Sexual Health Principle 4: Shared Values

This blog article is part of a series of blog articles about the six Sexual Health Principles developed by Doug Braun-Harvey. You can learn more about the principles, Doug, and his work at his website.

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The principle of shared values does not mean that we have to have the exact same sexual values as our partner in order to have sexual health. However, it does require having some honest conversations with ourselves and partner(s) about the meaning of being a sexual person, different turn-ons and turn-offs, different sexual acts, the timing of sexual engagement, and the significance of choosing to have sex. It’s a hard and vulnerable part of sexual health but a crucial one.

Sexual Values Offer Insight and Understanding

Sexual values act as our guide or our rubric for helping us put meaning to our sexual motivations. Tuning in to what our motivations are for seeking sexual intimacy with a partner(s) can help highlight our sexual values. Perhaps we are motivated to seek sex to be close with our partner, which may highlight our value of intimate connection with others. Maybe our motivation comes from wanting an orgasm for stress relief, which may signal that we really value sex for pleasure, grounding, and relaxation. The list of sexual values is vast and each person will be unique in their values depending on background, past experiences, culture, etc. 

Sexual Values Evolve

The good news about values: they are not fixed throughout the lifespan! We have the power to explore our current values, educate ourselves on areas we want to understand more, expand our perspective, and update our values accordingly. Basically, we can change our rubric that puts meaning to our sexuality. Working with a sex therapist can help clients discover their sexual values and live in greater alignment with those values in sexual relationships. 

Sharing Sexual Values Isn’t Easy But It’s Worth It

Communicating about sexual values with a partner can feel scary, especially if we have a challenging history, such as trauma, that can greatly impact how we make sense of our sexuality. Even so, it’s crucial to make space for these conversations around values so that each person feels heard and respected.

Sharing our values can bring a greater sense of clarity in our sexual relationships. It can help us to avoid having misaligned expectations or missed needs in our sexual encounters. It can offer richer experiences that are more tuned to each person’s desires. And in the end, it helps us to have sexual experiences that are more fulfilling and far fewer (or avoid entirely) experiences that we may regret.

Feel free to read the rest of the articles in this blog series:

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Sexual Health Principle 1: Consent

Sexual Health Principle 2: Non-Exploitation

Sexual Health Principle 3: Honesty

Sexual Health Principle 4: Shared Values (this article)

Sexual Health Principle 5: Protected from STI, HIV, and Unwanted Pregnancy

Sexual Health Principle 6: Pleasure

Sexual Health Principle 5: Protected from STI, HIV, and Unwanted Pregnancies

This blog article is part of a series of blog articles about the six Sexual Health Principles developed by Doug Braun-Harvey. You can learn more about the principles, Doug, and his work at his website.

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This principle is what most people think of when they hear the term ‘sexual health’. If we were taught anything about sexuality in school, this was most likely the only thing we learned about.

protected means protection

Not only does the term ‘sexual health’ go much deeper than just this one principle (as we’ve outlined in the other blog posts in this series), this principle goes much deeper than just the title suggests. In its most straightforward meaning, protection from STI, HIV, and unwanted pregnancy means just that–having safe sex options, such as condoms and PrEP, and contraceptive options, including IUDs/oral birth control pills, condoms, etc.

protected also means educated

Expanding on this most basic meaning, this sexual health principle is also about education, access to that education, and access to reproductive health treatment. Education must include scientifically and medically accurate information about sexually transmitted infections and barriers that prevent infection, as well as information on contraceptive options for all genders. Access to reproductive health treatment includes access to STI/HIV tests, reproductive cancer screenings, fertility treatments, family planning information, and so much more.

And protected also means empowered

Protection from STI, HIV, and unwanted pregnancy is incredibly important for sexual health due to the implications and possible outcomes that consequently happen without this principle (spread of infections, for example). Sexual health requires open, honest communication about these topics in our sexual relationships so that everyone is empowered to make informed decisions about the care they take of themselves within sexual encounters.

Feel free to read the rest of the articles in this blog series:

Sexual Health Principle 1: Consent

Sexual Health Principle 2: Non-Exploitation

Sexual Health Principle 3: Honesty

Sexual Health Principle 4: Shared Values

Sexual Health Principle 5: Protected from STI, HIV, and Unwanted Pregnancy (this article)

Sexual Health Principle 6: Pleasure

Sexual Health Principle 6: Pleasure

This blog article is part of a series of blog articles about the six Sexual Health Principles developed by Doug Braun-Harvey. You can learn more about the principles, Doug, and his work at his website.

