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Excerpts from the book
RQ - Relationship Intelligence.
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Chapter One
The following stories are all true, with names and locations changed to
protect identities.
Frank is in his late 20s. He grew up in New York City, the son of a college
professor and a mother who took care of his three older sisters and him. His
parents divorced when he was 5. Frank and his sisters lived with their mom
until he was 7. Then he and his youngest sister, Angela, moved in with his
father. They attended a Catholic high school in Queens. After graduating, he
took one and a half years off before attending college at the State
University of New York in New Paltz, where he majored in History.
Frank worked as a bike messenger through his high school and college years to
help fund his education. He is athletic, handsome, and personable. Frank says
he was attracted to girls as early as age 6 or 7. Around age 13, when his
buddies were talking about which girl they wanted to do it with, he would say
he only wanted to have sex if I’m in love with her. He believed in and hoped
for true love. Frank reminisces,
When I was 12 or 13, my father’s second marriage was breaking up due to an
affair he was having with someone else. We moved to an exclusive part of the
city where there was high security, a haven from crime, but it was full of
divorced families and pornography. My friend was babysitting for a divorced
woman and we watched the X-rated movies she had.
About two years later, we moved again to a new house in a new neighborhood.
My sister, Angela, and I were hopeful for a new start, but within a month my
father’s lover came over. Angela and I knew what they were doing. That’s
when my father and I began fighting. I lost all respect for him. We fought
over the stupidest things.
Another time, my father came home from a trip, came into my room, threw a
pornographic magazine on my desk and said, I found this at the airport and
don’t need it anymore. I had seen porn before, but this was from my own
father. It was like a tidal wave. I was so confused. I lost all my reference
points, all my earlier ideals about true love sank to the bottom of the East
river. I began to think about sex all the time.
Angela and I moved back with my mother. The first time I kissed a girl it was
such a big thing, I thought I was in love. A few months later I became close
to a girl named Melinda. We would often drink alcohol from her parents’
liquor cabinet. We started fooling around and within a few weeks we began
having intercourse. She was 15; I was 17.
All my emotions and thinking went into that first relationship with Melinda;
it was all-consuming. After a year, all of a sudden, I asked myself, Why am I
with you (Melinda)? There are so many other girls I could be with. We broke
up, but I still felt attached. I didn’t have any other relationships. Soon we
got back together.
One year after I’d broken up with her, Melinda broke up with me. I couldn’t
function-I felt so much pain. But then she would come around sometimes. I
realized it was a game for her, to keep me in her control without committing
herself to me. I was like a puppet in her hands. I would probably have done
the same thing to her, if I had been in control. It was like a drug; my mind
knew the relationship was wrong, but my emotions were too strong.
Finally, I decided to completely break it off. After I did that, I felt I was
getting stronger. One day she showed up, just before she was going to
California to visit her father. She wanted me to sleep with her. I told her I
wasn’t interested. For three hours she pleaded with me to come to her house,
telling me how much she loved me, that I was the only one. She said whatever
she could to get me to come over. Finally, I gave in.
The next day, I saw her off at the airport. She said she would call, but
never did. I felt totally manipulated, the biggest sucker on the planet.
Soon afterwards, I went to college. I never wanted to be in a weak position
with girls again. I started to take total control in relationships with
girls. I hurt them the same way I had been hurt.
After the first semester of school, I began to go out with Lisa. Our
relationship went off and on for about a year. It was totally based on
alcohol and sex.
In the middle of my sophomore year, I cut off from all women. For six months,
I felt so empty. My mother was involved in encounter groups where people
shared about their feelings. One time I went with her to a meeting. For
the first time, I could feel and release a lot of pain. I began to become
more conscious, see myself more clearly. I began to feel stronger.
There was a girl, Debbie, at school I really respected. I was very attracted
to her. Finally, I approached her and we started seeing each other. We didn’t
have sex until two months later. I was trying to learn how to love. Our
relationship went on for four years.
After college, I came back to New York City. She was still in New Paltz. I
realized that no matter how good a person Debbie was, there was still
something wrong with me, so I broke it off in 1991. I was abstinent for four
years until I got engaged to Melanie. Sometimes I struggled to be abstinent,
but I realized I had a lot of sex for selfish reasons. For the first time
since I became a teenager, I tried to avoid any sexual thoughts-I realized,
you can’t control yourself. It became a challenge to me. Either I would gain
mastery over it or never be able to have control of my life.
