DISCLAIMER: Since there seems to have been some confusion in the comments about this point: this is a series, from a woman’s perspective, about the cocks of men who have sex with women. While I have some experience with heterosexual sex and the insecurities straight men may experience, I have no firsthand experience of the sex lives of gay men and so am not talking about it so I don’t say stupid shit. Similarly, the issues of trans and intersex men with their genitalia are way, way beyond my experience and deserve to have their own series rather than an inadequate mention in a series primarily about the cis straights.
So basically what I want to say in this point is adequately covered in Greta Christina’s Lesbian Sex with Men and Susan Bordo’s Pills and Power Tools, but for some reason I’m not allowed to delegate the writing process to the other ladies, no matter how awesome they are. But, seriously, even if you have no time for my posts, go read those two essays. They’re both short and awesome.
The penis is supposed to be a machine.
Immediately upon seeing an attractive person of the appropriate gender, the penis is supposed to get hard. At no point in the sexual proceedings is softness allowed. Ejaculation is not allowed except at the very moment the penis owner wants it to– preferably after going “all night” to satisfy one’s partner. On the other hand, the penis is not allowed to take too long to ejaculate, and finishing off sex with masturbation or a handjob is, rather than an alternate sex act, a sign of failure.
It’s a classic example of the success object/sex object dichotomy. In bed, a woman is supposed to be a sex object: thin, with large and perfectly shaped breasts, a round ass, a tight shaven pussy and a perfect face– not to mention being white, able-bodied, cis, etc. While she is also supposed to be the perfect submissive sex kitten, fully cognizant of all fifty of Cosmo‘s latest blowjob tips (this time with twice as many hair scrunchies!), the primary anxiety of most women is about their appearance.
For men, however, the primary anxiety is success– sexual “performance.” Performance is a revealing term: it is as if the man is going to be judged by a panel of imaginary judges in the Sex Olympics about whether he has given his partner multiple orgasms, lasted long enough and maintained a hard erection. Bonus points if you get the girl to squirt!
If you don’t succeed in the Sex Olympics, you’re “impotent.” Powerless. Which makes clearer than nothing else the success-object nature of male insecurities about sexuality: if success is defined by having power, not having power over your own genitalia, the source of one’s “manhood” in popular culture, can strike a man to the core.
I am pretty sure that the sex object/success object dichotomy is responsible for more bad sex than all the soft erections and premature ejaculations in the world.
I mean, it just doesn’t sound like fun. Heterosexual sex where the woman is spending the entire time thinking Oh God, please don’t let him see my tummy pouch, please don’t let him see the cellulite on my thighs, why don’t they have Photoshop filters in real life and the man spends the whole time thinking please let me not come please let me not come baseball baseball roadkill a post officer getting run over by a truck is simply not going to be good sex.
Perhaps I’m a weird woman here, but I would much rather fuck someone who’s fully present in the moment and comes quickly than someone who isn’t and lasts for hours.
Not to mention that playing the Sex Olympics can be detrimental to your sex life in general. If you want to last for hours because the Sex Olympics say you should, but your partner suffers from vaginal chafing after more than twenty minutes, that’s a bit of a problem. If your partner likes playing with your soft penis (it is really fun to give blowjobs to soft penises, okay), then feeling pressure to be hard on command can take away that pleasure. Of course, some women like being pounded for hours and hate soft dicks, but you can’t assume that without talking about it first.
And you know what? Softness happens. Coming quickly happens. I’m not talking about people with physiological reasons for erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation– that can cause harm to your sex life and they deserve their blue little pills. But when teenagers and twentysomethings are offering to take a Viagra so they can go “all night” (which has happened to me several times), there is a problem.
The penis is not a machine. The penis is a body part. Sometimes body parts malfunction. It’s okay. You can work around it– but I don’t even like “work around”, or “malfunction,” for that matter. It implies that there is something wrong with it, which there isn’t. You can have fully satisfying, enjoyable, enthusiastic sex where one partner has a soft penis. You can have fully satisfying, enjoyable, enthusiastic sex where one partner comes in a minute flat. The important bit is the “satisfying, enjoyable, enthusiastic” bit, not the disapproving looks of the Sex Olympics judges.
