Are you putting your sex life on hold for your career?

By: Natasha Archary

Your smartphone is always in hand, you take work home everyday, you’re always checking emails (even at the dinner table) and you never decline a call. Taking your profession seriously is a great trait to have. It shows dedication to building your career and your perserverance to make it at all costs. But what if it’s costing you in the bedroom?

Most people are reluctant to talk about their sex lives. That’s fair, some things should be kept private. But what if the only reason you choose not to divulge details about your bedroom activities is because it fails to live up to the ‘hype’. You hear your friends talk about their mindblowing marathons all the time and the most you’ve managed was a quickie in the laundry room while the kids were distracted by Peppa Pig.

You’ve had the longest day, riddled with queries, endless email trails, meeting after mundane meeting, deadlines for days, school runs and a crappy lunch at your desk and you finally get home. All you want to do is get through a dinner with the kids, survive bathtime, re-read “The three little pigs” for the thousandth time and get into bed.

But during dinner, your spouse/partner gave you “the look.” You know the one, that naughty glint in his eye is unmistakable. Ugh, how is he always in the mood? Bad day or not, this man is all fired up and ready to go regardless of how dishevelled you look.

“Not tonight babe, I have a monstrous headache and I still have a mountain of work to get through”

This has been your excuse for weeks now.

Sure you do your best to keep your work and personal life as separate as possible but it’s easier said than done.

Draw the line

It’s impossible to venture down every romantic lane to figure out where we’re going wrong in our relationships. But human beings are touch dependant. We yearn to feel wanted, desired, loved. Work, stress and never-ending to-do lists often mean we put our needs (and our partners’) at the bottom.

Sex experts have weighed in and have deciphered our orgasmic patterns to reveal the following:

“You’re likely always going to have some stress in your life, so the key is to create an environment that allows you to be sexual,” says Ian Kerner, Ph.D, a psychotherapist and sexuality counselor.
“Men are performance-driven. His ability to perform are tied to his failure or satisfaction in your eyes,” says Megan Fleming, Ph.D, New York sex and relationship expert.

So your unsatisfying sex life has a lot to do with your involvement, interest and/or lack thereof. It’s not just your partner that is to blame for the lacklustre, two-minute scheduled, missionary routine you get out the way once a week.

Prioritising your sex life means putting away your daily organiser and bringing spontaneity back. According to sex experts, many men cite anxiety about their performance as the main reason for less frequent sex. Most men maintain an erection for roughly three to five minutes, according to sex therapist Heide McConkey, this is normal.

No it doesn’t scream mindblowing and it’s not quite the Fifty Shades scene you’ve been daydreaming about all day. That we’re spending almost half our day at work, commuting to and from and then allocate just five minutes to our sexual needs is sad.

How often should we be having sex?

International research pins South Africans as one of the most sexually satisfied people in the world. Along with the Spanish, Mexicans and Italians, 66% of South Africans have orgasmic sex. How often is however an undetermined and yet vital question.

According to research by Playboy magazine, 18 to 29 year-olds should be having sex upto 112 times a year. That’s twice a week. The numbers decline with age unfortunately, which means that the average 30 to 40 year-old South African should be having sex only 69 times (see what I did there) a year. That’s about twice a month.

That’s it? Twice a month for a maximum five minutes? Research has been wrong before right? One would certainly hope so, although there have been extensive studies on married couples and the numbers don’t look too great. Only 34% of married couples have sex two to three times a week, with 15% having had no sex for upto six months.

Wowza. There are a number of reasons for dry spells and whether they admit it or not, every couple goes through lulls at some point. The key is in indentifying that there is a disconnect and doing whatever it takes to bridge that gap at all costs. Surely that mountain of work can wait five minutes!

Written by: Natasha

Healthy relationships RELATIONSHIPS Sex life