I thought about my ideals of true love before porn came into my life. I
realized that unless I have deep, unselfish love for Melanie, selfishness
would corrupt our sexual relationship. We’re not having sex until we get
married. I feel more free to develop our relationship in other ways. Melanie
is a virgin. I want to achieve a real victory over sexual thoughts-I want to
experience true love with her, have children someday.
Beverly, a petite 23 year-old actress with light brown hair and a ready
smile, grew up in a suburb of Louisville, Kentucky. Her father was a
self-employed graphics artist. Her mother helped with her husband’s business
and took care of the family and home.
Ever since she was 11 years old Beverly’s been involved in the
theater-either community theater, the high school drama club, or at college.
During the summer after her freshman year, she worked as an intern with a tra
veling theater group. Beverly says, my father is a saint, goodhearted and loving. My mother is a manic-depressive
who blames all her problems on her own father and on my dad. My dad says he
loves my mom, but it’s obviously a difficult situation.
Even in kindergarten, elementary and middle schools, I had boyfriends. I
would go steady for a week and then break up. My first real date was when I
was 13. Through high school, I was just dating, nothing steady. Often I would
flirt with someone who already had a girlfriend.
My first real serious relationship was when I was a senior in high school.
Ron was a year younger than I. Our relationship lasted for 3-4 months and
then he split without saying goodbye to go follow the Grateful Dead. Then he
showed up two months later.
I was involved with one of his friends. I was so infatuated with Ron that I
dumped his friend, who was such a good and kind person, in order to go back
to Ron.
After I went back to college, we continued our relationship by long distance.
He broke up with me on Thanksgiving. Later on, around Valentine’s Day, he
visited me again. I couldn’t reject Ron-I liked him too much.
My first time to have sex was when I was 17. It was the November before I met
Ron. It was a guy I worked with at a pub whom I barely knew. He asked me if I
wanted to go to a party, so I said OK. It was while I was driving us in my
car that I found out there was no party.
He asked me to pull over, so I did. He started to make advances. I couldn’t
think of any reason to stop him, so we did it. My girlfriends were having
sex. My parents never said anything one way or another about it, so there was
no reason not to. I didn’t feel anything. It was my last day of work, so I
never saw him again. I felt nothing.
Later when I started going out with Ron, he introduced me to marijuana and
LSD. Within a month we started having sex, almost every other day at his
place, since both of his parents were working. Sometimes we did it in the
woods, since he was into nature.
I soon realized that at the same time Ron was seeing me, he also had two
other girlfriends. I was obsessed with him. He had a lot of abilities. He was
a drummer and good at sports. He was the center of attention wherever he
went, very charismatic and powerful. I became just like him, a Dead follower.
I dressed in the same style with the round John Lennon glasses, sandals,
beads, and long skirts.
Later, in college, after Ron and I’d broken up, I met Ben, who was a junior
and four years older than I. Ben was similar to Ron, only more brilliant.
Girls were crazy about him. He was also the center of attention, an artist
who could draw really well and a rap artist, even though he was white.
I began to dress hiphop with the ski hats and really baggy clothes, just like
Ben. I was totally infatuated with him. He would spend a night with me every
three or four weeks. I would live for that one night. He was having
relationships with other girls, especially his old girlfriend, who was black.
She was very beautiful, a model. They broke up, probably because he couldn’t
be faithful.
He treated me more like a friend with whom he was sometimes intimate. I
strategized how to become the closest of anyone to him, and I succeeded. I
would hang around on campus just in case he would walk by. Many people
thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but not him.
When I left for the summer theater internship, I felt satisfied that I was
impressing Ben. The theater director, Mike, was brilliant. Since I was the
first summer intern the theater group had ever had, he was totally dedicated
to teaching me. He was 31. It was so exciting to be the recipient of someone
who was so creative.
He wasn’t sleeping with the women involved in the theater group, even though
he probably could have. He was so focused. He didn’t go to parties. I learned
so much about art and performance. We started to sleep together, but it was a
secret, just like with Ron and Ben.