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Pleasure is one of our main motivators for seeking sexual experiences (whether solo or partnered). Because it feels good! Pleasure is at the core of sex. However, it’s often excluded from our discourse about sexuality. And that can lead to some really big problems. 

Problem 1: not understanding what pleasure encompasses

When most people think of sexual pleasure, they think of orgasms. And of course they do! Orgasms are a wonderful source of pleasure. And, they are only a part of sexual pleasure. Touching, caressing, holding, tickling, grabbing, nuzzling, squeezing, kissing, sucking, slapping, grinding, massaging, and a host of other things (all consensually done, of course) can be wonderfully pleasurable also for both the giver and the receiver. Even just watching a partner be sexual–such as watching them masturbate–can be pleasurable for the watcher.

Most people don’t think of pleasure that way though and it means that they end up missing out on so much!

Problem 2: Shame

We are bombarded with so many conflicting messages about sexual pleasure by society and culture, loudly broadcast through song lyrics, movies and television and softly (sometimes loudly) reinforced by well-intentioned but misinformed parents, partners, educators, peers, and clergy. There’s something “dirty” about sex being pleasurable, so they tell us. It’s referenced with winks and nods, scowls and furrowed eyebrows. Sexual activity being pleasurable is treated as though it is an unfortunate consequence. 

When we don’t teach that pleasure is supposed to be part of sex, we open the door to shame. People feel badly about wanting to experience sexual pleasure. And if they do want it, they worry then that something is wrong with them: that they’re broken or “perverted”.

Pleasure is not a bug in our sexual programming; it’s a fantastic feature! We as human beings are wired to experience pleasure in touch of all forms. It’s why we pay money to get a massage and hug our loved ones. Being wired for pleasure in touch is why skin lotion is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s why infants (and grown-ups) find so much soothing and peace when they experience skin-to-skin contact. Sexual pleasure is simply an extension and form of touch pleasure.

Problem 3: Sex as a pass/fail test

If the measure of successful or ‘correct’ sex is penetration or orgasm, that closes the door to a lot of sexual experiences. It also means that sexual experiences that could otherwise be wonderful and fulfilling will end up being seen as ‘failed’ or ‘insufficient’. People for whom penetration or orgasm is impossible or difficult or painful will close themselves off to sex because they can’t ‘get it right’. 

However, when pleasure is the measure, the door to sexuality and sexual experiences can be thrown wide open. We can welcome variety, flexibility, and playfulness to our sexual experiences. There is more room for experimentation and exploration because our focus is on the journey of pleasure through the sexual experience, rather than the destination of orgasm. Remember: many roads lead to pleasure…only a few roads lead to orgasm.

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Feel free to read the rest of the articles in this blog series:

Sexual Health Principle 1: Consent

Sexual Health Principle 2: Non-Exploitation

Sexual Health Principle 3: Honesty

Sexual Health Principle 4: Shared Values

Sexual Health Principle 5: Protected from STI, HIV, and Unwanted Pregnancy

Sexual Health Principle 6: Pleasure (this article)

How to reclaim your independence in a long-term relationship

When you’ve been in a relationship for years and years, it can be easy to lose yourself a bit. In fact, for many of us, losing yourself is the norm, the expectation, the go-to pop culture example of relationship ideals. For example, think about Lily and Marshall from How I Met Your Mother and every time we combine people’s names like Brangelina; it’s almost as if a “good” couple is a couple of people who become a single person with a single identity. Popular as this may have been (or still is), it’s actually quite unhealthy. The couples who have healthy long-lasting relationships are the ones who are able to maintain a healthy balance of “me” and “we.”

For the purposes of this discussion, we’re talking about people who are in an otherwise healthy relationship. For people in abusive and manipulative relationships, some of this may not apply, and deeper healing and help will be required to get out of the relationship and back to yourself. Your safety should be your primary concern.

If you are in an abusive relationship, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at (800) 799-7233 or text “START” to 88788 for confidential support. If you can and are comfortable with it and feel safe doing so, please seek a qualified professional in your area for ongoing therapeutic support.  

Why do people tend to lose themselves in relationships?

There are a lot reasons we tend to lose ourselves in a relationship. Oftentimes, we’ve seen that people lose their individuality with the best of intentions: people want to please their partner(s). It can feel pretty innocuous. We want to feel safe and secure in our relationship, and we tend to think that surrendering to our partner(s) will help us feel this way. A lot of people end up losing themselves in an effort to become the person we think our partner wants us to be.

Another reason people tend to lose themselves in a relationship is because time is at a premium. We only have so much time in a day, and balancing everything we have to do can mean that we have to let some things go by the wayside. When you’re in a relationship, the thing we tend to let go is our individuality because we want to spend time doing things with our partner(s). It isn’t always, or is hardly ever, sinister.

