The New Male Sexuality (19 page)

Men who always use the same fantasy to get aroused (for example, the partner has to be nineteen and has to have a certain build) may condition their turn-on to that type of partner and be unable to get aroused with anyone else. This, of course, can create serious problems in the real world. Similarly, fantasies involving coercion are common among both men and women, but they can become troublesome if you fantasize only about forcing someone to have sex with you. You may be conditioning yourself to get aroused only when coercion is involved, and that will create havoc in a relationship. As long as you enjoy a variety of fantasies, there’s no problem.

There are often disagreements in relationships over preferences or conditions that almost no one would consider strange or abnormal. For example, you may feel most sexy in the mornings and prefer that time for lovemaking, but your partner may feel as strongly about evenings. Because of the conflicting preferences, you and your partner are going to have to work out an accommodation. It’s important to understand this point.
Just because you and your partner don’t have the same preferences or don’t agree on when and how sex is to occur does not necessarily mean that anything is wrong with either of you
. It usually means only that the two of you have to negotiate a reasonable solution to your differences.

Fantasizing can sometimes be bothersome in a relationship. For example, let’s say that during lovemaking you trip out on a fantasy, and although this increases your arousal and you’re having a great time, your partner feels alone and neglected. She doesn’t know you’re fantasizing; she knows only that although you’re having sex with her, you don’t seem present. She may not voice her complaint as I have. Instead, she may say that she has trouble getting aroused or maintaining the excitement, or has problems having orgasm. It may only be with further exploration that she can come up with the feelings I’ve suggested.

Although it seems far more common for women to feel lonely and left out in sex, it happens for some men, too. The reason appears to be the
same. The partner gets more involved with her fantasy than she is with you. Regardless of who feels left out, something needs to be done. It helps considerably if the one doing the fantasizing can admit it. There’s no need for apologies or feeling bad, just a need to see what’s going on and what could help.

Another kind of problem that can arise in a relationship is when the woman gets upset about a man’s fantasies or erotic materials. Does his use of them indicate he no longer finds her attractive or desirable? In such situations, a good discussion about her concerns and his feelings is required.

Returning to where we started, with what’s normal and what’s not, my advice is to forget about the question as much as you can. Focus instead on how you feel about your sex life. If it’s not as good as you want, use the information and exercises in this book to make it better. If there are serious problems, decide if the book is enough or if you also need professional help.

CHAPTER SIX

Your Conditions for Good Sex

It doesn’t seem right. I know women need fuzzy feelings, the right atmosphere, and appropriate kinds of stimulation. But guys aren’t supposed to be like that. We’re supposed to be able to get it up and go to it regardless of anything.—
Man, 21

It’s so obvious, it’s almost laughable that I didn’t see it before. I function better and enjoy more when I’m rested, haven’t had anything to drink, and I’m not thinking about work Wish I’d realized this thirty years ago
.
—Man, 52

The fantasy model of sex dictates that men be able to function and presumably enjoy sex without any special requirements. Regardless of how you feel and what’s going on between you and your partner, you should be able to do your job.

But the fact is that we all have requirements or conditions. We’re accustomed to hearing them from women. In older times a familiar condition was “I can’t have sex with you because we’re not married.” A newer version is “I don’t know you well enough” or “I can’t have sex with you because you’re not interested in a relationship.” These women were just stating a necessary condition for them to be able to participate in or enjoy sex. And many of us have heard other ones as well. For instance: “I don’t feel like having sex when we’ve barely been civil all week” or “For me to be able to orgasm, I need this [or that] kind of stimulation.”

Certain frames of mind, attitudes toward partner and self, physical and mental stimulation, and a number of other things influence how much we want sex, how aroused we get, how much we enjoy it, and how well we function. And these things are as true for men as for women. Jim Brown put it in his usual blunt way: “Every dick, including mine, has a mind of its own. I never felt like I could fuck any woman, any time. My sexuality hinged on the woman and the situation.” Despite what we have been
taught, it is not strange or unusual for men to have requirements that need to be met in order to have good sex.

If I was asked what’s the most important single thing a man (or woman) could do to have better sex or to resolve a sexual difficulty, my answer would be: Find out what you need and want and make sure to get those things (consistent, of course, with not trampling on your partner’s needs)
. In a very real sense, most sex therapy, most books and workshops on sexual enhancement, and much of the rest of this book can be seen as helping you to determine what you need and how to get it.

The idea of conditions is very simple. A condition is anything that maximizes the chances of reaching a desirable goal: increasing or decreasing sexual desire, getting more aroused, enjoying sex more, delaying ejaculation, getting or keeping erections. When I say anything, I mean exactly that: time of day, how tired or energetic you are, how sick or well you are, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about your partner, what you do, what she does, how much privacy there is, or anything else that makes a difference to you.