In my sophomore year, Ben and I lived next door to each other. I was inspired
by my summer internship to start my own theater group. Almost every night I
would sleep over but we wouldn’t have sex, just once every few weeks. I was
disappointed; it was like getting crumbs off a table.
After doing it, the next day I would ask him, Are we a couple? He would
always say, no. Then I would ask, then why did we do it last night? You said
we weren’t going to. Then he would say OK, no more. But then we’d do it in a
few weeks. I couldn’t resist him, better to have a little than to have
nothing. He was on my mind constantly.
It went on this way the whole sophomore year. In the summer, I went to see
Mike and the theater group again and then I got a job.
I began to realize that none of these three men I’ve been involved with, Ron,
Ben, and Mike, were committed to me. I was always an occasional mistress, a
secret, an afterthought. In addition, I had seven or eight one night stands.
Even though I didn’t really want those one night stands I couldn’t think of
any reason not to. I felt it would have been mean to stop when we had already
gone so far, after the guy was already stimulated. At the end of my sophomore
year, I finally decided that I would never be intimate with someone I didn’t
care about.
During that year, I was living in what was the party center of the campus.
People would often get drunk, even have sex in our living room. Around
Valentine’s Day, I began to have anxiety attacks. It lasted for two
weeks. I couldn’t eat. I felt so secluded, alone. School counselors couldn’t
help. I had to leave that sickening environment. I was just surviving. I kept
trying to find a source of inspiration.
I started to look to my father. My father is very religious, close to God. He
doesn’t attend church, but he reads the Bible often and prays. So when I was
getting an anxiety attack, I would pray. I began to feel relieved; more
normal; centered.
I met a spiritual group where I felt at home. I was shocked to find that the
men and women who weren’t married didn’t have sex. The guys weren’t nerds;
many of them were good-looking, but they weren’t doing it. I looked in the
Bible and in other religious books. They all said the same thing: don’t have
any sex unless you are married.
My parents had never told me not to. My father, even though he was religious,
didn’t bring it up. My mother was never happy with any of my friends, girls
or guys, so I never felt that she particularly cared about this issue.
Looking back, I realized that I had sex because I wanted to be loved and
thought that was the way to attract the men I wanted to love me. I began to
understand how little I was settling for, how little value I was giving
myself. This only became clear after I separated from that lifestyle. Then it
hit me like a ton of bricks.
I’ve been abstinent for five years. Giving up the sex wasn’t very hard,
though sometimes I missed the emotional involvement. But I understood how
terrible was my taste in men. Like my mother, I was looking for a man to fill
all my emotional needs. Like her, when they disappointed me, I blamed them,
even though I was willing to be used by them and tried to manipulate them in
various ways. I began to see that I need to be spiritually and emotionally
whole myself before I will truly be able to love a man.
Now I’m engaged to Alan. He’s totally different from my old boyfriends. He’s
very shy, even awkward. He’s kind and thoughtful. Several women in the
theater used to tell me, Don’t go for the popular guys. Go for the nerd,
he’ll stay with you. Alan is not a nerd, but he is definitely more unselfish,
more down-to-earth, less self-centered.
Love comes from commitment, not from chemicals, attractions, and sparks.
Infatuation no longer interests me. I am focusing on developing myself, not
just as an extension of a man. Being attractive to men or enticing them with
some parts of me, is no longer a source of happiness to me. I want my whole
being to be accepted.
To us, sex is special, says a 20-something couple who want to wait. Nicole,
23, and Rod, 26, met through a church Youth Group and began dating soon
after. Nicole works with mentally retarded people. Rod is a payroll manager.
Self-respect is a large part of my decision not to have premarital sex,
explains Nicole. I’ve seen the respect a male loses for a female once she has
satisfied him sexually and I’ve seen men cheat on women who have given them
everything. I decided when I was 21 that the only way to safeguard myself
against being hurt in that way was not to have sex before marriage.
I’ve had two boyfriends before Rodney and we broke up because of my views on
premarital sex. If a guy dumps me just because I won’t have sex with him,
then he doesn’t deserve me. It’s easy to feel pressured into having sex by
partners or peers. One schoolfriend always acted as if my not having sex was
‘uncool’, but it isn’t that I’m a prude-I just want to wait until the time
is right. I see sex as being too special to waste on just anyone.
