What you believe may keep you from greater intimacy and satisfaction.
They walk into my office as adults. Plagued by shyness, erection problems and a phenomenon that seems to be increasing in men, low libido. Some are needy, dependent and at times, violent. Many feel angry and alienated from women.
All of the above are symptoms.
My job as a psychologist is to get to the root of the maladies of modern sexuality. I trace the issues that men bring to me all the way back to childhood and find a particularly seminal period is puberty.
The messages young men receive about sex and women commences a pattern that sets boys up to have the very issues landing them on my couch. If they don’t result in some sexual dysfunction, at the very least, they can make a man a bad lover. If I could summarize the messages men receive and just write it out like a list of commandments, it would look like this:
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Thou shalt have sex with as many women as possible.
“Bitches” and “hos” isn’t always just innocuous dirty talk; it’s the sexualization of disrespect. The hitch is that most men don’t want to disrespect women.
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The more girls you sleep with, the higher your status. Further, a real man should want to have sex with any woman, any time. Sex is about conquest, a game, a challenge. Racking up numbers is a competition and a quest in which a man proves himself to other men
How does this make a man a bad lover? This behavior is about ego more than it is about sex. Narcissism isn’t hot. It’s greedy and exploitive. The underlying message is that sex is not special and neither is the girl. Women want to feel special, even if for one night.
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Thou shalt separate sex and love.
Loving a woman is wimpy. You don’t even have to like her. In fact, the dislike of women is often eroticized . You can see it in the use of pejorative language. “Bitches” and “hos” isn’t always just innocuous dirty talk; it’s the sexualization of disrespect. The hitch is that most men don’t want to disrespect women. This leads men to compartmentalize women into love objects and sex objects.
How does this make a man a bad lover? This split might work when single, but it bites men in the ass when they get married or involved a serious relationship. The pattern I see most often in my office is a wife down for anything and it’s the husband who can’t bring himself to fuck her. Women usually need to respect a man to want to sleep with him, and men to disrespect a woman to sleep with her.
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Thou shalt perform.
It’s all about getting an erection, how big it is, how hard it is and how deftly he brandishes it around. What about the other person in the room? Young men learn a penis centered versus relationship centered interaction.
How does this make a man a bad lover? Of course, women want a man who knows what he’s doing with his penis. However, if you’re more focused on doing something to her rather than being with her, she’s likely to walk away unsatisfied. Rather than being in the moment, you’re monitoring your performance.
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Thou shalt not be aggressive.
That’s right, despite all the media messages telling young men to be aggressive, there is also strong communication from parents and educators about not being aggressive. Yet, guys quickly learn that girls don’t like nice guys. A pubescent boy has his first crush. Then he watches the bully get the girl. He tries to approach her and she ignores him or laughs at him. She’s only interested in the football players. Girls seem to have so much power (actually, they’re just acting out the same socialization). Later these guys try to learn the Game, or become masters of cunnilingus, they buy her things, they try to be her best friend (winding up in every girls friend zone).
Worse, they try too hard to be what she likes.
How does this make a man a bad lover? The desire to please can become over-valued. The worries about what she will think or about what she wants have men ingratiating, anxious. Some men tamp down their own desires for her leaving women hungry for a man’s internal muscularity. Women will say, “I want to be ravaged. Throw me down, tear my clothes! Spank me!” and the guy will tell me in confidence “I can’t. I don’t have it in me.”
The end result of these commandments is a sexuality constricted to the following themes: conquest, performance, pleasing, validation.
There was once a time when young men were taught to be good lovers. Two thousand years ago in China, there were actual “Love Masters” and a manual called the Tao of Loving.
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Men in their 20s and 30s come to therapy when they begin to realize that this kind of socialization doesn’t reflect who they actually are. Men don’t want sex all the time. They want certain favorable emotional conditions to be in place. They want sex to be meaningful. They want to feel love and lust at the same time. They’re trying to undo the conditioning of their youth and create new definitions for what it means to be sexually actualized.
Social messages affect how the body responds. Sex is like a barometer; erections, ejaculation and libido are effected by the feelings rising from the beliefs formed about sex. These commandments are cultural constructs, not truths about the nature of male sexuality. This narrative that men are supposed to be depraved and emotionless while women are disinterested hasn’t been around that long on the world stage. There was once a time when young men were taught to be good lovers.
Two thousand years ago in China, there were actual “Love Masters” and a manual called the Tao of Loving. Men and women could learn the arts of sexual pleasure. Harmony rather than hierarchy between the two sexes was emphasized and love was a necessary component. Sex was not merely a pro-creational or recreational activity; it was actually a branch of medicine. Sexual fulfillment was important for health, longevity and even peace on earth. Men were trained in highly sophisticated skills including the ability to love. Imagine a system teaching men to measure their masculinity, not by conquest, but by their capacity to love. I wonder how that affected a woman’s desire. It was also a profoundly sensual period of openness. Pejorative sexual language did not exist as it does today; genital terminology were couched in florid poetic language, such as the jade stem for the penis and for the vagina: the jade gate, the golden lotus, open peony blossom, and the receptive vase. Human bodies and various sex acts were widely exalted in art and literature in an ever-present poetic expression of life.
In ancient India, the Kama Sutra honored all kinds of sexual impulses. They acknowledged the joys of separating sex and love, though sex with love was recommended. They also supported a place to express aggression in a healthy, passionate way. They have very specific instructions for biting, slapping and using force to demonstrate that normal mix of anger and passion.
