Sex Outside the Lines

Is Your Sex Life "Normal"?

Boy meets girl. The connection is electric. They fall in love, marry and have amazing sex. Soon there are children, and then grandchildren. They grow old, loving one another for the rest of their lives.

What’s wrong with this picture? Absolutely nothing, if you are one of the relatively small group of people whose lives work out this way.

What’s wrong is that we’ve defined this as “normal,” which makes most of us “abnormal.”

In Sex Outside the Lines, Dr. Chris Donaghue describes the holes in society’s definition of “normal,” taking a sharp eye to institutions such as marriage, cheating, virginity, identity, and sexual orientation. He also examines all the ways that accepting society’s “truths” have led to the demise of long-term relationships and sexual pleasure. All of this misinformation is showing up in your bedroom and preventing you from having the sex life you’re entitled to.

In Donaghue’s years of training in sex and couples therapy, he has developed highly successful methods for freeing clients from sexual hang-ups, enabling them to let go of shame and embarrassment. Donaghue pulls apart cultural phobias with a “sex positive” therapy practice, a kind of sexual deprograming that helps people see and accept the desires they have—even if they don’t align with societal expectations—are really natural, healthy, and part of having a great sex life.