When I started going out with Rod, we knew sex wouldn’t be part of the
equation because we are both committed to our faith. It’s a constant
struggle, but we make it easier by avoiding certain situations. We won’t go
away or spend a night together. We hold hands and hug and if there’s an
intimate touch that excites us, we’ll avoid doing it again. I think because
we’ve waited, when we do make love, it will be a very spiritual and emotional
experience for both of us.
When I was in my late teens, says Rod, I knew people in sexual relationships
who were getting hurt, so I thought there must be something in what the
church was saying about saving sex. I wanted to be able to make a rational
decision about who I had a relationship with, and the easiest way to do that,
without getting hurt, was to take sex out of the picture and not let the fact
that I might have slept with someone cloud my judgment.
I’ve seen how quickly a guy loses interest in a woman who has been around and
I have a lot of respect for Nicole because I know the choice she has made is
a tough one. I’ve been in short-term relationships where sex has been
expected of me, and it’s been a complete turn-off for some women when I
haven’t come up with the goods. People assume you’re a bit strange or don’t
like sex. But I do have feelings, I just keep them under control. And I think
there is more trust in our relationship because of that. Sex is on the back
burner, so Nicole understands that if that was all I was interested in, I’d
have left by now. We have romance without the passion. I buy her flowers or a
gift or write her letters - just being in each other’s company satisfies us.
To me, sex is special, but if you’re having it with every Tom, Dick or Harry,
then it isn’t special anymore-it’s sport.
Introduction
First, there was free sex. Remember all those college types and other
enthusiasts of the counterculture who proclaimed that their parents were
uptight, particularly about sexual matters? Marriage was just a piece of
paper; sex something to be enjoyed with-whomever. Pregnancy was easily
avoided with birth control. Remember the laissez faire refrain if you can’t
be with the one you love, love the one you’re with?
A generation later, though, we found out that free sex isn’t free. In fact,
it came with a pretty high cost-an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases
(STDs), including a new one-AIDS. Out-of-wedlock pregnancy rates shot through
the roof, rising more than 500%. More than a million children are born each
year without fathers. AWOL dads are linked to every major social problem,
including higher incidences of: infant mortality, domestic violence, poverty,
juvenile crime, violent crime, poor performance in school.
As years passed, we increasingly heard from the sexually liberated not about
the joys of a world without rules, but of the emotional costs of uncommitted
free sex. A former sorority social director at Indiana University says, I was
pretty bitter toward men my senior year. I didn’t trust any of them. In a
Dear Abby letter, a 20 something woman tells of her passionate one-week fling
with a good-looking man at a vacation resort. Two months later, after finding
out that she was pregnant, she found out that Mr. Good-looking had no
interest in talking with her and hung up before she was able to tell him that
she is carrying his child.
If forbidden fruits are no longer forbidden for adults, the teen and even
preteen market can’t be far behind. But in a society which worships youth,
many of the young already feel old: a girl in the ninth grade who had sex
with many boys the year before said, I already feel so old.
In a rare moment of candor, a teenage boy confesses After four weeks of
having sex as often as I wanted, I was tired of her. I didn’t see any point
in continuing the relationship. I finally left her, which made me feel even
worse, because I could see she was hurting.
The emotional costs of casual, short-term sexual relationships hit sexually
active teenage girls hard. They have a six times higher likelihood to attempt
suicide than girls who haven’t had sex. But even without attempted suicide,
free sex has left a legacy of worry and anxiety. Teens who used to worry
about who likes whom now worry Do I have AIDS? or What do I do now that she’s
pregnant? Then there is the guilt about using someone you didn’t really care
that much about, the pain of damaged relationships, the inability to trust.
This is freedom?
Many wonder, like the Sheryl Crowe song says, If it makes you feel happy,
then it can’t be bad; if it makes you feel happy, then why do you look so
damn sad?
We learned that sex makes you feel good, but it can kill you, or make you
sterile. We hear that to be happy you need to be sexy. Yet, if only losers
and nerds are missing out on the fun, why do so many sexually active girls
try to take their own lives?
