I followed a link from another blogger and found a very interesting blog that seems to be about male-female relationships. After reading the linked-to post, I immediately started to write a comment about the issues I saw missing from it. Since it grew to a rather obnoxious length for a mere comment, I have decided to make it a post unto itself. I have put his words in bold, my own are in regular font for ease of reading.
Be aware that this post talks incredibly frankly about certain aspects of my sex life. Please don’t read if you could potentially be upset by such things. I promise I won’t be offended. 😉
It is staggering the number of females in a longterm heterosexual marriage or relationship who tell me they rarely orgasm unless they do it themselves.
I understand the fact that women need to feel safe during sex…a decent number of men do too. When done as a bonding experience in a long term relationship (LTR), both sexes are known to open themselves up emotionally in ways you never see outside of the bedroom. But if you do not feel safe in a LTR, especially one that’s over a year old, then I have to wonder why you’re still in it. After dating someone for 365 days, I’d think you’d have spent enough time together to determine if you will ever be truly relaxed and comfortable around them.
I also am tempted to reverse the line above and ask how many men orgasm unless they “do it themselves”. I’ve many male readers, friends, and even classmates who have, at various times, openly admitted that their female partners do very little during sex. There’s either a lack of movement or enthusiasm in general, or a staunch unwillingness to try a new position, oral sex is asked for but is not reciprocated, anal is completely out of the question, etc. I recall one 20-something man in my college Human Sexuality course years ago who put it rather bluntly:
I actually don’t look forward to sex with my girlfriend anymore. We’ve been together for 3 years, and each time we have sex I feel like a rat in a maze. I have to undress her…she never undresses me. I have to perform oral on her, which I love to do…but I’m rarely given it in return because she thinks penises are dirty. We only ever do missionary position or sometimes her on top…every other position is ‘frivolous’ or ‘degrading’. I could handle all that but what I hate is that I go through all this work to make sure she is wet, is relaxed, and has orgasmed by my hand/mouth at least 3 times before I get in…yet I’m expected to be satisfied with only 8 minutes of thrusting? She makes no movement when I’m in her, just lays there. She doesn’t play with my body…I don’t get any caresses whatsoever. I’ve tried asking her to get more enthusiastic, or just touch me more, but she says I’m being needy. I love making her cum, and I’m not trying to sound like a selfish douche who just wants to get his own orgasm. But I don’t know…It’s like, why is sex so focused on the female orgasm and men are expected to just be happy with the bare minimum?*
Herein lies what I believe is the biggest miscommunication in male-female sexual relations: The idea that men are simple when it comes to sex, and they are only interested in getting their rocks off. Some men may be like this, but anyone who is either a man himself or has spent more than 10 minutes being a true friend to a boy or man knows that this is not the case for the majority. Boys in high school frequently brag about how many orgasms they’ve given their girlfriends. A young man who is clueless about how to please his partner is ridiculed almost mercilessly by his friends. If word gets around via a former girlfriend that he’s terrible at sex, the blow to his ego is close to nuclear. Yes, most men are brought up nowadays to believe their performance is “scored” almost completely on how much they were able to please their woman.
Which honestly wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if the same held true for the opposite sex. But despite the women’s magazines that promise “200 Mind Blowing Sex Moves” or “How to Please like a Porn Star”, women’s sexuality has still remained more of a matter of simply showing up, not necessarily of actively participating. I can honestly say, from many years spent in girl’s gym locker rooms, that there is a pervasive belief that her mere presence should be enough to get his blood flowing. This is almost certainly a viable option at ages 16-20, when hormones are the ruling elite of the body. But at 25? 32? 49? Much like how the typical person’s food choices go from Big Macs, cold pizza, and Budweiser to chicken cordon bleu, Caesar salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing, and a fine Merlot…tastes change and get more refined as they age. Women with older partners cannot rely on simply being there, they actually need to show that they want to be with their men in a sexual way.
Someone did a study wherein they timed the average length of time it took a woman in pornography to display signs of intense pleasure. The average was somewhere around eleven seconds. I’m sorry but you simply aren’t that good.
And here’s yet another reason why I must admit that I don’t feel like a member of the female sex. I watch porn, I’m not ashamed to admit it. I own some favorite DVDs, and I have some particularly good sites bookmarked on my phone (since I don’t have a computer or landline internet). Yes, most of the time the actress is acting like the cosmos are moving when the actor has only just started to touch her. Eleven seconds is unrealistic…but in my personal experience, not by that much.
