He Comes Next (13 page)

N
OW THAT YOU’VE CAPTURED
his head(s) and warmed his heart, it’s time to lay hands.

In an effort to promote sexual self-awareness and enhanced pleasure perception, sex therapists often tell patients to think of arousal as a process that unfolds on a scale from one to ten, with the upper parameter representing orgasm. But in my professional experience, I’ve found that while the idea of a one to ten “arousal arc” is more consistent with female sexuality, it generally overestimates the male trajectory of sexual response: Male arousal more typically unfolds on an accelerated scale of, say, one to five, with one being low-level arousal, two and three resulting from direct genital stimulation, four being the moment of ejaculatory inevitability, and five being orgasm.

Or, to put it another way, as the founding editors of
Men’s Health
magazine, Stefan Bechtel and Laurence Roy Stains, so succinctly put it in their book
Sex: A Man’s Guide
, “Studies show that three-fourths of men are finished with sex within a few minutes of starting. But women often need fifteen minutes or more to become sufficiently aroused for orgasm. And therein lies a world of rage, grief, and airborne pots and pans.”

But in defense of the quick-triggered male, it is apt to point out that ejaculation
is
the seed of survival after all, and, from a crudely deterministic standpoint, efficiency does make sense—why would evolution stand for anything less? You will find, however, that most of us semicivilized male beasts prefer a gourmet meal to a raw bludgeoned moose carcass and would choose a working toilet over a latrine of thorny brush, not to mention a bit of lace and spiky heel over a clutch of sweaty leaves. Despite being hard-wired to act fast, most men would agree that haste and efficiency are not the stuff of ecstasy. So one of the things we’re going to focus on in this chapter is how you can slow down his process of sexual response and extend its boundaries, so that he, too, can appreciate all the scenic frolics and detours along the curvy path.

Remember that guys tend to be orgasm focused rather than pleasure centered, so in extending his scale and taking him from one to ten, as opposed to just five, you have to first and foremost focus on the low-level arousal that often gets overlooked during sexual interaction. This means touching, nibbling, teasing, or, in other words, building excitement
without
primary genital stimulation—you know, stuff that feels good and will help him relax: maybe a neck, back, or foot massage or washing and styling his hair, sucking on his fingers or toes. If you have any doubt whatsoever about the wisdom of this advice, just think back to how you felt when your annoying ex-boyfriend grabbed at your boobs or crotch, only to be stung with irritation when you instinctively pulled away. Now, if he had first offered a gentle shoulder rub or kissed the nape of your neck and whispered something naughty in your ear, things probably would have taken a far more satisfying turn.

I’m here to tell you that regardless of what you may think men want, we enjoy being touched, wanted, and seduced too (even if we’re not accustomed to these forms of sensual stimulation in a sexual context). And I’m not talking about just flashing him a g-string or bit of cleavage (though it never hurts). I mean something that makes
him
feel desirable, wanted, relaxed, and physically charged. If you want to slow things down, you have to start by showing him that it’s okay for him to kick back and enjoy the ride.

The experience of touch during sex is especially crucial to men because sex is one of the only situations in which guys actually give themselves permission to touch and be touched, and, even then, we remain plagued with a sense of guardedness. The truth is that men love nongenital based touch, but we’re inhibited, sometimes even feeling guilty, when it comes to asking for physical comfort in a sexual context. This ambivalence, as we discussed earlier, often stems from a number of underlying causes: a male sense of compunction to take the lead in sexual interactions, a discomfort with submitting to a woman or abdicating control of the sex script, a sense of emasculation when not focusing on performance and penetration, and embarrassment at wanting to be stroked, flattered, and doted on (desires typically considered feminine).

Relaxation is the key to arousal, so in this early stage, when you’re taking him from one to five, instead of focusing on turning him on, per se, focus on calming him down. Think about it: If stress inhibits erections, then it stands to reason that relaxation does the opposite. It promotes arousal.

When men are stressed out or anxious, blood flow is naturally redirected into the limbs as part of the primitive, hard-wired, flight-or-fight system. This is one of the reasons men often experience erectile difficulties when they’re stressed out or anxious.

Relaxation is the key to redirecting blood flow into the genitals. That’s why men often get hard when they get a massage: They’re not turned on, but simply relaxed. Most good masseurs know this, and rather than interpreting the spontaneous erection as a sign of sexual desire, they take the tumescence as a sign that they’re doing their job well (though it may very well be a product of both).

Another similarity between the sexes is that men also have different qualities of orgasm with varying degrees of intensity.

There’s a wonderful passage in Norman Rush’s novel
Mortals
in which the narrator recounts his wife’s description of an orgasm, or rather, in her words, “what it feels like when you come really hard:”

Sounds pretty intense: And men, like women, have the propensity to achieve a more expansive, fully encompassing orgasm, what I call a “global” orgasm. Although more often than not, they wind up experiencing a contained penis-based orgasm, a “local” orgasm, which may be sharp and pleasurable, but lacks the fiber-tingling full-bodied resonance of its global brother. He may be coming, but, to borrow the phrase, “is he coming really hard?”

Probably not: With an already compressed process of sexual response, coupled with a genital-focused approach to physical stimulation, men do not typically develop particularly high levels of myotonia (sexual muscular tension) throughout their bodies at the point of orgasm. The sexual tension is localized in the pelvic area and, even then, is inhibited by protections endemic to the region, which were discussed in Part I. Sure, it still feels good—that’s the nature of orgasms. To quote Dr. Drew Pinsky, of
Loveline
fame, “Sex for us is like pizza, okay? You put anchovies on it, you put pineapple on it—all of it’s good.” True enough, but just as there’s a difference between good and great pizza, between a frozen supermarket box of preservatives and a coal-fired pie from New York’s Lombardi’s (hailed by
Zagat
as the “best on the planet”), there’s a big difference between coming and
coming really hard
, and if you want him to experience the latter (a global orgasm), then you can’t act locally. But when it comes to stimulating arousal, most women do exactly that: They think and act with one point in mind: stimulating the penis.