With the advent of AIDS in the ’80s and ’90s, free sex was replaced with
Safe Sex. Government-sponsored TV ads, Magic Johnson and rap groups alike
warned us to remember our rubbers. High school health teachers lectured on
the need to practice safe(r) sex, and school nurses gave out mint-flavored
and no-flavored condoms, depending on whether one wanted oral sex or genital
intercourse. But then we found out that safe sex wasn’t all that safe. A
National Institute of Health study of the effectiveness of condoms in
preventing the spread of the AIDS virus in San Fransisco was canceled because
the study’s director says it would be unethical to expose so many to the risk
of infection, even with condoms.
A leading advocate and practitioner of safe sex who was not infected when he
began propagating the safe sex message, died from AIDS, in his forties. In
Los Angeles, a young AIDS educator who could recite the rules of safe sex
like a math table became HIV-infected, before the age of 20.
A Johns Hopkins School of Public Health journal reported that among couples
in which one partner was already HIV-infected, 1 in 4 of the female sex
partners became infected despite using condoms every time they had sex.
If free sex isn’t free and Safe Sex isn’t all that safe, then what’s left? A
little noticed, but increasing trend towards committed, monogamous
relationships is under way in the U.S., what could be called Relationship
Intelligence.
Relationship Intelligence is a search for intimacy without anxiety or guilt,
for freedom within the bounds of real trust and commitment. An attractive 30
something TV contributor on MSNBC-TV explains, I used to complain to my
mother, who is a liberal, about boyfriends who seemed commitment shy. And she
would say, ‘Well, why buy the cow, if the milk is free?’ We’re in the sexual
promised land now; the milk is free; people are surfeited with sex. And yet
we’re starved for love... I didn’t kiss the man I’m dating now, until the
seventh date. I didn’t have sex with him until the seventh month. He respects
and values me a lot more than the men I dated in college, when I was a lot
more casual with my body.
NBA star A.C. Green is in his 30s and a virgin. Green admits that abstaining
from extramarital sex is one of the most unpopular things a person can do,
and runs against the grain of what red-blooded American males, especially
athletes, are supposed to want and do. He says, it’s ironic, but the guys who
are parents-and especially the guys who have daughters-tend to look at sex
before marriage a lot more carefully now. Isn’t it obvious that he’s a lot
more radical than Dennis Rodman will ever be?
A poll at U.C.L.A. reveals that 40% of undergraduates are virgins. A
surprising number of college students are deciding that uncommitted sex is
not worth the effort. They’d rather wait. Brown University’s Rajib Chanda, a
senior fraternity president who founded a computer dating service, says, in a
normal Brown relationship, you meet, get drunk, hook up and either avoid eye
contact the next day or find yourself in a relationship that consists of a
headlong plunge into a pool of intimacy when students were really looking
just to tip a toe.
Chanda explains about the new trend at Brown. Instead of pairing off, many
undergrads socialize in unpartnered packs. They go out to dinner in groups,
attend movies in groups, and at parties dance in a circle of five or six. The
packs give students a sense of self-assurance and identity but keep them from
deeper, more complicated relationships, which Chanda says, may be just the
point.
In Washington, D.C., the singles scene is no longer just bars, dances, or
parties. Since 1997 singles can meet while serving at a soup kitchen or
building a house for homeless people. Dana Kressierer, co-founder of Single
Volunteers of D.C., says, In our group, the superficiality of singles bars
and dances isn’t there. People are meeting with no makeup on and up to their
knees in mud. You meet in your natural state, so it’s about who you are, not
what you look like or how much money you make or what kind of car you drive.
Kressierer says that even if you don’t meet the one, people often say
they’ve met their ‘best friend,’ not a bad place to start.
In the 1990s, for the first time in 20 years, the proportion of high school
students who have had sexual intercourse at least once dropped by 10%. Half
of teens are choosing to wait.
Even the media managed to discover the existence of real-live virgins. VOGUE
magazine in an article named Like a Virgin, Again wondered why
twenty-five years after women began fighting for the right to have-and
enjoy-sex, many young women are postponing carnal knowledge.
Witness Lakita Garth, a born-again, 26 year-old spokesperson for a Los
Angeles-based group called Athletes for Abstinence. Her agenda was heavily
Christian, but she was no humorless, scrubbed-face zealot. She was a
beautiful young African American entertainer who delivered her abstinence rap
with impassioned ease...
