Publishing House: There is a management thinker Manfred who is similar to Freud's psychoanalysis in the field of management thought. Katz? De? Frith, who has written many books about organization and leadership, such as Leadership on the Sofa and The Mystery of Leadership, has been well received. The word "sofa" is mentioned in all his books, which is a pun, referring to both the boss leaning on the sofa and the sofa bed in the psychological clinic. He also wrote a book on existential themes: sex, money, happiness and death. The story of this book comes from the confidence of many executives he interviewed. The purpose of writing this book is to make boring management problems more "life-oriented". In Manfred's view, all management problems can be solved in one way or another, but the stories behind these management problems are worth digging and thinking deeply. For example, the four levels involved in the title of the book are more likely to resonate with readers. In this issue, we extract one of the contents related to sex and share it with readers. Need to remind you, don't treat Manfred as a sexologist, if you think so, it's wrong. Manfred holds a doctorate in economics, a doctorate in management and a psychoanalytic background. His special interests are leadership development and training, entrepreneurship, management pressure, family business and the dynamics of personal and organizational change. British Financial Times, Economist, French Capital magazine and German Economic Weekly rated him as "one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world" and "one of the most influential figures in the field of human resource management".

Sex and the passage of time

Humor is the window of the subconscious mind, and there are many popular jokes about being old, reflecting that many people are afraid of being old. "When luck means finding your own car in the parking lot, it means you are old." "At my age, making love is better than eating." With the growth of age, men and women are more and more alike, which is the case in the intensity of sexual desire. Although people still have sexual fantasies and thoughts when they are very old, the frequency of sexual fantasies and thoughts will gradually decrease with the increase of age (especially for men). Many physiological factors can explain the change of sexual desire between men and women with age. Both men and women, the serum testosterone level will decrease with age, and it will decrease by 50% between 25 and 50 years old. But at any age, the serum testosterone level of men is 10~20 times that of women of the same age. Menopause can also reduce women's sexual desire, because after menopause, estrogen secretion is obviously reduced, followed by many common and sometimes uncomfortable symptoms. Health problems, including psychological problems, such as depression, can also affect sexual desire and sexual function, and some drugs can significantly affect sexual desire.

Usually, health and physiological factors are intertwined with psychological factors. For women, the factors leading to the decline of sexual desire are interpersonal problems, partner's performance, power struggle, deep hatred for their partners and so on. For example, if your partner's romantic feelings are gone, and you don't take her out or appreciate her good cooking, and after making love falls asleep, women will no longer be interested in sex appeal.

Sexual conservatism caused by strict family education and past sexual trauma will also affect sexual relations. Men and women with a history of sexual abuse may find it difficult to relax and get excited during sex because it is difficult to trust their partners completely. There are more practical reasons for the lack of sexual life, such as the lack of time alone. When both partners are busy with work and under great pressure, sexual intimacy will also decrease when they don't pay attention to sex life. Many working couples told me that sex had to be sidelined if work required it.

Some women have no sexual desire at all after giving birth. Fatigue, anxiety and depression are one of the reasons. Some women's energy is completely occupied by the newborn baby, and their emotional and physical needs can be met from the baby, so they have little time to get along with their partners and have no sexual impulse. Third, we can find the explanation in evolutionary psychology. In the Paleolithic Age, mothers put most of their energy into newborn babies, which was of great significance to human survival. Avoiding sexual life can also effectively avoid re-pregnancy, which is conducive to the postpartum recovery of the mother, and the newborn baby does not have to share the mother with another brother and sister so soon.

How much sex is enough?

Some people like candy, others like playing football. If someone tells me that he/she will never eat candy or play football again, so be it. Although I like both, I won't take his/her decision seriously and dig the deep psychological reasons behind it. However, sex is another matter. If the same person tells me that he/she has never had sex and has never planned to have sex, I will be very worried. I will guess why he/she is like this, and I will try to find out what problems may exist behind it. I may even express my concern directly, telling him/her that lack of sexual interest is a very strange thing, which may mean that there is something wrong. I even suggested that he/she see a psychologist or a psychotherapist. However, if this person tells me that his/her energy is completely occupied by sex, he/she has been thinking about sex and needs to do it several times a day, I will be equally worried. I will doubt whether this behavior is normal, and I will think that he/she is a sex addict. Similarly, I might advise him/her to see a psychiatrist or a psychotherapist.