Last year I was actually pretty curious about my own “times” so I repositioned my clock from my kitchen to my bedroom. From the time we started making out to the time I had an orgasm through breast-play, it was approximately 3 minutes. Him going down on me: 1 minute and again at almost 4 minutes. Me using a vibrator as I go down on him: 1 minute. And the final, PiV portion? I came 3 times, starting at the 25 second mark.
This wasn’t a weird occurrence…this is fairly typical. Actually, I only orgasmed 8 times during this session, but I blame the fact I was remembering to watch the clock and not just “forgetting” about everything else like I usually do. My average is about 10. I don’t write this to claim superiority over other women. Quite the opposite; I feel very guilty and sad that I can orgasm so easily when 2/3 of American women have sexual dysfunctions. But given my own experiences is it any wonder that I can’t relate to this problem?
Anyone who has been in a long-term relationship can tell you that sexual gymnastics settle down after a few years. Infatuation with the opposite sex drops a shocking 80% in that same time. Add kids or communication problems, weariness or stress, and it is going to take a lot longer than eleven seconds before a woman is even going to relax enough to allow the experience to blossom.
As for the ‘sexual gymnastics’ settling down after a few years…what? I’ve been with my lover for 8 years at this point. We are “only” friends with benefits, and we usually have sex once, maybe twice a week due to conflicting schedules, but as we have been together our repertoire of experiences has grown, not shrunk! We didn’t even start getting into bdsm until about year 4, and it’s only recently we’ve been talking about having a threesome. No, we aren’t bored with each other, but as you become more and more relaxed you can safely talk about various fantasies you’ve both had and ways to stretch your boundaries (consensually for all involved, for those who need the obvious to be stated).
This part just seems contradictory: Women need to feel safe to let go during sex. Okay, I’m on board with that. But then we’re told that somehow infatuation with one’s partner drops 80% after a few years. How can this be? If a woman generally feels safer the longer a partner stays loyal to her, why wouldn’t the sex increase? I readily admit that my FwB and I have no kids, we don’t live together, and we are excellent at communicating in and out of the bedroom, so none of the aforementioned problems hinder our activities. If one of us is stressed or “weary”, then we do something softer, like erotic massage or prolonged lovemaking. But never once has he offered sex that I’ve declined, and he has only declined 5 times in 8 years (he’s 15 years older than me, so I understand).
But yeah…please explain this weird contradiction.
Negotiating the female pleasure system can be daunting for men. We have no real teachers and frankly your plumbing can be confusing to the uninitiated. A surprising percentage of men do not know exactly how women pee and where it comes from, precisely. Add to this the confusion we sometimes feel about the female sexual-desire timeline, the way that women seem to behave differently in different circumstances (and we don’t know why), and your seemingly complex thought processes and beliefs about when and why sex is appropriate, and the result is a confused bunch of dudes who have no idea what they are doing. Again, we’re still trying to figure out your plumbing.
Unless he had the absolute worst Health class with an abstinence-only teacher and frequently fell asleep during said class, I honestly have no frickin clue how a teenage boy doesn’t know the same basic amount about the female body as an average teenage girl. Some of our “plumbing” may be more interior than that of the male, but it’s not a Rubik’s Cube.
We have a urethra for urination just like men. It’s a small hole located below the clitoris, which is at the top of our labia. The vaginal entrance is between the urethra and anus, and in some women the area about 2-3 inches in is highly sensitive to pressure and caressing aka the G-spot. If your female partner has a good G-spot, like myself, she will probably be able to orgasm from PiV sex. If not, she will probably have to rely on clitoral stimulation. See here for more information: https://tarnishedsophia.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/happy-international-clitoris-week/
There, that wasn’t so hard. One thing that I will say I don’t like about some of my fellow Wiccans/Pagans (or just random “new age” types that I’m not associated with) is the propensity to hop on the bandwagon of re-mystifying the female body. Look, I get that some women like to talk to other women about female matters, even if I don’t. I think it’s awesome that girls are being raised knowing that having a period doesn’t make them “unclean”, and that masturbation is a healthy, womanly activity, too. I hope that by the time I die, no girls feel like they need labiaplasty or breast augmentations to be a “real” woman.
