No cuddles. Be selfish. And stop obsessing about the Big O
about to leave the house to go to work. Kissing his wife goodbye, he buries his face in her hair to inhale her scent. His arms circle her waist to pull her closer.
Her body moulds to his, and they breathe together for a moment, both feeling excited. Then he looks at his watch and hurries off.
With any luck, the experience leaves them both feeling slightly buzzed, in that goofy way that good arousal can make you feel. Also a bit frustrated, maybe.
But that bit of frustration can be erotic in its own right. Properly managed, it can pay off big-time in good lovemaking later on.
So instead of sending your partner off to work with a peck on the lips, try holding them close for a bit longer than usual. There’s a moment there that won’t come again. Yes, I know you’re anxious about the day ahead, but this is important, too.
YES, YOU SHOULD BE SELFISH IN BED
A MAN comes to see me for advice on how to please his wife in bed. He says her needs are very particular.
For instance, the two of them will be involved in some kind of foreplay, and she’ll interrupt him with criticisms like: ‘Stop, don’t — that’s too much,’ or ‘No, not like that.’
The poor man tries his best to please her, or at least not to upset her. But the harder he tries, the more frustrated she gets. He’s at his wits’ end.
Fortunately, I know this story well, having heard it so many times over the years from so many men. When I first started as a sex therapist, I’d routinely ask to speak with the wife in private. Here’s how the conversation usually went:
Me: ‘Your husband says he doesn’t know how to please you. He says you’re very sensitive.’
Wife: ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m not sensitive at all. I’m just dying inside for him to show me some passion. All he does is fumble around. It drives me crazy.’
You see the problem? He’s focused on trying to satisfy her. But all she really wants is to feel his passion, his confidence, his hunger to devour her in an ecstasy of selfish abandon.
Sexual selfishness tends to be more erotic than sexual generosity. Being a generous lover isn’t a bad thing, of course. But if it’s not accompanied by the right kind of selfishness, it can be a problem.
After all, no hero in a romantic novel ever rips off the heroine’s clothes and says: ‘Tell me how you like to be touched.’
To have good sex with someone you love, it can be best to love them a little less — to become oblivious to their needs and trust them to take care of themselves.
ORGASMS AREN’T THE GOAL FOR GREAT SEX
WE SEX therapists aren’t so interested
in orgasms. We’re among th few humans on the planet who aren’t. One of my favourite defini tions of a sex therapist is someone who sional spends life urging most couples of their profes not to make too big a fuss about orgasms
Why not? Because in really good sex, orgasm is like dessert at the end of a meal. Memorable, perhaps — but not the reason you went out to dinner. In my experience, the couples who have the best sex don’t set orgasm as a goal. They just enjoy it if it happens.
Now you might think I’m crazy to minimise the importance of
orgasms — especially when nearly every other sex book is promising you bigger and better ones.
But desire doesn’t like goals. It’s better to focus on turn-ons instead. Then, if you’re lucky, after you’ve eaten and enjoyed everything on your plate, the dessert trolley appears and you realise: “Oh, I forgot! There’s dessert!”
You’ve had that happen a few times, am I right? Pudding just kind of finishes you off.
That’s how an orgasm should be. You can’t survive on just dessert.
A lot of couples try to satisfy each other with orgasms, then wonder why they’re still hungry. IT’S commonly assumed men automatically want sex. And, in fact, most men do respond automatically to attractive body parts.
But in a real situation with a partner, a man ordinarily needs more. If most women need to feel desired, most men need to feel welcomed.
There’s a certain smile a woman wears when she’s really pleased — a big, welcoming smile of pleasure that says: ‘Hey, I’m so glad you showed up!’ At the start of a relationship, he sees that smile a lot.
The trouble often begins when he first sees her looking disappointed or unhappy. Especially if he’s the source of her disappointment or unhappiness. When that happens, his desire can become far less automatic.
He’ll usually just try to adopt as confident a pose as he can and hope his hurt feelings will pass.
But this tends not to work so well. Eventually, out of desperation, a man who feels criticised or unaccepted will usually just withdraw, both emotionally and sexually. When he withdraws, she feels unwanted and their sex life starts to fall apart.
The best solution, frankly, is just to recognise that the two of you are very different. Men are ordinarily more sensitive to feeling abandoned, and women are ordinarily more sensitive to feeling shame.
Women tend to be better at handling emotional conflict in relationships.
This is because, typically, they’ve had more practice at it, since their same-sex friendships and family bonds often tend to be more intimate. Men typically haven’t had as much practice at tolerating disappointment and frustration in intimate relationships, so those things tend to frighten them more.
Most men are terribly afraid of disappointing the women they love. It’s important for men to learn that a partner’s frustration or disappointment is not necessarily a catastrophe.
ADAPTED from Love Worth Making: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex In A Long-Lasting Relationship, by Stephen Snyder, M.D. © 2018 by the author and reprinted with permission of St Martin’s Press, LLC.