Customer Reviews

Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships

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This is an important book which, if understood and incorporated, can improve our capacity for both sexual pleasure and love. It is sad how often so many of us assume a diminishing capacity for love and sexual pleasure is inevitable, and acquiesce to an insidious internal process that robs us of one of life's greatest pleasures. Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships resoundly demonstrates that we can maintain a healthy sexuality throughout our lifetimes, if we understand and confront the real internal obstacles to ongoing sexual fulfillment.

This book provides an important answer to the great mystery concerning sexuality in America: why is that despite a tidal wave of Dr. Phil-type experts and Mars and Venus books, Americans seem to be having less and less sex?

Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships reports, for example, that a 1994 survey of 7000 couples reported that 59% of men and 63% of women said they were not emotionally satisfied in their sexual relationships. Other surveys indicate that most couples, particularly as people get older, have sex just once or twice a month. Why do people have sex so infrequently, despite the growing mountain of books, video tapes and workshops promising new vistas of sexual adventure and ecstasy?

The answer, if one believes Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships, is that most our real sexual problems derive fgrom deep inner psychological defenses that are untouched by the superficial focus on technique offered by most sex experts. It is fine to prescribe telling your partner what you like, wearing pink nighties or making love in a phone booth. But unless we dare tackle the deep inner causes of sexual dissatisfaction, such outer prescriptions rarely offering lasting results.

Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships describes in detail, using interesting case-histories, how people have internalized "voices" or negative thoughts about their capacity for love, bodies, partners and performance which, over time, diminish their capacity for sexual pleasure. We also struggle with deep unconscious fears of death which distance us from our partners, as allowing ourselves real sexual intimacy means opening ourselves up to the deep pain of losing them.

But the book also offers hope. The book offers numerous case-histories demonstrating that people can, by understanding and countering the inner causes of diminishing sexuality, expand their capacity for love, intimacy and sexual pleasure. Dozens of couples have used the ideas in this book to increase their capacity for sexual fulfillment and the actions they have taken, though requiring facing childhood hurts, can be taken by anyone. I strongly recommend reading this book and, more importantly of course, acting upon its prescriptions.

Well researched and documented, this book goes in depth into how psychological defenses all too often limit one's full enjoyment of their own sexuality. It could be used as an academic text or as a self-help for the educated reader. Included in this work is a longitudinal sample of couples as they progress over time with their sexuality. It's informative, insightful, and offers many practical suggestions. What impressed me greatly was the sensitivity the authors brought to the subject. There is clarity in their presentation of healthy sexuality, love, and what causes the difficulties that couples routinely face. The chapters on jealousy and sexual withholding are easy to understand and relate to. The core theoretical concept embraced is the fantasy bond. The fantasy bond is the illusion of connection rather than a real connection. I recommend this book highly to readers who are seeking to improve their own sexual intimacy and fulfillment. It offers hope despite the inherent divide between the sexes.

Let me say up-front that Sex And Love In Intimate Relationships is an interesting book. As a former psychology student--it was one of my minors in college--I was quite encouraged with the approach taken. It is quite unique, in my opinion. Usually when the psych field takes on sex, they take on sexual dysfunction from a purely technical standpoint or they focus on the deviant. This book takes on sex from an intimate point of view. It focuses on our internal makeup and the deep inner psychological defenses we form throughout our lives. It also discusses sexual intimacy in relation to love and how rewarding they are together.

There are a lot of case studies documented as well. While the book is quite easy to read and understand, the case studies help give the principles expoused a more personal flavor. They help the reader better understand the concepts they are reading and how they can better utitlize them in their own life. The case studies also allow the reader to see their own triggers and circumstances in the lives of others. I really like that! Readers immediately see themselves and that they are not alone. They see that someone else, and in some cases many others, have went through similar experiences and have had similar reactions.

For anyone looking to expand their sexual pleasure and the ability to love and be loved, I highly recommend this book. Not only will it help you pinpoint the defenses you have built, it will help you overcome them. This book provides a valuable resource to individuals and couples alike. Also, couples would do well to read this book together. With the right tools and a "can do" attitude, any couple should be able to attack the internal demons that prevent them from obtaining true sexual intimacy. This book will definitely put them on the right track.

Intimacy in a relationship should be a highly joyful, pleasurable and sharing time. But it oftentimes brings fear, frustration and negativity towards the experience and/or the partner.

In 287 pages that are split into four sections - Exploring Sexuality and Love; Factors Influencing Sexual Development and Adult Sexual Functioning; The Defensive Process of Sexuality; Therapeutic Approaches to Problems in Sexual Relations - and ten chapters, there is a solid, understandable holistic approach in exploring the various dimensions of sexuality and love.


Authors Robert W. Firestone, Lisa A. Firestone and Joyce Catlett argue that everyone is damaged in their sexuality, whether it is feelings about oneself as a man or woman, or excessive guilt/inhibited sexual drive, or perversion/shame about the body or performance anxiety.

And, truly, we learn about sexuality during our formative years, and, according to the authors, can carry positive and negative interpersonal factors into adulthood. Those factors include parental attitudes and behaviors, cultural and societal influences & verbal/sexual abuse and incest.

Particularly interesting are the case studies and charts - which include Negative Thoughts Toward One's Partner and An Imaginary Conversation About Sex - that can be used as self-exploration, self-help tools while reading the book.

A major plus is the chapters are broken into specific parts with titles, which assists the reader in focusing on areas of interest or need. "It is important to bring the subject of sexuality out in to the open, as we have done in this book," says Robert W. Firestone, in an interview that is part of the Epilogue.

When I got this book (it was given to me for free), I was a bit concerned that it was going to be a boring text book style catalog of case studies similar to what I had to read years ago in my undergraduate work. While it fits in size and shape, the similarities end there. I was surprised by the readable approach employed by this book. I discovered early on that while it is not written in a heady hard to read style that so many clinical texts are, it nonetheless required me to read it in digestible chunks. I could read 2-3 chapters in a sitting at most, because there was so much coming at me through this book.

The book is grouped into 4 key categories:
1) Exploring Sexuality and Love
2) Factors Influencing Sexual Development and Adult Sexual Functioning
3) The Defensive Process and Sexuality
4) Therapeutic Approaches to Problems in Sexual Relating

I found the first and the fourth chapters the most helpful, though all four are done quite well. As I read through this, I was able to see an enormous amount of practical application points as a pastor. While I suspect some of it may never come up, it's nice to know more, and know more about the tools available to help couples through their relational and sexual issues. This is not a Christian orientated reader unfortunately. It has places where it could have upheld or affirmed a Christian view on sexuality and did not. It is a great tool to help people understand their dysfunctions and begin to help them work to bringing themselves back into a healthy place in that area of their relationship, but not a tool to help one understand sexuality in the context of a Christian worldview. It does go to the underlying problems instead of treating surface issues. I think in general terms I would shy away from this type/category of book, but having read this I would recommend this for your personal understanding and your library, but only read along with the knowledge of God's teachings of/on sexuality. As a person generally not interested in psychology, I found the authors language very approachable, not burying me with terminology specific to their field. This is a book for adults though, as the content and subject matter are very in-depth and/or graphic at times.

Everyone who is currently in, or plans to be in a romantic relationship should read this book! It does eveything from recomending ways to improve your sexual intimacy to examining the meaning of concepts such as "love" and "healthy sexuality". This book should be a prerequisite for anyone who wants to start a relationship.

Great information to understand the perception of both woman and man in different situations. Great self-help book!