But for the Gods’ sake, stop trying to create a sense of “mystery” about the Divine Feminine and the female body. I love my faith, but it must be acknowledged that this is an age of reason we live in (or should be). We can talk about the awesomeness of the human body of both sexes without the need for mystical terms or trying to pretend one’s genitals are special. It’s just going to result in more of the same “lady parts are confusing” BS that our society really shouldn’t have to worry about in 2014.
As for “timelines” or “the beliefs about when and why sex is appropriate”…Um, that I have no ideas on. Frankly, I don’t know what the author is referring to. I’m rather of the opinion that if both adult people want to have sex, then they should. I didn’t realize that there’s a negotiation process or that star charts had to be consulted. I kid, of course, but that is what it reminds me of. If any of my readers want to share their knowledge on this, please do.
And, as always, comments and thoughts are appreciated below.
*For those who are wondering, part of this was said in class and part was said to me personally as we walked to our cars. I have taken the slang terms for body parts out and condensed the conversation a bit, but otherwise this is what my classmate said, as much word for word as I can recall, which is pretty damn close since I (sometimes unfortunately) have a fantastic memory.
Related Posts
https://tarnishedsophia.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/in-praise-of-the-penis/
https://tarnishedsophia.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/pathways/
https://tarnishedsophia.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/my-views-on-bdsm/
https://tarnishedsophia.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/great-reasons-to-masturbate/
Edit to add: As of today, there is an excellent post up on Private Man’s blog related to this topic. I highly recommend perusing it as well as the numerous links he has compiled.
http://theprivateman.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/spreadsheet-husband/
Tarnished Sophia 
I heard that the two things people can’t be rational about are sex and money.
I’ve never had the first, and only have limited prospects of attaining the second.
I did read a book titled (I think) “Vagina” by feminist Naomi Wolff. She also states
that women need to be relaxed to get pleasure, and she blames pornography
for the promotion of “hang-ups” between the sexes. Men , now insist on anal,
because they see it in porno. They also lack confidence because they think they
should perform like “studs.”
I think you would rate more “masculine” on a personality test. You probably
have more testerstone then the average woman, and have more insistant
urges. Remember the Bell Curve I wrote about awhile back?
I would imagine that novelity is necessary to keep a woman interested. If the
woman sex is as much a mental as a physical occurance. Most men don’t
like to contemplate the idea of “their” woman exploring new vistas because
they are afraid they will “lose” her.
I loved everything about this post! The re-mystifying of women is annoying, and I can’t wait to live in a world where all women can be comfortable in their sexuality and therefore interested in their partner’s desires beyond showing up. That concept, which continues to be perpetuated, just causes misconceptions, bad communication ( for fear of ridicule) and therefore the hurt feelings that can cause such a decline in interest. It took years for my husband and I to breakdown those barriers enough to have good communication about sex. Again, great post!
@Lon
Ha, I find that one can be rational in both. You just have to give a little more than you take in either one…If everyone did this, nobody would be wanting.
I like pornography, I like tantric breathing, I like masturbatory meditation, I like erotica. Not a single one of these has given me a “hang up” about what to realistically expect from myself and my partner.
Anal is alright. You do have to fully trust your partner though, as it’s possible to get hurt if done at the incorrect angle. Honestly, this position is the only time I experienced real pain during sex…but my lover stopped as soon as I asked, and we did it prior to and after this circumstance, so it was probably just some weird thing.
As I stated above, my lover is 15 years older. I don’t think he “performs” like a “stud” aka porno actor, but then again I wouldn’t want him to.
I’ve rated pretty high on the masculine side in every personality/gender test I took in my psychology courses. I don’t have a masculine looking body at all, though I seem to be slightly stronger than most women my age and don’t have as much trouble losing weight. It’s probably more that my brain had more testosterone during fetal development.
My lover and I like exploring new vistas together. 😉
” If a woman generally feels safer the longer a partner stays loyal to her, why wouldn’t the sex increase?”
Because so much of the variety of sexuality has already been rejected, boredom of the same old same old variety takes over. There is no interest in exploring new experiences when the thoughts and emotions surrounding them still reject them as icky, vile, or vulgar. Anything seen as slutty -especially positions and non-PIV sex- end up not being added to the repertoire.
“As for “timelines” or “the beliefs about when and why sex is appropriate…”
These tend to tie in with the idea that sex is a Pavlovian reward system. He’s finally earned enough fuck points to be allowed access to the Golden ‘Gina for a few minutes until he gets off.
I’d go into this more, but I have to deal with a family issue now.