Sexual hyposexuality disorder

As I have pointed out, many factors will make people unwilling to have sex. We all have sex. Usually, spending romantic time with your partner, talking about love stories and watching sex videos will make people's sexual desire return to normal level. But some people are different. No matter what kind of stimulation, they are just not interested in sex. However, low sexual desire-what I learned from my treatment experience-is a topic that people can't talk about. When you do your best and your partner is still not interested in sex, you will feel very confused and troubled. This topic is so embarrassing that many people will feel ashamed.

So many people with sexual disabilities are reluctant to ask for help. Others don't even realize that they have a problem. They are never particularly interested in sex and always seem to think that other things in the relationship are more important. But if the couple's sexual life is not harmonious-one partner's sexual apathy or sexual desire fades-other aspects of life will also be affected. Without guidance, they may not handle this problem well and destroy the relationship between husband and wife.

I coached a supervisor. She is a very successful entrepreneur with strong working ability and charm. She is married and has three lovely children. Her husband, who runs a private equity company, also looks very attractive and considerate. The couple went to various parties together, went on holiday in different countries around the world and organized interesting parties. However, their relationship is deadlocked. In her words: "Soon, he became as if he didn't need any sex. He won't touch me for months. In the end, I got used to life without sex. "

How much less sex? Is there any evaluation scale? Sometimes, when a partner complains that he/she doesn't have enough sex life, the problem may be because he/she has a strong sexual desire. Losing sexual desire is one thing, but not having sexual interest is quite another. Men usually encounter erectile dysfunction, while women are different. Their biggest sexual problem is caused by psychological and physiological factors, and the treatment is not only through drugs, such as Viagra. In fact, some studies claim that 43% of women and 365,438+0% of men said they had encountered this problem.

Experts believe that there is no minimum number of times a day for sex. The classic study "Sex in America" is by far the largest sex survey in the United States (more than 3,000 adults were randomly selected and interviewed for 90 minutes, and the results were written into a book and published in 1994). According to this report, 1/3 the couples surveyed only have sex a few times a year. According to a recent report by sexologist Kinsey, 26% of unmarried men and 24% of unmarried women have only had sex a few times in the past year, while the proportion of married men and married women who have only had sex a few times in the past year is 13% and 12% respectively. Although this study reports the frequency of sexual life rather than sexual desire, it is likely that one of these couples suffers from hyposexuality disorder (HSDD).

It is estimated that about 20% people suffer from this disease, mainly women. HSDD is defined as persistent or frequent lack of sexual fantasies, thoughts and desires, or lack of even feelings in sexual activities, which leads to personal troubles. Symptoms of HSDD include sexual aversion, repressed sexual desire, frigidity and even anorexia. Patients with HSDD have low sexual desire and lack of sexual interest, which shows that they will not ask for sex on their own initiative and have no concern for their partners' sex. Many of them lack or even have no sexual fantasies. Many people don't care about this obstacle, but when it causes obvious pain or destroys the relationship between husband and wife, it's time to see a doctor.

Another major obstacle is sexual aversion. People with this disorder have a persistent or recurring morbid aversion to sexual contact with their partners, which leads to personal troubles. The scope of disgusting sexual contact may be narrow or wide. For example, some people are disgusted with any sexual activity, including kissing and touching (even panic reaction). This will cause great pain and affect the relationship between the two sexes.

There are many similar obstacles, including female sexual arousal disorder, male erectile dysfunction, female and male orgasm disorder, premature ejaculation and sexual pain disorder, etc., all of which need to be paid attention to and seek professional help.

More and more clinical documents link low sexual desire with sexual abuse. Adults who have been molested in childhood claim that their most common reaction is depression, which may be the reason for their low sexual desire. There are many more women who are sexually abused than men, and the proportion of women who are sexually repressed is also much higher than men. Their partner's rudeness may remind them of early traumatic experiences, and they will refuse; And the more they refuse, the more rude their partners are, and they enter a vicious circle.

hypersexuality

Low libido refers to almost no sexual demand, while high libido refers to excessive sexual demand. Sex is a natural part of enriching life. However, if we want too much and always think about sex, our work will be affected, our relationship with our partners will be destroyed and we may get into trouble.

