ISD AND THE MIND: YOUR SEXUAL HISTORY AND ISD
If your life today is a product of your past experiences, then it stands to reason that your sex life today reflects your past sexual experiences. And if your early sexual experiences in particular were accompanied by feelings of failure, overwhelming guilt, shame, or humiliation, they may be contributing to ISD.”I had sex for the first time when I was sixteen,” Janet’s husband, Tim, explains. As you may recall, he purposefully set out to lose his virginity to a neighborhood girl with a well-earned reputation for being easy and experienced. “I was so nervous you wouldn’t believe it,” he continues. “It took forever to get hard, and then after I did, I ejaculated right away, maybe fifteen seconds after I was inside her. Man, was she angry about that.” Seven years later, her tirade and his humiliation are still alive in his unconscious memory, reopening old wounds and making him shudder each time he attempts to be sexual.Tim remembers apologizing and explaining that he’d never “gone all the way” before. “And she laughed at me,” he says, “and told me that she could tell I had no idea what I was doing.” Her words still echo in Tim’s mind. “She really hurt me. I guess that scar has never really healed.”Early sexual scars rarely do. “The problem was that I never got any better at it,” Tim says. “It doesn’t seem possible, but things actually got worse.” The performance anxiety he felt during his early disappointing sexual liaisons and the sexual problems he and Janet have encountered since marriage seem to support his claim. “After a while I started to think, ‘What’s the point of trying?’ “*102\261\8*
