Let's talk about sex: Psychologists and married couple Verity Thom (60) and Nic Beets (59) will answer reader questions in a New Zealand Herald column launching this Monday. Photo / Dean Purcell
Sex therapists Nic Beets and Verity Thom say no topic is taboo - and now, New Zealand Herald readers can put that claim to the test. Kim Knight meets the psychologists whose new relationship and sex advice column launches on Monday.
"Normally, we don't have pants on," says Verity Thom.
Try not to read too much into this confession from a sex therapist. Eighteen months ago, Thom and husband Nic Beets shifted their practice online and their lives to Waihi Beach. When the ex-Aucklanders are not psychologising, they're surfing, paddle boarding and training with their local waka ama team.
"It's a new town and you want to make connections," says Beets. "Verity's already done her first race, on the Tamaki Estuary in 40 knots." He shakes his head. "They call off yacht races in 40 knots. Staunch!"
Next month, this pair of psychologists, who specialise in relationship and sex therapy, will celebrate 42 years together. The secret to a long relationship?
Beets: "Changing pain into growth."
But that's the tail end of a longer answer. Ask if their own marriage marathon is a help or a hindrance when it comes to advising others, and Beets says they are able to share more than just theory.
"It is a painfully won lived experience. We know what it's like to feel lost, confused and despairing . . . we strive to make the pain couples go through productive for them - changing pain into growth."
And right now, relationships are in a world of pain.
Therapists report months of forward bookings and say multiple factors are driving demand. Covid-19. Climate change anxiety. The stress of achieving "success" in an era where we measure our worth according to what we think others have. Everybody is worrying about something.
"The destruction of workers rights, the housing crisis, the crumbling infrastructure, degradation of health and education services, the necessity for both parents to work . . . all make it hard for people to put in the time and energy it takes to make a relationship thrive," says Beets.
Why do we even try?
"That is the big question of this era," says Thom. "We see it with our children and their friends, they're asking 'what is it with this romantic idea of the monogamous couple?' Has it run its course?"
Beets, 59, and Thom, 60, say the single most common thing clients want to talk about is "opening" their relationship. That's the verb that goes with the noun you might be more familiar with - the "open" relationship that runs a broader spectrum than many of us realise - from alcohol-emboldened three-ways, to stereotypical keys-in-a-bowl swingers, to the true polyamorous who maintain long-term and deeply committed relationships with more than one other person.
"The normalisation of alternate forms of relationship - 'consensual non-monogamy' - is probably the big change recently," says Beets. "The structure of our relationships is open for question, discussion and debate."
Thom: "If you look at all these 20-somethings, they're talking their butts off about it in a way that we never did. It's not about the doing, but it's certainly in the zeitgeist to talk about it."
Would they do it?
Thom: "I'm not secure enough . . . "
Beets: "No."
They answer simultaneously and matter-of-factly. They might as well be discussing what to watch on television or who is cooking dinner. When you're a sex therapist, there are no taboos.
Thom: "When we talked about doing it earlier on, neither of us were secure or mature enough to make that work - we could work that out, at least! People who get together really young usually talk about other fish in the sea and whatever . . . "
Now, she says, she's probably "got good enough at relationships" to deal with any issues, "but I don't want to go out four times a week and see other people".
Are clients looking for permission? Rule books? Guidelines?
Beets: "All of the above."
Thom offers some sample scenarios: "We're thinking about it - should we, shouldn't we? What should we try? We are doing it and it's not going well, help us do it better. It was terrible, now put us back together because we're the walking wounded after what we did. There are people who have been very good at polyamory, but they've run into difficulty and can't work out why there's a problem . . . "
Beets: "You've also got people who have a kink, or a fetish that maybe their partner doesn't want to exercise . . . "
Thom: " . . . Or they realise they're bi, and they've never had sex with the same gender person. So there's a huge spectrum of work. There's a lot of terminology and it's all very confusing - and certainly the public who aren't doing it, think they know what it is. It's actually very complex and nuanced."
