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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Eleanor Gordon-Smith

My boyfriend sees sex as a competition he is losing. How can I change his mind?

Eleanor GordonSmith
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In Bed, The Kiss, 1892
‘In an ideal sexual utopia I feel like we’d get away from the notion of “man enough” altogether,’ Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. Painting: In Bed, The Kiss, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1892). Illustration: classicpaintings/Alamy

My boyfriend sees sex as a competition he is losing. He feels like he doesn’t perform enough (he does) and worries he isn’t big enough (he is!).

He grew up without a father – the father’s fault – and I wonder if this has something to do with it. How can I assist him to see sex as non-competitive? I love him, and I find this self-loathing distressing.

Eleanor says: I assume he doesn’t think he’s losing the competition with you, somehow, but with imagined manly foes, comparisons, symbols of everything he (imagines he) isn’t?

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