I don’t think about sex unless it jumps up and bites me. I guess I don’t think of much unless it hits me over the head. I just go on leading my life.

HUSBAND

HOW can you really think about sex when you have a million problems in your life? You can only think so much, you can only have so much energy. I am drained just dealing with life.

WIFE

There has been a tendency in sex research to focus on behaviors, sometimes feelings, but seldom thoughts. How we think about sex influences our entire sexual system, and when we are running cold, we tend to lose sexual interest. One hundred fourteen men and 245 women reported problems with sexual interest, and the frequency of sexual-interest differences in marriages is probably much higher than these numbers indicate. Remember, these couples came to the clinic for help with the sexual dimension of their marriage. They had enough interest in sex to try to improve their sexual relationship.

*180\97\8*

Sometimes it’s like a mutual trance. We just flow from one thing, one activity, to another. I guess we talk, but 1 don’t really remember. We just seem to be one.

HUSBAND

I can have sex with him and just go through

the motions. It’s like washing your hands. You just do it.

WIFE

Is your marriage free of what I call “friction in activity flow”? Do things get done easily, simply, almost like the performance of a concert pianist who makes it look easy after years of practice (au-tomaticity)? Or are things difficult much of the time, with much friction, awkwardness, like dancing with two followers or two leaders (control)?

Our sample couple scored high toward automaticity. Things flowed from one to another so well that no one seemed to sense that husband and wife were in trouble. “Life goes on,” said the wife, “I just keep it going, hand him his orange juice as he checks the morning paper, hand him his briefcase on the move.”

The husband agreed. “I have to say, we are a team. We get things done. We’re organized. I don’t know if the team is winning, but it’s a team.”

Sexually, this couple typifies the automaticity of the compensated marriage. The wife said, “Our sex is like a pantomime. We are better than Marcel Marceau. We do it, don’t talk, just do it. A silent, well-rehearsed movie.” The husband agreed. “We don’t miss a beat. I hate the way it is just so automatic.”

Too much automaticity and there is no challenge to the system, no reason to grow and change. Too little automatic function and too much awkwardness fatigues the system and results in a surrendering within the system or seeking outside the system for ease to escape this form of disease.

You have now completed all ten items of the sexual system test. Each factor is exactly the same as the factors that physicists know influence all systems. You may have found it difficult to score yourself on this test because you are not used to the absence of good, bett^- and bigger scores. Systems do not work that way. To help you understand how your system is doing at this time in your marital life, use the following score analysis.

*40\97\8*