Hypersexuality is difficult to evaluate, because how much is more? What is the limit of demand? There are no satisfactory answers to these questions. People's sexual desire varies greatly from individual to individual, and one's normal needs may be too high or too low for others. Men often set a standard for sexual desire, but to no avail. Many men regard hypersexuality as a sign of masculinity. Others call them Don Juan Dzhivani. He is a household legend in Spain. He is famous for his handsome and romantic style. He lived among countless aristocratic women all his life and was often used as a synonym for "lover" in literary works. -editor's comments or Casanova, don't feel insulted. However, women don't like such labels and think it is a lewd accusation. Interestingly, men often exaggerate the number of women who have sex with them, while women tend to underreport.

Hypersexuality, or sexual desire, means that sexual desire will never be satisfied. Clinically, the frequency of sexual behavior of people with hypersexuality is much higher than the normal level, because they need to receive sexual stimulation frequently, which is beyond the normal range and cannot be controlled. Hypersexuality is a very painful symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Hypersexual people always want to have sex with different people, and there is not much pleasure or emotional input during sexual intercourse. Female patients often do not experience orgasm. When excessive sexual desire causes trouble or affects other aspects of life, it becomes a disease.

Some specific symptoms of hypersexuality include forced masturbation, forced prostitution, one-night stands with different people, sexual relations with men/women other than men/girlfriends or husbands/wives, frequent visits to pornographic places, habitual exposure, habitual voyeurism, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape of children. Psychosexuality, prostitution, paedophilia, masochism, fetishism, bestiality and transvestite are also sexual addictions, some of which are illegal and some are abnormal. In fact, the behaviors listed above only show any of them and do not constitute sex addiction.

Of course, some people are labeled as sex addicts simply because they have stronger sexual desire than the labeled person, or because the way they make love is not understood by the labeled person. A person with strong sexual desire doesn't mean someone who has sex more often than you. Even in clinical practice, the symptoms and diagnostic criteria of hypersexuality are still controversial.

In the past, because people always thought that women's sexual desire was not as strong as men's, many doctors thought that only men had hypersexuality. It seems that any woman who likes sex can be diagnosed as a female erotomania by doctors or others, especially when her sexual desire is stronger than her male partner. A woman with strong sexual desire will be laughed at behind her back and troubled by herself. In contrast, few people complain that men are too active in sex life. The standard of normal sexual desire is in the hands of the husband: if a woman's sexual desire is weaker than her husband's, she is frigid; If a woman's sexual desire is stronger than her husband's, she is a pervert. Some men think that women with strong sexual needs are hiding some kind of danger, which awakens their original fear of vaginal tusks in myths and legends.

Historically, doctors also believe that female eroticism is more serious than male eroticism and the consequences are more serious. The destination of female porn addicts is nothing more than brothels or mental hospitals, while male porn addicts can live a smooth life as long as they can control their desires moderately. Actress joan rivers once said: "Men can sleep with different women, and no one will ask questions;" If women sleep with different men, many people will point fingers. "

People rarely treat sex addiction together with other destructive addiction behaviors, such as alcohol addiction, drug addiction and smoking addiction. In fact, people usually don't regard sex addiction as an addictive behavior or behavioral disorder at all. Hypersexuality means lewdness, promiscuity, lust or lust. There is no "drug rehabilitation center" equivalent to a drug rehabilitation center in society. People think that detoxification is rehabilitation, and detoxification is another abnormal behavior.

People with hypersexuality don't necessarily have to make clinical judgments about the causes of sex addiction. The greater the pressure, the stronger the sexual desire, which is a cliche, because sex is an excellent way to relax, and after relaxation, people will be very comfortable. On the other hand, one of the main reasons may be uncontrollable impulse, which may be caused by brain injury or diseases, such as some epilepsy or Alzheimer's disease (Harmo? S disease is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease, which is characterized by deterioration of cognitive and memory functions, progressive decline of daily living ability, and various neuropsychiatric symptoms and behavioral disorders. -Editor's note. Some experts believe that some mental diseases or nervous system diseases can also cause hypersexuality, such as bipolar disorder (also known as "manic depression"), which is a kind of mental illness in emotional type. At the onset, mania and depression take turns to replace. -editor's note) or dementia. Patients with bipolar disorder show hypersexuality in manic stage. Their sexual desire may be super strong or very low, depending on their mood. Their sexual activity frequency is sometimes much higher than the normal level, and sometimes far below the normal level.