The girls who laughed at me in high school because I was a virgin, she told
me, are now working at a K mart checkout counter and have two babies by
different men. When people say to me, ‘You’ve missed something,’ I say,
‘Yeah, I missed worrying about being pregnant and getting some STD [sexually
transmitted disease] and having some hospital orderly change my diapers
because I’m lying in a hospital bed dying of AIDS and having chronic
diarrhea.’ I want to be able to look my husband in the face on our wedding
night, she told me with a beatific smile, and say, ‘I saved myself for you.’
VOGUE’s writer is shocked to find the idea of premarital chastity taking hold
not just among the strongly religious, but even among typical college coeds
you’d expect to have a more carefree attitude toward exploring and expressing
their sexuality:
I could see how her moral resolution might work for the committedly
religious, but it was hard to imagine her message playing out among college
coeds. It made sense that they would be scared of AIDS and other diseases,
even alert to pregnancy fears. But what of this idea of saving yourself? As I
talked with these women I was surprised to discover the degree to which their
language and emotions accorded with Garth’s vision.
They didn’t talk about God, but they did talk about love, tenderness,
commitment-and about not having sex without it. Most were not strictly
virgins. Many had had sex once or twice and then retreated behind a Maginot
Line. They are what the promoters of abstinence like to call secondary
virgins, and I ran in to a lot of them, young women who told me how they
wished they hadn’t done it. They felt dirty, somehow, lonesome, and were
determined not to have sex again short of a wedding or engagement ring-or, at
the very least, love.
The thing that really bugs me is that I didn’t love him, a lovely Asian high
school senior told me about the boyfriend she had slept with a few times and
had just broken up with. We weren’t doing it every single day, like some of
my friends, she continued, looking down at her scuffed saddle shoes,
struggling with tears. I don’t feel bad about it, but I think that, actually,
maybe I’d wait to be engaged or married the next time. I’ve had it; I know
what it’s like; it’s no big deal. I’d want something permanent before having
sex again, some stability, a reason he won’t leave or I won’t leave.(A. T.
Fleming, Up Front: like a virgin, again, VOGUE )
There are even changes in the marriage-hostile world of TV. An NYPD Blue show
concludes with an explicit, steamy sex scene between Detective Di Simone and
Detective Diane Rusell. After their passionate groans, she says, I think we
just made a baby. Di Simone sighs, Great! I was ready to write this off as
another sexploitation scene when I remembered that Di Simone and Russell are
married. How many TV shows suggest that married people even know what sex is,
much less do it? Doesn’t the gospel according to NBC, ABC, and CBS teach that
getting married kills your sex drive? After all, a hot, steamy sex scene
between a man and his wife is light years apart from its meaning in the
unmarried state. To witness such a positive affirmation of the value of
marriage, the idea of pregnancy welcomed and embraced by the NYPD Blue couple
left me- speechless. I’d come to the show expecting to be scandalized and
ended up. . .well, almost like being in church, well maybe not inside, but at
least at the front steps. Not the usual pomp and ceremony, but the same
uplifting, life affirming message.
Besides these signs of a nascent cultural shift towards secure, committed
relationships, there are indicators of a new emerging scientific consensus on
sexuality and relationships. Science, which once promised magic bullet
solutions to pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, is less bullish
(some would say arrogant) than it once was. Scientific research no longer
debunks monogamy and marriage, but converges regularly with what defenders of
the traditional family have been saying for decades.
To give an example: the largest, most scientific survey of sex in America
ever, conducted at the University of Chicago, found that marital commitment
may not just be a moral ideal, it can be good for your sex life and your
health. The study found that married people had more sex than singles. Nine
out of 10 married couples said they were very emotionally and physically
satisfied with their sex lives. While unwed couples living together had just
as much sex, they were much less emotionally fulfilled in their
relationships. Those with more than one sex partner in the last year were the
least emotionally satisfied.
This leads one to wonder-is it possible that Ozzie and Harriet having more
fun in the sack than James Bond and Girls X, Y, or Z ever had? If he were
dead, Hugh Hefner would turn over in his grave. But he’s not dead. He’s
married again. At least he was until recently. Let’s just say he’s trying.
