What Do Men Want From Sex?

If you’re a woman, you might sometimes ask yourself, “What do men want from sex?”

At the end of the Edinburgh Festival, there’s a firework display, late at night, from the Castle, which sits above the city like a raised stage, with the dark autumn sky as background. When the fireworks start, the whole sky is is spacious, alive and immediate, illuminated with transient, thrilling brilliance. Ages ago, I was there with my lover of the time. In the middle of the display, she whispered in my ear “That’s what it feels like when you’re inside me”

You can imagine how wonderful that felt. Particularly as it wasn’t the kind of review I was used to getting. I didn’t think at the time it was due to any special knowledge or experience I had. It was long before I discovered tantra and became more interested in sexuality.

If I thought of it at all, it was as a miraculous accident, like stained glass discovering sunlight.

What do men want from sex?

They want something like the experience I’ve just described: sex as natural, mutually pleasurable, easy, joyful.

Except, a lot of the time, men are vaguely aware that their partner isn’t enjoying the experience as much as them, or at all. I’d have that experience a lot myself. Disgruntled women telling me I touched them like their first husband, or sarcastically speculating if I’d ever had sex before, that kind of thing.

I just imagined it was happenstance whether I fitted well with someone else or not, and that it was a miracle if I did.

I don’t think that’s the normal attitude. Generally, I believe, men think that sex is a skill which they need to be better at.

That creates two problems.

First, the view of sex as performance isn’t going to help intimacy and connection. It increases the chances of feeling ‘done to’, and takes away from the present moment, when there’s a distinct sense of waiting for the anticipated response.

Second, there’s a tendency to think that what feels great for me should feel great for you too. Have you ever wondered why, when you say to a guy how perfect his touch is, he often goes faster and stronger, instead of staying with what you’ve just told him is great? It’s puzzling, until you realise that it’s probably deeply embedded from his early experiences of masturbation. If x is good, 2x is great.

Because we privilege individuality over connection, what men think they want is to be expert lovers. That’s why when people are wanting to sell to men, they emphasise knowledge, techniques and expertise. “You too can learn to be a sexual virtuoso.” And it plays to a fear in men that they should  be a sexual virtuoso, yet aren’t.

But deep down, what men really want is what I’ve described.

So, how can you help men get that, and have much more satisfying, much more connected sex into the bargain?

And how can you help with getting both of you out of the jaws of Patriarchy, which has been oppressing both women and men, albeit differently, for the past few millenia?

I write about this more in my  blog  Sexual Empathy.

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