parts when you do these very specific things to them." And that can suck.

So try to focus on the positive for yourself and your partner. To learn more, check out The V Book: A Doctor’s Guide to Complete Vulvovaginal Health, The Penis Book, A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis, or The New Male Sexuality - all good books.

[Above image via this site.]

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"Love is helping someone through his battles." - Charles M. Schulz/Peanuts, from a worn 1979 copy of Love is… Walking Hand-in-Hand

Which means that love might be:

- supporting a partner deal with anxiety over work or school, or a sick parent
- helping a child deal with teasing or bullying at school
- being there for your mom or dad when they’re grieving or ailing or needing things fixed around the house
- letting yourself (yes, you should love yourself in this way too) take time to heal, or take time to forgive when you’ve been hurt
- letting your partner know that, even though you two are having bumps in the road right now, you’ll stick through this thing with them
- opening your home to a friend who is sad or in pain, or not sure where else to go
- volunteering in your community or your child’s school as they work through some growing pains and move toward their vision

How do you show your love? How do you support others (and yourself)?

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In the February issue of Best Life magazine, I advise men on how to respond to a wife/girlfriend/partner who says she wants to boycott Valentine’s day (okay, they said "wife" because husbands are Best Life’s demographic, but I’m adding girlfriend/partner). I actually did these interview for Best Life months and months and months ago. Magazines prepare for issues very far in advance. Right now, many are working on their June issues already! You can read my thoughts and poke around the Best Life web site here.

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Did you used to go to the pencil sharpener whenever you saw your first grade crush go to sharpen his or her pencil? I did… please tell me that it wasn’t just me. Ah, the memories… husky pencils, wall-bolted pencil sharpeners, note passing - does anyone else still get butterflies in their stomach?

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"Love is getting someone a glass of water in the middle of the night." - Charles M. Schulz, in a worn 1979 copy of Love is… Walking Hand-in-Hand

I have always felt that I have to have a glass of water on my night stand before I fall sleep. When I arrive at a hotel or stay at a friend’s house, the side of the bed I will sleep on is completely determined by which side I can access a night stand from. Because of this habit, I have long had a special place in my heart - well, okay, I have even fallen - for people who will get up in the middle of the night to get me a drink of water if I need one.

And I’ve also, when watching friends’ children overnight, felt really good to have the chance to get a drink of water for a child who wants one. Or to sit with them when they have a nightmare.

We are so vulnerable in our sleep. And it is a wonderful thing to feel like someone cares for you. I also think it feels just as wonderful to be able to take care of someone else when they wake from a nightmare, need a drink, or need to be held. And yes, since this is also a site about sexuality, let’s not be afraid to say that it’s sometimes nice to be able to wake up, hug and kiss your partner, or have sex (Yikes, did you ever imagine Peanuts and a sex talk on the same page?)

Sometimes when two people are in love, the bed that they share can feel like the safest, happiest, most comforting place to be in the world. Like everything that you want - or could possibly want - is right there in that bed. If you are fortunate, and you work hard at staying committed to your relationship and the values that matter to you - that bed can stay a safe harbor. If you mess up, or things otherwise fall apart, that bed can seem incredibly sad or scary. Like some of you, I’ve been there… and strangely enough, I’m grateful if only because it has reinforced to me the importance of protecting one’s relationship.

If you share a bed with someone these days, or if you have in the past (or hope to in the future), you might find the book Two in a Bed to be interesting - the book covers interviews with adults about snoring, sleeping, making love, stealing covers, touching feet, feeling safe and choosing sides in ways that one rarely finds elsewhere.

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I am an absolute fiend for real-life stories from people’s relationships and marriages. I crave for people to open themselves to the world while keeping private the things that they need to keep private. I feel like we can learn about ourselves and grow our own relationships when we hear not only about the glories - but also the challenges - of other people’s relationships and tries at love. Here, in this New York Times article about American journalists working in Iraq, is an interesting look at the ups and downs of such a marriage. The author is Damien Cave.

One such quote:

"Repeatedly, we found that frustrations with each other, which we ignored in Iraq, would suddenly spill over into arguments while on break. We had our most dramatic fight over the summer in San Sebastián, Spain, about French fries that I had ordered and she did not want. It was a silly example of miscommunication that turned into a two-hour shouting match that spread from the restaurant to the boardwalk and back to our hotel room."

Most of who who have been in relationships long enough (6 months?) to get past the initial honeymoon phase have had fights like this one over misplaced keys, driving directions, where to eat dinner, or groceries. The fights - if your relationship is going well for the most part - are things you can laugh about later on. If you’ve been ignoring or miscommunicating over a period of time, without cleaning up after yourselves, then these are the fights that can - seemingly out of nowhere - trigger the end of things. In the movie The Break-Up, the end of their relationship, if you want to get technical, began with a fight about the lemons. The relationship, of course, ended not because of lemons… but because of an inability to talk about things in a way that mattered and made sense and communicated love - even amidst disagreement - to each other.

To learn more about things you can do to enhance your relationship, check out The Relationship Cure or The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Dr. John Gottman.

[Image via this site.]

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"Love is rooting together for your team." - Peanuts/Charles Schulz

Every now and again I take out a worn-out 1979 copy of Love is… Walking Hand-in-Hand, a book that I must have borrowed from and, um, forgotten to return to my childhood friend (sorry, Darinca) as I found her name scrawled in the front of it.

In honor of the NFL playoffs… and in celebration of the ways that couples often come together to spend football Sundays or other sports events together, I thought you might enjoy this picture. Though I was never particularly good at sports, I have usually been up to learning about and enjoying them with a significant other or a really good friend. I think there’s something nice about learning to see through your partner’s or friend’s eyes what he or she enjoys, and why. It’s these little things that, when you add them together, are part of what becomes a long relationship.

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I haven’t read either of them yet… am debating about whether or not I should (there are tons of sex and relationship books out there, very few of which have been written by individuals who have done real work - research or in clinical practice - in the area). Then again, sometimes good books come out of other types of backgrounds and experiences. Here is a Q&A from USA Today about the new books, in case you are interested.

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