The Health Blog

HYPERAROUSAL: I get all sweaty. My heart beats, any hands are wet, but I feel kind of cold. I get over-ready, overanxious. I’m so turned on that I can’t even feel anything really. I just seem carried away, like I have to do it now or I’ll explode. My wife keeps saying “Slowdown, slow down, take it easy,” but I just want to take it fast. I really can’t control it.

HUSBAND

I have an “on” switch, I swear. I even start kind of a nervous laugh and get dizzy. I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s like running as fast as I can down a steep hill and not being able to stop. It’s frightening, really.

WIFE

Three hundred forty-nine men and 284 women classified themselves as experiencing this hyperarousal state in what they felt was “most” of their sexual experiences. Remember, we all experience this state sometimes in our sexual lives, and we can all experience more than one sexual problem at a time. In fact, hyperarousal and seminal seepage or early Skene’s glands emissions in the absence of contractions commonly occur together.

Hot times in our lives typically result in this “out of control” orientation, and it extends to our sex life. When we are running hot, when we are hostile, impatient, and competitive, we are in a state of maladaptive hyperarousal. Sex can be so intense, so fast-paced, that we almost miss it entirely. Our sexual intensity, our sexual speed seems to break the intimacy barrier instead of the sound barrier, but little real intimacy results as we go right past it.

This category of problem contains erective difficulties. The failure of the penis or clitoris to erect or a lessening of intensity of erective experience is simply a natural reflex to the accompanying emotional state of anxiety, of running hot. It makes little sense to treat the symptom instead of the cause or to blame the penis or clitoris for failing to erect while we are sending direct neurohormonal orders for them not to do so.

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First, place yourself on each axis in the direction that you feel best represents your feelings about your marriage. Next, place your partner on that same axis. Your marriage will then have four scores to discuss on the Sexual-System Exam, your score for self and partner and your partner’s two scores. Remember, as with super marital sex, it’s the doing, not the scoring, that counts!

It will sometimes seem that a certain score must be a better score, but systems theory, the theory behind the super sex marriage, teaches that too much of even an apparently good thing is not necessarily the healthiest status for a growing adapting system. An athlete can be very fit—scoring high on all measures of muscle, speed, and endurance—yet not be very healthy—adaptable, happy, loving, and learning. Try to break free of your assumptions of good or bad and think in terms of balance, in terms of positioning your marriage for change, growth, and responsiveness to the needs and maturation of the marital partners.

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