The connection between penis performance and manliness is just fucking stupid and needs to go die in a fire. No one is less of a man for having a penis that does perfectly ordinary things like getting soft, coming too soon or not coming at all. The only thing that makes someone is a man is identifying as male; once you do that, you have an official Man Card that no amount of erectile dysfunction can take away from you.
About ozyfrantz
Great great post, that should be part of sex ed for young teens. THanks for a lovely resource to share with others.
Just chiming in to confirm one point: Giving blowjobs to soft penises really is lots of fun.
Hey Ozymandias,
I wasn’t able to come when I had sex the first time. I really felt embarrassed about it, but she (after having come herself, and more experienced than I was…) reminded me that one should never measure “good sex” by having had an orgasm – what’s true for girls is also true for guys, particularly guys who aren’t too experienced, had a constant erection for more than two hours and probably still feel apprehensive about their bodies, the sensations, and the whole being naked and sex-thing. Wise girl
.
But there’s another performance issue, that you’re not touching on in the post: The “don’t get an erection”-performance. I’m living in a country where going to the sauna is a common thing, and being naked in the sauna is a requirement. I wasn’t able to go to the sauna for about 15 years, for fear of getting an erection when being confronted with breasts and vaginas. Now it’s ok, since it generally takes a bit more effort to arouse me these days, but sometimes I still have to close my eyes in order to not accidentally get an erection.
Similarly, dancing/grinding, and French kissing. I think I’m a pretty good dancer, at least compared to most other guys, and I think that’s also the case for close dancing. But I near universally get an instant erection as soon as the grinding starts and I’m apprehensive about what women will think when they see/feel it. I’m usually pretty good at moving the relevant part of my body slightly away from her so she doesn’t notice my erection, but recently I met a girl who was quite the grinding dancer. She pulled me near, she held on tightly and she breathed heavily into my ear while dancing… her particularly sexual style sort of confused me a little at first, but I went along and it worked great until she pulled so close and sort of slid down my body and thigh that I knew she had felt my erection with her torso. She didn’t appear confused thereafter, but her attitude appeared to change (or was I projecting my apprehensiveness?) She didn’t pull as closely as before, and she excused herself to go have a cigarette immmediately after the song. It wasn’t unfriendly or anything, and we talked again later, but it felt still noticeably different to me. Sure, post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy and all that, but I really couldn’t help but wonder if it was her feeling my erection that turned her off.
I couldn’t help but wonder about this level of erection anxiety: are women confused when their dancing has that effect? Do they take it “pesonally”? Is it confirming their sexiness? Is it an insult? A compliment? Do they see it as a sign of potency? Or of lack of experience due to a guy being easily arousable. Do they expect that to happen? Is it scary? Are they afraid of a guy losing control because of it? Do they realize there’s really nothing that can (or even should) be done about it?
Sam: That’s really fascinating! I never realized “can easily hide it when turned the fuck on” was a benefit of vaginas before, but apparently it is…
@Sam:
I figure there are some things that I do that have a nonzero chance of boner. On that list: platonic cuddling, sufficiently close dancing, wearing something which makes me look like walking sex. At this point in my life, I’m now totally okay with that — I’ll just file that away and ignore it, because it’s the dude’s personal business. I may or may not be turned on myself, and if I am I am probably enjoying the titillating aspect of whatever it is we’re doing.
The exception to that is if the guy gets turned on, and then tries to make that my problem. If I start getting whiffs of “Damn tease, getting me all worked up…hope you’re going to do something about that” I am out of there. Not that I wouldn’t be okay with getting hit on…just not someone who crosses the line from asking to demanding.
So to all your questions at the end — I usually see a guy getting aroused as neutral to fun, depending on the activity we were doing. The exception is a guy who through other behavior shows that he might be dangerous/predatory/untrustworthy/demanding.
