Interview with Dr. Marty Klein, Author of Beyond Orgasm

Learning to be honest with ourselves and our partners is the corner stone of building a successful relationship with our partners. Dr. Marty Klein has recently published a book on embarking upon this process. Beyond Orgasm: Dare to be Honest About the Sex You Really Want maps out why we keep sexual secrets and how we can overcome the power they hold over our lives. Dr. Klein recently discussed the book with Dr. Kathleen Van Kirk of Libida.com
Dr. Kat - What's the main point that people can get out of this book?
Dr. Klein – Well, it talks about the need for sexual self acceptance and the difficulty people have in achieving this given the way our culture works. We're all trained from youth to reject parts of our sexuality. And as we go into young adulthood most people have anxiety regarding whether or not they're sexually "normal". When people have trouble accepting themselves sexually they're worried about other people rejecting them sexually as well. That's really at the core of people having difficulty or being unwilling in revealing themselves to their partners sexually.
Dr. Kat – Why are we so caught up in being sexually normal?
Dr. Klein - It definitely accounts for our "intercourse only" orientation, or shall we say obsession. This is usually the focus of people who are struggling with the question of whether or not they're sexually normal. These individuals struggle to connect with others sexually with out revealing too much of themselves because they don't want to be rejected. And because intercourse is really the only kind of sex that's accepted culturally these people end up feeling boxed in. You know it's accepted as normal -- people do it, and those people will have fewer worries that someone will say "Ew, you want to do that? Yuck! What kind of sexual pervert are you?" So, for people who are even mildly outside of the norm they end up feeling rejected. That's why sticking to intercourse is just plain safer for many people. And it's why I've called the book Beyond Orgasm because this is a book that helps people get beyond the intercourse focus, beyond the cultural ideal of what is normal.
Dr. Kat - Let's say someone is getting sexually honest with themselves and their partners. How do they deal with those partners who are not going to understand their desires?
Dr. Klein - Probably just by being a little more grown up about it. They can choose to see it as a rejection, but actually it's more of a statement about the other person than about themselves. And they can see that it doesn't have to reflect upon their own sexual identity. And that's really important as a whole. They can deal with the rejection as a fact but not as a fact about their identity. Not a statement of whether they're ok or not. People need to get really honest with themselves, to be able to truly admit to themselves "this is who I am sexually".
Dr. Kat - Have you noticed mistakes that other therapists or authors have made in dealing with this issue?
Dr. Klein - One of the big mistakes that a lot therapists and self help books make, is they take the sort of liberal position of "Don't worry honey, you're normal. A lot of other people do what you're doing. Lots of people have those fantasies." While in the short that support may provide some relief, in the long run it's a bad strategy. I think we can do better than just assure people that they're normal. I think the more ambitious project is to help people disconnect from the anxiety of whether they're normal or not.
Dr. Kat - So they're basically being set up for failure. Because if you do have someone who presents with let's say a specific fetish to send them out the door by saying "you're normal", won't help them when they're with their next partner who most likely won't share the interest in the fetish because its still not common, right?
Dr. Klein - Right, it would be great if they could find someone to reinforce their normality but the fact is that the difficulties that person would have in hooking up with someone would be a reflection of are they "ok" if that's the only option they've been given.
Dr. Kat - You also discuss problems with some of the other popular theories out there, specifically John Grey's Mars and Venus. Are there other popular beliefs that you think affect the concept of sexual honesty negatively?
Dr. Klein - There are a lot popular books and personalities out there that rigidly say this is normal and that is not. Dr. Phil for instance is very keen on telling people whether they are normal or not. And he's very big on drawing boundaries around sexuality rather than encouraging people to explore their sexualities. He's very conservative in that he wants people to do it "the right way", making sure people don't exist in unconventional arrangements with their partners. For example he believes that non-monogamy is never good, that adults who choose to go to swing parties or engage in other consensual acts outside the norm are not good. And he doesn't have much of a justification for that other than he believes that it's not normal. He refers to people who want to do these sorts of things in a variety of nasty names, such as sluts and whores. He doesn't ever examine the specifics as far as if one couple versus another has the maturity or level of communication to handle it, if they have the same goals, is it a viable, reasonable thing for them to do as a couple? I'm concerned about people who are exposed to Dr Phil's ideas. He basically wants to take over people's decision making processes and he wants to make the decisions for them. Not only do I think that's bad for people's sex lives, but bad for them in general.
Dr. Kat – I also noticed the photographs you use in the book. What significance do they play?
Dr. Klein – David Steinberg did the photos and I believe he truly captured the kind of sex that we all want to have. They reflect the feeling that people want to have without them being terribly explicit. He photographed people's faces and arrangement of their limbs in relation to each other that really show playfulness, openness and sense of exploration. They nicely illustrate what it's like to be in the kind of relationship I'm talking about in the book – a miniature model of the type of sexual relationship that's possible for us all.