Women are just as culpable as men for perpetuating a narrow-minded penis-focused approach to sex, often gauging their own desirability by the speed and girth of a guy’s tumescence and focusing primarily on his erection as a way of increasing this excitement. Sure a hard-on can be a turn-on, but an erection is more than just a means to an end; it’s part of a broader, holistic pleasure system. For a woman to focus solely on the erection as an indicator of arousal is as naïve as the guy who focuses narrowly on vaginal wetness as a sign of female sexual readiness. An erection may be a byproduct of arousal and certainly indicates a physical ability to perform, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the focus of your arousing—at least not yet.

Helping him to relax and enjoy the all the pleasures of arousal, including his erection, means encouraging him to focus on the global sensual experience. And that means thinking and acting globally yourself. The first step in allowing him to relax and enjoy is alleviating his perceived pressure to be hard at all times. Because, if you’re doing this right, he probably won’t be. Realize that the state of his erection, or lack thereof, is not a state of address that “he’s not that into you.” It simply means he’s comfortable enough to embrace sex in a more fully embodied way. Showing your guy that you want him to enjoy the incredible (often new) sensations of sexual arousal without regard to his ability to pop and sustain a boner and that you want it and him to take longer will ultimately allow him to relax and experience a shattering global orgasm.

So with a focus on building a strong foundation of arousal and keeping him in “the zone” (one to five), here are some tips for thinking and acting globally.

Get Him Naked

It’s called “socks-off sex,” and you’d be surprised how many guys are content to leave them on, along with other articles of clothing. Why are guys so resistant to getting naked? Most would say they don’t have an issue: They’re just lazy or else they get so caught up in the heat of the moment, they can’t be bothered to get completely undressed; or some may simply say, “Why bother to do more than unzip my fly and pull my pants below my waist?”

But these are the very behaviors we need to change. Men
do
get lazy and stuck in those same old musty sex scripts. Men
do
get caught up in the heat of the moment—that’s the accelerated process of arousal I’ve been talking about. And most men
do
focus primarily on direct genital stimulation and fail to respect the role other parts of the body (and mind) play in the arousal process.

Clothes-on sex is closed off sex. It is the epitome of the localized orgasm. So when he gets completely naked, you’re immediately subverting all of these bad behaviors. But, more than that, when a guy is totally naked, not only is he more physically receptive to pleasure (after all, the skin is the largest organ of the body, with a surface area of eighteen square feet), but he’s also more liberated, vulnerable, and open to receiving pleasure. Men can have sex with their clothes on, but they can only make love with their clothes off.

Enjoy the Receiving End

Most of the time when we think about sensual touching, we think about giving rather than taking pleasure. This is especially true of women, who are socialized to put male pleasure ahead of their own. In my experience working with couples, I can unequivocally say that women are much more comfortable giving than getting and would often fake an orgasm rather than feel like they’re inconveniencing their partners with their own “selfish” desires.

I often find that it is harder for women to receive pleasure than give it, for a variety of reasons: body image, fear that they’re taking too long, fear that he’s not enjoying himself, fear of letting go, and the loss of conscious control that’s crucial to the female orgasm. Most books and magazines supply an overabundance of tips and techniques for giving, but they don’t talk about the importance of being able to receive pleasure.

But women should realize that touching for their own pleasure, touching in an effort not to give but to take is not selfish at all: It’s invariably recited by men as one of the greatest sexual turn-ons. When you touch for your own pleasure, when you touch to turn yourself on, it will naturally turn him on. So don’t focus on what he’s feeling; focus on what you’re feeling, and you’ll both end up feeling good.

Tie Him Up

Render him lovingly helpless. Allowing him to revel in his willingness to submit to your lead is both liberating and erotically intoxicating, as male submission and bondage remains tinged with taboo. But exploring sexual domination is not about being into sadomasochism, but rather it is about taking enjoyment in being the top to his bottom and feeling confident that your enjoyment is a product of his.

When he’s tied up, you’re in control. It’s a chance for him to remain relatively passive while you direct the action. And that’s both extremely exciting and relaxing (as discussed earlier), relieving him of an enormous sense of pressure to perform and dominate. Over and over, men tell me how being tied up figures into their fantasies.

It’s not about how you do it or the extent to which he’s actually tied up, but rather the symbolic nature of what you’re doing. If you don’t want to go out and buy handcuffs, try a bra or stockings. Thigh-highs are especially useful. His leather belt, an old tie—almost anything can do the trick. Just like getting him completely naked, restraining him helps him get to a place where he’s vulnerable, exposed, open to new experiences, and receptive to a more expansive sense of pleasure. It allows him to submit to the glorious sensations of being touched, wanted, and teased. Not being able to move forces him into his body, while not being compelled to perform frees up his mind. You can’t get more global than that: It’s the full-body politic.

Be sure to explore his entire body and all of its untrammeled erogenous zones extra slowly. It’s all about teasing, taunting, and tantalizing. Make him crazy with sexual frustration. But if you’re new to the world of playful restraint, then take heed of some basic cautions:

• Don’t bind him too tightly, as you don’t want to damage any nerves or blood vessels. So tell him to pay attention to any signs of numbness.
  
• Never leave your partner alone while he’s restrained.
  
• If you’re role playing while restraining—captor/captive, mistress/servant, teacher/schoolboy—establish an arbitrary “safe word” (such as “kumquats”) to cease the action immediately.