It’s pretty obvious that women and men aren’t the same in many, many ways. We’re shaped differently, for a start. Our principle hormonal makeup is different. Most importantly our genitalia is different.
But there’s a lot more to sex between men and women than just how our parts fit together. There’s way more to the project of being the bearer of good orgasms than biology, or inserting the key in the lock.
Human sexuality is as complex as the universe; as diverse as the planet we live on. When it comes to men and women, it can also be a strange and foreign land that we venture into with trepidation and outright anxiety. But it doesn’t need to be. You’re an adult, or you wouldn’t be reading this and adults aren't afraid of the dark - or their sexuality.
While most of us love sex, it’s also true that most of us are a little neurotic about it at times. We all have our insecurties. We wonder if we're man enough (or woman enough).
As we've moved through our sexual histories, we've collected some baggage about it along the way and losing that baggage goes a long way toward enjoying a healthy, plentiful sex life.
As men, we wear what has been called the “gender straightjacket”? William Pollack, a doctor at the Centers for Men and Young Men says that men are brought up to conform to stereotypes that have very little to do with who we are as people. We’re expected to be “tough guys”, “driven”, “sexually potent”, “breadwinners”, “sports-obsessed”, “the boss” and even violent as natural features of being male. But not all men are created the same. We’re all as different as the stars in the sky. We all like different things and we’re all unique.
Part of our uniqueness is how we interact with the women in our lives. We’re not all the portrait of sensitive male, but we’re also not all unfeeling baboons. If you’re reading this book then you’ll know that you fall somewhere in the middle of those two extreme stereotypes of what it means to be a man. Most of us do, if the truths gets told. We not cartoon characters. We’re flesh and blood guys.
And I’m here to tell you the truth - women need orgasm as a part of sex, just as much as men do. But the problem, you see, is how women have been brought up.
Just like us, women are raised to have certain ideas about what it means to be a woman. The phrase “sugar and spice and everything nice” springs to mind. Women wear the “gender straightjacket” a whole different way. They’re expected to be “nurturing”, “gentle”, “soft”, “kind”, “differential” and to smell nice at all times. They’re expected to remove as much of the hair that grows on their bodies (just like it does on ours), as they posssibly can. Unless of course, that hair is on their heads and then, they’re expected to sport the long, flowing locks that signal to men they’re sexually available.
But they’re as unique as we are, gentlemen. Between the picture of model feminity and the “emasculating bitch” is where most women fall on the spectrum of what it means to be a woman. Women are just people like you and me, brothers. They’re just people with needs, sexual and otherwise.
Part of the gender straightjacket worn by women is that of being the sexual polar opposite of men. Men are told from the time they’re little boys that women need to be conquered, or tricked into sex (because they don’t really like it). Women, on the other hand are told to keep their eye on us, because we’re all (to a man), “out for only one thing”. We’re all the same. Beware. Sure we like sex. We’re raised to by hypersexual. We’re raizsed and socialized to believe we should be chasing it every ten minutes and that every woman we see, we should be trying to have sex with. We all know damned well, though, that there’s a lot more to us than that. Just like women, we’re multi-faceted individuals with many interests, besides sex. But, yeah. We’re horny!
So women are fighting a lot of stereotypes too and part of what happens in their sex lives because of those stereotypes is that they give up before they reach orgasm, when in bed with a male partner. They think we’ll get bored if it takes them too long and you know what, that’s ture for some men. Not for you, though. You’re here because you’re not “that guy”. Right? Right!
They just give up and fake it. While it’s true that most women take much longer to orgasm than men do, there are reasons for that which have little to do with whether or not they’re enjoying themselves. One of those reasons is body image and the fear they’re not pleasing their partner. Another is the fear of boring you and the belief that she’s there to please you and her needs come second. That’s how women are raised. It’s what’s drilled into their heads from the time they’re kids. There are culturally imposed problems flowing out of a media obsessed with airbrushed perfection that women feel they need to live up to.
But the truth is that real man like real women and vice versa. We all like to look at pretty things, but when it comes down to it, sexual chemistry is about way more than the way people look. It’s got a lot to do exactly what I just wrote-chemistry. We can smell the attraction we feel to others, without knowing it. It draws us to them like a magnet. It may suprise us when we feee this happening. We can sometimes find that the people we like to llo at aren’t really the ones we have the best sex with. It may seem bogus, but life has taught me that this is true.
Pretty ain’t everything and it’s temporary, too. Chemistry is pretty much forever.
What women need to figure out, though, is that when one of us is in bed with one of them - we’re there for a reason. We like what we see and are ready to get down with it. Our job is also to make sure she’s comfortable with us to the point she can let go. That means trust - and that’s something male stereotypes can get in the way of.
It’s not “weak” to care about how your woman feels. To be quite honest, it’s a matter of self-preservation! Do you think you’re going to have mind-blowing sex with someone who doesn’t trust you enough to hit that high note? Not likely, man.
You’re a man who wants to know what it takes to help your woman cross over into the land of “O”. That makes you a guy to be reckoned with and also a guy who’s going to rock her world in bed. So starting with an appreciation of the different struggles women have is key. You know what your struggles are as a man and expect her to know that, too. Do you pay the same kind of attention to her struggles; to her gender straightjacket?
Straightjackets are uncomfortable. They restrain us from doing what we want to do and from being who we are. One of the things they do, in terms of gender, is confine ourselves to traditional ideas about sex that aren’t true, or realistic. For you to be the captain of the GoodShip Orgasm, you need to bust out of that straightjacket, first and foremost and then help her out of hers. You both need to be aware of how stereotyping and society’s expectations of you sneek into the bedroom and put a damper on fun you should be having there - both of you, together.
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