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Introduction

In an era of great mobility and frequent dislocation, the idea of ‘home’ is profoundly important. Without home we are nomads, refugees in an alien place. We can become alone and disconnected, unknown and unacknowledged, without purpose or role, unstable and directionless. And when we are exiled from home, or simply leave the home we knew for somewhere ‘better’, does the longing for the home we first knew ever cease? Home is the safe place where we can rest and find refreshment, support, and encouragement. Home is where we began and where we wish to end, even if the place defining home changes.

Probably one of our most powerful drives is the desire for ‘home’, the place where we belong and where others agree we belong. MacKay (2013) lists the desire for ‘my place’ as one of the ten basic desires that drive us:

‘Home may be a multilayered concept but, for most of us, the deepest layer is located in our desire for a place that is unambiguously ours; a place that seems in harmony with us; that welcomes and comforts us; that says things about us we’re pleased to have said… [It] is partly an anchor, partly a refuge, partly a stable reference point in a world that seems kaleidoscopic in the complexity of its shifting patterns… [It] helps not only to locate us, but to frame us, to contribute to our sense of who we are’ (pp. 36–7).

It might be said that I belong to my home as much as it belongs to me. And although I belong to it, in a sense, I cannot really ‘own’ it as I might own a house. Mackay (2013) notes:

‘Once you look beyond the economics and the aesthetics, you realise that “home” can’t actually be owned at all. It’s an idea too deeply lodged, too big, too rich, too complex, too subtle for ownership’ (p. 65).

Nevertheless, ownership commonly associates with home and can become a basis for conflict where a home is shared. Furthermore, we might assert rights relating to our home — the right to stay where I belong; the right to express myself in the safety of home; the right to contribute to its arrangement and presentation; and the right to prevent violation of that space. Where home is shared, there will be rules, but good rules will feel familiar and natural, an expression of respect for each one sharing our home.

While ‘home’ is normally seen as a place in the external world, my body may also be thought of as home the place my subjective self necessarily lives. And, by extension, the person I share my body with in a sexual relationship also becomes associated with the ‘home’ that my body represents. If ‘home’ is about ‘belonging’, then the person I belong to and that belongs to me — that is, the relationship — might be considered a part of ‘our home’.

Typically there is a crisis in the idea of ‘home’ during or following adolescence, as the adolescent prepares to leave the home of childhood in order to establish a new home. And so it was that I left the home I was born into so that I might make a new home with my wife. My parents and I once shared the same home; but then I left that home. Subsequently, my wife and I became united both in our sexual relationship and in our living arrangements — we came to belong to each other and shared a new home in every sense. The context that oriented me and contributed to my identity shifted from the home of my birth and the people of my upbringing to that of my wife and the children we subsequently had. Here again I became known, accepted, loved and respected. Here was my new ‘home’, both physically and psychologically, with a purpose and role recognised and needed by my wife and family.

In this book I argue that, like procreation, bonding and belonging constitute primary functions of a sexual relationship, a relationship that might be conceptualised as a person’s psychological ‘home’. However, we will discover that there are also other functions in the sexual relationship which are not necessarily aligned with these functions. Indeed, there are many different kinds of sexual experience and sexual expression, some of which are not relational at all, either because they are fleeting experiences, or because they don’t involve another person. Our many drives and life experiences can bring dimensions into our sexual experiences that exclude the functions of procreation and belonging. A sexual relationship can create the foundation for belonging through the intimacy, love, trust, familiarity and commitment that accompanies such a relationship, and upon which such belonging depends. It can also serve as a vehicle for self-discovery and passing pleasure. At the same time, it can result in disappointment, emptiness and loneliness. Furthermore, belonging can be established but then be destroyed by the unauthorised entry of another person, leaving a sense of betrayal, disconnectedness, loss of self-esteem, and disorientation. A kind of ‘home-invasion’. In other words, while a sexual relationship can create the context for wellbeing and belonging, it can also result in alienation and mental anguish.

An understanding of the complexities of sexual behaviour is critical when working with mental health problems that give rise to, or result from, sexual behaviour. Whether dealing with the trauma of sexual abuse, the pain of infidelity, self-rejection that leads to social withdrawal, or crises in sexual orientation; the need to understand sexual behaviour will play an important role in clinical practice. Surprisingly, until recently research and theory relating to sexual behaviour has received disproportionately small attention in the psychological literature compared to the attention it receives in politics and the media. The sexualisation of advertising, sexual themes in the arts, child sex abuse scandals, the same-sex marriage debate, the frequent failure of marriage giving rise to blended families and acrimonious court battles, the prostitution containment debates, the flooding of pornographic sites on the internet, and the problem of sexual predators using the internet, gain considerable political and media attention. Moreover, not only is the psychological literature on sexual relationships struggling to keep up with the social questions and controversies relating to sexual relationships, in the tradition of science it frequently provides impersonal perspectives and mechanistic explanations about an intensely personal event. Such perspective can contribute to the depersonalisation of the sexual experience.

Nevertheless, significant contributions have been made over time to the psychology of sexual behaviour and relationships, especially in more recent years. But the field continues to lack conceptual coherence, as Kleinplatz & Diamond (2014) observe: ‘There is a lack of conceptual clarity regarding the entire spectrum of sexuality, from problematic to normal to optimal’ (p. 247). Conflicting sociocultural sexual scripts and subscripts defining what sexual behaviour is acceptable has created further confusion and debate, clouding the issues of the role and function of the sexual relationship both personally and socially. Furthermore, the inherent complexity in the forces that drive sexual behaviour has made research design and interpretation difficult.

And so we are left to piece together a montage of ideas, research findings, clinical insights, and ideological sensitivities when formulating key principles or developing an integrative model of sexual relationships. Researchers acknowledge the complexities involved, referencing the varying contributions of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors in sexual behaviours, and contributions have been made towards such integration (see, for example, Halpern (2006), Pfaus (2009), and Toates (2014)). The purpose of this book is to build on these contributions, working to integrate and apply recognised psychological principles towards a model of sexual relationships, especially with a view to better equipping those counselling in the area of sexual relationships. It is my hope that this book will provide a psychological map to navigate the complexities of sexual relationships, to better interpret individual subjective experiences of sexual events, and to better appreciate how the dynamics of a sexual relationship can influence a person’s mental health.

I present a model that recognises multiple drives from two sources, biological and subjective, that operate within a context of sociocultural sexual scripts. These drives relate to various functions that the sexual relationship serves. The critical role of the perceptions and decisions of the subjective self, and the central functions of bonding and belonging in sexual relationships (helping make such relationship a psychological ‘home’), receives particular attention. Indeed, I propose that when sexual activity serves to build belonging and attachment, good mental health is promoted. I also seek to restore a personal perspective to the psychology of sexual relationships.