The New Male Sexuality (29 page)

Okay, now let’s talk about talking. Despite what some women think, it’s not true that men don’t have or don’t express feelings. Men can get very emotional—excited, enthusiastic, sometimes ecstatic—about sex, closing a deal, winning the woman of their dreams, and cheering on their favorite athletic team. They also can get very emotional—upset, gloomy, angry—when their team loses, when they don’t make the big deal or win the woman, and when they don’t get sex. But basically a man is someone who is in control of himself, including his feelings, and doesn’t let them carry him away.

Certain feelings aren’t acceptable for men at all, including ones related to caring and love or their lack. These are difficult because they make the man seem or feel dependent on women. Men are, of course, exceedingly dependent on their relationships with women (in many ways more so than women are dependent on relationships with men), but it’s hard for us to admit it because of what we’ve been taught about masculinity.

Another set of feelings that men won’t acknowledge includes those suggesting weakness, including fear and hurt. These strike at the strength that’s supposed to be the essence of masculinity. No man wants to feel, or others to think, that he’s confused, overwhelmed, intimidated, or feels neglected or despondent. There is no end of stories of men being called
wimps, sissies, girls, and pussies by other men because they manifested any of these feelings.

Because anger is one of the few feelings men believe they can have, it’s often a mask for other feelings, especially the ones that suggest weakness. It’s much easier for men to deal with anger than these other emotions.

The result of the prohibition on experiencing and expressing feelings is that men often lose track of them. That is, they don’t know when they’re feeling love or sadness, and they don’t get much practice expressing most of their emotions. Strange things can happen when one doesn’t feel or express much.

Rod, a forty-four-year-old executive, is an extreme example. He learned as a child that expressing any emotion was unacceptable, and he became a virtual robot. He says he has never been angry; neither has he felt love or strong sexual arousal. In situations that would make almost anyone angry, he feels “mildly annoyed” or “slightly irritated.” He’s attracted to women in a mild sort of way but has all manner of problems with them and with sex. He sometimes doesn’t get erections. When he does, he usually can’t ejaculate. Whether he ejaculates or not, there isn’t much feeling. Then there are the physical problems. His blood pressure is off the charts, even though there’s no family history of high blood pressure and even though he exercises and eats carefully. His exercise program is often on hold, however, because he’s had back and neck problems for many years. And he’s always having accidents when walking, running, and driving. Though Rod’s situation is extreme, it gives some clues as to what can happen when emotion is constantly blocked.

Because men are not trained to be aware of emotion, many of us don’t notice feelings even though they may be apparent to observers. In my practice, it happens many times that a woman says her man is feeling a certain way (angry, irritated, fearful, or something else, even joyful) and the man denies it. I don’t want to imply that women are always correct in their reading of men’s feelings—that is not the case—but I do know that in such situations very often the men come to realize that they were indeed feeling as their partners said they were. In sex, partners often pick up on the man’s anxiety before the man himself does.

If determining your feelings is difficult, attending to the two main indicators of emotion—what’s going on in your body and what’s going on in your head—can be very helpful. Therapists and partners usually pick up on body language. When a client clenches his fists and maybe his teeth as well, I suspect he may be angry even if he denies it. I can’t be certain, of course, but if he consistently manifests this behavior when a certain topic
comes up, I know it’s worth asking him to consider what he’s feeling. Let’s say you know that in certain situations your heart pounds, your neck, back, and shoulders feel tight, your stomach is upset, your hands are sweating, or you’re holding your breath or breathing shallowly. These things in themselves don’t necessarily indicate emotion. Maybe your heart is racing because you’ve been exercising; maybe your stomach is upset because of something you ate. But if these phenomena, singly or in combination, occur regularly in certain situations, ask yourself what emotion might be behind them.

Your mind is also full of clues about what you may be feeling. Research in the last thirty years strongly suggests that to a large extent emotion is generated and maintained by our thoughts. You may not be aware of being anxious, sad, or depressed, for instance, but if you’re having thoughts of losing someone important to you or failing at an important task, you should ask yourself what emotion you might be having. Recurring images of hurting someone may indicate anger, hurt, rage, or frustration.

The examples I’ve given so far have to do with what most people consider negative emotions. But positive feelings are also indicated by your mind and body. If your usually tight neck muscles are not tight when you engage in a certain activity or are with a certain person, if your body feels light and generally good, or if you usually have positive thoughts and pictures about that person or activity, that may be a sign of relief, comfort, enthusiasm, joy, affection, or even love.

To get a better idea of where you are and what you want to do about knowing and expressing emotion, consider the following questions: Do you know what you’re feeling much of the time? When a lover asks what you’re feeling, do you usually know, or are you at a loss? Has a woman friend or lover ever told you that you’re not in touch with your feelings or that you don’t express them?

GETTING IN TOUCH WITH EMOTION

Learning about your feelings is basically a matter of paying attention to your inner world. The simple exercise that follows can help.

EXERCISE 10-1: LOGGING FEELINGS

For the next two or three weeks, carry a small notebook or some index cards in a shirt or jacket pocket wherever you go. As many times as possible during each day—at least eight to ten times—ask yourself what you are feeling. You should pay attention to the two indicators of emotion discussed earlier: your body and your mind. Jot down in your book the day and time, the stimulus for the feeling if you know what it is, and the feelings(s). Feel free to use whatever shorthand you like. An entry in your book might look like this: “Mon., 10
A.M.
: Read that Bob died of heart attack. Feeling sad. Also scared.”

