No More Mr. Nice Guy! (19 page)

Terrance went on to describe how hard he worked to please his girlfriend when they made love.

Whenever they had sex, Terrance would try to make sure his girlfriend had two or three orgasms by stimulating her orally before he put his penis inside her vagina. He then tried to bring her to one more climax vaginally. Unfortunately, he frequently ejaculated before she had her final orgasm. Terrance was so seemingly selfless that he told his fiancée that he didn't care if he never had an orgasm, as long as she was satisfied.

"Everything is great except this one issue," Terrance claimed. "Her kids love me. Her parents love me.

She says she loves everything about me, except she feels like 30 percent is missing. She doesn't seem to want to make love anymore and is talking about postponing the wedding until I can get this thing fixed."

Most of the time, Nice Guys like Terrance are totally unaware of how much they are missing by trying to be great lovers. When Nice Guys set out to be great lovers, they are actually creating a recipe for boring sex. Sex that focuses on trying to please the other guarantees a routine, do-what-worked-last-time kind of experience. Trying to be a great lover pretty much insures that a Nice Guy will not have many passionate, reciprocal, spontaneous, serendipitous, or intimate sexual experiences — hardly a recipe for good sex!

Hiding Compulsive Sexual Behaviors Prevents Nice Guys From Getting The Sex They
Want

Imagine the financial jackpot of inventing a pill to take away loneliness, cure boredom, alleviate feelings of worthlessness, smooth over conflict, create feelings of being loved, relieve stress, and generally solve all personal problems. Nice Guys believe such a drug exists — they call it sex.

Many Nice Guys discovered at an early age that sexual arousal was a good distraction from the isolation, turmoil, unrealistic demands, and abandonment experiences of their childhood. Unfortunately, when Nice Guys bring their sensual security blanket into adulthood, it prevents them from experiencing intimate and fulfilling sex with another individual.

I have found Nice Guys to be prone to hidden, compulsive sexual behavior. I have developed a theory that states,
the nicer the guy, the darker the sexual secrets.
I find this to be consistently true. Sex is a basic human drive. Because most Nice Guys believe they are bad for being sexual, or believe that other people will think they are bad, sexual impulses have to be kept hidden from view. The Nice Guy's sexuality doesn't go away, it just goes underground. Therefore, the more dependent a man is on external approval, the deeper he is going to have to hide his sexual behavior.

Lyle, a computer programmer in his mid-forties, provides a poignant example of this connection.

Everybody liked Lyle. He was one of those guys who didn't seem to have any rough edges. A devout Christian, Lyle taught Sunday school and was always willing to help anyone in need.

Lyle's life seemed perfect. There was only one hitch — he was secretly addicted to pornography.

Growing up in an Evangelical Christian home, he first discovered this drug when he was nine. A loner as a child, Lyle would spend hours in his tree fort looking at pictures of naked women. With his pornography, he never felt alone.

Fifteen years into his marriage, Lyle's habit remained a well-kept secret. Over the years his compulsive behavior expanded to renting adult videos, visiting peep shows and strip bars, and calling 900 numbers.

Most recently, his obsession had found flight in cyberspace. Frequenting sex chat rooms he carried on a number of sexual relationships with faceless surfers on the Internet.

Periodically during their marriage, Lyle's wife would confront him over their lackluster sex life. She would protest that it just wasn't normal to go months without having sex. Lyle would validate her feelings and assert that he too would like more sex. He would then fall back on the excuse that he was usually too tired from work and too stressed with the demands of family life.

Many times throughout his life, Lyle promised himself he would quit visiting his secret sexual world.

Time and time again he would throw out his stash of magazines or swear off the videos and chat rooms.

He would breathe a sigh of relief, only to find himself back at it again weeks or months later.

Lyle, like numerous Nice Guys, invested so much time and energy in his hidden, compulsive sexual behavior that there was little left for a real, person-to-person sexual relationship.