What about the Generation Xers, many of whom saw their parents divorce one or
even two times? A 1998 Newsweek article, Down the Aisle, reports that these
20-and-30-somethings, though often bereft of role models, are in many ways
more conservative than their parents. They are more likely to value the
stability that marriage can provide, and determined to succeed where their
parents failed.
In fact, market-research firm Yankelovich Partners reports that 73% of
Gen-Xers said they’d be in favor of a return to more traditional standards in
family life. Only 56% of baby boomers felt the same way when asked the same
question twenty years ago. And while these marriage-seekers may lack skills
and role models for their marriages, a growing marriage education movement is
also rising up to help engaged and newly married couples gain practical
insights as to how to make love last.
Beginning in January 1999, the state of Florida began offering discounted
marriage licenses to couples who could prove they’d undergone several hours
of premarital counseling. In Louisiana and Arizona, laws allow couples to
choose covenant marriages, in which getting divorced would be more difficult
and preceded by several months of marriage counseling. Utah has established a
Marriage Commission which has the explicit purpose of finding ways to
strengthen marriage in the state. Around the country, more than 100 cities
and towns have instituted a community marriage policy in which all the
churches pledge to require in-depth premarital counseling and education for
every couple seeking to marry. Mike McManus, founder of the Marriage Savers
movement, says that 80% of marriages, even those on the verge of divorce, can
be saved.
So while the editors of Cosmopolitan and Penthouse are unlikely to change
their profitable tune, there is evidence of a return in American culture
towards marriage. Is this a blip on the screen or a trend that will become
more and more dominant in the early decades of the 21st century? It remains
to be seen, but now let’s take a look at some real life stories of several
twenty-somethings who have survived free sex, no longer hold faith in Safe
Sex and are groping towards relationships of more lasting value.
Preface
When Cupid shoots his love-potion tipped arrows, the rational part of our
brains goes into a deep sleep. As the object of our affections enters our
consciousness, part of us wants to melt into a malleable gelatin ready to
take on any form requested. Experience leads most of us to realize that
following this romantic streak must be carefully thought out, lest it end in
disaster instead of some approximation of paradise.
I recently heard the tragic story of a bright, energetic young woman living
in Columbus, Ohio. She did very well in her studies in high school and was
accepted at an Ivy League school on an athletic scholarship. She was the
first one in her family and one of the few in her neighborhood able to go to
college. The college’s health exam revealed that she was HIV-positive. She’d
had sex with just one person, a young man she’d known most of her life.
I thought about this young woman, her anguish and her regret. Thousands of
girls like her in high school or college have sexual intercourse without the
same consequences. Many do end up pregnant. Many get other diseases which are
more widespread and, usually, less lethal than AIDS. They get more time to
learn from, or at least survive, their mistakes. Despite advances in the
medical treatment of HIV/AIDS, she is unlikely to get the same chance.
Some would argue that sexually transmitted diseases are just dumb germs who
don’t care who you are and whether this is your first or tenth partner. And
they’re right.
While it’s true this young woman made her own decisions and must live with
the consequences, I can’t stop thinking that the way our society understands
and discusses love and sexuality is a travesty. On the one side are those who
think that everything can be solved by leaving boxes of condoms around
everywhere, as actress Sharon Stone suggested at World’s AIDS Day in 1998. On
the other side are those who think that just telling young people to just say
no is enough.
Beyond advice, warnings or commandments regarding sexual expression, there
are larger issues-what is the connection between love and sexuality? The 20th
century saw a radical departure from the mainstream of traditional wisdom
about this important area of our lives. As we enter the 21st century should
we build on 20th century trends? Should we junk our recent past as a failure
and start from scratch? An article in Parade magazine mentioned the upcoming
55th wedding anniversary of actor Charlton Heston and his wife, Lydia. Asked
if she ever considered divorcing the Ben-Hur star, Mrs. Heston replied,
Divorce? Never! Murder, yes.
As a child of divorced parents, I didn’t see up close and personal the
strength and security expressed in her kidding response. I’ve met other
couples from the same World War II generation who have the same unquestioning
commitment to each other. It’s hard not to have enormous respect and even awe
at their beautiful faith in their marital relationship. Who wouldn’t love to
have that kind of respect and friendship after 50 years of being together?