For best results, vary the times when you check in with your feelings and where you are when you do so. Make sure you check your feelings before and after sex and before and while you spend time with your children. You might also want to take in some movies or plays. Actors and directors are masters at manipulating emotion. They want to get you to feel pride, anger, sympathy, fear, sadness, and many other feelings. Since they are working at evoking feelings in you, this is a good way to check on your range of emotions
.

If you don’t know what you’re feeling or aren’t sure, take a moment and see what happens. Don’t settle for “nothing,” “don’t know,” or “neutral.” These are not feelings. Make a guess
.

Whenever you feel angry, ask yourself this: “If I weren’t feeling angry, what would I be feeling?” Try to determine if the anger is just that, or whether it’s a disguise for another feeling
.

There are a couple of traps you need to beware of. Feelings usually consist of only one word. If your expression of feelings consists of more than a word or two, check to make sure you’re really talking about feelings. If your sentence would make as much sense if it started with “I think,” then you’re
not
expressing feelings. But work backward. If what you said was, “I feel my wife should assert herself more at work” (which is
not
an expression of feelings), this may mean that you feel sad because it seems your partner is being taken advantage of on the job or that you’re frustrated because you can’t help her
.

Another trap is to assume that you can have only one feeling at a time. In fact, you may feel several things at once, some of which seem contradictory. There’s nothing wrong with that. Often by talking about your feelings, you will get clearer about which is the dominant emotion
.

After a week or two, take a few minutes to go over the feelings you’ve written down. Do you experience a wide range of emotion, including the feelings that men have trouble with? Do you basically have the same feelings all the time? What kinds of feelings are missing from your list?

FEELING STATEMENTS

In order to talk about feelings, we want to do more than just label them. We want to create statements about them. These statements include not only the name of the emotion but also what it and the event that evoked it mean to you. Here’s how a feeling statement about it might go (with the feelings underlined).

It
scared
the hell out of me that Bob died. He was my age. Really hit me: life doesn’t go on forever. Made me very
concerned
. I haven’t been taking care of myself. I’m carrying at least twenty extra pounds and haven’t been exercising. The
fear
is motivating. I’m going to call my doctor for an appointment right now.

I’m also
sad
. I wasn’t
close
to Bob, but he seemed like a nice guy. Very sensitive and kind. I’m
sorry
I didn’t get to know him better. It’s been typical of me to get close to the go-getters and not pay much attention to those like Bob. But the
sadness
I’m feeling suggests that I
miss
having friends like Bob, guys who aren’t going to set the world on fire but who are decent and interested in me as a person, not as an account.

A feeling statement can be more or less elaborate than this illustration. But it must contain more than the simple “I’m sad” or “I’m feeling down.” Sometimes, however, you may not know more than what you’re feeling. In that case, it can be worth it to say something like this to your partner or a friend: “I’ve been feeling very sad and low the last few days and have no idea what it’s about.” Of course, this is itself a feeling statement. If you’re open to an exchange, it may well be that the questions your friend or partner asks may help you figure out what’s going on.

EXERCISE 10-2: CREATING FEELING STATEMENTS

Here you want to develop a statement about your feelings, something that you might want to express to others
.

Go over several of the items in your book and create feeling statements about them, as in the illustration I just gave. Your statements don’t have to be as elaborate as that one, but they should have at least a few sentences in them
.

You can also practice creating feeling statements when things come up in your life. Everything from the trivial to the monumental can serve your purpose: someone cutting you off on the highway, a piece of good or bad news in the mail, a news event, or the promotion, marriage, divorce, or death of someone you know. The more you practice identifying your feelings and creating statements about those feelings, the more comfortable you’ll feel doing this and the more ready you’ll be to express these statements to your partner when you choose to do so
.

And make sure to go over some recent activities you did with your partner—making love, planning or taking a trip, dealing with a disagreement, and so on—and create feeling statements about each
.

TO EXPRESS OR NOT TO EXPRESS

Being more aware of your feelings is useful in itself because it helps you zero in on what’s going on with you in a way that no amount of thinking can do. But since our primary concern here is connecting with another person, the main question now is when to express your feelings to your partner. All the rules are simple common sense. What purpose will be served by telling her (or not telling her)? What harm or benefit may result to you, to her, to the relationship? For example, if your partner has bought a piece of clothing on sale that cannot be returned and you don’t like it, clearly no purpose is served by telling her, so it’s probably best to keep your dislike to yourself.

Expressing Negative Feelings

You may believe, like many men, that you are being virtuous by not expressing negative feelings to your partner. You don’t want to burden her with your anxieties, concerns, complaints, doubts, and so forth. While that’s an understandable sentiment, there’s also another perspective. Chances are excellent that your partner senses something is wrong. But she doesn’t know what’s going on and is probably thinking that your mood is the result of something she’s done. If that’s true, she can’t do anything about it because you’re not talking. Even if it isn’t true, she’s still in a funny place that isn’t helping her or the relationship any. She can’t get close to you and she doesn’t know what’s going on. There’s also the point that it may help you to share what’s on your mind. Just talking about a painful experience or feeling can make you feel better. And perhaps she
can do or say something to comfort you. This is how people get to know one another better and feel closer. According to psychologist and marital therapist Dan Wile, this is what true intimacy is: each of you telling the other the main things that are on your mind and in your gut.

Expressing Compliments and Appreciations

With positive feelings, there’s not as much to think about. It’s rare, for example, that expressing appreciation, affection, excitement, happiness, joy, love, or passion carries much risk. We’re talking about your partner now, of course, not the boss’s wife. Ayala Pines’s research into what she calls “marriage burnout” demonstrates that the more appreciation is expressed in a marriage, the less burnout there is. If you’re not expressing such emotions to your partner, you really need to ask yourself why.