January 2013

Recently, a survey on sexual behavior in marriage was completed.  The results of that study are going to be part of a new book released next month, The Normal Bar.  I have no doubt, given the press, content, and media of this book, it will be a best seller.

We will all rush out, read through, and immediately start judging, “am I normal?”  That is, isn’t it, the way we look at ourselves.  We want a yardstick.  We want a measurement of what is normal.

And that is the way we were raised.  How did you fair in the race?  Where you the fastest, slowest, or in between?  How were your grades?  Better than your friends, the same, or worse?

Later, how is your salary?  Retirement savings? Health statistics?  All based on an idea of a norm.

And many times, the norm can help us understand where we are.  If I should have X dollars saved for retirement, and my peers have done that, it is some incentive to get busy.

But there are other areas where “the norm” does little to move us.  Relationships tend to be one of those areas.  And I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what the authors of The Normal Bar have to say.

In my years of being a therapist, I have had people who are married and have not had sex for decades.  Others tell me they have sex every single day (more on weekends!).  In other words, there is a wide continuum of sex frequency, not to mention sex variety.

So, as we look to the book for some “normalizing” of intimacy, we may want to remind ourselves that “norm” is not the same as “expected” or “acceptable, ” or even “OK.”  It may, however, become the basis of a conversation about what two people want and need from the relationship.