It’s not surprising that we should have sexual conditions—we have conditions in almost all areas of our lives. Take work, for example. I do my best writing in a dimly lit, totally quiet room with no one else around, just me and my computer. With this arrangement, I get into a kind of trance and just buzz along. I don’t do as well in a library or other public place because I tend to get distracted by the goings-on around me. I know a freelance writer who is just the opposite. For months she tried writing at home alone and got nothing done. She needs lots of people around, ringing telephones, and so on. The noisier and busier it is, the better she concentrates and the more she does. Her way isn’t better than mine, and mine isn’t better than hers. We just have different requirements.

Even with as mundane an issue as getting a good night’s sleep, many people have conditions. Some need a firm bed, six pillows, total darkness, and a temperature that would make me freeze. Others have a different pattern. And so it goes in almost every aspect of life. Some people function better socially in large gatherings, others in small groups. Some do better with male teachers or therapists, others with female. Some people get their best workouts in the morning, others in the evening.

Conditions can range in importance from absolute necessities to druthers, things you’d prefer to have but can also live without. For the freelance writer mentioned earlier, working in a noisy, busy place is essential. My requirement for a solitary, quiet place is not absolutely necessary,
but it’s more than a simple preference. I can get work done in a library if I have to, but I’m not at my best.

In a sexual situation, a condition is anything that makes you more relaxed, more comfortable, more confident, more excited, more open to your experience. Put differently, a condition is something that clears your nervous system of unnecessary clutter, leaving it open to receive and transmit sexual messages in ways that will result in a good time for you.

Despite the importance of conditions, many men have trouble accepting the concept. Conditions remind us that we’re not robots, that we’re flesh-and-blood human beings with feelings and vulnerabilities. This flies in the face of not only the fantasy model of sex but also most of our training in masculinity. We have no trouble understanding that women have all sorts of needs and preferences. That’s how women are. But it just doesn’t seem right to us that men should be the same. This is one of the main ways we’re supposed to differ from women. We grit our teeth, disregard our feelings (or try to will the ones that are necessary), and do our jobs, including the job of sex. Just give us an available partner, and one way or another we’ll be able to have good sex with her.

Because of this attitude, we feel ashamed of any needs and wants we have and try to hide them or pretend they don’t exist. But this is destructive. Men are just as human as women, even though we try hard not to show it, and have as many requirements. It is perfectly acceptable to be yourself, to have your own desires, anxieties, concerns, and style. They should not be viewed as deficiencies. Conditions are expressions of our uniqueness and constitute a large part of who we are sexually.

Brad, a man of thirty-six, came to see me with the complaint of “being dysfunctional in bed.” It turned out that he occasionally lost his erection or ejaculated very quickly. After doing the conditions exercise that I give later in this chapter, we determined that his “dysfunction” occurred only when he felt that his partner, Lee, didn’t care for him.

Lee did not immediately express her complaints and dissatisfactions, but saved them up until she exploded in twenty-or thirty-minute tirades in which she vented all the complaints she had collected since the last diatribe. When an explosion occurred, Brad came away feeling unloved. She, on the other hand, felt much better after having gotten everything out and often wanted to make love immediately afterward. When Lee came on to him, Brad was aware of feeling terrible, but he was so anxious to “regain her love,” as he thought of it, that he tried to go along. And that’s when he lost his erection or came fast.

He wasn’t any happier when I explained it was entirely natural for this to happen given how sad he was feeling (because of his idea that he had lost the love of the woman who meant so much to him) and how much anxiety he had (about regaining her love). His first comment is typical of men; “But I shouldn’t let that stuff get to me.” It took a while for Brad to learn that it’s natural in human beings for “that stuff”—powerful emotions—to get to you. Once he accepted that, we found a solution for his problem.

In their attempt to function like “well-oiled machines,” men overlook what they already know: that machines themselves have conditions, including being well oiled. When we’re made aware of these needs, we don’t get upset, we just fulfill them. For example, we accept that a car doesn’t run without gas. If our car runs out of gas, we may get angry with ourselves for forgetting about this, but we don’t get angry at the car for needing gas. Computer dealers report that they receive many calls from customers complaining that a printer or monitor doesn’t work. The most common reason is that the customer forgot to turn the monitor or printer on. The callers may feel stupid for forgetting to flip the on switch, but they don’t kick the printer for needing to be turned on. Yet many men kick themselves for not being able to function sexually even though they aren’t turned on.

Rob complained of sometimes not feeling much in sex and being unable to get erect. When we compared such times with times when everything worked out, it was clear that the difference was arousal. When he felt interested and excited, he functioned fine and enjoyed. When these feelings weren’t present, he often couldn’t get erect or, even if he did, the experience didn’t feel very good. In answer to my question of why he was making love when he didn’t feel like it, he gave the typical response—he did so in order not to disappoint his partner.

Much like Brad, Rob felt he shouldn’t be deterred by his feelings. “Why can’t I just jump-start my penis and sexual feelings if I’m not already in the mood?” was how he put it. The answer, simply, is because a man is not a car. Sometimes one can get into the mood by doing the right things—for example, touching one’s partner and being touched in return, engaging in loving or erotic talk—and sometimes not. But Rob needed to learn that he couldn’t force a mood or feeling and also that it was foolish to proceed in the absence of arousal.