Richardson’s way. One Saturday morning, the late Dr Derek Richardson was sitting in his Sydney rooms when, as expected, a couple arrived for their appointment. They had been coming for sex therapy every second Saturday for several months, but this week they behaved differently. Without saying a word, they cleared his desk and spread a white cloth over it. Richardson didn’t know what to expect. Then they produced a bottle of French champagne and three glasses. They wanted to celebrate the woman becoming orgasmic. This couple, whom Richardson described as being in their ‘early thirties, intelligent, but poorly sexually educated’, had finally learnt how to make love to each other. They had demonstrated one of Richardson’s central beliefs: that people need to be taught the necessary skills to be able to make love well.

‘Parents teach their children about everything but sex because they think that good sex comes naturally, but it does not,’ he said. ‘You need as much learning to be a good lover as you do to learn a trade, and that takes three to five years.’

People always listened to Richardson. Until his death in 1995, he was probably Australia’s most well respected sex therapist. Six months before he died, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners awarded him an honorary fellowship, saying that when he ventured into full-time

practice as a sex therapist in 1977 he ‘overcame much prejudice and rejection by some of his medical colleagues to become a leading expert in the field.’

In the last interview before his death, Richardson said that people tended to confuse sensuality and sexuality. Sensuality, which he defined as ‘pleasuring the body’, was very important in successful lovemaking. It was different to sexuality, which was any activity likely to make you feel fiorny.

He firmly believed that quick sex didn’t give fulfilment. It provided gratification, but that’s all. It was his understanding that sex goes wrong when the focus is wrong. People make the mistake of equating successful sex with orgasm,- if there is no orgasm they feel disappointed and upset and regard the whole encounter as a failure. Shifting the focus and aiming instead for mutual pleasure can make a tremendous difference. There is less pressure to achieve, less anxiety, and more time for sensual enjoyment.

There are going to be quite a number of times for both partners when they don’t have an orgasm, and it doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘What does matter is that two people should share intimacy and pleasure. If they don’t, then the quality won’t be there . . . One problem is that we have never learnt how to enjoy ourselves physically. Our Judeo-Christian ethic doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on getting hedonistic pleasure for its own sake.’

Richardson told the story of a woman, married for twenty years, who came to his rooms and complained she was bored. Sex had become totally predictable, and she knew the first seventy-six things her husband would do when he set about making love to her. This couple was stuck; there was no contact, no intimacy and, for the woman, no pleasure. They needed sex education. Richardson said sustaining quality lovemaking over many years takes imagination.

There has to be variety to avoid what can often become deadening predictability. The time discrepancy between female and male arousal is another source of sexual difficulty. From a cold start, in five minutes a man can achieve all physiological changes necessary to make him fully aroused and ready for sex. In the same situation, it takes most women close to an hour to become

similarly aroused.

Equally, within minutes of ejaculating, the man feels completely relaxed and ready for sleep. Female arousal, however, is physiologically more complex,- after climax a woman is left with congestion from her knees to her neck. She needs to be ‘brought down’. Leaving a woman’s body congested is the same as leaving a man with a prolonged erection. For twenty-four hours afterwards he has aching testicles.

This is the time for afterplay, because once her congestion is relieved she will get that lovely feeling of relaxation, turn over to sleep, and feel wonderful for twenty-four to seventy-two hours afterwards.

In quality lovemaking, the actual mechanical aspect of sex plays a very small part. The sensual build-up followed by sexual arousal is far more important.

While men peak sexually at about the age of twenty-five, women do so in their forties. To illustrate the total myth that older people don’t want to have sex, Richardson told of a woman who came to his practice in the 1960s. His partner examined her, noted her prolapsed uterus and said it would be no trouble to fix. As she was eighty-four, he would simply take it out and stitch up her vagina.

‘But Doctor,’ the woman protested, ‘Mr. Smith wouldn’t like that at all.’

*3\136\4*

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