Men’s experience of women is based on their observation of their lovers. Couples, even in long term relationships, do not discuss the details of sexual pleasure. As with orgasm, pleasure is more or less assumed. Men observe that some women have little response to stimulation. Yet others, even if only in pornography, appear to have a dramatic response to being stimulated in any part of their anatomy. Women often receive rewards for pleasing a man. Yet men cannot believe that some women employ behaviours to please men. Even if a man denies any personal experience of unresponsive women, he knows that they exist because of the men who ask about pleasuring a woman and the women who ask about female orgasm. Men try to explain these different experiences in terms of responsiveness because that is how men experience sex. They describe women as being dysfunctional (unloving) or normal (aroused). Men can happily explain women who appear to respond in terms of responsiveness but they cannot explain why some women do not.
Women feel very little physical stimulation from intercourse and certainly not internally. There is only a slight impact on the external genitalia but this thumping of a man’s groin into her vulva is not pleasurable. Men’s focus tends to be genital (e.g. cunnilingus) rather than sensual caressing of the whole body and the affectionate kissing that a woman appreciates. Men are lucky. The penis is both a reproductive organ and a sex organ. Unfortunately, the same is not true for the vagina. The vagina complements the penis but only for reproductive purposes. Men desperately need a lover to be enthusiastic about engaging in intercourse because of their sex drive.
Men can’t have babies because they don’t have women’s reproductive biology. Everyone accepts this logic because men don’t want babies. But men do want women to have orgasms as and when they do. So the logic that women don’t have men’s reproductive biology is not accepted. Sexual politics motivates adults of both sexes to promote the idea that women should orgasm from stimulation of their reproductive anatomy (the vagina).
The only proactive sexual role available to women is to assist with male orgasm. This behaviour is consciously motivated, rather than a response to eroticism. If a woman cares about a man, she may appreciate that his sexual release is critical to his emotional happiness. Women also provide turn-ons to reduce the time they have to invest in sexual activity. By co-operating with intercourse, a woman provides both the erotic (because a man assumes his lover is aroused) and physical stimuli that help achieve male orgasm sooner.
Many men insist on believing that women offer sex for their own gratification. Men call it ego but it’s deeper than that. It’s a self-absorption that comes from having a sex drive. It is a determination to believe that the receiver must be obtaining the same pleasure as the penetrator. This is the key misconception that supports men’s political pressure on women to provide sex. A woman gives because she wants to. Women give willingly or not at all. Coercion, pressure and bullying all work against a woman’s love. Men don’t seem to want love. They just want to feel good about themselves.
Every woman on the planet could wear a sticker saying: ‘I’m not interested in sex’ and men still wouldn’t get it. A woman could hit a man over the head with a club hammer to convey to him the strength of her conviction that she is truly not interested in sex. He still wouldn’t get it. Such is the nature of male sex drive. This male trait of ignoring all forms of feedback, both subtle and obvious, means that men fail to read the signs women give them, not just on sex, but on all aspects of relationships. Men’s ability to be impervious to any form of feedback handicaps them in their relationships with women.
A man’s sex drive is not affected by issues in the wider relationship. If a woman behaves badly towards a male partner, he may be upset. But men enjoy sex regardless of any relationship. As soon as a woman puts on a short skirt and spreads her legs, a man is likely to forget any resentments he has. The pleasures of intercourse are enough to cancel out all other concerns. But there is no equivalent of a short skirt for a man. A woman does not benefit from the same kind of easy arousal that a man does nor does she enjoy the same erotic pleasure from intercourse. A lover’s behaviour towards her is much more significant for a woman than it tends to be for a man.
Women offer sex because they empathise with a man’s needs. If a woman is in the mood, providing a man with the sexual pleasure and release that he needs can be fun. What is selfish is a man’s need to believe that a woman does this because she wants it for her own pleasure. It is the denial of the female perspective that is insulting. Men refuse to accept that women offer a partner sex to demonstrate their love. It is the greatest gift a woman can give.
Men’s prime interest in sexual knowledge focuses on how women can be encouraged to be more enthusiastic about intercourse. Men cannot relate to the emotional drivers that women need to enjoy sex. This confusion between arousal (which relies on erotic stimuli) and amenability (which relies on emotional stimuli) is due to ignorance over how orgasm is achieved. If men accepted that women are not capable of orgasm with a lover, maybe they could start focussing on the real issue. Men need to provide some of the emotional factors that make women more willing to provide the sex that men want. Men need to put their erotic fantasies to one side to get what they want.
Studies have shown anywhere from 55% – 80% (If not more) of women fake orgasms. Yet ask any man on the street and they think they are handing out orgasms like a bag of peanuts on an airplane. That math is not adding up people! (Stephan Labossiere)
Excerpt from Learn About Sexuality (ISBN 978-0956-894748)