In the last email, I wrote about the load couples are carrying, and much of this also applies to singles.
There’s another pressure shaping modern relationships – one that is less openly discussed, but hugely influential.
Sexualisation
Before I go on, as this is another major shift in the relationship paradigm, I want to acknowledge that I have been sending a lot of emails to you of late. Also, they are content heavy; no quick reads yet I have condensed as much as I can considering the relevance. The last few emails may need digestion and integration before we move on. For that reason I will slow down this sequence a little, there is more to come!
Let’s get back to intimacy, sexuality and sexualisation in relationships. We are living in a culture where sexual imagery is immediate and constant. Pornography is readily available. Bodies are curated and filtered. Desire is marketed. Attention is monetised.
Sex has always existed. What’s different now is the scale, the access, the speed. The intensity. The way it is packaged and delivered into everyday life.
At the same time, something more complicated is happening inside many people. Women and men alike are noticing a growing unease within. For some women, this isn’t new information so much as a deepening ambivalence — living in a culture that encourages sexual expression and visibility while also revealing, more starkly, the layers of exploitation and commodification underneath parts of the industry.
For others, what once felt largely harmless no longer sits quite so comfortably. The stories we have told ourselves about modern sexual culture are becoming harder to maintain, particularly where sexuality has drifted further from relationship, context, and mutual care.
That shapes us.
Increased porn accessibility does influence expectations, often without people consciously realising it. But it’s not just porn. Dating apps, hook-up culture, swinging spaces, and the wider social media environment all shape what people gradually come to see as normal.
In many spaces, highly sexualised behaviour is quietly becoming framed as the new normal — whether or not it actually aligns with a person’s values, relational goals, or nervous system readiness. Performance-based sexuality can begin to replace relational eroticism. Social media amplifies comparison. Many young people are forming their sexual identity alongside constant online exposure, while adults are navigating a landscape where availability, experimentation, consent, empowerment and subtle pressure can all be present — sometimes in the very same interaction.
This is complex.
Men often have earlier and more frequent exposure to sexual content. Many consume it without much thought about how it might be shaping their arousal, attention, expectations or behaviour. Not because they intend harm, but because it is normalised and easy.
Over time, constant novelty can shift desire away from embodied connection toward visual stimulation. It can affect what feels exciting, what feels enough, and how quickly arousal rises and falls. Some men then feel confused by desensitisation, restlessness or a performance anxiety they don’t fully understand. They may experience partners as demanding, dissatisfied or uninterested. And perhaps overlook the wider dynamic.
Women are navigating something different.
This era talks about empowerment, and that matters. But alongside that is comparison, objectification and pressure to be desirable. Strength and agency sit next to the feeling that the connection isn’t right, or missing. The intimacy feels off.
Young women are growing up inside that contradiction and couples sit in the middle of it. Trying to build safety and long-term intimacy in a culture that constantly introduces novelty and comparison. And without guidance or models to look at how this can or may work.
In my work, this shows up as:
Shame that isn’t named
Attachment anxiety — ‘where are you?’
Bodies shutting down or becoming hyper aroused
Avoided conversations
Confusion between intensity and intimacy
A sex life that fades out altogether
When arousal is shaped mainly by stimulation and speed, the nervous system adapts. Relational intimacy is slower. Connection needs safety, presence and attunement. Bridging digital fantasy and embodied connection isn’t always straightforward.
This isn’t about moral judgement; it is about awareness.
What we expose ourselves to shapes us. What we don’t talk about creates distance.
Many couples avoid this conversation because it feels awkward or accusatory. No one wants to be shamed. No one wants to feel inadequate. And everything goes nowadays, right? No, not for most, actually, once it gets close to home. Or for one more than for the other. So how to move forward with this?
When couples speak openly – without shaming or withdrawing – about how sexual content, comparison and expectation have shaped them, something can change: secrecy and defensiveness will lose power and curiosity becomes possible. Then intimacy becomes less about performance and more about connection.
Conscious partnership includes discernment. Not fear or surveillance of what is challenging or intruding. But choice.
Choice about what we consume, about what we internalise and about what we want intimacy to be built on.
This, too, is part of the emerging relationship shift.
It’s complex, and worth to explore with open minds and hearts.