There is some great Latin American poetry that really addresses the dilemma of how to integrate love and lust. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda celebrates the carnal desires with a mix of love and aggression. He wrote not for a mistress, but for his wife:
Then, in a leap
Of fire, blood, teeth
With a claw slash I tear away
Your bosom, your hips
I drink your blood
(from “The Tiger” in The Captain’s Verses)
And here is some inspiration from Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez for those paralyzed by the anxiety of a woman’s rejection:
You, in your bamboo chair.
Me, standing her consumed by love.
You, naked under your umbrella.
Me, dressed and burning alive.
You, with nails and teeth,
Looking at me with a desire to kill.
Me, backing up a bit,
Filled with a crazy desire to bleed.
(from “The Umbrella,” trans. By Reinaldo Garcia)
These guys allow themselves to be totally consumed by a passionate desire. Rather than fear its power, they hail it. She isn’t receptive, but this doesn’t shut him down. He doesn’t get angry about women having all the power to reject. Requited or not, he continues to celebrate his longing. He doesn’t need her approval. He desires for the sake of desire. He even eroticizes the idea that she isn’t going to want him back. Consider this instead of sexualizing disrespect.
These Latin American poets don’t act like they’re too cool to care. The take away: show you care and be cool with that. Displaying interest and confidence at the same time is a turn-on for most women. These guys know how to portray being vulnerable without appearing weak.
There is no modern guide for adolescent boys. No Kama Sutra or Tao of Loving for the modern man (although I think they suit just fine). Rather than allowing movies, pornography or other teenage boys to be your avatar, ask yourself: what does it mean to be a good lover? Ancient wisdom shows us that sex affirms life. For the Taoists, it’s good health. For the Kama Sutra period in India, eroticism was considered a virtue. What they have in common is that they allow sex to matter and they allow the woman to matter. In this permission lies an important message about masculinity and a foundation for being a good lover.
Read more on Emotional Intelligence on The Good Life.
Image credit: /Sean/Flickr
Hi Jeff I hope you feel better now ! Wow:” 99% of all women are terrible lovers.” It sounds like you pick the wrong company,friends and lovers……… If women treat you like that,then they are abusing you. Don’t let yourself be abused. I think 99% of women know men are vulnerable,and have two weak points: their sexuality and their work. As a woman I can tell you that dr. Engels advice is excellent. In fact I will file her articles in my folder called:” keep for the rest of my life”. And in addition to the cultures she mentions… Read more »
Unfortunately, what’s not talked about here is how many of these social messages are perpetuated by women themselves and not by other men. We always have doctors trying to tell us how we should be thinking and acting to be sexually healthy, but what they rarely talk about are how it is the opposite sex giving us these messages, the ones we are most trying to please and/or be with. Let’s take “3. Thou Shalt Perform”. The ability to perform is blasted at men CONSTANTLY and mostly by women. We’re constantly the butt of women’s jokes regarding premature ejaculation or… Read more »
‘Two thousand years ago in China, there were actual “Love Masters” and a manual called the Tao of Loving. Men and women could learn the arts of sexual pleasure. Harmony rather than hierarchy between the two sexes was emphasized and love was a necessary component’
This is the same society that bound women’s feet and made sure women were lower class citizens, only fit for having sons and called a broken shoe if not?
Is the society that made the three fifths compromise the same as the one that elected an african american president?
The era of the Tao of Loving texts was before the period when foot binding was introduced. Women had a higher status in China during this era. Sexual harmony and women’s pleasure was the fore of importance. This belief system gradually declined as political regimes shifted.
“…she isn’t receptive but this doesn’t shut him down…”
That sounds problematic in our current culture. Maybe you could wear your Tom Brady mask while doing the pursuing. No, too creepy.
Ask your partner what they like, pay attention to their feelings n mood, don’t do stuff like “I’ll do x if you do y” but just do it cuz you want to. And most important, get their consent!
Hi dr.Engler
Thank you !
And tell us why do man some men on this site describe themselves as “not attractive”?
Well Iben, perhaps it’s because the men have learned empirically that they are unattractive…
Because society on the whole does not see men as very sexually attractive. Women have the privilege of being seen as sexually attractive (and also the cons as well) but men are seen as attractive more for what they can do. On average I’d say men largely feel neutral or physically not attractive. This is a generalization though so some cases do differ. I’ve never really felt sexy, I don’t think I’ve ever been called sexy…occasionally called handsome but that’s mostly from older women (as in a generation or more older, 20+years) trying to be nice lol.
If you want to become sexy to women, it’s not about how you look. Dana Garrison teaches men how to be sexy and how to have women find them sexy. It’s not about what you look like, it is a way of being; a state of being. Anyone can do it, no matter how they look, and she teaches you how. Check her out by adding dot com to the end of her name. Look on her services page. She normally works with people who want to start a business, but for the sex and sexiness stuff, she welcomes everyone.… Read more »
Iben: At least for me, it’s a personal more than a cultural/societal thing. Not having had anyone recognizing you as in any way “attractive” in a very long time, and during the same time having had quite a lot of people telling you that you are not, will very likely have you belive them…
Why would someone feel or consider themselves attractive if no woman in their peer group has ever told them they are? I never had a woman (besides older women being nice like Archy’s experience) tell me I was attractive until I was 22. It’s also been probably fewer than 10 times this has happened since (not counting women I’ve been in relationships with because they kind of have to say it even if they’re just trying to convince themselves) . I’m friends with guys who have girls constantly trying to talk to them or telling them how hot or good… Read more »
One of the major tenants of psychology is re-aligningn a person to have an internal locus of control and to seek self validation, not validation from others. It is a much healthier place to be as how you feel about yourself is no longer determined by others. Sadly, that men often expect women to validate them is the very foundation of the violence we see men perpetrating against women. A really really good book to read is this: The Centerfold Syndrome. It will help you understand how, as a man, you are giving your power away and it is making… Read more »
Thank you!