Repressing Their Life Energy Prevents Nice Guys From Getting The Sex They Want
When a boy reaches adolescence, he must begin negotiating the turbulent seas of learning to relate to the opposite sex. If he is to have any hope of securing a girlfriend and someday having sex, he must figure out what it takes to get a female to notice him and approve of him. For some boys this process seems to come fairly easily. If they happen to be good-looking, a star athlete, or from an affluent family, attracting females may not be overly difficult for them.

Once you exclude the minority of adolescent males listed above, that leaves the majority of teenage boys who have no clue of what it will take to get a girl to like them. It is at this point that many young men decide that maybe by being "nice," they will stand out from the other guys and might gain the approval of some member of the opposite sex. This decision is especially important if the young man has already been conditioned to believe that he is not OK just as he is.

It is this strategy formed in adolescence — trying to attract a woman and her sexual favor by being nice

— that many Nice Guys carry into adulthood. It is not uncommon for Nice Guys to believe that a woman would be lucky to have them while simultaneously wondering why any woman would want them. Because they can't think of any other reason why a woman would be attracted to them or want to have sex with them, Nice Guys hang on to their strategy of "being nice" even when it consistently proves ineffective in getting them the sex they want.

Ironically, trying to be nice robs a man of his life energy. The more a Nice Guy seeks approval and tries to "do it right," the tighter he clamps a lid down on any kind of energy that might actually draw a person to him. This is why I frequently hear Nice Guys lament about women not being attracted to them. The problem is, once they have repressed all of their life energy, there is little about them to get anyone's attention or turn them on.

Women consistently tell me that even though they may be initially drawn to a Nice Guy's pleasing demeanor, over time they find it difficult to get excited about having sex with him. Often the partner feels defective, but it is really not her fault. There is just very little about the Nice Guy persona to flip a switch or arouse a prospective partner. Once again, by doing the opposite of what works, Nice Guys prevent themselves from getting the sex they want.

Settling For Bad Sex Prevents Nice Guys From Getting The Sex They Want
The wife of a Nice Guy in her late twenties shared with me how her partner would "pester" her for sex.

When she would say "no" he would pout and withdraw. When she did consent to being sexual he would focus on her arousal while she did little to reciprocate. With pithy awareness she revealed, "I could tell him it would really turn me on if he set himself on fire. He would gladly do it and think he was getting good sex because it made me happy."

By settling for bad sex, Nice Guys insure that they won't get to experience very much good sex. Aaron provides a good example of a pretty common way Nice Guys create bad sex. Let's visit his bedroom and observe a typical sexual scenario between him and his wife Hannah.

Aaron and Hannah haven't had sex in several weeks, a common occurrence in their relationship.

Tonight, Aaron is feeling sexual, but instead of telling Hannah that he wants to make love, he goes into a pattern of indirectly trying to arouse her.

Even though Hannah has let Aaron know on several occasions she resents his "pestering," he moves up behind her in bed and begins to rub her back. As he massages her shoulders he momentarily tunes out his resentment over her sexual unavailability. As he slowly moves his hands down to rub her buttocks, he also tunes out that her body is totally unreceptive to his touch. He hopes that by moving slowly and not alarming her by being too overtly sexual, she will get in the mood. This approach has occasionally worked in the past.

By the time he lightly strokes one of her breasts, Aaron is totally unaware of anything going on inside of his own body. By now, he is focused on Hannah's arousal and trying to anticipate how to stimulate her just enough to get her in the mood without doing too much to make her angry.

Finally, because she hasn't rebuffed his advances, he rolls her over and for the next twenty minutes focuses all of his attention on her arousal until she has an orgasm. Since he is disconnected from his own physical arousal, he has a difficult time climaxing himself. To help himself along, he fantasizes about the young secretary at work. When he finally has an orgasm, he immediately shifts his focus back to his wife to check in on her emotional state. Later, as he rolls over and goes to sleep, Aaron feels empty and resentful.

Breaking Free Activity #36

How's your love life? Are you ready to start getting good sex? If so, read on.

Getting Good Sex

The rest of this chapter presents a strategy for helping recovering Nice Guys experience satisfying sex.

