Blog #2

[Bagheera]

Greetings DQ,

I'm so far behind in your very active blogs, that I actually have three items that I would like to respond to. I'll do this in a few posts, to avoid the one really looooooong one. First topic:

Her O is the Goal! -- a Man's View of Mutually Satisfying Sex

John Gray, in Mars and Venus in the Bedroom talks about how in his seminars, he'll ask the men in the audience what gives them the most pleasure during sex: the overwhelming answer is: HER pleasure, i.e. pleasuring their partner gives them more pleasure than pleasuring themselves. The women in the audience are often perplexed by this response. If he's so interested in my pleasure, why does he proceed to intercourse so quickly? why doesn't he stimulate me properly? why doesn't he romance me, seduce me, and connect with me before hand? The answer, of course, is that most men have only their own frame of reference with regard to sex and what gives them pleasure, and as we've discussed many times on this board, men and women are frequently guilty of projecting their own viewpoint and desires onto their partners, not understanding the often profound differences between the sexes, and then being entirely perplexed and frustrated when this approach doesn't work.

The luckier guys find partners who know their own bodies well enough to know how they want to be pleasured, and who are willing to teach their man how to go about it. This, unfortunately, is the minority case. Most guys end up with a woman who either (a) doesn't know her own body sexually, (b) is too embarrassed or timid to teach their man, even if they do know what works for them, or (c) who have the romantic notion that the man should just know how to please her naturally -- they shouldn't have to teach him. And yes, there are those Neanderthals out there who don't care or would refuse to be taught by their woman --> I'm excluding those apes from the conversation because they wouldn't be here on these boards anyway.

In general, unless a man deliberately sets out to educate himself, via a few good books or websites (not pornography) he isn't going to know how to pleasure his woman -- although he truly wants to. And even those who do attempt to educate themselves will often place a male 'spin' on what they are reading, as follows:

* From his perspective, orgasm is the desired and logical goal of a sexual encounter -- for a man, prolonged arousal without orgasm can be quite frustrating and even physically painful. Therefore, it's easy to assume that his woman works the same way. He assumes that arousal, without bringing his woman to orgasm, must be very frustrating and unsatisfying for her. He (generally) needs an O to be fully satisfied, therefore she must also.

* Men tend to be goal and action oriented, so that to set a 'goal' during sex and then to gauge your performance in how well you are achieving that goal is very natural thing for a man to do --> it's hard NOT to pre-plan the act, monitor your performance during the act (a bad habit called 'spectatoring'), and then to critique how well you did afterwards. We're brought up to be this way in nearly everything that we do, some of us more so than others.

The result is often a man who has some idea of what to do to please his partner, but a male-oriented view towards achieving it, and a woman who still either doesn't know her own body well enough to direct his enthusiasm or who is still too timid to talk about it. The result is a woman who now feels PRESSURE to orgasm, and a man who feels like a FAILURE when he isn't able to bring her to the heights of pleasure that he longs for her.

Men also have a hard time understanding this problem of feeling 'pressured to orgasm' because, again, men and women are very different in this regard.

Men's arousal and orgasm generally occur so easily that a satisfying sexual encounter often requires the man to actively dominate or control his own arousal level to keep it within the plateau region and only allowing it to 'crest' over into an O when he is ready for it to. The "pressure" on a man is thus one of reining in and controlling his arousal.

From what I now understand, in order for a woman to successfully reach orgasm, she must generally be able to relax, 'let go,' and submit to the process of arousal --> quite the opposite of what the man experiences. It isn't something that can be willed or forced, and attempting to do so makes it harder to achieve. If she feels "pressure" to orgasm (or else he's going to be disappointed or feel like a failure), then the chances of it happening are all the more diminished.

I'm still in the process of working through this dilemma with my own wife, so I have no magic bullet to fix this problem. What I'm finding out is, that in order to get what I want -- a satisfying sexual encounter for the both of you -- the best approach for myself (as the man) is an indirect one. I'm learning to focus more on my own pleasure, and less on hers, bouncing back and forth between taking and giving as the encounter proceeds. I don't focus on bringing her to orgasm, but instead go slow enough to build her arousal while taking from her enough to build and maintain my own. I'll then provide her with 'opportunities' to move toward her own orgasm if she desires -- and if not, I'll shift back to myself. In a real sense, I'm learning to play around with a delicate "feedback loop" during our sexual encounters; in that MY arousal level is fueled by her responses and arousal, while HER arousal level is fueled by my passion and arousal level.

There's a lesson here, that the books often miss. That is, it's far to easy to focus on the physical aspect of sexual stimulation and arousal (assume position A and stimulate spot B with body part C), such that we forget the important mental component to sexual arousal. My wife is aroused not just by how I physically stimulate her, but also by my own arousal level and how much passion I show for her during the encounter. The more ruthless passion I show (sometimes forcefully) the faster and higher her arousal often builds -- such that when I shift to a more sexually selfish stance during the encounter, I'm still serving both of us. In similar fashion, the more my wife is able to respond to my ministrations and display her arousal level, the more turned on I become -- that is, the more sexually selfish she becomes in taking her pleasure from me, the more it serves both of us. If this sounds like a dance, it is. And we still often falter: I frequently step on her toes and she frequently misses a lead, and we wind up in a not-so-graceful lurch, BUT we're at least dancing now.

And if you see another "Nice Guy" lesson here too, you're right. The Nice Guy during sex wants to please his partner and bring her to orgasm so much that she feels pressured, isn't turned on, and he fails. By being the MAN in bed, by being more sexually ruthless -- but STILL utilizing your knowledge of female anatomy and stimulation -- you will achieve much better results.

Take care,

Bagheera