More recent generations are a different story. Last year for a TV show pilot
I interviewed couples at a local mall regarding many of these questions about
love and relationships. Many couples were insightful. Some were confused. All
seemed to be still searching as if there is no clearly successful model to
emulate. When asked about the best way to prepare for marriage, many thought
that living together was a good idea, even though there’s a lot of research
showing that living together usually damages the chances of a marriage
lasting.
Some people will ask why a book about relationships spends so much time
focusing on sexual issues. The reason is that the way we deal with sex
impacts not only the man-woman relationship itself and any children born as a
consequence of intercourse, but also the way we relate to others and, most of
all, to ourselves. Sexuality is powerful and its distortion can have
consequences on our own lives and those of others for generations to come. Of
course, in the right context it’s great!
As we go to press, a friend has just emailed me a quote from Sharon Stone
(mentioned earlier) about her marriage to Phil Bronstein: I had no idea what
marriage could be. Married, loving sex? I don’t care how much you might be in
love with someone, there’s nothing like married, loving sex. There is no way
to tell someone who hasn’t had that experience what it does to the way you
look at the world. (September 1999 issue of Movieline) If Ms. Basic Instinct
can have a change of heart, it seems there must be hope for the rest of us...
Publisher's Commentary
Relationship Intelligence is a riveting text that tells young adults and
singles the real deal on what they need to know about having intimate
relationships today. Panzer cuts right to the core of this controversial
topic with honest discussions of male/female relationships. He includes
interesting facts, personal confessions, real life stories, powerful quotes
from celebrity role models, and captivating graphics throughtout the book to
keep you engaged, that will make even nonreaders want to read this book.
You’ll find out:
- Common mistakes that can ruin a man/woman relationship.
- What brain research reveals about Male/Female differences!
- Why are people who fall in love on drugs? Why do they need to be careful about becoming romance junkies?
- What are the four stages of intimacy and why do many people never get beyond stage two?
- Is living together a good way to find if someone is a good marriage partner?
- Which surprising group has the best sex, health, and longest life expectancy?
- Why do good girl/bad girl stereotypes persist throughout the world?
- Why do declining rates of marriage endanger the physical safety of women and children as well as men?
- How is youth violence linked to their parents’ sexuality?
- Which popular 20th century beliefs about sexuality are based on junk science and why do they hurt men, women and children?
- How can you avoid falling into the Fairy Tale, Love conquers all, Entitlement, Virtual Reality, Lone Ranger and other relationship traps?
- What group is the most endangered species in TV-land?
- Why were many men happy to become feminists?
- Why do most college courses on marriage and family flunk the Relationship Intelligence test?
- What are the trends that could make the 21st century an age of Relationship Intelligence?
- Find out why What’s your price tag? may be the most important question you will ever ask your self!
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why buy the cow, if the milk is free?
Chapter 1: True Confessions
- Frank’s Story
- Beverly’s Story
- To us, sex is something special
Chapter 2: Stages of Intimacy
- Why Sex?
- The First Stages: Attraction and Infatuation
- The Third Stage: Connection
- The Fourth Stage: Caretaking
- Love: 3-Sided Triangle or 4-Sided House?
- The Human Search for Meaning in Sexuality
Chapter 3: Male and Female
- A Darwinian View of Marriage
- Monogamous Marriage Reduces Violence
- Male/Female Differences Today
- Living Together vs. Commitment Bad Reasons to Get Married
Chapter 4: Comprehending the Culture
- Margaret Mead
- Sigmund Freud
- Alfred Kinsey
- Herbert Marcuse
- Impact of Economic and Technological Changes on Sexual Behavior
- Hugh Hefner
- Post World War II Feminism
- College Textbooks on Marriage
- Popular Culture, Women’s Pornography and the Internet
- How Did Men Respond to the Feminist and Sexual Revolutions?
- Explosions in Divorce and Out-of-Wedlock Births
- Fatherless Families, Abandoned Children
- Will the 21st Century be an Age of Relationship Intelligence? Two Americas?
Appendix A: Sexual Diseases
Appendix B: How Safe is Safe Sex?
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