“I would imagine that novelity is necessary to keep a woman interested.”
@Lon Spector
For everything except sex, that is. A new experience, a fancy restaurant, maybe even more attention, and sex itself might be more likely. But novelty in sex isn’t going to happen for most women. They tend to cease explorations once they find something they like which doesn’t trigger Mom’s Voice in their heads. I have found that by the fourth meeting, the willingness to explore other options has evaporated. So one sticks to the tried and true to get any at all. Others’ experiences will vary.
@Heather
Thanks so much, I’m glad you liked it! Oh, and many congratulations on you and your husband becoming better communicators. I wish the both of you many happy, mutual orgasms. 😉
@Blurkel
Hmm. So you’re saying that, in your experience, the “adventuresome” sexual experimentation only progresses to the first acceptable boundary?
Also, what do you believe is still defined as “slutty” nowadays, given how sexually open many teens seem to be?
“Negotiating the female pleasure system can be daunting for men”
That’s half the fun! If every woman came with a button that you push to make them orgasm then they would have sex with trained monkeys.
@Master Beta
True, I guess I just don’t really understand *how* it’s daunting given that all our sexual structures are analogous.
Clitoral glans = penile glans
Skeins = prostate
Clitoral shaft = front of penile shaft
G-spot = back of penile shaft
Labia = testicles
Nipples = well, nipples
If something feels good on a man’s body, there shouldn’t be much reason it wouldn’t feel good on a woman’s body. (Speaking in generalities here, I know people have different turn ons.)
You should read the Naomi Wolf book. She says there is bundle of nerves
running down the spine responsible for pleasurable feelings.
It differs for each woman.
Most women are ignorant about these things. Men, even more so.
“Hmm. So you’re saying that, in your experience, the “adventuresome” sexual experimentation only progresses to the first acceptable boundary?”
Yes. It has been thus with each of the women I’ve had sex with in my life – even one pro.
“Also, what do you believe is still defined as “slutty” nowadays, given how sexually open many teens seem to be?”
No teen girl looks at me twice anymore, so I have no way to gauge what they will or won’t do. I discount much of what is presented from Facebook and other social media by the “news” media as it doesn’t resonate with what I know about my own children and their friends. Trust me that the list of acceptable sex practices is shorter with them than when I was that age myself.
@Lon Spector August 7, 2014 at 11:29 AM
“She says there is bundle of nerves running down the spine responsible for pleasurable feelings.”
I discovered this by accident once. I was massaging the lower back of a young woman at a spot roughly level with the top of her hip bones. She had a VERY intense orgasm. Never achieved this with anyone else.
@Blurkel and Lon
Are you talking about this?
http://health.howstuffworks.com/sexual-health/sexuality/brain-during-orgasm1.htm
@Tarnished
An interesting article regarding extra-spinal nerve stimulation leading to orgasm.
I’m not a medical professional, but it’s possible that this is what triggered the orgasm I wrote about. I never got the chance to discover if the experiment was repeatable, so we’ll have to leave it in the probable category.
Off-topic: Tarn, how often are Wiccans also
solemn believers in witchcraft? That would make it difficult to treat them seriously, if the majority would be.
Could her be a troll?
Ms. Wolff says there is a lattice of nerves running down the spine.
The percise location differs in every woman.
Read her book “The Vagina: A Biography.
I’m still amazed that you write all this shit on your phone. How long does it take you? I spend a good deal of time laboring on my own posts (not that it shows) and I use a PC.
@Blurkel
Yes, it looks like the same thing as the article I found. Our bodies are so cool…even if they’re highly inefficient. Lol.
@Exfernal
The majority of ones I’ve known, including my mother. In some aspects, you can draw similarities between doing spellwork and prayer…all the incense present in Catholic churches, none of the pompous behavior.
😉
But other parts? Yeah, they are kinda silly and new-agey in my opinion. It’s sad that people will hear that I’m Wiccan and immediately assume I’m into using tarot cards, ouija boards, crystals, palmistry, etc. None of that stuff is a part of our faith.
@Unfortunate Virgin
It’s actually not that difficult…in fact, it’s easier than pecking out my words on a full size keyboard. Like my sense of smell and touch, my hearing is super-sensitive when it comes to higher frequencies…I can hear whether a computer, radio, tv, or fluorescent lightbulb comes on without looking at it or even being in the same room. I can hear dog whistles, too. Thus, it was absolute torture for me to be in computer class when I was in middle school and I got special permission from my doctor/the school to go to the library instead. So…yeah. I never learned how to type.