The process includes:

● Coming out of the closet.

● Taking matters into their own hands.

● Saying "no" to bad sex.

● Following the example of the bull moose.

Coming Out Of The Closet Helps Nice Guys Get The Sex They Want

Internalized shame and fear are the greatest barriers to a satisfying sex life. A man can read all the books he wants on "How To Pick Up Women" or watch all the instructional videos on improving sexual technique. None of these things will help him get good sex as long as he has shame and fear about being sexual or being a sexual being. Getting good sex is dependent on recovering Nice Guys bringing their shame and fear out of the closet and into the open were they can be looked at and released.
This step
cannot be skipped!

Cleaning out sexual shame requires accepting, non-judgmental people. A Nice Guy cannot do this work on his own. To release sexual shame and fear, the recovering Nice Guy must expose every aspect of his sexual self to safe, supportive people. This revealing allows the Nice Guy to release his shame and fear and free up the emotional energy it took to keep them hidden and repressed. These safe people can also give the Nice Guy supportive messages that he is not bad for being a sexual being.

Breaking Free: Pop Quiz

Most Nice Guys initially deny having any shame and fear about sex. Take the following quiz to see
if you are in denial about your own sexual shame and fear.

1. Think back to your first sexual experience. Was it:

A. A joyous experience which you could share with family and friends?

B. Hidden, rushed, guilt-ridden, or in a less than ideal situation?

C. Painful, abusive, or frightening?

2. When it comes to masturbation:

A. Do you and your partner talk openly and comfortably about the subject?

B. Would there be a crisis if your partner "caught" you doing it?

C. Do you do it compulsively or in secret?

3. When it comes to your sexual experiences, thoughts, or impulses:
A. You are comfortable revealing everything about yourself to your partner.

B. You have secrets that you have never shared with anyone.

C. Some aspect of your sexuality has caused a crisis in an intimate relationship.

D. At some time in your life you have tried to eliminate or limit some problematic sexual
behavior.

If you answered anything but "A" on any of the questions, you have sexual shame and fear. Read
on.

Lyle, introduced earlier in the chapter, is a good example of how recovering Nice Guys can bring their sexual shame and fear out of the closet. Lyle was a good Christian, husband, and father who struggled with compulsive sexual behavior. Everything came crashing down for Lyle when his wife found a phone bill and called some of the strange numbers. She was bewildered and devastated. Never in her wildest dreams (or nightmares) did she think that Lyle might be involved in anything like pornography or phone sex. Little did she know she had just discovered the tip of the iceberg. Confronted with the evidence, Lyle initially feigned surprise and denied any knowledge of its origin. Finally, he broke down and told all. Well, almost all. It took several more weeks, several more emotional confrontations, and a call to me before everything came out.

After a couple of sessions of individual therapy, I suggested that Lyle start attending a 12-step group for sexual addicts. This idea initially terrified Lyle, but he knew he would have to do something radically different if he wanted to free himself of his compulsion and experience true sexual intimacy. To his surprise, revealing his long-kept secrets in the presence of other recovering sex addicts wasn't as difficult as he feared. In time, he began to look forward to the opportunity to talk about himself with safe people.

Every time he revealed some secret thought or act, he felt a sense of relief, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

As Lyle revealed his fear and shame to safe people, he found that he was less interested in his hidden, compulsive behaviors. As he and his wife became more open and intimate with each other, he also began to enjoy a physical closeness with her that he had once tried to avoid. When Lyle came out of the closet, he began to heal a lifetime of hidden sexual behavior.

In my No More Mr. Nice Guy! groups I encourage recovering Nice Guys to bring their sexual shame out of the closet. I support them in talking explicitly about their sexuality. In our culture, most sex talk is done in pornographic, demeaning, moralizing, shaming, clinical, or joking ways. I invite recovering Nice Guys to reveal the ways they act out. I have them talk about their sexual history and early sexual experiences. I ask them to bring samples of pornography they find arousing. This is another way of releasing shame while also gaining important information.