Sin Pelos en La Lengua: How to Build and Maintain Desire in Romantic Relationships
Photo by Cullan Smith on Unsplash
Welcome back to the “Sin Pelos en la Lengua'' collaborative series!
Today I’m joined by my colleague and friend, Danny Nava, LMFT, CST. Danny is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist as well as a Certified Sex Therapist. He brings a wealth of knowledge on sex and intimacy, with his expertise lying in couples, communication, and sex therapy. Danny is joining me today to discuss building and maintaining desire in romantic relationships.
Hey Danny, thanks for being open to doing this. Can you please start off by telling folks about yourself and what you do?
Hey there! Thanks for setting this up, I’m really excited and honored to be involved in something like this and I’m looking forward to where this conversation goes. My name is Danny Nava, I’m a licensed therapist and Certified Sex Therapist. I see lots of different kinds of people and treat many different issues but a big part of my work is in sex therapy. So I see a lot of individuals and couples looking to improve their communication and explore pleasure, sex, and sexuality. If there is something I might love more than therapy it would be teaching. I’m also a professor at a university where, among other subjects, I get to teach the treatment of couples and human sexuality. Outside of my professional roles, I think a good way to describe myself would be quiet and introverted. Pretty average guy; I like a good book, working out, and trying new food.
So, for those who don’t know, Danny is a friend, primo-in-law, and also a colleague. Danny and I occasionally consult on clinical issues. I really appreciate the way he frames sex and intimacy issues and today’s topic was inspired by a clinical consultation call we had a couple of months ago.
Danny, there were so many interesting things you mentioned during that call, but first can you define sex in the context of a romantic relationship?
One of my favorite ways to define sex is as a physical conversation. I’m always interested in what your sex “says”. I believe the conversations we have outside of the bedroom tend to follow us inside the bedroom. For example, let’s take a couple that argues a lot. They might feel unheard, upset, and disconnected. So their sex is likely to carry that conversation and be aggressive, disconnected, or transactional. It might even take on some power dynamics as the couple uses their sex to “win” arguments. I also think that there’s truth in the phrase “what you can’t express, you sex”. Meaning that some people will use their sex and sexuality to speak for them. If we revisit the arguing couple, we might find out that their sex is actually very passionate and intimate, because it expresses the love, fears, and care they have for one another but are struggling to communicate verbally. Overall, if your sex could talk, what would it say about you? That’s what I’m always looking to explore.
That’s a helpful way to frame it and a great question to reflect on. I’m curious to learn more about other common sex and intimacy issues you see come up in couple’s therapy?
I think we’ve touched on most of it. We don’t know how to communicate through our sex and we struggle to build desire. If I had to add one more thing it would have to be confusing socialization for the natural order of things. Reductive phrases like “That’s just how men/women are” and “Men are physical, women are emotional” that are fueled by culture, religion, and policy. It puts your sex in a box and says that there is a “right” way to have it. If it works for you, great but I would invite people to explore the 6 principles of sexual health instead: Is your sex consensual, non-exploitive, honest, value-centered, pleasurable, and protected against disease and unwanted pregnancy? Common issues in sex often revolve around 1 or more of these things being discounted. So stop listening to what your sex is “supposed to be” and start listening to what your sex is.
Thank you for bringing it back to culture, religion, and policy. I think it’s harmful to discount how those systems shape our sexuality. If we don’t acknowledge their influence, how could we even begin to explore whether we agree with them or not? You spoke about desire needing to be nurtured. Initially, it’s fueled by hormones and novelty, but what are the consequences if desire isn’t nurtured over time?
I love this question. I believe that there is a misconception about desire. When most people talk about it, they usually talk about a “spark” that often feels “natural”, “carnal”, or “spontaneous”. Now I think spontaneity is great and important, but it’s such a small part of desire. I think a lot of people aren’t really engaging with their sex and sexuality so what seems spontaneous is more accurately described as out of consciousness or awareness. Let’s look at the early stages of dating for example. Dating is such a ritualized practice; there’s very little spontaneity when you think about it, yet it’s when desire seems to be the highest in most couples. Early dating involves a lot of playfulness and eroticism. We see that in how we flirt and court one another. You can think back to many of the long conversations you had with a new partner to see that it activates the imagination and allows us to explore what we want in life. We dress to impress, practice pick-up lines, smell nice…so much of what we do is centered around activating and stimulating our partner’s sexual brain and we’re constantly putting ourselves in the mindset to receive this stimulation, that’s really important to note.
