My new girlfriend is very honest and direct. I don’t mind some straight talking, but after every time we have sex she gives a breakdown of what she particularly liked. It’s all a bit much.
Honesty and open communication are fundamental to good relationships, but you can have too much of a good thing. There is a TMI (too much information) threshold in all sexual relationships, and it can take a while for couples to work out what level of openness they are comfortable with.
Some people, for example, are relaxed about past lovers and sharing previous sexual experiences. Others find it hard to hear about exes. The way that someone has been brought up, and differences between cultures and nationalities, can really affect sexual communication.
In the same way that different countries have different understandings of premarital sex, the age of consent, homosexuality, masturbation and other sexual behaviours, a person’s comfort or discomfort around sexual communication is often reflective of the culture they have been brought up in. The Dutch, for example, have much better sex education programmes than we have, and because they focus on empowering young people to make good decisions and set sexual boundaries, young Dutch people find it easier to talk about sex than their frequently tongue-tied Irish counterparts.
While straightforwardness is a great quality when it comes to sex, a pragmatic approach can sometimes feel a little too clinical. Sex is one of the most magical, emotional and life-affirming of all human experiences, but as soon as you break it down into its component parts it can become a bit of a biology lesson.
Although communication styles are as varied as individual people are, when it comes to sex, humour is a universal common denominator. Sex is inherently silly. It can be awkward and embarrassing. Things can go wrong. You can get stuck, fall over, or break wind, so a good sense of humour is absolutely crucial. I suspect one of the issues for you is that your girlfriend takes a rather serious approach to feedback. If she were to lighten up a little it might feel more like appreciation and less like a Trustpilot score.
And that is another point. Even though your gilrfriend’s feedba
