In "Sans Rendez-vous", sexologist and psychoanalysis Catherine Blanc gives her advice to Hakim, 41, who feels embarrassed by a request from his partner. She asks him to insult him and tighten his neck during the sexual act. For the specialist, it is quite healthy to feel such discomfort. His wife's behavior can be explained by acts of violence in her past or by the influence of pornography on her representation of male-female relationships.
Hakim's question
While we are having sex, my wife asks me to insult her and tighten her neck. It blocks and confuses me. How to react ?
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Catherine Blanc's response
Perhaps his wife has forged the idea that a woman should have compared to a man through an education in sexuality which is similar to that of pornography. This is the case when very young women discover pornography. They form an idea of femininity, of the interest that men can have for them, only on condition of being abrupt. This need to feel brutality can also be explained by its history. Her father's relationship with his mother may have been violent verbally or physically. She herself may have been verbally abused. The relationship with the other and the excitement is finally tied through violence.
Is Hakim's reaction the right one?
Indeed, his reaction is rather healthy because he does not want to hurt this woman he loves and wants. He is afraid and that makes him uncomfortable. We are all aggressive, both men and women. Like penetrating, it is penetrating the body of the other, in the imagination of the individual, a certain presence and abruptness is essential. But it must not be perceived as aggressiveness. In this case, this feeling of uneasiness shows that he is afraid that his own gestures could be compared to something violent, insulting, denigrating. His guilt comes to protect him and, by the way, to protect his partner. It is rather extremely healthy.
Does this kind of behavior come from sadomasochism?
That's not sadomasochism. But we can see, in this specific case, a sadomasochistic expression. Because here, the excitement goes through being dominated by the other, subdued and reduced. This poses the following question: what made this woman's story make her think that this behavior manifested the expression or the freedom of her sexuality? As if from the moment she was not insulted, she became a virgin, someone to cuddle and love dearly. As if sexuality could not find a way in this relationship of sweetness and kindness.
Can Hakim accept this proposal?
Either we do it naturally because the couple finds their modus superandi there, or we give in to the desire of the other. But in the last case, the man will see fear, by taking some pleasure in it, to send back a guilt to be aggressive. Man is thus obliged to do so by dosing. The more he looks at himself and the more he watches himself, the less excitement he has. It responds to the woman's desire without being able to fully participate in the sexual act with her.
Before the act, he can tell her that he finds it curious, that it's not his thing, that they can do it once to try. If this request is systematic, he can ask his wife questions to better understand the origin of this desire.