No More Mr. Nice Guy! (20 page)

Throughout the entire process of revealing themselves, I encourage recovering Nice Guys to experience whatever they may be feeling — shame, guilt, fear, arousal. At the same time, I give them supportive messages that what they are feeling is OK. There are so many negative messages in our society about male sexuality, it is difficult for Nice Guys to overcome their conditioning without this kind of encouragement and support.

Breaking Free Activity #37

Find a safe place to talk about the following issues:

Your sexual history
: Earliest sexual memory, childhood experiences, sexual violation and trauma,
sexual issues in your family, first sexual experience, adult sexual history.

Ways in which you have acted out sexually
:
Affairs, prostitution, peep shows, 900 numbers, use of
pornography, exhibitionism, fetishes, etc.

Your dark side
: Those things that even you have a hard time looking at in yourself — fantasies,
rage, offending behavior.

Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands Helps Nice Guys Get The Sex They Want
I regularly tell Nice Guys, "No one was put into this world to meet your needs but you." This is especially true with sex. When recovering Nice Guys decide to take responsibility for their own needs and take matters into their own hands, they put themselves in a position to get the quantity and quality of sex they want. Let me explain.

All significant behavior patterns are the sum of many, much smaller behavior patterns. The most effective way to change a behavior is to change its smallest elements. For example, if a Nice Guys is not getting as much sex as he wants or isn't getting the kind of sex he wants, the only way to change this behavior pattern is to change its smallest components. Rather than going out and trying to have more sex, it is more effective to change the little things that create the overall pattern of not getting much sex.

Change the little things, and the big picture changes as a result.

Before Nice Guys can have exciting, passionate, and fulfilling sexual experiences with other people, they must learn how to have the same with themselves. By taking matters into their own hands — by practicing
healthy masturbation
— recovering Nice Guys can change the most basic dynamics that shape the bigger picture of how they do sex.

Consider the logic:

● Until a Nice Guy can be sexual with himself without shame,
he won't be able to
be sexual with another person without shame.

● Until a Nice Guy is comfortable giving pleasure to himself,
he won't be able to
receive pleasure from someone else.

● Until a Nice Guy can take responsibility for his own arousal and pleasure when he is by himself,
he won't be able to
take responsibility for his own arousal and pleasure when is with someone else.

● Until a Nice Guy can be sexual with himself without using pornography or fantasy to distract himself,
he won't be able to
have sex with someone else without needing similar things to distract him.

Nice Guys can begin to change these dynamics by practicing what I call
healthy masturbation
. Healthy masturbation is a process of letting sexual energy unfold. It has no goal or destination. It's not just about orgasms. It does not require outside stimulation from pornography and doesn't use trances or fantasy to stay distracted from shame and fear. It is about learning to pay attention to what feels good. Most of all, it is about accepting sole responsibility for one's sexual pleasure and expression.

Many Nice Guys are initially uncomfortable with the discussion of healthy masturbation. The concept seems like an oxymoron. In general, Nice Guys have tremendous internalized shame around masturbation. They also frequently surround themselves with people who reinforce this shame (partner, religion, etc.). Many Nice Guys also struggle with compulsive masturbation. They fear that attempting any kind of self-gratification might open up Pandora's Box.

I have found that when recovering Nice Guys work on learning how to pleasure themselves without using fantasy or pornography there is no way for their behavior to become compulsive. I have also found that when they share the experience with other non-judgmental men, their shame diminishes rapidly.

A Note About Pornography.

I am not opposed to pornography legally or morally, but I think it is bad for men for several
reasons:

●
Pornography creates unrealistic expectations of what people should like and what sex
should be like.

●
Pornography addicts men to bodies and body parts.

●
Pornography can easily become a substitute for a real sexual relationship.

●
Pornography creates a trance in which men can be sexual while staying distracted from
their shame and fear.

●
Pornography compounds shame because it is usually hidden and used in secret.

I tell Nice Guys, if you are going to use pornography, do it openly. Doing so tends to break the
trance and takes the buzz out of it.

A Note About Fantasy

Fantasy is a form of dissociation — the process of separating one's body from one's mind. When a
person fantasizes while being sexual he is purposefully and actively leaving his body. While some
sex therapists advocate fantasy as a way of improving a sex life, it is actually the best way I know
to kill it. Fantasizing during sex makes about as much sense as thinking about a Big Mac while
eating a gourmet meal. About the only thing fantasy accomplishes is to distract a person from his
shame and fear or cover up the fact that he is having bad sex.

Healthy masturbation helps the recovering Nice Guy change the core dynamics that prevent him from getting good sex. Healthy masturbation:

● Helps remove the shame and fear of being sexual.

● Puts the Nice Guy in charge of his own sexual needs.

● Removes dependency on unavailable partners or pornography.

● Helps the Nice Guy learn to please the person that matters most — himself.

● Gives the Nice Guy permission to have as much good sex as he wants.

● Puts the Nice Guy in charge of his own pleasure.

Changing these dynamics through healthy masturbation enhances and intensifies the experience of making love with another person. Terrance provides a good example.

Terrance originally came to therapy looking for a quick fix to his "problem" so his fiancée would not break up with him. In the first several sessions, I focused on the subject of him making his needs a priority. As with most Nice Guys, this initially made him uncomfortable (to put it mildly). Terrance was terrified that if he wasn't a great lover and didn't keep his girlfriend happy, she would leave him like his ex-wife did.

