The New Male Sexuality (23 page)

Sex is not only life-affirming but life itself. I find it fascinating that so many people who take such great joy and pride in the birth of a child find it so hard to acknowledge, let alone celebrate, what made that new life possible. But a thrusting, sperm-shooting penis in a vagina is exactly what it took. If we felt better about sex, we might find male attitudes easier to accept.

I think there’s a lot to be admired in men’s, especially boys’ and young men’s, attitude toward sex. They are wonderfully curious, enthusiastic, and exuberant about it, and they’re willing to pay an enormous price to pursue the subject.

A number of times I have watched a group of two, three, or four boys at a bookstore looking at
Playboy
or
Penthouse
. The only word that comes to mind to describe what I saw is
charming
. There’s something truly wonderful about it, a lot of what I can only call good energy. I rarely sensed any disparagement of women. The same was true in my high-school days when we boys passed around novels with explicit sexual descriptions; there was desire, curiosity, and great enthusiasm, but really no ugly feelings toward girls or women. With testosterone virtually running our minds and bodies, we wanted to learn everything we could about the doing of sex, and we looked forward with great excitement and anticipation to the acts themselves.

What does present a problem is that the girls these boys pair up with are coming from a different place. While most boys report mainly positive feelings about their first sexual experience—if nothing else, at least relief that they finally had it—many girls don’t feel so good about it. It’s as if sex happened to them while they were thinking of something else. Aside from anything else, the boys feel good because they got something they wanted. The girls, on the other hand, don’t feel as good because they did something they aren’t sure they wanted to do. Perhaps it is true, as so many parents and others have charged, that we ought to do something to stop boys and young men from putting so much pressure on girls and young women. But there’s an equally valid case to be made for allowing females to take a more lively interest in sex. Why should girls and women who are sexually active have to worry about their reputations when boys and men
don’t? But making this kind of change assumes that we really believe willing participation in sex is life-affirming and healthy.

A lot of these differences between men and women are things that both sexes have taken heat about. Women are often criticized by partners for their relative lack of interest, not initiating enough, wanting too much foreplay, and taking too long to get aroused or to orgasm. Men have been scolded for just about everything. I think the criticism is unfortunate and gets us nowhere. In a sense, everyone is doing what comes naturally, whether
naturally
is defined as what’s built in or as what’s acquired over the years through learning.

While it is true that we have to learn to accommodate one another, I don’t think blame and accusations or feeling guilty is going to help. We have to feel good about ourselves if we’re to have decent relationships and sex. A man should not have to feel guilty for looking at or fantasizing about younger women, for desiring sex without love, or for anything else that he is. But, on the other hand, neither should he denigrate his partner. It’s fine if you have fantasies about the college girl next door, as long as you keep them fantasies, but it’s something else if you make comments about her in front of your lover that imply your lover is inadequate. It’s fine if you sometimes want a quickie—perhaps you can arrange it with your partner—but it is not fair to complain that you can’t have them all the time or that she takes too long to get turned on.

The male ways of expressing love and sex are really okay. And so are the female ways. The better we understand and feel about ourselves and one another, the more likely we will be able to make the changes we desire in our sex lives and elsewhere.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Some Things You Should Know
About Women

Has anyone ever come up with an answer to Freud’s famous question of what do women want? If so, I’d sure like to see it. —
Man, 51

Almost all the men I have worked with—in therapy and in courses and workshops—have wanted to know how to be better lovers for their partners. This is an admirable goal, and we know from surveys it is one held by the vast majority of American men. It is no longer the case that men can feel like good lovers without satisfying their partners.

In the final analysis, being a good lover for your partner means knowing her—her tendencies and preferences, her likes and dislikes—and also yourself. And this brings us to the fascinating topic of sex differences, because at least some of her tendencies and some of yours are due to the fact that you are a he and she is a she.

Since the beginning of time, men and women have been attracted and charmed by one another, and also frustrated by trying to understand and deal with one another. We complain: Why do women want to talk so much? Why are they so emotional and such nags? Why are they so weird about sex? What in God’s name do they want? From women come a different set of complaints: Why are men so withholding? Why are they so focused on sex and so unromantic? Why can’t they remember a birthday or anniversary? From both men and women comes the cry “Why can’t they be more like us?” The common phrase “the war of the sexes” indicates the strength of our feelings.

