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Patsy Moy

Family planning clinic finds fear of intercourse, poor planning in household contribute to couples' inability to consummate marriage

If your sex life isn't working, look at how you manage your time.

That's the advice from the Family Planning Association, which found poor time management at the root of problems faced by half the couples who sought its help after being unable to consummate their marriages.

The association was giving details of a study of 58 couples who have attended its non-consummation clinic since it opened in 2003.

All the women were virgins and all feared sex.

Clinic chief and gynaecologist Sue Lo Seen-tsing said poor time management was getting in the way of romance in half the cases.

'For example, the couples are busy with their own work when they stay home, such as the husbands are working in front of the computer all night,' Dr Lo said.

'But when the husbands start to become interested in having sex, their wives have gone to sleep. The couples never have any chance to try to have sex. So we need to train them about time management and also about being romantic.'

Another reason the couples involved were not having sex was a sex phobia among wives - including the mistaken belief, even among well-educated women, that intercourse  is painful.

In one extreme case, a couple had not had sex in the first six years of marriage until they sought help.

The clinic says it has successfully treated 35 of the 58 couples who have sought its help since it opened in July 2003, and at least three of the wives have become pregnant.

The service is to cater for couples who have been diagnosed as physically healthy and normal.

'So their problem must be psychogenic [meaning mental or emotional], Dr Lo sad.

All the women seeking help were afraid of sex for various reasons, including misunderstanding, naivety and moral constraints, and some husbands developed their own problems because of their wives' anxiety.

'Those women have been hindered from having sex for the first time due to myths, such as it would cause serious pain,' she said.

The couples shared similar backgrounds, with about half of the spouses being professionals and up to 80 per cent having completed university.

'Something common in the wives is that they come from families which are conservative. In many cases, the family members are reluctant to touch on the subject of sex,' Dr Lo said.

'When those women were young, some of their parents had even tried to warn them against premarital or teenage sex, such as telling them about the possible trauma and severe pain of having first-time sex.'

The Family Planning Association is the city's only non-governmental organisation with a doctor to run a non-consummation clinic.

The programme includes a one-hour session of individual counselling, relaxation exercises and guidance for time management. The clinic is open only on Saturday mornings.

'We are pleased to hear from the couples that it added a lot of happiness to their marriage after they had a complete sex life,' Dr Lo said.

The association planned to recruit another doctor next year to cut the waiting time by half as 30 couples had to wait for up to a year for an appointment, she said.

The association charges $400 for the first assessment and $270 for each couple for follow-up service.



Better time management key to full sex life