Why does my girlfriend need to drink before we have sex?
It’s not called dutch courage for nothing. Alcohol is an ingrained part of many people’s social lives — and that includes sex and romance.
The biggest upside of alcohol is that it helps people to relax and reduces anxiety, and we all know the downsides that are too numerous to mention.
Your girlfriend probably doesn’t realise that her drinking bothers you. Since you say she is already quite insecure, you need to broach this issue sensitively.
In 2001, research at Dalhousie University, Canada, found an association between trait anxiety (when stress is part of someone’s personality) and coping-related drinking motives.
The more insecure someone is, the more likely they are to resort to alcohol to quell their nerves.
As your girlfriend lacks confidence in general, she is probably not particularly sexually confident. Women who are apprehensive about sex, or averse to it, are also more likely to drink.
In 2008, in a study at the University of Washington, clinical psychologist Susan A. Stoner examined the interaction between sexual fear and intoxication.
She found that people who were sexually insecure or averse were much more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour when highly intoxicated.
Stoner explains this in terms of the heightened conflict between a person’s ordinarily inhibited sexual desire and alcohol’s disinhibitory effects. Alcohol increases the capacity to respond to sexual cues while diminishing the ability to evaluate risk.
For your girlfriend, this double impact is beneficial. Drink allows her to overcome her anxiety and respond in a more relaxed and sexual way.
Health-wise, it’s not a good long-term plan. Women are generally smaller than men, but — compared with a man of the same body size — a woman will become intoxicated more quickly with the same amount of alcohol.
This is because the female body has more fat, which retains alcohol, and less water, which dilutes it.
Women also have lower levels of ADH, the enzyme that breaks down alcohol in the stomach; the result is that alcohol stays in the system for longer, at higher concentrations, and has a stronger effect.
On top of this, two thirds of men drink beer (5 per cent alcohol by volume, or ABV) while two thirds of women drink wine (13 per cent ABV).
If your girlfriend has a large glass of wine for each pint of beer you drink, she will be taking in roughly the same amount of alcohol.
Your girlfriend’s drinking is ultimately her responsibility, but if you want her to enjoy sex sober, don’t have sex with her after she has been drinking.
If you go to the pub, or drink over dinner, refrain from sex until the next morning. If she questions you, tell her you want to wait till you are sober so you can enjoy it more.
By framing it as something that you want to experience rather than a change she needs to make, you will avoid embarrassing her.
When you make love to her in the morning she may be a little self-conscious, particularly if she has become accustomed to associating mornings with hangover induced anxiety, but talk to her. Reassure her.
Tell her how amazing sex with her feels and when she does something that you like, give her positive feedback. Take it slow. Keep it sensuous and maintain eye contact as much as you can.
Show her that sober sex is synonymous with being present in the moment. It requires a much greater level of vulnerability but the reward is an escalation in intimacy. If you can build her confidence and get her to orgasm, she will relax. Completely.
In 2003, the Dutch neuroscientist Gert Holstege carried out PET scans (imaging which shows how body tissues are working) on people during orgasm.
The images were almost identical to how the brain looks when it is on heroin.
As relaxants go, orgasm beats both heroin and alcohol hands down: it is infinitely better for your physical health, your psychological wellbeing and your wallet.
* Send your queries to suzigodson@mac.com
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