Hmm… perhaps you orgasm so easily due more to an overall super-sensitivity then?
Almost definitely.
I can hear things others can’t.
I can smell, and therefore taste, things others can’t.
When I touch…or am touched…I think I can feel things others can’t, like a “taste” of how the other person is emotionally.
Thank the Gods I need glasses to see farther than 10 feet away. If my sight was as good as the rest, I’d suffer from even more sensory overload than I already do!
I think that’s awesome. And I actually took typing class in high school. lol – to this day it’s the only class I can think of where I’m still applying what I’ve learned in the real world.
Yeah, I hear you. My AP courses in high school and college courses I use a lot…although I guess there’s the little things we learn in kindergarten and primary school, too.
Learning should be constant anyway.
Eh, sometimes I really like my senses being what they are…I’ve tried comparing what I sense to what others say they sense. It sounds like most people have very dull senses, though I wonder if it’s just a case of them not paying attention?
The whole “feeling how others are emotionally” can have severe downsides. For example, I went to a wake last year when a friend’s father died. The raw sadness and loss made me cry for the full 2 hours. It wasn’t *my* sadness…I had never even met the man…but when there’s that many people all feeling the same thing, I can’t block it out. Same with going to conventions. The energy level is so high that the hair on my neck and shoulders bristles for the first few hours.
Tarnished,
does your sensitive taste make you a picky eater? Just curious.
@Emma
You’d think so, but it’s actually the opposite. There’s very few foods that I don’t like, and for ones I’m not crazy about I just mentally dissect the flavors till I find one that is good. Unfortunately, I enjoy eating…but I also enjoy being a size 7 so I force myself to eat small portions slowly.
What’s that hightened sensary condition that begins with the letters
Sen—-, where people can see sound? Psychology Today, magazine reports
on that quite a bit. You’ve got that?
When I was a child I read a story about a haunting. It shook me up so
greatly, I feared the coming night. Unspeakably terrifying things happened to
me that evening. I learned what evil was.
@Lon
You’re talking about synesthesia, where the brain’s sensory connections overlap. I don’t think I have that…pretty sure it’s just a general hypersensitivity and asmr in my case.
What happened that night?
I actually get the same feeling when I go to Irish festivals, so I can relate to that last part. 🙂 So what is listening to music like for you then?
blurkel
It’s not so much variety in sex itself as it is variety in the people they are having sex with. I believe this is what many people are referring to when they talk about women’s need for sexual variety. They aren’t looking for new position as much as they are looking for new experiences.
This view/belief that women prefer variety is a commonly held truth in some societies – hence the Walking Marriages. In this society women were the ones who control the social fabric and inheritence is passed on through women. In societies where women have had a stronger say they are going to create a family unit that works best for them the same way that men created a system that worked best for them in a patricarchal society. a man who can marry a woman can therefore control that woman via marriage laws and in doing so guarentees the man’s need for sex. A woman who can chose who she’s interested and when, and be able to move on to another interest as she wishes guarentees the woman’s need for variety. She can fall in and out of love with many men which suits her needs.
@lilbit
It was a frequent custom with Native Americans that when the relationship was beyond saving, one partner would put all of the others’ possessions outside the living space. Both could then find new partners without the social opprobrium modern society feels necessary to impose on the exes. It’s none of society’s business anyway.
So if women really feel as you suggest, why the massive push for marriage and the imprisonment of a male under her total control? She eliminates her rights to wander about and sampling the various men as she sees fit. And yet she and her sisters excoriate men who choose to observe these same rights.
As men are increasingly deciding marriage isn’t for them, you aren’t finding all that many women riding the carousel as you suggest as compensation. I therefore don’t agree until I see something which makes sense to support your position, no matter who offers it.
@Lon Spector
“there is bundle of nerves running down the spine”.
For me it’s like sparks shooting UP the spine.
Tarnished, having read all of the above, I asked 5 of my married male friends about their sex lives. Their replies all indicated experiences similar to that of your “20-something man”. Sex frequency ranged from once a week with an unresponsive wife, to no sex at all. All said they would like it if their wives started showing an interest in sex.
