Love & Sex: The Book of Questions

Love and Sex can be magically simple or maddeningly complex. We are always encouraged to talk things over with our partners. Sometimes, however, we ask the wrong questions of them and of ourselves. Gregory Stock, whose best-selling "The Book of Questions" helped sharpen our skills at asking just the right questions, has turned his attention to imponderables that are close to our hearts. This is not a quiz; there are no right answers. Your answers may tell you something new about yourself. And that will give you something new to share.

• How much of your enjoyment of sex is involved with giving pleasure to your partner? Could you enjoy yourself if you knew your partner took little pleasure in the experience?

• When was the last time you had so much fun while making love that you actually laughed? If you had to make your lovemaking more playful or more serious, which would you want?

• Would you rather have an attractive spouse who was disappointing in bed or a plain-looking one fantastic in bed?

• If, during the next month, you could have the power to hear your partner's every thought when you made love, would you want to? Why? Would it upset you to have your partner hear your thoughts?

• Have you remained close friends with any former lovers? If not, would you like to have done so?

• Looking back on past romances, have you ever wondered what you saw in an ex-lover? If so, in what ways was it because you had changed, and in what ways was it because you had grown to see the person more clearly?

• When you don't feel particularly amorous, will you still have sex with your partner? If so, does this now occur more or less frequently than it used to?

• If a perfect contraceptive were developed and all venereal diseases disappeared, how would you change your sexual behavior?

• What do you think makes a great lover? How much of your attention in lovemaking is directed toward pleasing your partner and how much toward pleasing yourself?

• Would you like to see intimate journals and letters your lover had written during a romance that had taken place long before you knew each other? If so, why? What sorts of things could you imagine learning about such a relationship that would undermine the love you now feel?

• If your lover lost interest in sex, how long would it take to cause difficulties in your relationship? Assume that the change results from something unrelated to your feelings for each other; for example, worries about financial problems.

• How promiscuous would you be if you knew your mate would give you--without resentment--any sexual freedom you asked for and still be as faithful as you wished?

• If every day next year you had an extra hour, would you rather spend it with your partner or by yourself? Assume that it must be one or the other.

• Have you ever been in love with someone you knew you could not trust? If you found yourself in such an involvement, do you think you would try to leave and have enough self-control to do so?

• Men: Have you ever had a traumatic experience as the result of being unable to get an erection? If so, what was your biggest concern at the time? How would you like to have a partner behave in such a situation? Women: What goes through your mind when you suspect that your partner is not going to get an erection? Have you ever had an unpleasant lovemaking experience because this happened? If so, what was worst about the experience?

• In the early phases of a romance, how much are you influenced by your friends' and family's opinions of your partner? Do you seek more or less advice about your relationships than about other things? In affairs of the heart, is outside opinion less valuable because your feelings are individual in nature or more valuable because it's hard to be objective?

• If your spouse were having an affair and broke it off as soon as you found out, would it destroy your relationship? If not, how do you think it might change things?

• If you had to choose something new for your partner to do when making love to you, what would it be? What doesyour lover think excites you more than it actually does?

• When did you find out the most about what pleases you sexually and what did you learn? Have you discovered more through long-standing relationships or through shorter periods of intimacy with different lovers?

• If you became attracted to a close friend and neither of you were involved with anyone else, do you think sex would jeopardize your friendship?

• What is the most unpleasant (concluded on page 169)Love & Sex(continued from page 129) sexual experience you can recall? In what ways do you think it has had a positive or a negative influence on your life?

• When you are attracted to someone and another person begins to show a lot of interest in him or her, does it strengthen your feelings? Has such a competitive urge ever led you to believe you were more in love with someone than you actually were?

• If a month before your wedding your wealthy fiancé(e) suggested drawing up a prenuptial agreement specifying the financial terms of a divorce, how would you react? What kind of terms would be fair in such an agreement?

•If your sexual rapport with your partner began to deteriorate, would you try to find the underlying causes or deal directly with the sexual problem?

• Are you more attracted to people whose personalities are similar to yours or different? What differences attract you and why?

• When was the last time you made love so spontaneously you wouldn't have predicted it a half hour before? What attitudes lead to such surprises? What ones keep them from happening?

• How do you react when someone gives you the eye in a public place? In what situations do you flirt, and why do you do it?

• If you could watch a video of yourself making love, would you want to?

• What in someone's life--for example, religion, profession, ethnic background, age, health problems, marital history-- would keep you from marrying a person you had fallen in love with?

• When you have sex with someone for the first time, do you feel you are making an implicit commitment, even if nothing is stated? If so, what is that commitment, and how does it change if your intimacy continues for a number of weeks or months?

• If you were dating several people and one of them sent you a love note and flowers, would you hide them or display them openly? If asked about them, would you explain their origin to the others?

• Would you rather your lover become loudly angry for a few hours or quietly annoyed for a few days? When your lover is angry with you and won't admit it, how do you know?

• At what periods in your life have you been most vulnerable to the temptations of an affair, and what were you seeking from another person at those times? Have you ever seriously contemplated and then consciously avoided an affair? If so, what stopped you?

• What is the difference between being in love and being infatuated? Do you believe in love at first sight? Have you ever fallen in love because you craved the intoxicating feelings of being in love?

• What that your partner does makes you feel most loved? Do you think your partner is aware of this?

• Have you ever loved someone you didn't respect? If so, did it make you respect yourself less?

• What were the best lovemaking experiences you remember? What made them so special for you?

• Have you ever spent a lot of money on an evening whose primary focus was to get someone to have sex with you? If so, what would you have done if you had known you could be successful only by giving that person the money directly? Have you ever had sex with someone because the person was very generous to you? If so, what if you had instead been offered the money directly?

• How does it make you feel when your partner complains that you don't listen or express yourself enough?

• If you had been seeing someone for a few weeks and you were attracted to each other, do you think you would bemore likely to get married if you started sleeping together or if you resisted doing so? If you wanted to have sex and theother person refused, how long would it take you to consider ending the romance?