How to have a trusting sexual relationship

Confidence in relation to your sexual relationship is a particularly sensitive issue. Trust is a prerequisite for conscious sexual interaction to occur. It’s the reason most people don’t sleep with someone they just met. In the following article we will look at the steps to create a trusting sexual relationship.

building trust

We build trust with someone if their actions, behaviors, and words come across as trustworthy, truthful, and make sense. When we first meet someone we’re attracted to, we test each other to see if we can trust enough to let our guard down, show our vulnerability, and enter into a more intimate interaction.

We have a built-in ‘trust detector’ that scans people and gives us the green light when it seems safe to proceed. Some people’s detectors are too sensitive and they find it difficult to trust someone, perhaps because they have been hurt or abused in the past. Other people’s detectors don’t work as well and these people can often get into situations where they are taken advantage of. Alcohol and other substances such as drugs, etc., reduce the normal operation of our detector, so please be careful.

Trust in the sexual relationship.

In the sexual relationship we have a deeper need for trust, more than we normally need in a friendship. This is because in order to be sexually intimate with someone we have to show our vulnerability, our naked body, bare our soul and let our guard down.

The reason people often have one-night stands and are less inhibited after a night of drinking is because the natural confidence inhibitor is being checked.

In a committed relationship, it is important to have explicit discussions about the likes and dislikes of both partners to build a trusting sexual relationship. If you haven’t talked about ‘no-go zones’ yet, this might be a good time to start mapping them. Sex will be more rewarding and satisfying when trust is established and you are clear about what your partner likes and dislikes. Coming to trust a new partner is the process of getting to know each other on an intimate level and feeling safe in showing your vulnerable side.

As with building trust in general, we need time to establish it. Give your partner the time they need and don’t rush them into things, as this will be counterproductive to your state of trust. In a sexual context we need to give ourselves time and space to discover each other.

Another very important aspect is to honor your partner, fully respect them and not cross the ‘no-go zones’ discussed above.