In each case, I asked the husband for permission to “interview” his wife in a “neutral” place (a restaurant). Two husbands agreed to this – the two who reported the least amount of sex in their marriages. During the “interview” of the first wife, I didn’t get very far! She confirmed “Yes, that’s true. I’m not interested in sex WITH MY HUSBAND” (emphasis hers). The “interview” sorta went downhill from there. She took my questions as a come-on. I’m not going to interview any more wives.
I sure can be naive at times!
I intend to “interview” more married men, though.
@Cill
You’re brave to have attempted this research with the wives, but I would have recommended having a trusted female ask the wives. You would have gotten more honest answers without any interpretation that your asking implied a come-on.
I for one would have loved to have heard more from them. It would have been very illuminating, I’m sure.
lilbit, the ‘Walking marriage’ societies weren’t particularly successful by comparison to others. Perhaps one thing has something to do with the other.
FWIW, never felt the desire for other sexual partners in the interest of “variety” and find that argument specious. In fact, every female I know who has felt the desire for other partners didn’t do so out of an interest in variety, but other factors that had nothing to do with sex (outside of tangentially…the desire to feel attractive would be one).
@blurkel,
Yes, and the fact that I’d invited her to a restaurant, just the two of us, all adds up to naïvety on my part. She was the wife of the man who reported “no sex at all” in his marriage, and I got the distinct impression she was a player! Maybe her hubby knows about it and couldn’t give a hoot. Maybe he’s a player too. Hmm. I need to add to my list of questions and start again. I think I might be getting out of my depth here. Leave it to the experts?
That sounds extremely weird, Cill.
Why didn’t the husbands just ask the wives after offering consent, rather than you approaching them?
That would be the usual way to go about things. And then, it wouldn’t be “weird” because the wives would know that their husbands know. The whole thing sounds odd.
I thought the presence of the husbands might affect the wives’ answers, and vice-versa. I went at it like a bull at a gate. Too much enthusiasm, too little preparation.
Sure would be great if all men and women were as educated and unrepressed as you, Tarnished. Unfortunately nearly half of women have experienced sexual dysfunction, around one third feel sad or depressed after sex, and too many guys still don’t know their way around a woman.
I’ll sometimes “cry” after sex, but it’s not due to sadness or depression…it’s because sex is a powerful, full body experience and can help release all tension. My lover sheds a tear every once in a while too, so obviously the same happens for him.
I’m still very confused as to how men don’t know their way around a woman’s body. Why don’t they ask her what feels good? Why don’t the women redirect their guy’s hands, or give him pointers on what she likes? It doesn’t even have to interrupt the flow of the sex…it can be sexy to whisper for your lover to slow down or whatever.
@Tarnished
Why? “Good girls Don’t – EVER!” screams her mother-in-her-head. “HE’S supposed to know what to do. Aren’t all those porn magazines aimed at men? Any girl who actually participates in sex is such a SLUT!”
I have yet to meet a woman who tells me what she likes, and only a couple who put my hands where they wanted them. I’m very OK with this when it happens, but I find I’m left to watching her responses when I do things so that I know what works and what doesn’t. Even then, I have had an instance where sex came to an abrupt tire-skidding halt anyway – and all I got as an explanation was an excuse that she’d forgotten there was something she had to do RIGHT NOW! (There wasn’t, according to her BGFF.)
I wish women felt more comfortable with the sort of exploration and discovery you advocate, but as life goes on, I find women spare so little time for sex, and schedule it for the hours when nothing else is really possible to do. As it appears to men that such scheduling practices are intended to delay or postpone sex, we end up just going for it when we get the opportunity and she can follow along -or not- as she chooses.
Dude, that’s messed up. Who stops having sex because they “forgot” to do a chore? Even if it was true, that has got to be one of the lamest excuses I’ve ever heard.
Then again, this is coming from someone who is seriously considering going to visit her FwB in nothing but a long button-down coat and shoes at his job today.
Ah, if only I was lucky enough to be your FwB! I’d have something to look forward to today!
Aw, thanks Blurkel.
Yeah, I’m going to surprise him at work, then later tonight I’ll treat him to dinner, frozen yogurt, and we’ll go see Guardians of the Galaxy again. And of course, sexy funtimes. 🙂
I wish your FWB the strength to get through the rigours to come…
Lol, don’t worry. I’ll go easy on him.
All hail Tarn the merciful
Ah, I didn’t say I’d be merciful…He still has to do *some* work. 😉
Just a note.
Women don’t respond to “what” they respond to “who.”