One could easily get the impression that men and women are totally different, as this man’s statement implies:
“If the first space visitor arrived from Mars, and was male, I’d have more in common with him than with
any woman on Earth.” In fact, since we are all humans, we are more similar than different. We all breathe air, walk upright on two legs, use language, think, feel, eat, eliminate, sleep, and so on. If it were possible to quantify everything, we’d probably conclude that women and men are 90 to 95 percent similar. But it’s that remaining 5 to 10 percent that’s so fascinating and causes all the trouble.

Even in something as fundamental as the use of language, there are differences between the typical man and the typical woman. Though men and women use the same words—
intimacy, love, making love, sex
—they don’t necessarily mean the same things by them. As Deborah Tannen demonstrated brilliantly in
You Just Don’t Understand
, the definitions of even simple terms like
talk
and
conversation
depend heavily on whether you are a she or a he.

We saw in
Chapter 1
that girls and boys specialize in different areas. Boys learn to achieve and perform in the outside world, while girls get more practice dealing with feelings, communicating, and relating. We also saw that males and females come to sex from different angles, girls approaching via love and sensuality, boys more from lust and a desire to prove themselves. While men and women both want love and sex, they have separate styles of loving and being sexual.

These separate styles result in no end of misunderstandings, confusion, and conflicts. Here is a common example:

HE
: Everything between us was so tense after our spat on Sunday. I thought if we made love, things would get better.

SHE:
How can we make love? We haven’t talked in days.

The differences between the sexes affect our perceptions and understandings of ourselves, our partners, and our relationships and make us feel bad about all three. It can help enormously to understand and accept these differences. The more you can understand and accept your male tendencies, the better and the less guilty you’ll feel. The more you can understand that your partner is acting as she is not to thwart you, not because she’s neurotic or passive-aggressive or a nag, and not necessarily because of anything you’ve done, but simply because this is the way women tend to be, the better you’ll feel both about her and about yourself.

As you read the following material, please keep in mind that I am not trying to provide a blueprint for satisfying women. Nor am I saying that all women are the same. But the following points are ones that many women agree with. In fact, I developed them after doing two separate surveys
of women regarding what makes a man a good lover; most of the quotes and examples come from those studies. Discussing the material with your partner can be beneficial. Even if she doesn’t agree with some of the items, you will learn what’s true for her, and that’s the only important thing.

Please also keep in mind that I do not believe and am not saying that one way is better than another. The point is to promote understanding, not to pass judgment. If we can be open and withhold judgment, we can understand one another better, learn from one another, and enjoy one another more. There are, of course, exceptions to every single item. But the existence of an exception, or even many of them, does not necessarily invalidate a rule.

Women’s style of love is different from men’s
. A man feels he is showing love by working to support his partner, spending time with her (watching TV, playing tennis, walking, taking trips, and so on), having sex, giving her help and advice when she has problems, and doing chores like fixing the car and the back door. This style is called side-by-side intimacy. With the exception of sex, it’s the same kind of closeness men have with one another. Shared activities, not personal discussion, is the main theme. Women, on the other hand, prefer face-to-face intimacy where personal sharing is the main theme, and this is what they do with their women friends.

Given who men are, it’s not surprising that they haven’t been articulate about what they’re doing, but they can put it into words when pushed. A forty-eight-year old accountant had this to say after his wife complained he never said he loved her and didn’t share his feelings:

What’s so important about words? Words are cheap. It only counts when you put your money where your mouth is. Every tax season, the busiest time of my year, I spend several evenings doing taxes for all of her relatives and several of her friends. I barely know some of these people, and some have complicated returns. I don’t get a cent for this. I don’t want to do their taxes. I wish they’d get their own accountants. I do them only out of love for my wife. Why can’t she understand that’s what love is?

In one study, when a man was told to increase his affectionate behavior toward his wife, he washed her car. He was surprised to discover that neither his wife nor the researchers viewed car washing as an affectionate act.
I have related this story in a number of talks and always gotten the same reaction: Virtually all of the women in the audience have a good laugh, and it’s clear most of them believe the man is a dumbbell. What they fail to see, however, is that he’s not stupid, only naive; he’s expressing love as he knows how to do it. I’m sure he had better things to do than wash her car, and washing it was a genuine act of affection. And I’m sure his wife liked having a clean car. But to her it was a favor, not an act of love.