Let's talk about sex, minus shame, guilt and judgment. Beets and Thom, who join the New Zealand Herald this Monday as resident sex advice columnists, sit side-by-side on a battered brown leather couch. The cushion says "aroha" and the wall art has been collected on overseas holidays spent chasing waves; she peels a mandarin between clients, he accidentally brews a coffee with her decaff. They met as teenagers at a pre-school ball party. Beets was Thom's friend's blind date, but the attraction between them was instant.
Thom: "All the other boys were boys. He was a real man."
Beets: "I love that answer!"
She went to Germany on a student exchange, and he lived in Australia for a bit. He met her again at the airport, head and shoulders above the crowds in international arrivals, holding a giant bouquet of bright flowers. He studied fashion. Worked in theatre. She became a psychologist and then he did too. They had two children who are adults now. A marriage on their 10th anniversary because they'd already planned the party, so why not? They do not - for even one second - believe in "The One".
Beets: "Bollocks."
Thom: "Our relationship has worked because we've been very determined and we were willing to grow … change-change, grow-grow, change-change. That's why we're together. Not because of 'the one'."
The counterintuitive thing about relationships, they say, is the longer you are together, the more difficult intimacy becomes. Getting naked is way easier than baring than your soul.
"Intimacy has become a euphemism for sex," says Beets. "But sex is not necessarily intimate."
Thom: "Some of the hottest sex you have is with a stranger with no emotional connection."
Beets: "You don't have to make yourself very vulnerable to have an orgasm."
He says it's a gross generalisation, but the traditional male was once only allowed to express two emotions - anger and lust.
"So everything negative was channelled into anger. If I'm afraid, I'm angry. If I'm confused I'm angry. And if I'm hungry for comfort or if I'm feeling vulnerable, I reach out for sex, because that's all I'm allowed to ask for. What happens, if you're partnered with somebody like that, is you get all these approaches for sex that are weird, that are off, that don't make sense."
Thom: "And don't forget you can get women who are wired to want to feel a degree of emotional connection before they want sex . . . "
Beets: "And so then the fight becomes about sex. But actually, it's about intimacy."
Thom says more women have become more comfortable about seeking the sex they want; more men are talking about their emotions. But the conflation - and confusion - of intimacy for sex - is still prevalent, for both heterosexual and gay couples. And, she says, children are still subjected to gendered sexual attitudes. While it's normal, for example, for children to masturbate at any age, if a young boy has his hands down his pants, "he's a bit of a lad". And if a young girl is rubbing or wriggling against the furniture?
"There's this idea that male sexuality is accepted and normal and girls shouldn't be too sexual," says Thom. "And that has a profound effect on structuring a woman's relationship to her own sexuality."
Statistics New Zealand figures show that last year, 7707 couples were granted divorces and 16,779 marriages and civil unions were registered. In 2019, there were 8388 divorces and 19,071 marriages and civil unions - the latter drop partly explained as a result of Covid-19 induced lockdowns. Speaking before this week's snap lockdown, the pair said there had been a "very definite direct increase in the stress on couples" related to the financial impacts of lockdowns, the need to try and juggle school and work in the same space - and the "torment" of people with partners and family stuck overseas.
"We certainly do think that Covid, on top of the looming climate catastrophe, has increased the background anxiety that everyone is operating in," says Beets. "That means there is less resilience, people get reactive quicker and it is harder to resist anxiety or depression if you are prone to these things."
While relationship stress is both inevitable and normal, the pair say everybody has a different dealbreaker - there is always something a relationship can't come back from, but that something is personal to every couple. Infidelity. Incest. Paedophilia. Addictions. Money. Kids. Divergent opinions on where - and how - to live. The way they describe it, every relationship has a contract, but we're not always great at talking about it and you only discover the boundaries when someone breaks them.
"Our culture bombards us with misinformation about relationships," says Beets. "We want people to be better educated about the realities, regardless of gender, orientation or relationship structure. We are open to any question about intimate relationships and how they work."
ASK THEM ANYTHING
Psychologists Verity Thom and Nic Beets begin a regular sex and relationship advice column with the New Zealand Herald from Monday, answering reader questions in print and online with Herald Premium. Write to: questions@nzherald.co.nz
Washington Post: The mindset should be - less fuss, more fun with company.