So if a woman isn’t getting all hot and bothered it’s because the person she’s with isn’t enough to excite her, it won’t matter what’s being done to her physically.
Men like response; men like to feel like we’re making a difference. What most men don’t understand is that it’s not the size of your junk, or your technique that gets her off…it’s who you are and why she’s having sex with you.
I’m not entirely sure I agree with that, but as with most sexual topics I’ve no idea if my own experiences are different because of my brain or if my body is hypersensitive.
For example, I can make myself orgasm if I’m masturbating while doing something boring, like watching the news. And you may not have gotten to any of my posts about abuse yet, but from age 10-17 I was sexually and emotionally abused by my stepfather. I loathed his touch, I despised the fact he believed himself entitled to my body, I used to think of ways to kill him. Yet there were times when his stimulation of my genitals made me cum, even as I felt like shoving a knife into his throat or offing myself so I wouldn’t have to go through that anymore.
In short, my personal experiences tell me that the body will respond in spite of what the mind wants.
Yes, sometimes I think it does……I was speaking more to the idea that men like response. A lot of men are disappointed with their wives response, and in most cases it has to do with the relationship, and not how he’s physically stimulating her, even your point is correct as well.
Okay, I see. It makes sense to like your partner’s response. Myself, I absolutely love hearing my FwB moan, or watch him clutch the bedsheets.
On the other hand, one of my friends was talking to me the other day about how upset he was at his wife…He had gotten her to agree to sex, and was giving her oral. A few moments in, she asked when he would be done. When he told me that, I could almost literally feel the anger and frustration he experienced at that time. It was enough to make me sympathetically mad, because I know C is a great guy who loves his wife and enjoys pleasing her when given the (rare) chance.
I have a theory about why so many women have trouble having an orgasm.
First off, I want to say, I’m not anti-porn or pro-censorship and I freaking love sex – let’s just get that out of the way up front. I am definitely not one of these women, but I have talked to several of them and have always been puzzled by this issue.
Porn gets blamed for the brokenness in male/female sexual relations a lot, but as adults. But I think the disconnect happens sooner, and it isn’t just in porn, but in the idea of what “sexy” is via the male gaze. Think about it: what we think of as “sexy” has been highly constructed. I believe the disconnect for women is that their first introduction to sexuality in our culture is entirely focused on the external than the internal — looking sexy as opposed to feeling one’s own sexuality. So in other words, women learn to act sexy according to pre-prescribed ideas of what sexy is visually…but they learn little to nothing about how to pleasure themselves. (Think about it — we don’t even really have much popular slang in this culture for women’s masturbation, but dozens of terms for the male — how do girls learn about masturbation for themselves?) So many women fall into a sort of “performative” sexuality that is disconnected from their own body and what it’s doing, instead focusing on “acting” sexy and not communicating with their partners.
Which is the key point: sex is a thing we do together, not a thing we do to one another. The best sex includes communication about what feels good and intense connection — if women are just “lying there” I’m guessing that they don’t feel good and they don’t know what will enough to communicate it to their partner, or they feel like they can’t communicate with their partner in the first place without being judged possibly. (I don’t know for sure, I’ve never been one to “just lie there”.) I’m guessing this is where the “feeling safe” idea comes into play — “feeling safe” could just mean feeling able to express themselves, however, if they don’t know what makes them feel good, then they’ll have trouble expressing that anyway.
This is compounded by the idea of “experience” — if a woman seeks to gain experience to become better at sex, she is slut-shamed…and if she talks about liking sex, forget about it. I think the posters above who have pointed to the idea of “their mother in their head” are onto something, but you could even expand that to “society in their heads” — there are very few examples in the culture of women experiencing pleasure for themselves, it’s all performative.
If a woman is thinking about how she looks, it’s not going to be as easy to think about how she feels…or to lose herself in a sexual experience.
I believe we are all responsible for our own orgasms. It isn’t your partners job to “make” you come — sex happens in your head, and if you aren’t a full participant than having the expectation of an orgasm almost seems unreasonable to me. Conversely, under that model, a woman having an orgasm isn’t an “accomplishment” for the male, or an example of sexual prowess, which I think would take some of the performative pressure off of men (which can’t be easy).
I don’t know how we change this except to do a better job educating girls about their bodies and about pleasure! (And apparently from some of the comments above, maybe doing a better job of educating men about women’s bodies?) I’m always shocked when I hear about women not communicating or just lying there…it makes me sad for both them and their partners.