People without phobias are rare. A person is vulnerable: he does not always have an attractive appearance, material wealth, talents, luck. It is not always healthy and adapted to the social environment in which it lives. And this is only part of the factors that impede the formation of people's self-sufficiency, usefulness and, as a result, a completely healthy psyche. Fear in man is laid by nature, it is an instinct for self-preservation. His constructive mission is to survive in dangerous situations. Phobias are pathological fears that are not related to self-preservation, devouring a person’s energy resources, hindering his comfort and success in life. One of the common such pathological fears is the fear of intimacy. What is the fear of sex in manifestation as a mental disorder called? What are the causes of such a disorder, how to treat it and prevent the appearance of the younger generation? These and other issues will be discussed in detail below.
Unwillingness of intimacy as a mental disorder
Fear of intimacy is far from in every case a mental disorder. Unwillingness to intimacy can be caused by unpreparedness for sexual intercourse due to natural causes - immature age, poor health, sexual unattractiveness of a partner, and similar circumstances. We will come back to them. Now we will touch upon a slightly different question: "What is the fear of sex called if we talk about it as a mental disorder?"
Fear of intimacy, aversion to the process of sexual intercourse, despite the fact that there is attraction to a partner, is called erotophobia. Its other name is coitophobia. Erotophobia can affect both women and men. This phobia is more prone to people with a
fine mental organization - impressionable, with a depleted nervous system, empaths.
Causes of Erotophobia
The cause of erotophobia in most cases is a psychological trauma experienced in childhood. The onset of sexual activity at an early age, any kind of violence, the depraved behavior of parents or, conversely, overly strict upbringing, the ideology of the orthodox religious community to which loved ones belong - all this can cause a child to dislike intimacy and block sexual energy. When such a child grows up, at the level of feelings this can manifest itself as a fear of sex. A person will be subconsciously afraid of experiencing those negative emotions that he had to face in childhood.
Erotophobia may be the result of the negative experiences experienced by an adult - rape, cyclically repeating scenarios of building failed relationships, condemnation of sexual intercourse in a circle of loved ones or society, etc.
Complexes and internal enslavement of a person can lead to the development of erotophobia. Dissatisfaction with one’s appearance, character traits, and social position negatively affects a person’s sexuality, and as a result this phobia arises. Fear of sex associated with complexes is more often observed in women prone to fullness and dissatisfied with the shape of their breasts. Men are most complex about the small size of the penis.
Erotophobia can be the result of other phobias - the fear of any physical contact with people (even ordinary touching or shaking hands), the fear of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, becoming pregnant, being caught by someone, and showing your naked body. Regardless of the name of the phobia, the fear of sex in this case will be secondary. And before you need to work, respectively, with phobia, the root cause.
The consequences of erotophobia
Women with erotophobia can develop diseases such as anorgasmia and vaginismus. The pathological fear of sex in men can lead to psychogenic impotence. But this is only physiology.
Lack of sex usually results in a breakup. It is hard for people who have a persistent aversion to sexual contact to establish new relationships, not to mention their development. Of course, sex is not the main thing in the union of a man and a woman, and it is only one of the criteria for building a strong family. Much more important is harmony in bed, more thorough things - general views on the life of partners, their degree of maturity and responsibility, understanding, trust. But only if there is a material basis and a sexual life that suits both partners, a full-fledged long-term relationship is possible.
How to eradicate the fear of sex? Before you uproot something, you need to make sure that this is the case. How erotophobia is treated, we will consider a little later, before we talk about what it is not.
Sex and society
Society regarding intimate issues can affect people's minds. In narrow orthodox circles such as small villages with their local unwritten rules, the topic of sex is not welcomed and is seen as something dirty, unworthy, forbidden. This is the natural defense mechanism of society from promiscuous sexual relations of individual immoral individuals that can bring chaos to the lives of respectable citizens. They do not favor local harlots, they blame them, and they put teenage girls in a negative example. A similar case is that of religious communities preaching the idea of banning bedding before marriage. This kind of attack of consciousness, of course, may result in fear of sex in people who have not yet formed their own life position. But here we are not talking about a specific phobia, but about the oppressed state of consciousness of the individual, which must go beyond the boundaries of society and form their own worldview.
Fear of the first intimacy
The natural fear of young people before their first intimacy has nothing to do with erotophobia. Fear of having sex for the first time is a common experience associated with a lack of experience. An exaggerated emotional assessment of this event is accompanied by hormonal changes in adolescents, intrigue within the circle of friends, a heap of information contradicting one another, what needs to be done and what should not be done during the first sexual intercourse.
