ISD AND THE MIND: YOUR SEXUAL HISTORY – NOT GETTING WHAT TURNS YOU ON—AND NOT WANTING TO
Denying or suppressing a sexual preference because you or your partner cannot accept it is yet another remote cause of ISD. We see it in men who get sexually aroused by dressing in women’s clothing or by wearing a specific piece of their clothing—such as pantyhose, dresses, or silky undergarments. Problems arise when these men cannot, or find it very difficult to, become aroused without cross-dressing, but their partners are repulsed by the practice and forbid it. This can also occur in people who practice so-called deviant sexual behaviors. These individuals are sexually apathetic unless the activity or partner is “different” or forbidden (and sometimes illegal), or the partner acts in very specific ways. And it plays a part in some cases of situational ISD where—like Ed, who feels no desire for his wife but plenty for women half his age—someone has mutually exclusive categories for “sex objects” and “love objects.”
While homosexuality is not a sexual deviation, for some people it is a problem. Like Bobby, some men and women don’t accept their own sexuality. Determined to change or deny their true sexual preference, they may “flee” to heterosexuality. They may enter a heterosexual relationship and even get married, doing their best to function sexually. Since one of the most fundamental elements of their sexual scripts—whom they find sexually attractive—is being ignored, they derive less satisfaction from sexual activity and often lose interest in it. In other cases, like Bobby’s, the sexual preference is blocked completely from consciousness, and in the process all sexual urges may be blocked as well.
Regardless of your sexual preference or marital status, if you have ISD as a result of any of the immediate or remote psychological issues we have discussed in this chapter, your relationships will suffer because of it. It is time to explain what that means and to take a closer look at perhaps the most important connections of all—the connections among ISD, intimacy, and relationships.
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