Confirming a point: soft penises are so nice to give blowjobs to. Also, I feel quite tenderly towards my man’s flaccid cock; I want to lovingly pet it and tell it that it’s a good boy.
I never thought that ending sex with a handjob or masturbation was that bad. I think that it’s really quite hot to see male orgasm.
I would like to second shelby’s statement. Watching men orgasm is just about the sexiest thing on planet earth
sam, this woman is completely turned on by grinding on a guy who has an erection. It makes me feel wanted and attractive.
@Ozy, yep it happens. I’m sure I’m not the only man who’s had that sinking feeling as my bus stop has got nearer and had to work out how to carry my bag so it doesn’t look like I’m trying to hide a stiffy.
@Ozy: Definitely it is.
Not to mention that even if you’re not worried about other people seeing your boner (I usually don’t, people don’t usually look down there unless you call attention to it), it’s somewhat uncomfortable to have one while you’re wearing pants.
And even more annoying, usually it’s rubbing up against my boxers enough to be self-perpetuating, but not enough to actually feel nice.
Oh man, the old unwanted stiff rod, if I only had a nickle for every time I thought I was about to get slapped with a sexual harassment case cus one of the women at work decided to wear something a bit on the short end and spend 20 minutes trying to reach something in a cabinet above her head for 10 minutes.
or the usual yet horrible close quarters conference room where Mr wiggles decides its a great a time as any to stand at attention and I pray with all might that one of my female co workers doesn’t happen to glance over or notice my laptop hasn’t left my lap for the duration of the meeting.
one particularly nasty situation is when your at a family function and somebody just picks up one of your baby cousins or nieces and decides to ask them if they want to sit in uncle’s lap AFTER they put them there and you pray to GOD they don’t brush up against it and get curious.
actually, hate to double post but GMP had a post on how fathers should continue to hug there daughters (and the many reasons why they stop doing it once they reach a certian age) and one of the big issues that cropped up in the comments is how a lot of dads simply don’t know how to deal with what would happen if she went for a hug and found something she didn’t expect. I don’t have kids but I can definitely see how fear of that reaction might keep one from embracing his own kid, lest he scar her for life in doing so or at the very least have some very awkward explaining to do.
post is here => http://goodmenproject.com/fathers-day/hug-your-daughters/
That doesn’t seem like such a good objection to me:
For young girls, you can just lean into the hug. In fact that’s probably how you should be doing it for reasons totally unrelated to the penis: you kind of need to lean down to put your arms around her.
For older girls, what’s the problem? They ought to know what a dick is and why they might rub against it by the time they’re tall enough to hug you properly.
@Ozy at July 16, 2011 at 1:04 pm :
“can easily hide the RESULTS of having been turned the fuck on” is similar benefit of vaginas
@Brian at July 18, 2011 at 1:18 pm :
Older girls may understand the mechanical functions, but others (teachers, counselors etc) may assume the worst – as has happened. A sad situation where we need to balance natural love and affection against suspicions of paedophilia and incest. Mainly (but not entirely) focused on men.
I think I’m going to give you guys some piece of mind.
I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a boner (or a guy trying to hide one) my entire life unless I’m eye level to it. I may be obtuse, also I may look like the physical equivalent of dead kittens stapled to zombie nuns, or I may just be reflecting the experience of more then one woman.
Excellent article though I was wondering if I could get some clarification on this part:
“Similarly, the issues of trans and intersex men with their genitalia are way, way beyond my experience and deserve to have their own series rather than an inadequate mention in a series primarily about the straights.”
Specifically the latter half of it, while it is clear you don’t have experience with trans male or intersex genetalia, when you say they deserve their own series rather than “an inadequate mention in a series primarily about the straights.”, it seems to be relegating two subsets of men, as likely to be straight as any other men, to a “not-straight” label based solely on their genetalia. Likely not what you were intending but I’m not sure how else to read it as it stands.
OrangeYouGlad: Good catch, thanks.
I have a sloppy habit of referring to “people who do not fall under the queer umbrella in any way” as “straights,” which is, of course, easily misinterpreted.
Thanks for the edit <3