Postpartum problems in women
Fear of sex after childbirth in women is also a natural state of their psyche, depleted by the gestation and birth of a child. With the appearance of the baby, the lifestyle of the mother changes, priority is given to the health and safety of the baby, and this is serious stress, and for both partners. Plus, you need to recover not only the psyche, but also the physiology of the woman. Doctors do not recommend having sex until 8 weeks after giving birth, this time is needed to restore the mother's body. Her fear of intimacy in this period will be nothing more than a manifestation of the instinct of self-preservation. Another question is if this condition lasts for a long time. Pain and torment experienced during childbirth can become a catalyst for blocking sexual energy and, as a result, the development of erotophobia.
Sophisticated ways to have sex
Doubts about a new sophisticated sexual experience does not mean at all that a person has a phobia in this regard. Fear of sex with a group of partners, with partners of the same sex, with penetration into the anus, in places associated with extreme sports, etc. - this, as in the case of socium opinion described above, goes beyond the usual facets of consciousness. Only in this case beyond the boundaries built by himself. Another question is whether it is necessary to go beyond these boundaries. Who needs this? The man himself or his partner? Is a partner worth self-sacrifice, if his half does not need sophisticated methods of sex?
Couples who have been married for a long time can resort to diversity in sex, including its sophisticated forms. This is the development of their intimate relationships, formerly built on classic sex. But involving one partner in the other in games with sophisticated forms of sex at the initial stage of the relationship is far from the norm. The desire for ornate carnal pleasures with each cross-transverse is inherent in people with a dominant animal origin and, as a result, an excessive need for sex. Such people usually put their intimate life in the first place, because they can not cope with their sexual energy. It can be so powerful that, if not realized, it will turn against them in the form of internal aggression. It is difficult to build a serious relationship with such people: they will constantly "go into the night" until their full potential runs out.
Building relationships, including sexual ones, is better with people who do not belong at night, not to society, not to the country, but to ourselves.
Wrong partner
Fear of sex may not be manifested with every partner. Naturally, in this case there can be no talk of erotophobia. It happens that a person likes him for his spiritual qualities, for his attitude, for his high position in society, but we can’t make our body want it sexually. Moreover, this is not always due to its external unattractiveness or repulsive odors. For fear of intimate relationships in this case, you can take the usual unwillingness to go with this partner beyond communication and friendship. It is important, first of all, to be honest with yourself and to analyze whether the desire to spend time with such a person is a cure for boredom, a chance to solve your financial problems, please annoying relatives, etc. And only then consider issues related to sex directly.
Spiritual perfection
At a certain stage in the life of people who decide to devote themselves to spiritual perfection, their natural need for sex usually decreases. Reluctance to enter into intimate relationships of such people from the outside can look like a fear of sex. But this is not fear, but lack of need. Human energy rises from the lower centers of the subtle body (chakras) to the higher and finds its realization in serving God, meditation practices, creativity, expanding the facets of consciousness. In this case, it does not mean banning oneself from engaging in sexual relations in the name of something higher or the requirement of this by the charter of the monastery. It is about becoming on a spiritual path without renouncing the world - on a path without prohibitions, but a conscious, mature, adequate understanding of the world and elevation above lower human needs.
Treatment of erotophobia in specialists
How to get rid of fear of sex? Only a specialist should diagnose erotophobia. A huge mistake in case of problems in intimate life is to turn to psychologists or psychotherapists working with a wide range of human problems for help. With the manifestation of signs of erotobophia, you should look for a narrow-profile specialist - a sex therapist. Doctors of this specialization will help in eliminating the psychological causes of this phobia, and will solve the problem with its clinical manifestations.
Self-medication
Is it possible to get rid of erotophobia on my own, without resorting to the help of a doctor? If we are not talking about physiological problems that caused the appearance of fear of having sex, then yes. But it is important to understand that not every person is able to become his own psychologist and work out his childhood injuries without outside help. Another thing is the fear of sex against the backdrop of complexes. You can cope with them by starting to play sports, having plastic surgery of the chest, reconsidering views on your appearance, etc.
Sexual education of children
Than to treat erotophobia, it is easier to prevent it. It is important that the child lives in a comfortable psychological atmosphere of the family and in a timely manner receives the correct information about the specifics of this world, in particular about everything related to sex. Sexual education plays an important role in the relationship between children and parents.
The last suppression of this topic, the demonstrative reluctance to discuss it, the formation in children of their attitude to sex as something forbidden will not only not solve, but also exacerbate the problem. Forbidden fruit is usually sweet. And with the lack of information the modern world has no problems, the only question is its quality.
Sex is an integral part of an adult’s personal life, and teens sooner or later come to research on this topic. But, alas, they do not receive information about it not from parents, not from teachers, but from the TV screen, on the Internet or in their circle of friends, due to their age which is far from the correct perception of things.