Sex and Canaries

The turn of the last century was not a particularly great time to be a canary. In the early 1900’s, the little yellow birds were used to detect odorless poisonous gas in coalmines. After a mine fire or explosion, rescuers would descend into the mine carrying a canary in a small cage. If Tweetie keeled over, conditions were unsafe, and the rescuers made a hasty return to the surface (which I suppose made it sort of a bummer not only for the bird, but the miners left behind).

In any case, miners knew the problem was not with the canary, but the coalmine.

Which brings me to your sex life. (And if that’s not a literary stretch, I don’t know what is. Okay. I do know what is. The next sentence.)

My friends, your sex organs are the canaries of your coalmines.

If you can’t get your canary to tweet anymore it ain’t the bird’s fault. The problem lies somewhere deeper. I’ll put it another way. If the cookies taste like crap, don’t blame the oven.

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb here and estimate that approximately 83.6% of all sex problems have nothing to do with sexual anatomy at all.

That is not to say that certain physical problems can and do affect performance. Fatigue, illness, aging, and hormonal changes can all quench fires.

But if you can’t find that spark, most likely it’s not that you’re feeling too little passion. Instead, you may be feeling way too much of something else. Sadness. Insecurity. Stress. Frustration. Anger. Guilt. Fear.

What you’re feeling inside emotionally has enormous effect on what you’re feeling sexually. Your desire, response and pleasure are all intimately related to what’s in your head.

And until you address the emotional issues you may have with your partner (or perhaps most importantly, with yourself), you cannot solve the sexual issues. You must get to the underlying cause to solve the problem.

When you have a cold, you have certain symptoms: headache, stuffy nose, cough. There are lots of products you can take to make yourself feel better for the moment, but the fact is, you still have a cold. And until you get rid of the cold, you won’t be healthy again.

If your polar ice caps aren’t melting, or your flag is always at half-mast, don’t ask yourself “why don’t I feel anything?”  - instead ask “WHAT am I feeling?” And then get out one of the most effective sexual aids I know.

A pen and paper.

First, make a list of all the adjectives describing how you feel at that moment. Angry. Irritated. Bored. Uninterested. Hurt. Disappointed. Whatever it is.

Then, after every adjective, write “because” and fill in the blank. In other words, “Bored - because he doesn’t try like he used to.” “Hurt -  because we always have to do what she wants.”

The last step is to write “which means” after every phrase, and then fill in the final blank. In other words, “Bored – because he doesn’t try like he used to – which means  - he doesn’t care about me any more” or “Hurt – because we always have to do what she wants – which means – I always feel weak and powerless.”

Once you’ve identified what you’re feeling, and what’s causing it, you can start to fix it. That’s the good news. The bad news is, it probably won’t be an instant fix. You’re probably going to have to talk about it. A lot. You may have to change your behavior, or ask someone else to change theirs.

But just like weight loss or fitness, there is no instant fix. It will take some effort. Sometimes simply understanding is effort enough, but more often than not, you’ll need to change some habits, change the way you react, and possibly accept a new reality.

If your canary is sick, there’s trouble at the mine. You’re not going to fix it by getting a new canary.