The high sexual desire may have deeper psychological reasons. Some people are just sexually open, but people with high sexual desire can't stop having sex and don't realize what they are doing. They can't help having sex again and again, and the reason behind it is generally because they have a history of sexual abuse. In this case, we can speculate that these people are repeating traumatic experiences, that is, subconsciously repeating the tragedy that once happened to them again and again in another form. They can't help repeating the traumatic experience and trying to heal themselves, but in vain. This repetition is also a confusing way of communication. But sex is just a mechanical activity, which is different from sex. Hypersexuality may confuse sexual behavior with intimacy and interdependence between people, and think that sexual behavior can be equated with constructive intimacy.

In Mozart's opera Don Juan, Don Juan's servant Boleno tried his best to comfort elvira (a trophy of Don Juan), and in the famous aria Song of Flowers, he shook out Don Juan's lover list. Ironically, he eagerly reported how many lovers Don Juan had in which country: 640 in Italy, 23 1 in Germany, 9 1 in France, 9 1 in Turkey and 0/in Spain. Add these figures together and consider how underdeveloped the traffic was at that time, and you will understand that Don Juan must be exhausted. He spends all his energy on seducing women and has no time to do anything else.

The behavior of these don Juan (or female killers) has masturbation effect. They are never satisfied and are always in a state of excitement. At first, their behavior seemed to be just to relieve stress, depression, anxiety or loneliness, but soon they entered a state of compulsion. Sex addiction costs a lot, not only financially-if you often go whoring or have sex on the phone-but also in other aspects, such as losing your job (sexual harassment in the workplace, or logging on pornographic websites during work hours), destroying interpersonal relationships or getting sexually transmitted diseases.

Sexual battlefield

There is an old saying: "If you want to keep men, women should be like ladies in the hall, virtuous women in the kitchen and sluts in bed." Jerry Hall, a model and actress, recalled that her mother often taught her this. In the face of her mother's nagging, her answer is: "I am responsible for the bed, and the other two roles are shared by others." Unfortunately, beds sometimes become battlefields. As William Masters, a sexologist, pointed out, "What can't be solved in bed can't be solved in the hall."

Sex brings many couples together. Without sex, or with sex as a dedication, they may break up. As we have seen before, problems will arise when one partner's sexual desire is obviously weaker than the other. Sex has become the source of contradictions and frictions, which may have a negative impact on gender relations. A partner with low sexual desire may feel that his partner is coercing him to do something he doesn't like, and then he will feel disgusted and angry, and his sexual desire will further decline. In contrast, a partner with strong sexual desire will feel that his partner does not love him, that his rights will be deprived and that he will feel depressed. In this way, they will ask for sex more frequently, and their sexual desire will be stronger, which will make each other more disgusted. As a result, sex has become a struggle, from a win-win game to a zero-sum game, and gender relations are losers.

The writer G·K· chesterton once said, "Getting married is an adventure, just like going to war." A common picture is: a disappointed and angry wife scolds her courting husband for not being affectionate and asks him to be more affectionate. Men seem to be only interested in the sexiness of relationships. Some men may be rude when courting, even to the point of marital rape. Because they don't know how much women hate sexual assault, they will only keep women away from them. Not knowing that men and women have different sexual concepts will further aggravate the sexual conflict between the two sexes. No wonder Freud called a woman's heart a "dark continent".

Sexual assault and resistance can become a major theme of gender relations, leading to countless wars. The war between some couples will last for many years, and their relationship will be infected with sadism. One side wants sex, and the other side wants affection; One party requests and the other party refuses; One side attacks and the other side defends; One party advances, one party retreats. This kind of drama will continue to be staged, which will seriously damage the relationship between husband and wife. It's hard for couples to really get involved. There is no dialogue, only programmed activities. Once this model is established, a small matter can also cause a big battle, such as washing dishes, making beds, taking out garbage, walking dogs, taking care of children, managing money and so on. However, what we deal with every day is actually the problems of division and connection, security and trust, power and powerlessness, and accepting or rejecting someone's risk. The cycle of attack and defense will hurt the self-esteem of both husband and wife, making the husband feel like a man and the wife feel like a woman. So both sides will only hate each other. Men feel that they are not attractive to their wives, and only by begging and pleasing can they make their wives have the honor of having sex with themselves. Women, on the other hand, feel abused and violated, and are not regarded as a person with flesh and blood and feelings, but only a tool to vent their desires.

