If Your Partner Has This Personality Trait, Your Sex Life Might Be in Trouble-RESEARCH

If you haven’t been having the best time in the bedroom lately, it may be due to a factor outside of your control. (Phew, right?)
A surprising new study from the University of Kent found that women who think that their sexual partners are imposing perfectionist standards on them are more likely to end up suffering from sexual dysfunction.

 
For the study, researchers had more than 366 women under the age of 30 take surveys that they were told investigated whether their expectations and beliefs about sex or others' beliefs and expectations could impact sexuality and sexual function. Got all that?

Then, researchers took the responses and categorized them into four types of sexual perfectionism: self-oriented (meaning, perfectionist standards you put on yourself), partner-oriented (standards your partner puts on himself or herself), partner-prescribed (standards you feel that your partner puts on you), and socially prescribed (standards you get from society).

Researchers found that partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism led to women having a crappy view of their sexual skills and decreased their ability to get aroused. Noooo!

But it didn’t end there: Scientists also found that this form of sexual perfectionism decreased women’s sexual esteem and increased their sexual anxiety. So basically, having a partner who thinks sex should be a certain way sucks a lot for women.
Unfortunately, New York City sex therapist Ian Kerner, Ph.D., author of She Comes First, isn’t shocked by the findings. While partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism isn’t a common complaint in his office, he says many couples and individuals have high sexual standards, such as a rigid idea of how sex should go and how often it should take place. Though it's pretty normal to have a vision of how a sexual event will go down, sexual perfectionism is an extreme version of that, he says.
Kerner says you might be sleeping with a sexual perfectionist if your S.O. meets the following criteria:

• Has a strong vision of how sex should unfold
• Is rigid around how sex should unfold
• Has a pre-occupation with both their orgasm and often yours
• Has a lack of interest, even anger, at your feedback 
• Does lots of coaching and quarterbacking during sex 
• Is easily disappointed when things don’t go their way in bed
• Is critical of your performance
• Is more concerned with the performance of sex than the emotional experience

What can you do about it? Kerner says it’s important to speak up—in a strategic way. Since a sexual perfectionist is afraid of relinquishing power and being vulnerable, he says, you want to break through the protective part of the person so you can get to his vulnerable side. In other words, think of your partner as a giant M&M. To break through that hard shell, you can say that you love how into sex he is, but you feel you could be more spontaneous together in bed.

You can also literally take things into your own hands by suggesting some power play like light bondage, where your S.O. has to give up some control. He could discover that it’s pretty hot not calling all the shots in bed—and your sexual esteem will get a boost in the process. Win-win.