More than just being a sexual person, you need to be open to receiving sexual stimuli as safe, welcoming, and pleasurable. So what happens then if desire isn’t nurtured? Well, once the hormones are gone and that honeymoon phase is over, we’re just left with what we’ve practiced. And if you see desire as a spontaneous spark, then you’re not practicing more than you are reacting. Over time, people fall out of practice with play and eroticism. Play is important because it fosters levity, pleasure, problem-solving, care, and surrender. Eroticism activates imagination, exploration, novelty, and empathy. And all of these are important when the relationship is in need of a boost or when we’re struggling with intimacy issues. When we don’t nurture desire as an active living thing in our relationship, I think we risk losing just about everything that makes being a sexual person so much fun.
So it’s really our ritualized practices rooted in play and eroticism that truly sustain and nurture desire. I appreciate how you’ve articulated that. Let’s get into specific and practical steps. What are 3 things couples can take to cultivate desire?
I strongly encourage people to explore their wants, likes, and expectations. Wants is a good place to start because I think a lot of people will use wants and desire almost synonymously. Your wants are what you look forward to, it engages the imagination and creativity in a relationship. Being able to express and explore your wants is really important to building desire. What would you like to try, introduce, improve, or expand? But also, take a look at the relationship you have right now. Eyes wide open; in reality. Is the relationship you have the one you want? This one might take a little longer to process but I think it’s the more underappreciated question. People may have no issue talking about change or fantasy but still struggle with desire because their reality doesn’t make room for their wanting requests.
Likes are next and this looks more into our experience of pleasure. Things may be meaningful but not exactly pleasurable. For example, I “like” eating healthy because of the meaning I’ve assigned to it: living a cleaner life, managing weight, taking responsibility for myself, blah blah blah. But that doesn’t mean that eating healthy is always pleasurable. Meal prepping can be taxing and sometimes I just really want something deep-fried! In a relationship, we sometimes don’t like what we want; you might love and truly want to be with a particular person, but you might not like the way they make you feel. Other times, we don’t want what we like; you might feel ashamed or guilty for wanting to explore your relationship or sexuality in one way or another. No matter how meaningful something is, if you can’t enjoy pleasure in it, desire likely won't last. So have fun, be a kid, explore, and enjoy.
Expectations are the last thing people can look at to build desire. Obviously, too high or rigid expectations are trouble. But another trap, I think, is to have no expectations. I think I understand why people say that they have no expectations; they mean to be open-minded, flexible, and avoid disappointment. But I think you accomplish that by having healthy expectations. To have no expectations is to limit your ability to learn from an experience because you’re not looking for what you would like or want to happen. I think having no expectations also prevents a little bit of your values from shining through. To have healthy expectations is to practice having an understanding of yourself and your partner. It also gives you something to compare the experience to, to see if you would like or want it again and how to make it better. It encourages empathy, reflection, and some reality-checking. How does this affect desire? Well, unrealistic expectations can work to depersonalize your partner and breed contempt. Why would you desire someone you don’t respect? Having no expectations gives you very little to build desire on because of the lack of direction and self-reflection. Again, think about the relationship you have right now. You might like and want parts of it but what are your expectations around it? For example, sex. You want it. You like it. But maybe you expect to have to beg for it. Desire is the result of wants, likes and expectations working in harmony. Practice addressing these in your relationship and desire should be around for a long time.
Closing Thoughts
I want to provide a visual for this last Q&A to demonstrate how these three things intersect to influence desire within romantic relationships. Desire can be broken into three sections, picture a Venn diagram: likes, wants, expectations. For example, “I like feeling dominated and want a partner that’s a top but because I am masc, I am expected to be the top.” Or, “I like feeling close and I want to be intimate, but I expect to be rejected.”
Whether you’re single, dating, or in a relationship, if you want to begin nurturing desire, you can start by reflecting on your likes, wants, and expectations, and how they intersect to shape your desires. Consider the scenarios I offered and identify areas where alignment may be lacking. For the single girlies who may not be dating, there are plenty of ways to center pleasure and desire and if you missed my first blog on this, you can check it out here. For the attached girlies, after self-reflection, you can take proactive steps to communicate openly with your partner, discussing your desires and expectations while actively listening to theirs. Together, you can work towards building a more fulfilling and passionate connection.
If you’re interested in seeking individual or couple’s therapy with Danny, you can find more information about him here. Thanks for reading!