Goethe, a playwright and philosopher, once said, "Sometimes it is necessary for couples to quarrel, because they can get to know each other better through quarreling." However, if the bed becomes a battlefield, some couples will fall into a vicious circle of sadism. Edward ablee's play The Desire of a Spring Night (who? Afraid of Virginia Woolf) vividly shows this scene. The play brought us to the battlefield of a couple's marriage, and we saw the couple fighting with each other. There are two ways to fight each other: they hate each other, so they can't accept each other's love; Enlarge each other's shortcomings as evidence to accuse each other of not being a good savior. The confrontation between them-seen by a young couple-made romantic love disappear. Of course, we can speculate that they haven't had sex for a long time.

Women who find sex life boring will refuse men's courtship. If they don't realize that sex is a man's physiological need and won't disappear because of rejection, they will get into trouble. From a man's point of view, if a partner doesn't want to meet his own physiological needs, it gives himself a difficult problem: either painfully endure a marriage without sexual happiness or find other ways to satisfy himself. The most common way is to develop extramarital affairs, which will lead couples to live a strange life in strange bedfellows.

I'm not saying that the responsibility for sexual struggle between husband and wife lies with the woman. Many women are also happy to have sex, if their partners are skilled and patient enough. Sometimes, asexual marriages can be as happy as those that can express themselves freely. However, the disharmony of sexual life may not necessarily make two people quarrel openly, but it does not help to enhance their sense of interdependence. Asexual marriage may not end in a bitter quarrel, but it may also reduce the life of two people to a state of trivial discussion. T·S· Eliot's poem "Love Song of J Alfred Pruefer Locke" well explains this state: "I measured my life with a coffee spoon". This is a famous saying in Eliot's early poems. It is intended to describe the viciousness of some habits, no less than the opium of the people. -Editor's Note The instinct of rejection inevitably makes life lifeless.

The problem of treatment

Sexual happiness is an indicator to measure the overall happiness of married life. Although sex and sexual life are not the whole content and purpose of sexual relations, sexual relations will be seriously affected if sexual desire cannot be properly expressed. Sexual disharmony is not life-threatening, but it will affect other aspects of married life, hurt your partner's self-esteem and even affect your work.

Fortunately, there are many ways to deal with this problem, including psychotherapy, sex therapy, behavioral therapy, marriage or relationship counseling. Therapists usually evaluate the sexual identity of visitors (for example, what beliefs and attitudes he/she holds about sex); Factors affecting relationships, such as intimacy and attachment; Communication style and coping style; Overall emotional health. Treatment may include: how to improve sexual response, teach sexual skills, how to improve intimate relationship with partners, recommend relevant reading materials or let couples do some exercises together. Exercise may include discussing (and experimenting with) each other's sexual preferences and exploring each other's sexual fantasies.

A happy sex life requires self-confidence, getting rid of anxiety, psychological and physical stimulation, and being able to concentrate on sexual fantasies and sexual behavior. If any of these conditions are not met, sexual life will be destroyed; If one or more of these conditions are not met for a long time, there will be long-term sexual problems.

Self-confidence-knowing that you are good in bed, that your partner thinks you are sexually attractive and respects your sexual orientation-is very important. Nothing hurts a person's self-confidence more than a partner's contemptuous attitude. When self-confidence is hurt, people will be anxious and impotent from time to time. Impotence then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, that is, worrying about your performance in bed (women are generally worried that they can't get excited, and men are generally worried that they can't get an erection or premature ejaculation). The more you worry, the worse your performance, and the more you worry, so you enter a vicious circle.

Lev tolstoy once said: "The secret of a happy marriage lies not in how harmonious you are, but in how you deal with disharmony." In a sense, a happy sex life means falling in love with the same person again and again. What kind of relationship you have depends largely on what kind of person you are. If you are happy and adapt well, you are likely to have a good relationship. If you are dissatisfied with your present situation and feel miserable, then you can live a happy life only by changing your mentality first. As I emphasized in this article, to live a happy life from now on, two people need to find a way to make each other happy.

This abstract is selected from Sex, Money, Happiness and Death (Oriental Publishing House).