I began by encouraging Terrance to do a few non-sexual things just for himself. I reassured him regularly that this would make him more attractive to his fiancée, not less. As he began to discover that making his needs a priority didn't drive his girlfriend away, we took it to the next step. I talked with Terrance about healthy masturbation. I encouraged him to find a time when he would be undisturbed in which he could focus on his own pleasure and arousal. I suggested that he do this without having a goal of climaxing and without using fantasy or pornography. I encouraged him to pay attention to what felt good to him and to observe the ways he unconsciously tried to distract himself from his shame and fear.

It took a few weeks for Terrance to carry out the assignment. The first time he tried it he reported not feeling "much of anything." I encouraged him to continue the assignment at least once a week. After a few weeks he reported that he was actually beginning to enjoy pleasuring himself but felt some shame and fear that his fiancée would be mad at him.

I invited Terrance to bring his fiancée to therapy to work on shifting their sexual patterns. We talked about Terrance taking his focus off her arousal and orgasms and beginning to focus more on himself.

His girlfriend actually expressed relief. She revealed that it felt like a burden when Terrance expected her to have multiple orgasms. Instead of telling him this in the past, she had just faked it.

As they communicated about their experience of making love, the patterns began to shift. They actually began spending more time talking with each other about what they liked and didn't like while they were having sex. Even though it was initially difficult, Terrance shared with his fiancée what he had found out about himself from his own healthy masturbation. He was surprised when she expressed interest in pleasuring him and having a reciprocal sexual relationship with him.

After a few months, Terrance and his fiancée got married as planned. Both expressed how relieved they were to discard their old way of doing sex for a more intimate, connecting way.

Breaking Free Activity #38

Set aside a time to practice healthy masturbation. Choose a comfortable place where you will be
undisturbed. Practice by looking at yourself and touching yourself without using pornography or
fantasy. Pay attention to how it feels to experience your sexuality without any goals or agendas
(such as having an orgasm). Also observe any tendency to distract yourself from what you are
experiencing (going into fantasy, becoming goal-oriented, having distracting thoughts, loss of
physical sensation). Just observe these experiences and use them as information about your shame
and fear.

Saying "No" To Bad Sex Helps Nice Guys Get The Sex They Want
When it comes to sex, Nice Guys are consummate bottom feeders. They settle for scraps and come back begging for more. Nice Guys settle for distorted images of bodies in pornography. They settle for the faceless sex of 900 numbers and chat rooms. They settle for trying to persuade unavailable people to begrudgingly be sexual with them. They settle for quick, compulsive masturbation. They settle for passionless, mechanical lovemaking. They settle for trances and fantasy. Nice Guys do a lot of settling.

As long as a Nice Guy is willing to settle for bad sex, he limits his opportunities to experience good sex.

I regularly tell Nice Guys, "You have to be willing to let go of what you've got to get what you want."

Good sex can occur only when a recovering Nice Guy decides to stop settling for bad sex!

So what does good sex look like? If we base our answer on what we see in movies or pornography, we will only keep perpetuating a formula for bad sex. Here is how I define "good sex."

Good sex consists of two people taking full responsibility for meeting their own needs. It has no goal. It is free of agendas and expectations. Rather than being a performance, it is an unfolding of sexual energy.

It is about two people revealing themselves in the most intimate and vulnerable of ways. Good sex occurs when two people focus on their own pleasure, passion, and arousal, and stay connected to those same things in their partner. All of these dynamics allow good sex to unfold in unpredictable, spontaneous, and memorable ways.

When recovering Nice Guys decide they will no longer settle for anything less than good sex, they begin to take responsibility for doing something different.

● They let go of the concept of being a great lover.

● They practice being clear and direct.

● They choose available partners.

● They don't settle for scraps.

● They decide that bad sex is
not
better than no sex!

Aaron is a good example of what can happen when a recovering Nice Guy decides to say "no" to bad sex. For the first few weeks in the No More Mr. Nice Guy! group, Aaron vented his frustrations and shared how helpless he felt to get Hannah to want to have sex with him. It was obvious that Aaron believed his wife held the key to his sexual happiness and that he was angry over her willful refusal to use that key. As a result, he felt "rejected" and "worthless."

After a few weeks, I suggested that Aaron go on a sexual moratorium in which he refrained from having sex with Hannah for a period of six months. During this time I suggested that he focus on doing things he had given up when he and Hannah got married. I also encouraged him to tell Hannah whatever he was feeling. I shared with him that a sexual moratorium would make it easier for him to do these things because he wouldn't be so concerned about maintaining the possibility of her availability. If they weren't having sex, he wouldn't have to worry about doing something that might make her angry and cause her to withhold sex.

At first, Aaron was bewildered as to how this plan could get Hannah to want to have more sex with him.

I told him the goal was not to get her to have more sex, but for him to reclaim his key and stop feeling like a victim.

Even though he was initially hesitant, he acknowledged that he wasn't having much sex anyway. With the support of the men in the group, Aaron decided to go home that night and tell his wife what he planned to do.

The next week, Aaron shared with the group what he had told his wife. He reported that she was initially angry, but over the course of the week, had acted more loving toward him than she had in months.

Over the next six months, Aaron shared his experiences with the group. On several occasions he reported doing things for himself that previously would have created tremendous anxiety. He went out with some guy friends he hadn't seen in a couple of years. He began to share his feelings with his wife.

On more than one occasion, this included telling her when he was angry at her. He even let her know on a couple of occasions when he wasn't in the mood to listen to her talk about her problems. He also found that he became more honest — revealing things to her that he had previously kept to himself.

Aaron also reported that his wife had made some sexual advances toward him. She revealed to him that since he was not pursuing her, she felt freer to move toward him. She also expressed that she liked being able to have sexual energy with Aaron, without it always having to end up in intercourse.