What happens to the relationship when people lose their individuality within a relationship?

When people lose their individuality in their relationship, the relationship can start to feel stale. Even worse, it can lead to feelings of resentment, and some people even start to feel like their partner is to blame for their loss of self. For a while, it might seem like things are going great. We feel good about being close and connected but then we may start to get frustrated and feel a little smothered or dissatisfied. It’s easy to blame the relationship when in reality it’s because we let go of something that was a part of us.

Essentially, not only can we lose ourselves, but we can also lose sight of how it happened. No matter how well-intentioned it began, it’s not healthy for the relationship or the individuals within it.

Why are boundaries important in finding your individuality again?

Boundaries got an unfortunate reputation somewhere along the way. A lot of people, particularly people who are people pleasers, think that the best way to be accepted and “keep the peace” is to forgo their own boundaries and wishes to make the other person or people around them comfortable. A lot of people associate boundaries as something we put in place with someone who is unhealthy. However, when you’re in a healthy relationship, boundaries serve as guidelines to lift up and support each person’s wellbeing.

In a healthy relationship, boundaries create clear distinctions between what is you, me, and us. Let’s pretend that your relationship is a sheet of paper and you and your partner both share a box of crayons. Boundaries would be the outline of a beautiful picture you get to color together. However, without boundaries, you don’t know where to color and may end up with a mess of clashing colors and no distinct picture. In essence, boundaries help us define how your relationship functions and maintains a healthy balance of being individuals and being “us”.

Oftentimes people think that if they truly love someone, they need to do whatever the other person wants. This ultimately ends with people getting lost in each other and a big blurry mess of colors. Not having boundaries in a relationship can cause something with the potential to be beautiful to turn into something wholly unrecognizable.

How to start reclaiming your individuality within a relationship

If you’re worried you’ve already lost yourself, don’t worry too much. You can find yourself again and stay happy in your relationship (if that’s what you want)! The first step I recommend to people who want to begin this process is to start considering what you miss about yourself or the person you want to become again. Get curious about which aspects of you are missing currently and which aspects you want to reclaim.

Let’s say that before you began your current relationship, you spent every opportunity you had backpacking alone to reconnect with yourself and nature. Perhaps doing this every weekend is simply out of the question right now because you don’t have time or space for it, but is there some way that you can start to bring some of that back in? Could you perhaps go backpacking once a month? Once every few months? Maybe you only have time for day hikes. However you can start to reclaim those little aspects of who you are is a huge win, even if they feel like huge concessions in the moment. Reclaiming yourself doesn’t have to be all or nothing, and it doesn’t mean you don’t love your partner(s). 

How can people support their partner(s) through this transition?

Reestablishing boundaries in a long-term relationship can feel scary for a number of reasons that we don’t have space to get into here. Any one of them can result in it feeling really intimidating and almost threatening feeling to you or your partner(s). Have a conversation with your partner(s) about what it is about the relationship that you want to protect and hold on to. You can also reassure your partner(s) that this will be a slow process and that they get to have input in terms of what this looks like for the relationship.

It can also be helpful to remind your partner why you want to do this and reassure them that you want to strengthen your relationship by strengthening your relationship with yourself. Hold space for your partner’s experience and encourage them to come along with you on the quest to become individuals again.

How can a counselor support couples and individuals through this transition?

When you feel insecure in your relationship or find that you’re feeling smothered by it, it’s helpful to seek out guidance from a counselor. Typically, when we’re dealing with extreme ends of the spectrum, it indicates that there are underlying beliefs at play that can be complicated to see and work through when you’re in the middle of it. These beliefs can be fears, anxieties, beliefs about how relationships work, beliefs about your own worth, etc. Having someone who is trained to help recognize how those patterns are playing out and impacting you and your experience gives you a better opportunity for those patterns to be spotted and addressed. It’s like that phrase “you can’t see the forest through the trees,” or why a lifeguard doesn’t get in the pool with everyone; if you’re too close, you can’t see the bigger picture.

A counselor will be able to help you get to the root of how you got lost in each other and how to reclaim your individuality in a way that serves each partner and the relationship.

The bottom line

You are your own unique person who brings something special to each of your relationships. Losing yourself in your relationship doesn’t help anyone, and you deserve to love yourself for who you are. Relationships are stronger and more beautiful when they’re made up of individuals. If you’re ready to embark on this journey and want a little extra guidance, you can reach out to us here at Pivotal Counseling or read more about how we support relationships of all kinds on our Couples Counseling page. This is your relationship, and you deserve to show up in it authentically.